“It’s so empty,” says Esmanth, shivering.
“The dragons left these shores millennia ago, ascending to their destiny. We thought we didn’t need the elves, and the elves believed they didn’t need us.” Tindra’s eyes fall over a cluster of eroded caves set in a cliff far below the bluff. “We were both wrong, which is not something immortal beings often experience.”
I take her hand. There’s nothing to say.
Tindra recovers her regal bearing, but keeps her voice low, the words only for me. “I didn’t love him, but he’s part of the...fabric of my existence. If we had stayed and defended the sylvan, they might have defended the hollows of Yggdrasil and then–” She stops. “We immortals don’t keep company with mortal races, so loss is a mostly foreign experience. Duin eth’lan,” Tindra bows and raises two fingers to her forehead. “Wherever the last have gone, I wish them green lands.”
“Maybe they will return one day, when the world has changed.”
She shakes her head. “This is a dead realm for disgraced dragon lords.”
“Lir?” Esmanth calls to me from the cliff’s edge, pointing. “There’s something just below us. A light or...a portal?”
Tindra recovers. “That means we’re beyond the range of Pentave’s influence. Finally back to the garden for you.”
“I’m more than ready.” One glance at the ledge below and I jump.
Esmanth screams.
I search the land, the air, tensed to fight. “What!”
Her face appears overhead, eyes half-squeezed shut. “You have to warn me! That must be thirty feet! I’m not used to this yet.”
“Ohh. Hah.” I hold up my arms. “You next.”
“Are you serious? Maybe I should…” she toes the icy stone, measuring. Tindra hovers behind, laughing silently.
“Trust me! Jump.”
“Ugh.” Esmanth closes her eyes, grimaces, and steps off.
She’s in my arms before her small shriek can leave her lips.
“See? Hardly a bump. I told you.”
“Well.” Esmanth dusts her skirts, preening. “Increases your brotherly value. I bet you’re popular with the ladies.”
“Not a chance. My balcony rescue days are behind me.”
“Then so are your dueling days, probably.”
“Snark.” I tug her curls.
Tindra lands, beaming. “We did it. And with more than we intended. In we go.”
Esmanth takes my hand and we step through the portal.
–Villa Ostia–
Remains of the Garden
Cheers erupt before we’ve fully emerged from the portal. Then Freya catches sight of a girl by my side and raises her arms in triumph, and the cheers magnify.
We pass each other around; slender arms and stout ones embrace me, Tindra, and Esmanth with introductions or hesitation. I save the longest embrace for Theriss, who stiffens.
“Sorry; assassins have an aversion to being restrained.”
“Couldn’t help it. Without your gift…” How do I put it delicately? There was no securing Akershus without all the powers I’ve been given, but a few, like Kumiko’s and Theriss’s, were catalysts. “No one is more important than another, but what I learned from you taught me how to be whole. And your gift gave me what I needed to win.”
The black serpents around her face bob like fingers strumming. “Anything else?” asks Theriss, eyes narrowed.
Something that’s occupied a corner of my mind since the hoard. “When I defeated Pentave…it felt he passed through me.”
Surprise ripples through her, tail to shoulders. “Paired with Kumiko’s deftness and speed? You’ve achieved something my kind work for their entire lives.” Theriss rests her fingers over my heart. “I’m so proud to fight with you.”
Kumiko appears, hair loose, clad in a soft shift of green silk. Theriss gives her approach a smile and slithers back.
“You don’t have to go.” I sort of hoped she’d stay. I don’t want to blather like an idiot but there’s still so much I want to tell her.
“I’ll join you later. This crowd-?” Theriss grins and feigns a shiver. “Not for assassins.”
Kumiko greets Theriss’ departure with a wave and gives me a small bow.
“Always late,” I poke.
“I got here first.”
I grab her, raise her high and spin her while she squeals and pounds my shoulder.
She pulls free and kisses me, lips and cheek.
“At least some of this is your doing, Kumiko.”
“And nearly my disaster! I thought she’d appear with me in the clock chamber. But I must have had help with the rest.” She gazes at Esmanth in wonder, smiling. “I felt something when the realms aligned. “Something…being held out to me? Waiting to come through. It could have been friend or foe, if I’m honest. I took the risk.”
“I was so afraid, that I’d never find her, that when I did, she’d be…” I can’t continue for a moment. “I’m grateful, more than I can show you.“
Her hand is warm on my cheek. “Not more grateful than I am to be free of Fenrir.”
I grin. “And you could have given us a better landing.”
Kumiko winces. “I was a little too fast.”
“Thought you’d gotten over that.”
She doesn’t laugh. She watches Esmanth speak to Finna.
“What?”
“I feel it now.” Kumiko nods to herself. “That same thread of...something, within the clock movements.”
And I feel the same thing I felt in the caverns.
It wasn’t Pentave, it was Esmanth I sensed. The what will have to be answered by someone else.
Kumiko brightens again. “Anyhow, I couldn’t have done it without the others. It took all the gifts to move you through time and realm when Pentave tried to teleport himself. Wonder how he’s finding his reunion with the Svartr?”
Crispin crosses the bridge, Andraste on his arm. He looks me over, nodding, examining my pauldrons. “You made the most of your lessons.”
“I’m sorry about the armor.”
“It’s at Akershus; I’m not worried. And you’ll have need of it again so if I want it back…” He smiles.
Andraste nods at Esmanth. “And I see you had a boon.”
“Choosing between the Artifacts and my sister...I still can’t believe how lucky–” I freeze.
What did Crispin say to me after my prayers? A small reminder among the din can earn a boon.
“Boon?”
Andraste interjects before he can answer. “Well...maybe that’s a bit arrogant. The ring I gave Crispin influenced time and fate, meant to aid him while seeking help for the curse. Some of that is inside Esmanth, and perhaps that’s what Kumiko sensed when the realms aligned.”
I look at Crispin, asking with a look if this is correct. His eyes dance and he’s silent.
Esmanth dances up, beaming, eyes roaming over everything. “This place is incredible! And these women.” She turns a smile on Crispin and Andraste. “I’m Esmanth, Lir’s sister.”
Crispin nods. “We may have heard of you.”
“Esmanth, the stories we used to tell about the man who traded Father the ring that saved you and Mother?”
She smiles, expectant.
I glance at Crispin. “How would you like to meet that man?”
–The Beginning of the End–
The temple has changed. I don’t see it until the walk back to my chamber with Crispin. The garden is a rectangle now, a courtyard within the high white walls of a villa, dull under the dome of a bright blue sky. The only feature I still recognize, aside from the grove, is the grand staircase near the sleeping chambers, still rising to the gates.
“Can we leave?”
“We can. The Artifacts are free; Andraste and I are no longer bound to the curse. We’ll go in the morning. Esmanth needs some rest and so do you. And we’ll need a plan, too. Something we can abandon when nothing goes the way we expect.”
“Hah. About
that…” I raise my arm for the hundredth time and flex.
“You don’t feel any different.”
“No. How did you know?”
“You’ve been doing that every two minutes since you returned. Have you put on the ring?”
“No,” I admit to the grass.
“After extolling its powers and history to your sister, that never crossed your mind?”
“Point taken.”
He laughs, following me into my room. “I wonder if my mentor took as much delight in watching my early fumblings.”
“I have another question.” My nerve accumulates while I root for the ring in a now uncooperative bottomless bag. “It’s something I talked about with Tindra but…” Finally the bag coughs up my prize.
“But you need more answers.”
“She mentioned the way of gods, and my life with the Artifacts. But I see you and Andraste.”
“And you wonder which way is right. And which is true.”
“Loria will need a queen, and an heir. Alliances. And with a healthy superstition when it comes to magic and creatures...it would be hard. And...Well...Eight queens?”
He laughs. “You assume any of the Artifacts wish to rule a kingdom. Tindra, I promise you, has no interest in delving into mortal politics.” Crispin glances out toward the glade. “I had my own Artifacts once. Most gods among us do; allies of strength, wisdom, skill we can rely on when times grow dark.”
“What changed?”
“Those women came from their own realms, their own troubles. They had lives before we joined together. Over time they wished to return, aid their people or live in their homelands, seek adventures of their own. You’ve already come to the most important conclusion: The Artifacts don’t belong to you. Mordenn asking you for a trade was a sort of trick, and even if you weren’t aware of that, you’d already set them free by seeing them as allies.”
“They might leave one day.” I hate this.
“Or die. Ascend, diminish. As we all do. Don’t mourn for what’s hardly begun. I’ve lost count of the years I spent with my company, but the affection, the glory, the strength has never faded. And when I was alone again, I found Andraste, and that became my sole purpose as much as the Artifacts had been.”
Crispin takes the ring from my palm and sets it on my index finger. “Even the life of a god has seasons.”
As the ring slides along my finger, sensations washes through me like that of the armor, power amplified, but more than that – inherent. My body doesn’t strain and burn. Instead, I have the feeling of being saturated, steeped from muscle to mind, to single particles of my being. The world around me feels less substantial, as though I can pass from it in any direction, go anywhere.
Crispin steps away. “You are a god. And Loria already has a queen. I think the idea has already crossed your thoughts.”
It crosses my thoughts again, filling me with a panic that’s mortal and blinding. “I can’t. I can’t.” My mother kneeling atop the wall, Tagan flailing against his restraints. “I can’t sit Esmanth on a throne painted with blood.”
He smiles. “And you can’t stop her. She would claim it even if it weren’t her fate. You each have a destiny. All you can do is help her.”
My throat aches. “How?”
“That’s for you to figure out.” He clamps my shoulder, pushing me towards the door. “Later. Tonight, we feast like the first consuls of ancient times. Like gods.”
–A quick note to my readers–
Thanks for being patient! When I started the serial it was going to be a short, fun series that you all would (hopefully) enjoy, and something to connect with readers while I worked on the full-length harem.
If you follow the newsletter, this is all old hat. If you don’t, good news everyone! Podium has picked up Cocidius & Cocidius II (a full-length) for audiobook. This put a hiccup in the weekly publishing schedule with working out the book two plot and doing edits for the narrator.
The other half of this being, installment six is written and should be out pretty quick.
So, heartfelt thanks to everyone who gave feedback, hung in there, and took a chance on my stories in the first place. I can’t wait to roll out part two in a few weeks, and book two later this spring, and then a bunch of other stuff I put on hold for the audiobook that’s now in a pile behind my desk. Hopefully.
If you’re not on the mailing list you can sign up below. I try to keep with six times a year, no spam, no invitations to my Pampered Chef page, etc.
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Happy reading,
-Maxx
Temple of Cocidius: A Monster Girl Harem Adventure Serial Part 5 Page 13