“With each new life Elysian made, she sent them on their way to Belor. She’d place them in a certain realm and let the rest work itself out because she knew Belor would be waiting with open arms at the end of it all.
“Elysian’s creations of life were meant to be a gift to Belor, a way of showing her everlasting affection, despite the fact that they were doomed to be apart forever. She made more gifts and sent them on their path, where Belor would collect them at the end, keeping them forever.
“But what Elysian didn’t know was that Belor was overwhelmed with heartbreak and grief. He cherished her gifts . . . at first. As time went on, he felt like she was taunting him, holding his heart on a leash, teasing him with a love that could never be.”
Adara never broke contact with her magic. The flames danced and twined around her fingers, holding the universe in her hands. They moved along with the story, the emotions, dwindling to embers barely visible or climbing higher as if trying to escape her clutches. It didn’t take seeing her magic for Dominic to realize how much emotion Adara felt in the two gods’ tragic love story. She believed in them with her whole heart. He didn’t know all that she went through, but he’d been able to read the pain in her eyes when she talked about her past. He couldn’t fathom how she could have so much faith in the gods when it was their fault she’d been broken.
Leaving his questions to be answered for another time, Dominic listened intently as she went on.
“That’s when he created Helfarrow. An eternity of misery for every useless thing Elysian had sent him. He indeed kept all her gifts, but not in the way she intended. Belor tortured them the way they had tortured him—the way Elysian had tortured him by giving him hope for a future they both knew they’d never have.”
Despite his disbelief, Dominic leaned closer, transfixed by the fire swirling in her hand, silently urging her to go on. The way she told the story, with magic and admiration shimmering in her eyes, made him want to believe anything.
“Eventually, Elysian discovered Belor’s sadistic antics. She wasfurious, heartbroken that he would treat her life with such disdain. Elysian, however, would never resort to violence the way Belor had. Instead, she continued to create things because this journey we call life is also a gift tous, and she would not take such a beautiful thing away.”
Dominic almost scoffed at her description. This life was not beautiful. It was filled with hate and suffering. The slums was all the proof he needed. Even with the vibrant decorations for the festival, Lykrios was still some drab, filthy kingdom where even the rats barely managed to make a living.
Adara paid him no mind as she said, “Instead, she began to claim lives before Belor could condemn them to Helfarrow. To this day, both gods seize their opportunity when the time comes to save or destroy a life by sentencing them to Belor’s eternal prison in Helfarrow or Elysian’s infinite salvation in Sengui.” Adara’s flames dwindled to ash in her palm.
“So what I’m hearing is there is no actual point to all of this?” Dominic asked sullenly. “We are simply a plaything for the gods.”
Adara shook her head. “Life is merely a gift. There is no meaning to it. We live until we die. It is the things we experience along the way that make it worthwhile. Life is what we make it.” She pointed toward the starlit sky. “Legends say when Elysianclaims a life and takes them to Sengui, you can see them from our world. They are the stars. And the constellations are made up of pieces of the gods. That one”—she moved her hand to the left, pointing at a jumble of stars— “is Elysian.”
Dominic angled his head, trying to see what she was seeing, but it was all a mess of white dots on a canvas of black to him, nothing more than bright lights in random shapes that he used to navigate the seas.
“And those,” Adara continued, finger shifting up, “are the Eyes of Elysian. They watch over us . . . always.”
Lifting a hand, he pointed to the twinkling stars. “Those?”
Adara gently grasped his hand and moved it ever so slightly, leaning in close to him so she could see the sky from his perspective. Her lavender scent enveloped him, and he gladly breathed it in. He would prefer to get drunk on it rather than the wine he had yet to touch.
“Those,” she confirmed, fingers lingering on his.
He dropped his hand back down to his side, hers following. If there truly was a god watching over him, how could they let this happen? How could they let the world suffer?
Yet there was another part of him that wanted to believe her. “Tell me more,” he urged.
A wide grin radiated from Adara, and she immediately launched into more stories.
He learned that the Crowned Pantheon—the gods Malrynians worshipped—were the only ones born deities. Elysian, Belor, Calandra, Kairos, and Moira. Life, death, love, time, and fate—the five pillars on which the universe stood. But Blemythians worshipped twenty-seven, the others having risen to divinity with their acts as mortals.
Adara said that Kairos and Moira were the best of friends, writing stories together as fate and time intertwined.
She told him about how Narelle, the Sea Goddess, had created lykrens as a weapon to protect the cities deep within the ocean during a feud with her brother, Daichi, God of Earth. And how Daichi had pulled Narelle’s civilizations from the ocean, creating continents dotting the seas, with marine life dying as they met open air, and used the land as his own.
She explained that Calandra had envied the mortals because they experienced things much more deeply, knowing they were ultimately doomed to die. Calandra had asked Elysian to take her to the mortal realm, and the Goddess of Life obliged. In the body of a mortal, Calandra fell in love with a prince. She had believed him to be her true love, and when the prince rejected her, it destroyed her. She spent the rest of her life searching for another who could fill her heart like he did. She opened a portal and walked across realm after realm to find a soulmate that might ease the heartbreak from her first love. Then one day, she collapsed in the middle of a meadow, its verdant grass gilded in golden light, the weight of heartache finally too much to bear. A man had approached her, trying to help her to her feet, but she refused. She told him she was dying, that she couldn’t be saved, and he should leave her. He did not. He sat there, his hand laced with hers, until her pain was too much. Calandra’s heart had fractured within her, its shards piercing her organs inside, shredding through her in a slow, agonizing death until they tore free and caused her body to shatter in his arms.
The man had only just met her, but he’d wept over the pieces of her soul as they burned brightly, floating skyward where they scattered across the heavens, leaving only a shattered, bleeding heart behind. When he reached out to cup the heart in his palms, a golden key took its place. Calandra had spent the entirety of her life searching for a soulmate she never found until her dying moments, and by then, it was already too late. So she created thekeys to guide others to their true love. That way, no one would ever have to die of heartbreak like she did.
But his favorite story was the one of the Goddess of Courage and Fire, the one Adara was named after. A girl from the slums born in the city of Zenura, more commonly known as the Shadow Empire, a land ruled by Darkcasters—people born with dark magic who could manipulate and produce shadows. The Adara from the story had started a revolution, along with five others, to liberate everyone from Zenura’s tyrannical rule. But she was captured by the empire and executed by being thrown into a volcano, where she met her fiery demise.
However, Elysian had other plans for Adara and sent her back to the land of the living, more powerful than ever. She had risen from the ashes and become a Flamecarrier. The goddess had returned to the empire, and this time, she defeated the emperor. But she was not a tyrant like he was. She let his loyal subjects live while those who wanted to leave could.
The goddess and the five that helped lead the revolution traveled across the continent and eventually built their own five kingdoms, but not Adara. The goddess had disappeared into the mountains. She fell in love, had a family, and when her powers passed down to her offspring, a tribe of Flamecarriers grew.
Dominic let out a deep breath as he ran a hand through his hair, staring at their rippling reflections in the water below. “Wow,” he breathed. He’d never given much thought to the gods. Never cared for the stories they had of their own. Then again, none of it mattered; they weren’t real. “I guess it’s a good thing they’re all myths, or we’d both be in Helfarrow soon. I’m sure,” he thought aloud, letting out a bitter chuckle. Her stories were intriguing, but there was no evidence that they were more than just that—stories.
Adara shook her head. “I will not force you to believe in something you don’t want to, but I have faith in my gods.”
