Prologue
To whoever finds this,
History, we have learned, can be the most deceptive of liars. Not all that is written is fact, and not all fact is written.
In my time as copyist for the immortal children, and the primordials before them, I’ve made it my life’s promise to hold the truth close. Unlike my colleagues, it is of the utmost importance to present to you the truth of what ensued before the Great War.
Proceed with caution, as you may find those of darkness may really be of light. And those of light…well, I’ll let you make your own judgments.
Signed,
Euda, Copyist of the Immortal Children
and the Primordial Keepers Before Them
Excerpt from: The Theogony, officially transcribed by
Venian Archival Copyists
In the time before the immortal children, there was dawn, day, dusk, and night—the four Primordial Keepers. Astraeus, Keeper of Dusk; Phosphora, Keeper of Day; Eos, Keeper of Dawn; and Obscuros, Keeper of Night.
Godless mortals, poisoned by nightmares and malignancies, looked to the heavens for their divine creators. These beings, concentrating their power into four divine relics, tamed the chaos into order and sculpted the realm as we know it. With his golden blade, Astraeus split therealm into two and banished this malice into the other. Eos, with her opalescent orb, illuminated the shadows that’d spread like vines along the barren earth. Phosphora, with her prism key, sealed the gates between these newly separated realms, and finally Obscuros with his ember of life restored vitality to the mortal people.
In the aftermath of their great battle for peace, the lovers—Eos and Astraeus— succumbed to the calamity, never to tread the earth in which they sacrificed their physical forms to create.
Now only Obscuros and Phosphora, even with her broken mind, remain. A king and his queen, perfectly balanced and entwined with one another. She was the strength in his weaknesses and he was the peace amidst her turmoil.
Every blade of nursery grass or snowflake fallen from a frosted winter sky came from their infinite partnership.
From them came the immortal children: Polaris, Patron of Night; Altair, Patron of Day; Procyon, Patron of Dusk; and Tethys, Patron of Dawn.
The youngest, Tethys, was born, red faced and screaming from her mother’s womb. Her mother labored long and tirelessly until finally the beautiful babe entered this world, harboring the seeds that sprout anew and the buds that bloom bright.
She is the topaz sun as it brightens the early morning heavens. The blooming bulbs that rupture the soil, and in the midst of darkness, she is the dawn’s approaching light.
But even the most beautiful flowers have petals that rot.
Chapter 1
The announcement of the midday hour rang from below and reverberated through the large, open hall. Tethys stifled a yawn and shrugged lower into her chair. At the desk opposing hers, Euda, the primordials’ selected copyist and historian, drawled on about the proper order of utensils.
Her lessons with Euda began when she reached adolescence, just before her aging slowed. They consisted of etiquette, speech, customs of the court, and everything necessary to tame a young goddess with a knack for breaking the rules.
Euda herself was an ancient thing, her skin so wrinkled that most times Tethys wasn’t sure if her eyes were even open under those thick, black-framed glasses resting on the tip of her nose. As the selected copyist, the primordials granted her a life just shy of immortality. Tethys had lost count of the years they’d been together.
Tethys grumbled, watching a brown mole at the cornerof Euda’s lip stretch as she spoke.
“And what is the proper usage of the outermost spoon? Tethys! Pay attention!” Euda snapped her skeletal fingers and pushed her glasses up before they could slip off. She was always fidgeting with those broken spectacles. One day, Tethys promised she’d give her a new pair just to keep from watching Euda push them up the bridge of her nose over and over again.
“Daydream elsewhere. Not in my classroom.”
“Ugh, Euda, why does it matter which spoon I choose to eat my soup with? They’re all the same in carrying out their use.” Tethys let out a long, drawn-out sigh.
“It is tradition, and upholding traditions is—”
“Is important, yes, I know. You’ve told me nearly a thousand times already in the decades I’ve suffered through the same dusty lectures. Euda, please, it’s a beautiful day. Can we mark our lesson as complete?”
The pink light of dawn peeked over the horizon and caught in the rotunda’s stained glass windows. In gemstone shades, Euda eyed the goddess with a raised brow. The old scholar’s scrutiny was like the sharp blade of Tethys’s outermost dinner knife.
