Creation glanced back toward the village; workers were already out in the fields, tending to the new life he’d sown. When he looked back at Hunt’s retreating form, she was already far enough away that he had to run to catch up. “Were you watching?” he asked once they were walking side by side.
“Yes.” Hunt replied without shame, navigating between the trees. “I’ve been watching you since you left.”
“Why?”
“I think the whole pantheon is watching you.” On that, Creation couldn’t object. He knew the importance of what he was trying to do, and it seemed only logical to think that others would be equally invested. “They’re all watching and waiting. Put all the stock of the world in Light’s plan for you.”
“Except for you.” Creation sensed the caveat in Hunt’s tone.
She nodded, reaching down to scratch her wolf tenderly between the ears. “I love my divine brothers and sisters, but I’m much more suited for going off and doing my own thing.”
Creation hadn’t known the woman long enough to say if such was true, so he took the statement at face value. Something in him seemed to resonate with her sentiment.
“I wish you well, Hunt.” He meant it, too. If she was a loner or one for the group, Creation had no reason to feel ill toward the goddess. “But I must go now and do what I am made for.” He took a step for the depths of the forest.
“Is that what you want?” Hunt moved in front of him, stopping his progress yet again.
“What?”
“I heard your questions down there. I know your doubts.”
“Light removed all of my doubts.” Creation wanted to say with conviction, void of all hesitation.
“You weretoldto have no doubts, just as you weretoldto go be with her for the sake of taming her.” She leveled her eyes with his. Creation searched the dark skin of her face, unblemished save for a sliver of silver in the shape of a crescent moon at the center of her forehead. “Is that how you want her? Tamed? Controlled? With you only by chase, or force, or sheer will? Is that howyouwant to live?”
No. Everything in Creation objected so vehemently to Hunt’s suggestion that even his magic rattled in protest. He restrained himself, whispering, “Of course not.”
A smile spread across Hunt’s lips, her white teeth peeking out from between them. “I thought not. Because you have sense, Creation, and the beginnings of what I’d dare call a mind. Just from the questions you ask, I know you’re not one who likes the idea of fighting against nature.”
“But I have no choice.” Light’s words were seared into his mind right alongside the god’s brilliance. He was made to be with Destruction. He was made to “tame her”—as Hunt would put it—for the sake of the world.
“Continue on with me.” Hunt turned, motioning for him to follow once more now that she seemed to trust he wouldn’t run off again. She began jogging along the forest’s edge, not even looking back to see if he was behind. The goddess didn’t have to. Creation only spent a second staring after Destruction’s path in debate before following.
He may not know what Hunt had planned yet, but he did know that he would take the excuse to prolong his chase of Destruction. It was a path he did not want to walk and would only do so by force. Hunt was showing him what he hoped was another way.
They tore through the woods just at the edge of the tree line and the hills that flanked them. Far behind them was the village he had met Light within. For a long stretch there was nothing but plains and sloping hills.
Creation felt it before he saw it.
A pulsing energy, a crackling dissonance to the natural order of things. It wasn’t like Destruction’s magic—an acceleration of the inevitable breakdown of all life. No, this was more of atransformationof matter—twisted, frayed, and abused.
Hunt and Creation stopped at the top of a ridge overlooking yet another village in the valley below. Or what was left of it. This one had seen a horror that was new to Creation’s eyes—yet his being knew it all too well.
“Chaos,” he whispered.
“This is her work,” Hunt affirmed. One house, turned to be made of sweets, being gnawed on by the black-eyed and gnarled shapes of half-men, half-wolves. The road had been transformed to ice, bodies trapped beneath it. One structure couldn’t seem to make up its mind on what it was as it rotated through changing shapes and colors. “It’s an affront to nature itself.”
And nothing like Destruction. Now having felt both of their magics so clearly, Creation couldn’t believe the two demigods had once been one. Destruction’s magic accelerated and played into the natural order. Chaos’s magic was, as Hunt put it, a complete divergence from it.
“As far as I’m concerned,thisis the real threat, not Destruction. We can preempt the latter. But this is utter madness.”
Creation allowed his horrified silence to be his agreement.
“Which is where I diverge from my brothers and sisters in the pantheon. As far as I’m concerned, they’ve busied themselves with the wrong demigod. They saw Destruction as the low-hanging fruit in her relative stability and made you. If they can control her, shield her from Chaos’s grasp, then they think Chaos will tire and give up hunting her.” Hunt motioned to the village. “Does this look like the work of a woman who will roll over quietly because things became difficult?”
“Not at all.” Creation finally tore his eyes away and looked to the goddess. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m not like them, Creation. I go for the kill—and not the easy one.”
