A millennia’s worth of feelings overcame Atheia at the thought of him. Her opposite. Her perfect match. Her lover.
Her betrayer and enemy.
Sidraeus had looked no different than when she had last seen him centuries ago, except for those spiral runes burned on his skin. She had no clue what they were or how he’d obtained them, but one thing was for certain: they’d been hurting him. And Atheia took no small amount of pleasure at the idea, even as her own heart twisted painfully with old, resurging feelings.
There was too much history between them. So much Atheia wished to take back, to forget, to burn from her heart. Her heart, which he had broken. Her trust, which he had shattered.
As the waves lapped around her, her vessel’s body shivering, Atheia was possessed with the sudden need to make Romie understand—to wash away the girl’s trepidation at the thought of what Atheia was setting out to do. Atheia didn’t want to feel alone, didn’t want to fight for room with her vessel’s conflicting feelings. They could inhabit this body together. Seek revenge against Sidraeus and ensure the preservation of her own creationstogether.
But first Romie needed to see things as Atheia did. And so,with the Memorist magic of the Waning Moon, Atheia shared her memories.
Atheia had always embodied the human’s ability to dream. As the hand of the four gods she served, a conduit for their power, she was able to dream up magic in different ways and mold it as a true visionary.
Her life revolved around creation, imagination. She took pride in what she built in these worlds that were like a blank canvas, the magic she shared with these humans who worshipped her. She was the divine breath that blew through them at their behest, and shethrivedon the love they gave back to her. It was her whole reason for existing—to be seen as benevolent and beautiful, loved by these people who saw her as their god and whom she loved so deeply in return.
She had never gotten that love from anyone else.
The gods she answered to had all but cast her out, leaving her to do their bidding on her own. They never cared enough about her to love her; they only wished for her to carry out their will. Atheia was a god in her people’s eyes, yet she was still doomed to behergods’ puppet while they languished in the divine gardens they called home, barely sparing a glance for the worlds they’d created.
At least Atheia had her people’s love, and for a time this was all she needed.
Yet nothing could ever quite sate this loneliness she felt.
Until Sidraeus.
A mirror soul to hers, as lonely as she was, as abandoned as she felt by the god he answered to. In those early days of their courtship, when Atheia first brought Sidraeus into the lunar world as his shadow self and his presence created a new brand of magic, she saw it as the missing piece to her own creations. A balancethat she alone could not conjure. It completed the work of art she’d started and made a masterpiece of it.
They had created such beauty together, with these two magics. And when Sidraeus spoke of wanting more—of wanting to see the other worlds, create other magics; of wanting to come into the realms of the living freely and in his true form, not this bodiless, nightmare version of him that he had to settle for—Atheia found herself wanting the same things. She yearned to be with him fully, body and soul, and keep creating masterpieces together without the limitations set by their gods.
She had never wanted anything more in her life, until the jealousy and resentment crept in.
Atheia had always been alone, but now she found herself sharing the limelight—her people’s devotion split between her and Sidraeus. Shewantedto share all of it with him. But these worlds, these people, this magic… they had been hers and hers alone for so long that sharing them now proved difficult. Especially as Sidraeus gained more and more favor, and the natural divide between their powers began to create divides between their people.
Especially as she started to feel the toll ofhiscreations onher.
The magic born of Sidraeus’s presence could not survive in this world without Atheia’s own magic. They were intrinsically entwined. Eclipse magic was its own thing, but it fed on lunar magic—onher.
She didn’t mind at first. Sidraeus always said she was the answer to all his prayers, the answer to his call for help, for freedom, for the chance at creating something of his own.You called, and I answered,Atheia would say fondly. It had given them the idea to call his creations Tidecallers. These people born of the eclipse, who called on the Tides to sustain the magic of both the moon and the eclipse inside them.
Atheia was fond of them as she was fond of Sidraeus. They were hers as much as his, and she loved them as deeply as she did her lunar mages, none more so than a girl she could have called sister for how close they’d become.
Until that resentment set in. Until ugly thoughts wormed their way into her mind, making her see these creations as cheap copies of her own, copies that twisted the pure magic she had spent so long building in this world, made it darker, impure. That resentment grew until she viewed Sidraeus as a thief. Someone who took what she graciously offered and tried to make it all his, to make itbetterthan hers.
Still, Atheia stomped away that jealousy. She and Sidraeus had a dream, a shared vision: to elevate themselves to the godly status they were always meant to have. To be gods in their own right, ruling over every realm the way they saw fit and sharing their power widely and without limits. To rule over the realms of life and death, together.
But all these desires would be their downfall. She knew this for certain when her gods began to whisper of the chaos that loomed over the worlds. They said the god of balance had seen it in the tapestry of fate, this havoc that would spread across the realms of the living until there was nothing of them left.
Atheia knew it for what it was: divine retribution.
She had gone against the gods’ wishes to keep her and Sidraeus separate, confined to their respective realms. She had taken Sidraeus out of the sleeping realm and brought him into the realms of the living, and by allowing him to create these new magics, by letting the Veiled Atlas travel between worlds, it would create an imbalance in the very fabric of the universe.
She was devastated. To know that all her dreams and ambitions might fall away to nothing… She couldn’t bear it. Had to protect her creations—the humans she loved, the magic they shared—no matterthe cost. Even if it meant losing the Tidecallers she still cared for despite everything, the sister she might have had. Even if it meant losing her one true love, being apart from him except on eclipses, the way it had initially been. The way it was always meant to be.
Atheia was willing to sacrifice it all for the preservation of her creations.
Sidraeus was not.
He would not hear of it. Only grew bitter and angry at her reasoning.If the realms fall, it will be our doing,she told him.We never should have gone against the way of things.
