RED

I jolted awake with a scream that wreathed my head in bubbles. Their spiralling path towards the surface was so long that I screamed again, yanking against the bonds of lapis lazuli holding me down at the bottom of the pool. The crystal shredded my skin, sending up a blinding cloud of blood that made the water taste like rust.

My power was waning. The fire in my heart was guttering down to embers, suffocating under the smothering weight of the water. I'm too far underground for the sun to save me, I realised with abject horror, and Rya wouldn't help me anyway.

I tried calling out to the Earth Mother instead, who'd helped me escape certain death in the past, but all I heard back was mocking laughter.

You brought my daughters home, She said, taking shape in the water by dispersing my blood just so. This time She was neither maiden nor crone, but a mother in Her prime, confident in her monopoly on wisdom. I have no further use for you.

My rage boiled the water when I realised it was the Earth Mother's glittering fingers digging into my flesh, piercing skin and puncturing bone. The pain was immeasurable, but I was familiar with the threshold of death and able to think through the fear, shoving back against Her psychic presence with the last of my strength.

The Earth Mother yielded a fraction, not expecting my resistance; She was startled to realise the bridge between our minds went two ways. I pressed the advantage, tasting Her jealousy and insecurity and arrogance as if it was my own, surprised to note how it had overflowed into Gretchen in previous days. Apparently I was tolerable when I was ugly, but as I regained my health the Earth Mother had become fixated on my radiant, otherworldly beauty, furious that it surpassed her own homely creations.

I recalled the tale of how Weavers came to be, after the Earth Mother's divine tapestries were trumped by a mortal girl's loom, and realised my gut instinct upon hearing it the first time was right. Our universe was inherently flawed, and so too were our deities; all three Goddesses had proven fickle with their favour, and they were ultimately undeserving of their monstrous power.

... must be controlled, the Earth Mother thought, concurrently with a thousand other thoughts. With one hand she drowned me, even while another gently guided new shoots through the top layer of soil on the mountainside. Life and death; two sides of the same coin, always spinning, just as likely to land on one as the other. I can live without the moon, but I cannot live without the sun...

"You need me!" I gasped, my words lost to the water. I started to choke, lungs twisting and contracting as they filled with fluid.

I was the only one left alive who could make contact with the Sun Goddess. The only one who could advocate for the Earth Mother's needs; the only one who could prevent all of her beloved creations from being destroyed —

So you admit it! The Earth Mother hissed, shoving back. Or perhaps flicking was a better term; if she employed her full strength I would have imploded like a spider under a shoe. You are more than what you seem. Show me who you truly are, and I will spare your measly life. Prove yourself loyal, and I will look out for you as if you were my own.

Show us. The words were thought in unison, as every Kirin under the mountain paused to lend their strength to the assault upon my mind. Show us what you are.

Lightning ruptured the surface of the water, forking out and down. The pool was deep enough that the electricity fizzled out before it reached me, but the blast was so intense it shook the walls of the cavern. Glittering chunks of rock fell from the roof and catapulted into the walls, sending shards of crystal flying in every direction.

My temples ached as my eyes rolled into the back of my head, as if looking for the memories I'd long been denied. It was better than watching myself get buried alive, and I was eager to placate to Earth Mother, at least until I could get out of this situation. Swearing fealty to the neurotic Goddess was a problem for my future self, and it was with that unhelpful determination that I cast myself into the past.

Blood pooled at the bottom of the nest, oozing through gaps in the twigs and running down the mountainside in sticky rivulets. I could not see where they led for the thorns arching overhead, like the boughs of a great tree; and they were shrouded in turn by a looming ghost of a man, with skin white as death and eyes red as the chiselled end of his tomahawk.

I tried to move, but I was trapped; something heavy was pinning me to the ground and rapidly cooling. I realised with horror that it was a corpse, most likely a wyvern's from the size and weight. Was it one of my parents, felled by the lycans before my eyes?

"Aren't you going to kill it?" asked another man, edging into view. I realised with a start that it was Gordon, with fat in his cheeks and only a few of the scars that would later make a map of his face.

"Mind your tongue," snapped Horace, a dark haired giant whose faintly handsome features were magnified by his imposing height. "Don't speak until you're spoken to, boy."

It was beyond strange, to see the man I knew today as the Blood Moon Beta being reprimanded by his predecessor. Everyone had to start somewhere, though, and I was even more fascinated by the beginning of my own tale — even if the Earth Mother had to drill into my brain to find it.

Rogan grinned, his manic glee stretching from ear to ear. "Haven't you ever heard the tale of the Moon Cub?" he asked cryptically, turning his face up to the sky.

The sky was clear, but the moon was fat and unusually bright, glaring from the proximity of the sun. Every nerve in my body prickled as it moved with unnatural speed, gliding through the sky with the leisurely grace of a bird, slowly but surely blocking out the sun.

The golden light of day turned red. Clouds gathered and poured without warning, releasing a shower of thick, dark blood. Fat drops plunked atop our heads and painted the men red, staining their bared teeth and slicking back their hair. They laughed and cheered, throwing their arms up to the sky as they danced in their Goddess's holy tears.

Only Rogan remained calm, though the gleam in his eyes spoke volumes of the connectedness he felt in that moment, the spiritual rightness and tangible affirmation of his violent path. Mouth pressed with the grim poise of the devout, he sheathed his tomahawk and bent at the waist, fingers spreading as he reached down towards me...

... and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck, pulling me out from under the corpse and thrusting me into the ruby light. I let out a pitiful squawk, squirming in the tight grip of his leather glove for a glimpse of the corpse behind me. It was already collapsing into a pile of ash, though, sinking amidst the destruction of whatever battle had taken place.

"My gift to you, my love," Rogan declared to the heavens, drawing startled glances from the others. "Make this child your own, and together we shall rule the Day and the Night!"

The beam of red light seemed to ripple and shift like the train of a dress, and suddenly it was. A tall, slender woman reached down from the heavens with milk-white hands, brushing back a loose strand of Rogan's hair, smearing blood on his forehead. He shuddered at the ecstasy of her touch, and I was surprised to note that her hands stayed clean as she plucked me from his grasp, surveying me like a lamb for the slaughter.

Lovely was too gentle a word to describe the Night Goddess's features. In lieu of eyes she had black, bottomless craters, and there was a magnetising softness in all her features that would lure men in like siren-song. Something about the wry tilt of Her lips was hauntingly familiar, and when She pressed them against my forehead I sucked in a sharp breath, noticing the quaint silver freckles splattered across the bridge of her nose.

I knew that sensuous mouth. That aristocratic nose and fine, gossamer hair, though the silver was stained crimson by the blood moon in this instance. My thoughts came to a shuddering halt and all I could do was watch as Sebastian's mother tilted the palm of her hand, admiring me from every angle.

"You have burned bright for so long, Oriana," She crooned, sweet breath fanning my face. The scent of jasmine and midsummer grass briefly overwhelmed the smell of iron and rust. "It is time to rest. You have earned it."

Her kiss rippled through skin and flesh and bone, warping everything in its path. My hollow skeleton grew heavy as my bones filled with marrow, and my skin pulled tight as muscle formed beneath it.

My new body long and gangly, precariously balanced on two legs, with no wings or tail to provide stability. It was a tempestuous mix of strength, endurance and agility. Nya placed me gently on the floor of the nest, and Rogan reached out again, this time with a hint of a smile. My tiny human hand reached back, swallowed by his as he hoisted me up.

"She will make a fine match for our son," Nya said, manifesting a silver rope from thin air. At the twirling of her fingers it fashioned a noose, which sank into my skin when she slung it around my neck, disappearing with a faint glow. "They will be outsiders together, for those who rule can never truly count themselves among the people. They will become fast friends and inseparable partners, and when the time comes..." Nya tilted her head with a smile that chilled my new blood. "She will lend us her strength willingly, as will her children."

"It doesn't seem fair," Rogan muttered, drawing a sharp glance from the Night Goddess. When he had her full attention he winked. "We've already won the war, and they don't even know it yet."