Her bare feet padded across the cracked sand coated tiles as she made for the dais. She approached the throne, her blood pumping through her body a million miles a second. Shadows writhed and wriggled down the walls, like spirits come to life.
“Why have you summoned me, little goddess?” A rasping female voice bounced from wall to wall, thin as the oceanic breeze, yet thicker than smoke all at once.
Tethys froze mid step, her heartbeat skipping like a stone across water. Her eyes darted from shadow to shadow, desperately trying to find the body attached to thosewords. The voice was familiar, but like her memories of this place, its owner hid just out of reach.
“Where are you? Show yourself,” she demanded, curling her fists at her sides.
The voice laughed. Its sound washed over her like morning dew—seeping into her skin until it flowed through every vein.
“I am nowhere, but also everywhere. I am in the ground but also in the sky. Tell me, my love, why have you called on me?” it asked. Shivers, like a mother’s embrace, ran down the back of her neck.
“Please, show yourself. Who are you?!” she repeated, whirling around to face the invisible hand trailing down her shoulder.
Footsteps echoed to her left, then to her right. Then behind her, but also in front of her. The click of heels on tile pounded in her chest, like an army surrounding her at all sides.
“Do you seek my gate? Do you seek my fate? Do you seek the truth and all of its lies?” The voice spoke in riddles that sent Tethys’s heart crawling up her throat. She searched for the voice’s holder in her deepest memories stored, and yet the face was nothing but a white blur.
“Show me who you are and I’ll tell you anything you wish to know,” she replied, scanning the spirited shadows dancing across the walls.
“I am no enemy, yet also no ally. I simply am. But you knew that already,Goddess. I am no stranger to your memory.” The voice rippled through the chamber once more.
Tethys stilled.
“You’re right, I do know who you are,” Tethys whispered. Somewhere buried beneath flesh, bone, and blood, a memory unlocked.
She’d recognized this place, this voice, and suddenly she understood. Why Obscuros, even before her Arrival, always refused to meet her curious eyes. Why her connection with Altair always felt too faint, too distant. Why Polaris acted strange, shrouding her research in mystery.
Why her realm never found peace.
“Speak your truths, dear child.” The whisper wrapped itself around her, casting out the chill coursing through her veins.
“I recognize your voice…because I heard you. The day of my birth. The day you held me in your arms. Eos,” Tethys breathed. “My mother.”
The throne glowed with a faint golden light as the room hummed—like Eos’s spirit siphoned her magic from their very walls. The crystals overhead shivered and a seated figure swirled to life atop the white marble.
It took form slowly, revealing wild curls and a slender female body. Eos’s golden hair, the same striking shade as Tethys’s, flowed around her frame and fell just below her waist. The primordial’s eyes glowed like a pair of twin topaz gems in the sconce light.
Tethys dropped to her knees and crossed a fist over her chest, just as the Venians did. Just as Araes did. Eos tapped an elegant foot and cocked her head in curious amusement.
“There’s no need for such honor, love,” the primordial said, bracing her head in her open palm. “You’ve grown into a most powerful woman.”
Energy coursed through Tethys’s entire body, as if the floodgates collapsed and sheer primordial aether poured through her. She couldn’t possibly remember the day of her birth, but every misaligned piece of her history snapped into place and she knew more than anything that her mother—hertruemother, sat before her.
“How is it possible? You made your sacrifice centuries before my birth. I…” Tethys trailed off, unanswered questions churning and roiling through her.
“Unlike your siblings, dearest, you were not born of the physical world. While they were born surrounded bybrick and ocean and air, you were bornhere. Soil and water constructed their bones whereas starlight and sunbeams built yours.” Eos rose to her feet, and with silent footsteps, closed the distance between them.
Her eyes glittered with a warmth Tethys hadn’t ever known before, as she tucked a stray curl behind the goddess’s ear. “The day we imprisoned Vorthal, Astraeus and I knew the only way to seal the gate was for us to hold it closed on this side. Although our physical forms perished, we live on here. In the Rift. Sealing the gate from this side…changed Astraeus and me, itremadeus from the Rift—that essence transferred to you. Why do you think your magic never manifested? Your channel to it is sealed, locked behind the gate between realms.”
“How is this possible? How am I here…in the Rift? The gate is sealed,” Tethys asked.
“We are simply projections. Beingmadefrom the Rift, although you cannot physically cross its veil, the essence within you seeks to return. It finds its way back through dreams,” Eos replied. “There are few beings like us that can dream walk, but all are made from the Rift. Or at least, have been touched by it—like Phosphora. A piece of her mind still lingers here. That’s how she knew of your birth.”
Tethys’s nightmares—the premonitions brought to her during sleep. Could she have been projecting into the Rift this whole time? What of the black-haired woman who haunted her mind, or the beastly wolf with brilliant yellow eyes? Were they, too, made from the Rift? Ortouchedby it, as Eos said?
Although Tethys’s true lineage brought clarity, there were still so many unanswered questions. What of the prophecy? What of her demise written in the stars? What of the children slipping through the cracks? She felt her body withering, the warmth in her skin fading.
“After your birth, Phosphora unlocked the gate so she could bring you into the mortal realm. But in doing so,its power weakened. I feel Vorthal’s tremors through this world, and I suppose, since you’re here, you’ve felt them too.”
