The Outcast (11 page)

Kennera

“This melancholy bodes ill for your people, Nera.” The goddess closest in years to Kennera sat upon the lavish cushions of Kennera’s favorite settee. Nelciana was dark in ways that Kennera was fair, but the goddess of family held a loving and loyal nature. “Your days here are waning. You must have your strength if you are to grow your people in number again.”

“That is impossible. I have little energy left.” Should she tell her? Nelciana was her best friend, the one to whom she’d poured out her sorrows almost daily for three thousand years. “I give it all to them.”

Nelciana’s face paled. “You are transferring? From this distance? Nera… it is little wonder you look so… frail.”

“What choice do I have? I have so few of my people left and they have such need of me. What else can I give them behind these stone walls?”

“Yet you have not fed in three millennia! You will die if you continue.”

“Better I die providing something to my people, than slaughtered at Eiophon’s hands.” Kennera was prepared for what she must do. How could she not be? She had had thousands of years to reconcile herself with what must be done. “When I do go… I chose you. I will give you what I have left, but I have one request…”

Horror was in the amethyst eyes of her friend. Nelciana knew what she was asking, Kennera recognized her friend’s grief in the way her shoulders had stiffened, her hands had tightened on the satin pillow she held.

“You are not going to die. We will not let you.”

“Even if you try, I do not think you can stop it. I would rather be prepared, Nel. He has vowed it so many times over the last three millennia. If I go, I wish you to take the rest of my people. Provide for them as if they were your own. I know you can do it. My people and yours have lived together peacefully for all these years. I ask you…”

“Consider it done. But you must know the rest of us will not allow him to harm you.”

“The rest of you are not as powerful, even combined, as Eiophon. He is the strongest of us all. And the most beastly. He cares not for my people, only his and his vengeance.” Kennera walked to the sieve and looked down at her favorite tribe of Dardaptoans. The Dardanos tribe was her largest at fifteen thousand, but that was not why she loved them so. Rydere was so fierce, so determined to rule his tribe and protect them with all he had.

Were it someone like he she had fallen in love with so long ago, the fate of all Dardaptoans would not be so grim.

Rydere held his Rajni, the once human Emily, against him as she slept. He had much on his mind, as he usually did. His thoughts often echoed in Kennera's heart.

Tonight it was the fact that his tribal home was overrun with Lupoiux wolves who claimed a relationship with his woman.

What would happen to those Dardaptoans who had mated with Lupoiux? There were not many, but some of her matches had gone awry.

She had fated all of her people on the day they were born. Their names were listed on a scroll, magically put there at the moment of birth. She would close her eyes and whisper the name that came to her. Sometimes those names were witch, most were Dardaptoan. Some were Lupoiux. Lupoiux — who, despite their allegiance to Eiophon — deserved love.

She did not control the pairing, she just channeled the ties to bind them together.

But what would happen to the half-Dardaptoan/half-Lupoiux children when Eiophon came for her? What would happen to those lovers who were of different Kinds? Would Eiophon kill them, too?

Eiophon

It was early in the morning, and the girl goddess would be sleeping still. Eiophon knew her routine as well as his own, though an impenetrable barrier separated his part of the palace from hers.

She stayed up late each evening, staring at the stars. He could just make out her soft form stretched across her bed through the ether of his sieve. He spent much of his day watching the girl responsible for his captivity. He spent much of his day plotting how he would make her pay for her actions so long ago.

But now that the day was fast approaching when he could act upon those plans, he found himself reluctant.

Her people were almost completely gone from the face of Gaia. And from what he had heard out of the other deities, and what he could see through his own sieve, they would not last much longer.

What more of a revenge could there be for a goddess who felt her people’s pain as deeply as Kennera did?

He fought a smile of satisfaction.

He had not suspected so many years ago that his words would wreak such pain upon his feminine enemy, or that the curses he flung at her around the barrier Erasomophus, Lothonos, and Acastia had created years ago would hit her so deeply.

She had yet to retaliate against him. And that continued to puzzle him. Why would she not? He tried daily to get her to react to him. She had yet to do so.

His torment of her began the moment she would awaken and continued until one of the other deities visited her. Most often it was Nelciana. Sometimes it was Lothonos, who came to worship her without her knowing.

The god of knowledge and science was a fool where Kennera was concerned. Eiophon could often hear him lusting over the girl. He may not have been able to see the girl clearly in his sieve, but he could sometimes hear her conversations with the other deities.

Acastia, Domustri, and Levakoran visited her occasionally, though she spoke little to those three. Mostly, the older gods and goddess just lectured the girl goddess on her foolishness. She never contradicted them. Just ignored them until they left. Their visits had waned in frequency over the last fifteen hundred years or so.

All but Nelciana visited him on a regular basis. They would play games, drink, and eat fine meals. No such gatherings occurred in the girl goddess’s part of the palace.

She spent most of her time at her sieve, watching her people. He rarely watched his. How could they learn to be independent if he monitored their every move?

“Girl.” He never called her by name; names contained power. He always called her girl. She had never answered. That, more than anything, angered him the most. He was the most powerful deity of Gaia, yet she refused to acknowledge him.

Once his confinement ended, he would see to it that she did just that before she died. The last sounds on her lips would be his name and the words necessary to transfer her powers to him. By rights, it was what she owed to him for taking the last three millennia of his life from him.

Kennera

It was him again. Calling her. Wanting to goad her to fight with him. The first few years of her confinement, she had done just that. She always lost. She was not as mean hearted or as ruthless as the male deity. She could not think of the vile curses as fast as he. Would not. Though he had done much to her people, she could not wish the same upon his. They were innocent of the war between their deities.

She had once believed that all the Kinds could freely be with one another. That love — like the humans said — had no true boundaries.

She had been stupid where he was concerned, her attraction to his physical perfection and strength overshadowing the truth of his character. How could any god condemn a people to the suffering that hers had endured?

The females and babes lost were heartbreaking. She had a list of their names, those lost since his vicious curses first rang down. She looked at it sometimes, a reminder of how she had failed as a goddess.

She would make it up to them, somehow.

With her death, Nelciana would assume leadership of the few Dardaptoans that remained. As goddess of families and relationships, the other deity would strengthen the bonds between Dardaptoan and Witch. And Nelciana’s sense of loyalty would have her protecting the Dardaptoans fiercely. They would survive. Thrive.

And with what remained of Kennera’s powers, Nelciana would almost be as strong as Eiophon. If she could convince Lothonos to join with Nelciana, they would be stronger than the Lupoiux god. Strong enough to protect her people in the war the beast would wage the instant the walls containing them came crumbling down.

“Girl. I know you hear me. Do you think ignoring me will make me go away? I have gone nowhere in three thousand years.” His voice was insidious, filling the entirety of her half of the palace. It was a trick he had used since their first week together. His voice in her entire world — another way for him to overpower her.

He so liked showing her how powerful he was.

But she would show him, would win the final battle. It meant her death; that she could not deny, nor would she.

Her people deserved no less…

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