The creak of the door announced Kyllene's entry to the armored soldiers in the sunlit war room. Twelve pairs of eyes fell on her. The nearest man stepped forward, hand on the hilt of the dagger at his hip. Commander Visarion Drakaros—the man she'd come to see—spoke first, "Kyllene! What do you think you're doing here?"

"To do what you cannot"—she replied, glancing at each of the men in turn—"or will not, by the looks of it. An army of Deathless will be here within an hour, and yet here you all sit while your countrymen trickle in through a useless checkpoint when they should be on the other side of the pass!"

"Who let you in here?" the eldest among them said, circling around the war table. "Guards!"

"They're asleep," Kyllene said. "And they'll not wake until I allow it."

"What are you waiting for?" the elder asked the others. "Seize her at once!"

The man nearest Kyllene edged closer as another circled around beside her, ready to spring.

"Belay that!" said Visarion. His men halted in their tracks. "Kyllene. Our...past...doesn't afford you to walk in here unannounced. Explain yourself; and quickly. Then, I want you to leave. And see to it that you undo whatever it is you've done to my guardsmen, or I'll have no choice but to see you in irons."

"Commander, this is outrageous," the elder said. "She has no right!"

"Erelong, the Deathless will make corpses of us all, Lieutenant. She has every right if she intends to help us."

"But, sir!"

Kyllene didn't wait for Visarion to defend her. Instead, she conjured a burst of green flame near the ceiling. "Enough!"

Eleven fearful pairs of eyes veered up, astonished. Visarion, however, looked only at her. No sooner had the flames died, he said, "Everyone out."

"Commander!"

"I said out."

One by one, the soldiers filtered out of the room. As he left, the lieutenant turned and spat at Kyllene's feet. "Abomination."

She didn't react and instead kept her gaze locked with Visarion's disapproving glare. When everyone was gone and the door shut, he drew close. "Tell me you didn't!"

Not bothering to hide the bite in her tone, she asked, "Didn't what?"

"Tell me you didn't make a pact with that...that—thing!"

Kyllene shook her head, thinking, The world is ending, and this is what he wants to discuss?

"Answer me!" He reached out to grip her shoulders, but she pulled away.

"I don't answer to you," she retorted. "And what I did is none of your concern. Besides, you should count this as a blessing after what you did. By all rights, I shouldn't have even come back. But lucky for you, I care what happens to this garrison and the people still breathing inside it. So here I stand, likely the only person in all of Arcadia still able to cast and offer you aid, and you dare question my choices?"

"Because you made a pact with a monster!"

"I did what I had to!" Kyllene yelled. "You gave me no choice when your mage hunters chased me into the forest!"

"To bring you back home!"

"To conscript me!"

He threw up his arms. "You know the law! Or would you have it that we act like those Arcanarium dogs and see the world enslaved by magic? All mages must serve! Even you! You would've been held in high regard!"

"I am not here to discuss politics or your ridiculous ideology, Visarion! Every moment we waste bickering costs a life. So, tell me: how much blood do you want on your hands before the day is through?"

"Kyllene—"

She shoved past him and approached the war table. "The question was rhetorical—this isn't up for debate," she said, taking stock of gunpowder placements on the scale model of Valstheia, the border garrison where they now stood. "If you and your men were out there helping your charges instead of hiding behind walls and useless protocol, I wouldn't need to be here."

"Stop this! What are you doing?"

"I'm going to do what you should have when your mages could still cast." She pointed at the northern mouth of the mountain pass on the map. "Anyone still entering here from the outlying villages is already dead." Sliding her finger to the narrow gap of the pass north of the garrison, she continued, "Everyone south of here still has a chance to make it to the other side of the wall before the Deathless arrive—but you must let everyone through now! No more delays. No more inspections."

"You're joking! There are security risks, and everyone in the caravan needs to have papers when Arcanarium patrols arrive."

"The Arcanarium has their hands full fighting the Deathless elsewhere. Eventide is gone, and at the rate things are going, I doubt the Enclave will pay much attention to a few hundred Arcadians fleeing south."

"How do you know all this?"

"I have my sources," Kyllene replied.

"Augury and witchcraft, you mean."

She ignored him, pointing a little farther north on the map where the Deathless were sure to arrive soon. "I'll act as bait and hold them off to give you enough time to get everyone through the gates. When I give you the signal, set a fire here and torch the garrison using pitch"—she pointed at a section of the inner gate—"that way, the Deathless won't be able to get through, at least not easily. Take all the gunpowder you can south and blow the mountainsides to cause a landslide and block the way. Fire might not hurt them, but the Deathless can't pass through it without constantly being forced to shapeshift. Nor will they be able to pass through solid rock. It should keep them busy long enough for everyone to escape into the caves. Whatever you do, don't continue fleeing south in the open. The Deathless will just run you down. If anything, wait for the horde to pass and double back north into the Faelands. You won't meet much resistance from the Unseelie. Most of the fae are dead or dying."

"No," Visarion said. "No, wait—what are you saying? That you're going to fight them? You're out of your mind. I won't allow it!"

"First you say you all mages must serve, and here I am volunteering to fight, and now you're ordering me to stand down?"

"I'm ordering you to live! It's a suicide mission!"

She turned to confront him, nostrils flaring. Since when did you care about whether I lived or died? she thought. An unbidden memory flashed in her mind: the pair of them writhing in a moonlit bed with nothing but a sheet and a cool breeze from an open balcony to separate them from the sky.

Visarion glanced from her lips to her eyes.

No. He had his chance. He drove me from our bed and our home. He had me hunted down like an animal...

"I'm not doing this for you," she said. "You can't fight these things—not without magic—but I can." She stepped on the ledge of the nearby window. "Do your job, Commander, and get everyone to safety. I'll send up a flare when it's time."

"Kyllene, wait!"

But she didn't.

She jumped.

Halfway through her fall, her body contracted and morphed into a cocoon of black, white, and gray feathers. Before she hit the ground, the cocoon burst, and she flew free in the body of a falcon—catching an updraft against the outer wall that lifted her skyward.

She released her sleeping spell on the guards as she flew over the masses. Enhanced vision afforded her to see the nearly mile-long caravan of refugees in great detail, making for the gate through the low-lying mountain pass. Scores of children, the infirm, and wounded were slowing egress from Arcadia nearly as much as cumbersome wagons and the checkpoint at the gate—hundreds, moving at a snail's pace with an immortal army bearing down on them like a tidal wave.

The battle spurred by Alpheus's rebellion had provided enough time for the Arcadians to flee the city. But it hadn't been enough to get everyone to safety.

They still need more time. Please, Visarion...make this worth it.

A sting of doubt caused Kyllene's avian heart to skip a beat. She'd only seen the Deathless from a distance as they wrought havoc, but it'd been enough to strike a healthy fear in her. And here I am, about to come face-to-face with an army of shapeshifting monstrosities with nothing but courage and a power that isn't even mine.

The Deathless appeared on the horizon—a swarming mass of shadow and indiscriminate destruction ascending the slopes of the pass.

Flocks of birds took flight. Herds of deer ran side-by-side with a pack of wolves, accompanied by a bear and her cubs, as they fled before the horde. Trees swayed as the ground trembled, rousing foxes, rabbits, and badgers from their burrows.

All of Creation...at the mercy of an angry, dead god... She steeled her mind at the thought and allowed the pain of it to course through her—feeding her resolve. Her patron's strength suffused her with more power than she'd ever felt.

Storm clouds gathered, and Kyllene began her dive.

But you aren't the only angry god left in Aetheria, Erenyx...

The ground rushed to meet her, and the Deathless shrieked in defiance.

The instant she landed, she transitioned into her human form. Lightning struck the ground and fanned out, forming a curtain wall of electricity between her and the oncoming horde—a thunderclap reverberating throughout the valley.

The first wave of Deathless crashed into the sizzling barrier and disintegrated on impact. Dozens, gone in an instant. And yet hundreds remained.

The effort to control the curtain wall extracted a guttural scream from her throat as she willed the lightning to reform into a whip in her hand. She lashed out with it as the barrier came down, and the Deathless charged.

One after another burst into plumes of inky smoke as she slew the creatures—whip zipping through the air in crackling bursts.

She manipulated the earth to shield her blind spots as the Deathless rushed her from all sides. Huge slabs of stone and earth rose to block incoming blows while she spun about, her whip a bright light beneath a darkened sky in a sea of churning shadow.

She summoned the rain, and the sky opened up with a burst of lightning and rolling thunder.

The deluge alone wasn't enough to harm the Deathless. While she fought to keep them at bay, Kyllene concentrated her power to freeze and coalesce the moisture in the air. Magic-infused ice bombarded the Deathless from above like a cannon fire, giving her time to focus on bringing down the largest of the creatures.

But it wasn't enough.

The horde swelled—confining her within her own defensive circle and rendering her whip useless at close range.

A small gargoyle-like Deathless darted past her defenses. She dodged its initial swipe at her legs, but the creature followed up with a fury of blows aimed at her chest, intent on tearing her apart. Before it could reach her, she reformed the whip into an orb and slammed it on the ground. Electricity blossomed at her feet, and a rippling wave of bolts from the epicenter obliterated the surrounding Deathless. She clenched her fist and reshaped the wave into a protective dome just large enough to encapsulate her.

Unlike the larger barrier from before, the bubble protecting her was much easier to maintain not only because of its smaller size but also due to her rising power gifted by her patron. Yet not even the snapping pops of the barrier could drown out the Deathless' screeching as they wantonly threw themselves against it to get to her.

There were too many. She needed time to accrue more power.

Kyllene knelt, taking advantage of the reprieve to splay her fingers in the short tufts of grass and extend her consciousness, attuning to her surroundings.

The horde had her boxed in, though temporarily halted in their advance on Valstheia. Good, she thought, it's working. She shifted her focus to the garrison and the people fleeing toward it.

The gates had been opened, yet far too many refugees were still flooding in.

If I disengage now, they'll be overrun...

Soldiers scurried about, wheeling barrels of pitch to the walls and loading sacks of gunpowder onto carts ready for transport.

Thank the Powers. He actually listened.

Kyllene's attention gravitated north to Arcadia.

Her former home was in ruins—desolate and lifeless. The broken and dismembered bodies of those who'd stayed behind or too slow to leave littered the quiet city streets—a prophetic portrait of what was to come for all of Aetheria.

As if from a distance, she could hear the Deathless thrashing against the barrier surrounding her physical body. It held strong, reinforced by the continuous flow of her patron's eldritch magic.

She allowed her consciousness to drift freely throughout the countryside, taking measure of what other horrors had been wrought.

Settlements of all kinds, Arcadian and Arcanarium alike, had been decimated. The stream of Deathless spilling out from where the Veil had been in the Faelands seemed endless. Swathes of wilting, blackened foliage marked the path of the many hosts spreading throughout the continent. Soon, even the animals would start to die off, just as the fae had when magic—their source of life and sustenance—had vanished. But for all the destruction, one thing was clear: the Deathless were only targeting humans.

Contrary to initial belief, it now seemed the Deathless were acting with intent—as if to obey orders...

Orders that could only come from their master.

Erenyx lives. A spidery chill crawled up her spine at the realization, pulling her briefly back to her body.

The implication bespoke terrifying possibilities. Either Erenyx had resurrected, which wouldn't be surprising for a god—least of all for the god of death—or never died in the first place, meaning the Enclave had been mistaken or outright lied.

The thought of telling someone with power and influence who wasn't a member of the Arcanarium about what she'd learned crossed her mind even as she allowed her consciousness to venture out again. But no matter how far she traveled, all she sensed was death.

There's no one left but those loyal to the Enclave, she realized. Did they release the Deathless on purpose to wipe out Arcadia and the fae? Did they somehow gain control over Erenyx?

The absence of life in Eventide, Vyrai, and Faehaven, however, spoke to the contrary. Alatyr alone remained the last bastion of humanity. Yet even there—at the locus of Arcanarium control—magic had been stolen, leaving the most magically reliant and technologically advanced city in the world vulnerable to attack.

No...whatever is happening isn't by the Enclave's design. Or, at the very least, this can't be how they intended for things to happen.

She sensed a few souls yet lived in Sylvanfall and Nysara—and traveling between the two...

A veritable beacon of magic, traversing slowly toward Sylvanfall. It took her some time to recognize the entity as a man, yet he was unlike anyone she'd ever sensed. At first, it seemed as if he might be like her—a mage granted the powers of an elder god—until she detected the surrounding tethers of magic being drawn to him.

It's him... He's doing this!

The man bore no identifying insignias, and there was nothing particularly remarkable about him other than the fact that he was siphoning magic like a rabid star-nosed mole.

She snapped back to her body, where she sat cross-legged beneath the dome of electricity. Outside, Deathless of all shapes and sizes relentlessly tore at the barrier. Smaller ones were destroying themselves, and those that survived contact with the dome shapeshifted repetitively, unable to maintain a single form as they whittled themselves down to nothing.

She checked on the progress at Valstheia.

Three nervous soldiers stood in position, evenly spaced along the wall by pools of pitch—torches in hand—looking out at the distant tempest on the horizon where the Deathless had gathered around her. A fourth stood in the garrison courtyard, gazing up at her comrades along the wall with a torch of her own, ready to set fire to pitch and kindling. Four brave souls, ready to die for their countrymen.

The rest of the caravan had made It safely through the pass. Along the way, burdensome packs and wagons lay discarded. Abandoned livestock, unhitched from the wagons, cowered in huddled groups outside the walls.

Four pairs of Arcadian infantrymen waited on opposite slopes of the southern end of the pass, barrels and sacks of gunpowder shoved into human-made boreholes on the mountainsides.

The stage was set, and all she needed to do was give the signal and make her escape.

She withdrew her consciousness and stood, taking full stock of her situation.

Despite how many Deathless she'd killed, there were still too many for her to take on alone—especially from a disadvantaged defensive position.

Simply expanding the dome and sending up a flare seemed like the most obvious choice, but the risk of Deathless rushing her before she could react was high—too high for her liking, as she had no intent on dying. There were others who needed her help.

Using her newfound strength to burrow underneath the horde and emerge elsewhere to give the signal also seemed risky, as it might invite the Deathless to advance on Valstheia too soon. She thought of several other scenarios that seemed just as impractical and likely to end in her demise.

She still needed more power.

Well, if it can't be helped... She withdrew a dried aspen twig from her pocket and summoned a flame. The twig caught fire.

The dome thrummed, hissing as the rain fell while the Deathless howled and the earth shook.

She inhaled the fragrant smoke through her nose and blew it from her mouth as she chanted in a hurried whisper, "Untamed First-Born, Fatherless Mother and Mother of All, Keeper of the Divine Tree, Benefactor of the Blessed Court, She-of-Many-Arms-and-Many-Names—Vana Durga, I beseech thee—"

A presence as crushing as the ocean's depths pressed in upon her mind.

"—This way the wicked come into thy dominion, and yea though I stand where Death and Darkness gather, I seek now thine provident embrace."

The foreign consciousness surged into her thoughts, heeding the litany. Despite the discomfort of the intrusion, Kyllene kept praying, "O' Physeis—Cybele, Thorned and Throned—hear thy suppliant's plea and grant me thy power in full to see our pact fulfilled. For the sake of thy children, take this body as an offering and witness thy will be done."

Vana Durga answered the prayer by plunging Kyllene's mind into the black void of a timeless mindscape. Then, the goddess spoke, though not with the words of any known language; the telepathic speech—warbled, deep, and rhythmically guttural—transformed into impressions of intent and curiosity with each reverberation. "Thy request hath been denied, mortal, as thou hath been found wanting. What say thee to thy design to usurp the Balance and mine sibling's will?"

"Balance? What balance could there possibly be in this? Erenyx will destroy everything!"

"Mine sibling acts according to the Great Cycle thy kin hath forestalled."

"There will be no Balance if we allow this to happen! Everyone—everything—will die! Is this not why you have granted me your boon? To fight against the dark? Against Death itself?"

"Ye hath long since wrought thine own ruin. The Great Cycle turns, and the inevitable cometh. The birth of a new god and the reckoning of thy kin commences."

The implications were subtle, but Kyllene caught on. "Humanity's reckoning, but not mine? If I die, our pact will be fulfilled, and I'll rise again to become your servant! What, then, will you have me do? Stand quietly as the world falls to ruin? What use would I be to you in a lifeless world?"

"Thou art a seed meant to nurture life anon."

Her thoughts raced. If she was meant to nurture future life, did that mean the world's destruction had been preordained despite humanity's attempt to stop it? And what exactly had been done to stall Aetheria's doom, not to mention the antecedent for such destruction both then and now? The supposed birth of a new god?

For an immortal, it would take no time at all for enough time to pass and life flourish again—a blink of an eye—but for humans, it would take millennia...

It seemed, however, that the gods had no intention of letting humans see a new dawn.

"I could just drop my shield and die to gain the power I need, regardless of whether you grant me it now or not!"

"Were thou to perish and rise anew, thou would not know thyself, and shall in thy swift passing become an aspect of the Balance."

"I have planted seeds of my own! Let me see to them—please!"

"Thou see thyself and thy kin as Life and the embodiment of Creation. This is in error, and not of the Balance. What doth thou say of all else? Doth thou think ye an exception to the Great Cycle?"

"No! Of course not!"

"Life shalt continue without thy kin as it hath before thee. No will is great enough to stop the Great Cycle."

But there was, Kyllene realized. Somehow, someone had figured out how to postpone Erenyx's wrath—if just for a short amount of time. She recalled the man she'd sensed. He was stealing all magic—ultimately responsible for bringing down the Veil and unleashing the Deathless. There had to be a connection!

If she could figure out how to recreate the conditions for keeping Erenyx at bay using Vana Durga's power, humanity could exist for a bit longer. And any short amount of time for a god could mean an eternity for humanity.

"If the Great Cycle is inevitable, why not grant me your power now? I'll become your servant in full, given time—so what does it matter?"

"Thou heed poorly. There shalt be nothing for thee to protect. It is useless to fight the nature of mine sibling. Life yields to Death, and Death to Life. Such is the Great Cycle."

"Let me carry out my will and act according to my nature! This is who I am! This is what I'm meant to do—to safeguard life, even if I'm doomed to fail! So let me try, and the Great Cycle will continue no matter what I do!"

A tempest wailed beyond the borders of Kyllene's mindscape where the Deathless waited.

"Thy nature hath been laid bare, and thou doth strike upon Truth. Thou hath been found worthy, and shalt be given strength to ascend with thine will intact...for a time."

"Thank you! Thank you!"

"But take heed: thou shalt suffer in thy protracted knowledge and keeping of thy will."

"To live is to suffer. It is a pain I will endure!"

"So be it."

Weightlessness overtook her, and Kyllene felt the pull of reality.

"Rise, o' Daughter of Earth and Sky," Vana Durga said.

The roar of the Deathless grew louder.

"Rise, o' Rhea, and act according to thy nature."

Kyllene woke to a blinding light and the sound of her own echoing scream.

Searing agony kindled like fire in her veins as roots and vines penetrated every inch of her flesh. Smooth skin hardened as Vana Durga's transformative power surged, causing the lightning dome to rapidly expand—filling the whole of the valley.

The few Deathless to survive the electric wave sped toward Kyllene as she was remade. Others forsook the fight entirely and fled toward Valstheia in search of human prey.

She inhaled, tasting soil and metal as a vortex formed, shielding her. The howling wind obscured her vision, yet without extending her consciousness, she knew exactly where the Deathless stood outside the cyclone—desperately trying to reach her while her transformation finished.

That's when she realized she wasn't just connected to the planet.

She was part of it.

She was Rhea.

A green spark flew from her upraised hand.

The flare arched through the windstorm, guided into the sky by her will, just as the cyclone, too, was her manifestation. Understanding coursed through her along with power, and she felt her new heart of molten rock quicken with excitement. The cyclone dissipated on her command, revealing three massive Deathless on the other side as dirt and debris scattered.

The largest of the three stood directly in front of her, its behavior mimicking its bull-like form while it pawed at the ground with a shadowy hoof. A wolven Deathless lunged from her right flank, followed by the other on the left as it released a horrid screech—short, clawed arms outstretched and grasping while it dashed toward her on bipedal legs.

Obsidian blades appeared in each hand on her command. She stepped back, nimbly dodging a blow from the wolf, then sliced at its midsection as it passed, followed by a swift jab with the blade in her opposite hand.

The Deathless evaporated in a plume of smoke as the second attacker sprang into the air, intent on striking from above.

She spun like a whirlwind, and the blades sliced the bipedal creature into suspended ribbons of shadow—dissipating before it the ground.

The tip of an immense bovine horn struck her side.

Were she still human, Kyllene would have been killed instantly. But her new skin protected her wonderfully, and the horn glanced off, taking only a chip of ironbark with it. The momentum, however, knocked her off balance.

Instead of falling to the ground, she passed through it and reemerged from the earth on the bull's flank—black blades slashing upward. She continued skyward, leaving the remains of the Deathless below to disperse unremarked.

Borne on the wind by newly sprouted wings made of hickory leaves, she gained a high enough altitude to afford her a view of Valstheia. A little more than a dozen remaining Deathless were throwing themselves against the burning walls to no avail, trying to chase the Arcadians south.

It was not an opportunity Kyllene—no, Rhea—was willing to afford Death's minions.

She took flight toward Valstheia, appreciating the protective wall of earth and stone formed by landslides that now divided the southern end of the mountain pass, though she knew it wouldn't be enough to hold back the Deathless still flooding in from the north. Not with their master set loose upon Aetheria.

Erenyx posed a threat to all life on the planet, and despite Rhea's rise and the power she could bring to bear, she knew she was still no match for an elder god.

To save the world, she would need to speak with the man killing it.

⊱─━━━━⊱༻●༺⊰━━━━─⊰

Enjoying the story so far? Don't forget to Vote, Follow, and add to your Reading List!