Goddess Rising

The meeting grew dull before long. Garo and his companions discussed the specifics of hiding her broken soul and securing Tivelo. Garo refused to cancel his planned parades despite concerted opposition. Aria sat on the ground when she grew tired of standing. Afterward, when the meeting had dispersed, she remained sitting there, staring at nothing, surrounded by the smell of wood and dust. When deep thoughts threatened to intrude on her silence, she forced them aside, unwilling to bear their weight. When she finally tired of that, she forced herself to sleep.

Achi arrived almost as soon as she fell asleep. He sat on a wooden crate in one corner of the room. For several minutes, they watched each other in silence. He seemed comfortable with it, and Aria, strangely, felt no need to talk. She knew that he wasn’t real.

“You know,” he said. “Someone owns this storehouse. He’ll probably arrive soon and wonder why you’re sleeping here.”

Aria said nothing.

Achi smiled in that usual way of his. It looked better in the dream than it had on the real person.

“I’m sure you’ll just threaten him with bodily harm,” he said, “but remember you’re still in Garo’s territory. Don’t make a nuisance of yourself.”

Aria sat up, resting her back against a crate “What was your plan?” She asked. “You said that you had one, that easing my ignorance would only ruin it. What was it?”

He shrugged. “How would I know? I’m a figment of your imagination.”

“Then what should I do? Should I just leave? Hide? Trust in your plan? Did your plan include the realization that millions of people would die?”

“You’re the foolish one here, Aria, playing with people with twice your intellect and thousands of years of experience. I knew what was going on. I had a plan.”

“And in this plan, I presume, your father recovers and never comes hunting for me, the millions that Garo will kill find peace, and I will live out the remaining sixty or so years before happily dying.”

Achi was silent.

“But how would you know?” She asked. “You’re just a figment of my imagination.”

“I know that you don’t have a choice,” he said. “You cannot stop them -”

“You’re not Achi! So shut up and go away!”

Waking was painful. She clung to sleep as long as she could, but it eventually became impossible to ignore the cold, hard ground under her. The ache in her chest had not eased, but she had a course of action. She lacked the strength to stop Garo from doing what he wished, but she could share what she knew with Evera. That was the least that she could do. She would hand off the main problem to those more powerful than that and focus on protecting herself from Tivelo. No matter what Achi said, in dreams or in life, she could never hope for Tivelo’s pardon. If the hope proved false, the consequences would be catastrophic.

She found an inn and paid for a bath, fresh clothes, a hairbrush, and directions. The innkeeper did not have exact instructions to reach Evera’s territory, but Aria soon realized that she did not need it. If her teleportation could take her between realms, it could take her between locations in the same realm.

She performed several tests, first, teleporting herself a few meters each time. Thankfully, the city’s morning traffic was light, and it was easy to find a secluded place in which to practice. After several minutes, she was confident that she could teleport to any location she could visualize, even if it was not within sight. The teleportations consumed a significant amount of energy, but not enough to panic about.

When she was ready, she took a deep breath, visualized Evera’s foyer, and triggered her power.

She did not appear where she intended. Instead, she stood in front of massive white metal gates. Through them, a path led through a garden with creeping, flowering plants on each side. They were dotted with white, red, and blue flowers. There was no order to them, just an untamed but beautiful mess. At the end of the path, the white building she remembered stood three stories tall with a massive entrance and spacious balconies on the upper levels.

Aria waited for some time, expecting a rush of guards or even Evera herself. Nothing happened. Tentatively, she stepped through the gates and up the path, each step she took sounding strangely loud to her ears.

Through the main entrance, she found the foyer she had last appeared in. Evera’s throne room was visible through it, but the goddess was absent. Aria reached out with her magical sight and found Evera in a different hall, just a corridor away. There were more people in the room, seated at circular tables and speaking in curiously hushed voices.

Attendants passed her as she approached the voices, each one respectfully stepping aside and keeping their eyes down. There was a sense of sadness to them. Another archway led into the meeting hall. Ten tables occupied a hall built for many more so that a large amount of space separated the tables. They were arranged on both sides of an aisle, with six seats at each table and at least four people per table.

At the end of the room was a dais. Evera sat there on a carved white wood throne, staring down at a long wooden basin with a fire burning in it. There was no kindling in the basin, yet the fire looked as if it could burn for several more hours.

Three deities were lined up on the dais before the basin; Aria recognized them by the way they seemed to glow. The first one walked up to the fire and threw in a blue bead. It sizzled as it touched the flame and disappeared a moment later. Aria felt a wave of power burst from the bead and wash over the room. With it came an image: Achi standing on a single log in the middle of a raging ocean, a smile on his face as bright as the sun at midday.

The image was gone before Aria could properly digest it.

As the god returned to his seat, the next in line - a goddess - repeated the process, revealing another memory. Aria thought she saw a tear glisten in the woman’s eye for a moment, but it was gone too quickly. When the last person in line returned to her seat, Aria realized that she was still standing. She took the first available seat, drawing glances from the others at the table. They said nothing, however.

Evera stood, plunging the room into silence. She looked as beautiful as always but much sadder than before. The sight clawed at Aria’s heart with more strength than it should have. It grew worse when Evera began to speak, and the musical lilt of her voice carried more sadness than the most mournful dirge.