“Asha!”Skypharoh exclaims as if excited to see me. He nudges his face into mine, which makes me giggle.
“Sky,” I greet him, and he licks my face. I turn back to Versivius, “Do you know what’s going on out there?” I ask to get a gauge on what details I have to fill him in on.
“I know the power is dwindling, I can feel it,”He hisses, breaking his gaze from mine, “AndI know the Gods are away.”
He watches me for a moment with an expression I am not familiar with; his camouflage washes over his face in patches before returning to his normal colour. I screw my eyebrows.
“Your camouflage, what’s wrong with it?” I turn to Skypharoh, whose invisible armour is failing all the same; the length of his spine flares with camouflaged spots and patches. It flashes—lilac into green like the forest.
“We Sky Serpants are what you call cold-blooded. We need the heat of the sun to survive.”He states, and my eyes meet his with sorrow. Of course, they need warm conditions to thrive. I place my hand on his nose, and his hot breath warms my skin. Whatever is going on is not just affecting humans; it’s affecting the wildlife, too. “Kamaria has been keeping us warm, but we cannot leave.”I nod my head at him in understanding as my eyes drift off into the distance. Just then, I realise, the trees around us, the flowers, they all lack the vibrant colours and hues that I experienced the first time I came here. I walk over to a nearby bush and hold a pink flower in my hand. The petals, though still a bright pink, are duller than they were before. I brush my thumb over the soft leaves, and they fall out with ease. It’s not as bad as in the greenhouse, but this secret forest is dying.
“It started yesterday,”He says, looking at the forest around him.
“Ryder, you’ve got to see this,” I call out to him, and he looks at me over his shoulder, unsheathing a blade and placing it in a holster on his back.
“Is that?”
“Yes.” That’s all he says before walking over to me. I shake the intrigue of the Salem Lewis’ sword and bring my attention back to the issue at hand.
“The sickness, it’s in here too,” I state, and he furrows his eyebrows. “Versivius and Skypharoh are weak.” Ryder places a hand on the side of Versivius’ cheek and rests his head on him.
“We’re going to fix this.” He whispers, and Versivius trills before saying.
“And how do you expect to do that?”His tongue slides out of his mouth before snapping back in.
“The crescent gem,” I say simply, expecting a ton of warnings to flow from his tongue.
“The gem you speak of exists,”Versivius states matter-of-factly. “But it will be no easy feat to get it.”
Ryder’s eyes widen in tandem with mine.
“So itdoesexist.” The hope practically leaps off my tongue.
“Yes, my Queen. But the path towards it is no straight line.”He retreats slightly as if he is choosing his words carefully. Skyphorah spins slowly before settling down and curling into a comfortable position on a patch of sand below. “The gem was hidden by the original God of the night. Lunaris. She made the demigods of the Moon.”
“Demigods?” Ryder questions, and I share the same puzzled look he does.
“Yes. The Gods you know are her children. She granted them power and chose their roles.”
“So that means the Sun Gods,” I add, the pieces of the puzzle starting to take shape.
“They are also demigods.”Versivias continues.“Auryn, the original God of the Sun, created them.”
Ryder and I share a look.
“The sisters could never see eye to eye, so much so that they created night and day to split the land into two.”His skinripples again with pinks and greens before returning to a dark purple. “The demigods were chosen, handpicked.”He states, his tongue slithering back inside his jaws.“People no different from you who stand before me.”
“You’re telling me the Gods were once…human?” Ryder states in disbelief, I would’ve said the same thing, but my mouth has been stuck in a permanent ‘o’ shape for the last minute or so.
“Yes.”He says plainly.“Each one chosen for their specific attributes.”His fangs glint in the low dim of the sun. “The power granted to them is only a fragment of the power Lunaris and Auryn possess.”
“They created the Gods we know… They created Oriah?” My mouth is still open in shock.
“Oriah was created as a byproduct of their creations. They had never planned for those of Sun and Moon to reproduce, but in doing so, a new race was created, thus a new God.”
All this information is making my head spin.
“The sisters were happy in their creations until the word got out amongst the people that there was an alternate source that could grant power.”
