To which he scoffed, saying,It’s the way of things that is wrong. And this idea that what we created here will lead to some great, worlds-breaking imbalance… I reject it. Look around you, Atheia: all I see are worlds that are flourishing.
Atheia could not reason with him. She felt his desperation, the despair that darkened his face at the thought of going back to the grim existence he’d known. And Atheia could not help but think that he cared more about losing this freedom than he did about losing her.
It stung. She loved him, but evidently that love was not enough for him. So she, too, would choose these worlds and their magic over him.
If the worlds were bound to crumble because of Sidraeus’s presence in the living realms—because of theseTidethievesthat kept leeching power away from Atheia, from the worlds themselves—then they all had to go. And Atheia would do anything to make that happen.
So she betrayed him. While he moved forward with his plan to wrest magic from the fountain, she appeared before the gods themselves and confessed to them what she and Sidraeus had done. What Sidraeus was trying to do now. She pleaded with them for mercy on both their parts.
Send him back to the sleeping realm,she begged,and his Tidecallers with him. Do what you must with me, for I know I was wrong and must be punished. But please. Restore the balance between our realms, and I swear neither I nor Sidraeus will ever again go beyond our borders. Your will is ours, forevermore.
But the gods merely sneered at her in anger. She was too late, they told her, because Sidraeus had already come this way with his most faithful Tidecallers, weaseling his way past the Godsgate to try to steal power from the gods.
Atheia couldn’t believe it.Did it work?she asked in equal parts horror and admiration, dread and hope. Jealousy and love.
A thousand emotions rushed through her as the gods told her of Sidraeus’s failure. How he tried to siphon the fountain’s power through the four Tidecallers at his side, only to see those Tidecallers burn out entirely from the overload of power, like dying stars collapsing in on themselves. The blast that echoed through them passed through all worlds, all realms, ushering their destruction faster.
Atheia had felt it. Her power had waned to naught for a terrible, heart-stopping moment. She had thought she was dying, pulled from the loveliest dream into a terrible nightmare. But when she’d opened her eyes, it had been over. Her power left intact.
Now she knew what had caused this brief impuissance. His Tidecallers must have reached out to her magic—unwittingly or not, it did not matter—as they tried to take the power from the gods’ fountain. But they failed, and threw the worlds into deeper horror as a result.
What will happen now?Atheia asked the gods.
Fate has already been set in motion,they replied.The balance of the universe is forever undone. There is no fixing what is broken beyond repair, other than to wipe clean the board and start anew.
But why not just get rid of the Tidecallers?Atheia pled.If they are the cause of this impending destruction, if they are the source of this problem, then surely you can get rid of them before the damage is done. Spill their blood and seal the doors between realms with it.
The four living gods seemed to consider it. But the fifth, the god of balance, shook his head at the last, his word reigning supreme over the others.It would not be enough.
Fury swept through Atheia. She clenched her fists, trembling with the force of her barely leashed rage. This was Sidraeus’s fault. Her creations, all her hard work, would bewiped clean, destroyed forever, because ofhim. Because of his thirst for power and freedom and inability to compromise. Because she had let him into her realms, into her heart, and he chose power over her.
The gods trapped Sidraeus in his prison between the stars. They told Atheia she would be confined furthermore to the godsworld. That, once they wiped clean the board and started anew, she would never be allowed to set foot in the realms of the living. Never be allowed to create as she once did, to share magic with these people she loved and who loved her.
She would be nothing more than a handmaiden to the gods, who would pull her strings like puppeteers as they remade the worlds in the blandest way possible. Without magic, they said, for they couldn’t risk history repeating itself.
But a life without magic, withoutimagination, was no life at all.
Atheia raged and cried and despaired. She prayed.
One god answered.
The moon goddess had always had a soft spot for Atheia. She was far from loving by any means, for Atheia did not think gods knew what love was. But she had always taken an interest in Atheia’s creation, made her feel valuable for it. It was probably why Atheia favored the lunar world. And now the moon goddesscame to her under cover of secrecy, at her most dire hour of need, and helped set her free.
A creator cannot die if their creations survive,the goddess whispered to Atheia,just as a board cannot be wiped clean if its key pieces remain fused to it.
Atheia had stared at her in confusion.I don’t understand….
We cannot go against his word,the goddess whispered,but you can. Scatter yourself across our realms—yourrealms—and you might just save us all.
At once Atheia understood. She never doubted the goddess’s intent, saw the fear well enough in her quicksilver eyes. The goddess did not wish for the destruction of worlds, no more than Atheia did. Perhaps the other living gods felt the same, it was just that none of them could go against the god of balance.
But Atheia might.
So Atheia escaped the godsworld with a plan.
She would not let the god of balance wipe clean the fruit of her efforts, the masterpiece she had created. Understanding the moon goddess’s cryptic words, Atheia fragmented herself, leaving a part of her in every world she had called home.
Her blood poured into the seas of the lunar world, the Tides forever flowing into the veins of its mages. Her bones burrowed deep into the soil of the Wychwood, so the Sculptress could shape magic into the flesh and bones of its witches. Her heart burned eternal in the fires of great volcanoes and the dragons they spawned, the Forger’s strength melded into the hearts of its faithful knights. And her soul remained adrift on the winds of the final world, taking as many shapes as there were Celestials, breathing their magic to those who kept music alive.
