Giya's Betrayal: Book Three of the Firebird's Daughter series Read online

  “He has... evolved, Serat,” she said quietly, shrugging her thin shoulders.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, feeling a strange tingling behind his eyes.

  “There is a device which allows certain individuals to see into the future,” Siri began, feeling her heart beat faster as she explained, remembering her own experiences with the crystal goblet. “I failed to consider what effect it might have on Oculis when I used him to gaze into it.” She could feel that her brother had become very still as she was speaking, and he even felt... she wasn’t sure how to describe it to herself... as if he had become physically cold to the touch. “What is it Serat?”

  He swallowed deeply, barely able to breathe. He knew Siri needed an answer, but was unable to speak the words. He was afraid to speak the words, because he knew they were true. He finally understood. And knowing, wished with everything in him that he could unknow them. He chose other words instead, recoiling from the certain truth ringing loudly within him.

  “Why did you call me here, sister? Why, after all this time, have you finally reached out to me?” He winced as he said the words, knowing they sounded too close to an accusation. Yet she answered with an untroubled expression, without delay.

  “I need your help to destroy Sov, the Sun God. If we fail, this planet and all its people will die.”

  Swallowing in a dry throat, he asked, “Do you care so very much?” He could feel his entire body shaking with very fine tremors, as if some kind of energy was crawling around inside of him, climbing from the soles of his feet to the very top of his head. No... . he whispered to himself. No! he screamed inside his own mind. But it was true. It was true! His eyes were aching as they hadn’t ached in the centuries since Siri had left him behind, taking Oculis with her.

  Without reaching behind her, Siri sat down. Quietly. Neatly. As she had always done everything. With a minimal of movement. But her body language was screaming with fury and confusion. Serat knew he must tell her, but... but it would change everything.

  “Siri,” he said her name out loud, taking a knee in front of her, wanting to reach for her hand, but too afraid to. Oh why couldn’t he just say the words?

  With her eyes – those cold, white, empty eyes that used to belong to him – she looked at him. She could feel him looking at her, even though she could see nothing. She wanted to understand. To help. To make everything all right again. And he... he just wanted to run away. To tell her to leave this place behind, that they would find new people and a new planet, and they would be happy together again. When he opened his mouth, absolutely uncertain what he might even say, but knowing he must say something, she spoke instead.

  “I have a daughter, Serat. And a granddaughter.” That’s it. That’s all she said. She didn’t tell him their names, or the names of their fathers, nor anything at all about them. But then, she didn’t have to.

  “The device that lets you see into the future,” he finally said. “Is it made of crystal?”

  The look of concern that creased her features told him she was trying to anticipate what he was going to say, instead of just answering his question. When she was unable to, she finally replied with a nod of her head and a slow, quiet, “Yes.”

  “All those visions, Siri,” he paused again, feeling the tremors racing through his very blood increasing. “The ones that were driving me insane - that was here.” There! He’d said it. But now he couldn’t stop. It all came rushing out, as he felt a sob building within him. Oh! How he wanted to scream! “Here, this planet. This place. The past, the present, the future – it’s all in that crystal you looked into! And it was all in my head – all racing together. None of it made any sense. None of it!” he shouted, standing up, unable to stay in one place a single moment longer. He paced away from her, then paced back towards her, swinging his arms back and forth. He thought he might explode from the understanding.

  “And Oculis... ” she interjected, her own voice very, very small. He knew then that she understood.

  “He was there. He was always there. In the past, the present, and the future,” Serat told her. “Always.”

  “But what does this mean?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

  “It means,” he said, gaining control enough to walk back to her, to hold her in his arms again, “that I understand what I must do. I love you, Siri,” he told her, kissing her cheek, then stepping away from her. In the next moment, he was gone. Siri stood, facing the east, feeling the wind upon her face as the sun rose into the sky, knowing the breeze would never be able to dry her tears.

  Chapter Eight – Evolution

  Honsa looked at Ceirat to see if she was feeling the same things he was, but her eyes were still closed. She seemed to be breathing all right though, and wasn’t complaining that she was in pain. Good. Inhaling deeply, he allowed himself a moment to just appreciate the fact that he could see clearly – without all those strange things he’d seen earlier when he was viewing the world through Ceirat’s eyes – and that he no longer felt as if he was on the very edge of death. From listening closely, even when he couldn’t respond to anything going on around him, he knew that Jarles thought the first energy surge after they’d crossed the boundary to Nohoyo had been some kind of warning to them about not entering. But he knew better. The boundary itself was gone. Completely, as if it had never been there in the first place. Well, except for how deeply its effects reached into the earth where it had stood for centuries. Honsa had no doubt his own great-grandchildren would be able to feel the poison clearly – should he ever have any, and if they possessed his own gifts.

  Sov had done this. Sov and Lumas together, in order to keep everyone else out, so that everyone here would worship the Sun God without distraction nor hesitation. If he wasn’t working so hard to make sure he was feeling better, Honsa was sure he would have felt sick all over again, thinking about what had been done to the land – let alone the people who had lived in this wicked place for generations. It would take a very long time, and a tremendous amount of patience to heal the land, and to help the people live differently than they’d been taught to. He could feel the blood soaked into the ground of generation upon generation of men, women, and children, who had been slaughtered in sacrifice to the Sun God. He could feel it in his own blood – it called to him. He had been born of people who had escaped this evil place. But now he was here, and he was going to do something about it.

  Ordan’s chant had given him a key, and now he had but to find the lock in order to help to set things right again. No – not “again” – things had never been right here, in Nohoyo. Not ever. He would need a lot of help to even make a beginning, but if ever his mythical great-grandchildren visited her, or even lived here, they would see a much different place than he was seeing now. He made them a promise right here, and right now.

  The very first thing they needed to do was to make sure the crystal “seed” was broken so that Denit would even have a chance of replacing Sov, of becoming the Sun Goddess. Nothing else mattered as much as that one fact. The seed must be shattered so the Sun Child would rise again. He had felt the energy as it had enveloped him – it had been amazing! And so much stronger than he’d ever experienced before! He had felt the heartbeat of each individual it touched, and knew who had been touched – who had been invested with the knowledge of what must transpire if their world was going to survive. He knew, too, that Batal had healed Ordan and that Tyran had heard the same message he had. It was odd, but he had the strangest feeling she had already known about the crystal seed. He couldn’t feel her right now, but thought she may be recovering from their ordeal, much as Ceirat was now. He would have to wake her soon, though – it was past time for them to make their way into the city.

  The only question remaining at this moment – regarding something he could personally do anything about – was how the magic Batal had unleashed with her Tear had affected their friends who were Amphidea’s true children. They had all been born and bred in the sea, and had died over a
nd over again. And while the magical blast had healed Ordan, he wasn’t at all certain what it might have done to any of them. Or if Jarles, who was Amphidea’s heir, had been affected. He wished Ceirat would wake up so he could ask her what she felt.

  * * * * * * * *

  Feeling her face form automatically into a scowl when she looked at the line of gigantic golden shields lined against the far wall, she noticed none of them were hardly even dimmed nor tarnished after hundreds of years’ worth of use. Giya wanted nothing more than to scream loud enough, long enough, and hard to destroy them herself. To shatter them into dust so that they would never be able to be used for their hideous purpose ever again. She had been such a fool. Such a complete and utter tool – used by Sov and Lumas in the very worst ways possible; she had been the one responsible for the creation of the shields. It was a secret she had never shared with a single soul. Of course, it was quite possible the Ahadi – curse Lumas for having created them! – knew full well this all was entirely her fault!

  She had been the one to have suggested a means to focus the energy of worship and praise into a way in which Sov could experience his children in a more personal way. That had been her intention and her hope, that he would come to know them well enough to be loved and worshipped even as she had experienced. He had refused, time and time again, to make himself into human form to meet the men and women he’d created in order to feel the pulse of their energy directly. And she had been utterly enthralled with him – how could she not have been? It was never her choice, but it may as well have been, given that she had always felt she was in love with him. She had helped him to create humans in much the same way he and Lumas had created her.

  It had been his heat, his loving embrace, which had brought her to life. It was his warmth which had caused her to stretch her limbs for the first time, and to open her eyes looking for he who had awakened her. Lumas had blown her own breath into her body, but it had been Sov who had awakened her, whose touch had started her heart beating. She had wanted nothing more than to have been able to have embraced him in her human form. She had longed for his touch as no one had ever longed for anything in all the time of creation, and yet she had always been denied. And so she had proposed a way for her mate to have a more direct means of experiencing the love of the children he had helped to create by using the shields. Long ago, they had stood on a field of green, surrounded by trees so the words of devotion the people of Nohoyo spoke would be captured no matter where they were, and the shields would glow as they spoke, reflecting her intention to have everyone – Sov included – see how brightly his people loved him.

  But he had bastardized her gift into something entirely evil. The council of leaders eventually built a temple around the shields, and then built a taller and taller building on top of that, so that they might hide what they were doing. At least for a time. It hadn’t taken so very long for outright murder to be sanctified as being giving “glory” to Sov. She had been helpless to stop his horrific destruction of the people she loved, and so she had done all she could to negate what he’d done, which was precious little in the end. And still she had loved him.

  And now – now, when she was finally free to destroy the shields she had helped to create in order to murder millions of people – she still could do nothing. Nothing! Denit must return so the crystal could be shattered, or Sov would crash into the planet, killing everyone. While she still held out hope that Amphedia would be successful in killing her brother, or even in pushing him further away, she could not depend on that outcome. So here she was, as she had always been – helpless to stop the killing of her people. And the worst, the absolutely worst, part of all, was that the very best solution she had was in killing all the Fire Tenders, so that the shields could never be used again. But even that extreme undertaking could never guarantee that future generations of the offspring they had already produced wouldn’t manifest the same magical gifts at some point in the future. Some undoubtedly already possessed the ability to take a life by simply touching someone. Those who possessed this “gift” had purposefully been bred to create more children who would be able to do the same so that generation after generation would already be in place to continue veneration to Sov.

  She had loved Sov and she had loved her people, and yet she had betrayed them all. Not only that, but she was about to do it again. Filled with sadness, she shook her head. Sov and Lumas had created her, but had hobbled her, as if she was some glorious stallion who was unable to run. If Lumas had created her as a separate being, instead of tied to a mate she was forced to turn a blind eye to because she loved him, so must always protect him, she would have acted much sooner. She would have despised and loathed him, and would have taken steps to protect the humans in her care. Lumas had crippled her, and Sov had only ever truly loved Lumas. But it was the people for whom they had created this very world who had been paying a terrible price for centuries untold. No more, she told herself quietly. Resolutely. She would take this world for herself, breaking ties with both of them, and she would start by taking back the seas from Amphedia. The Storm Goddess was no longer of this world, so it would be an easy matter. Jarles was not ready, nor would he be likely to be willing to pay the price of assuming the mantle of Sea God. Once she had resumed control of all the waters of the world, she would make certain no one would be able to take them from her again.

  * * * * * * * *

  Ozahm practically squealed with delight as he watched Giya raise her hands towards the sky. She was going to destroy the shields! There was no way he could think of that would work without killing thousands of people when she did it. She may have created the shields, but Sov had long since worked his own magic to ensure that if his people didn’t obey him, they wouldn’t survive. Giya was going to do his work for him! The former Lord of Death was practically giddy with anticipation; he would be able to feel each life as it was extinguished. He would be intoxicated by the wave of death Giya was about to unleash!

  Jahari knew without looking at him that Rajesh would do nothing, would say nothing to alter Giya’s course. She had long ago given up on him as any kind of leader. If only... she sighed to herself and stopped that line of thought. There were too many times when she’d thought those same words, “If only,” and it had never mattered more than it did today. And Ozahm was practically applauding Giya. They all knew he hated her almost as much as he hated Lumas, and wanted to see her suffer as he’d once done. Almost she shook her head at Lumas’ thought she would be able to recreate him in her own image. She should have just killed him and have been done with it.

  Stepping forward, she opened her mouth to ask if Giya really understood what she was about to do, when she was surprised to hear Borja speaking from behind her.

  “Giya, if you take the seas from Amphedia, you may not be strong enough to save your people.”

  “The seas?” Jahari asked, startled. Borja had surprised her by speaking in the first place, but to suggest that Giya intended to take back the seas seemed absurd. How would that help her, or her people?

  “Yes, Jahari, the seas,” Borja replied quietly, walking towards Giya until she was standing in front of her. Then she gently raised her hands until her palms were facing Giya’s. Lacing her fingers with Giya’s, Borja said, “I was once a goddess myself. A goddess of the seas; very polluted, very dead seas. Until Lumas rescued me from that place where I was alone with nothing but algae and the rotting carcasses of sea creatures who had once been my friends. I know what you’re doing, Giya, and while I may not prevent you from doing it, I beg you not to.”

  “The seas were once mine, and they will be again.” Jahari heard Giya speak with a conviction tainted by a lifetime of anger, understanding her need to regain control of a world gone mad.

  “I cannot stop you,” Borja repeated, “because I have vowed to keep you safe, but I can and will prevent you from ever allowing another to rule the seas if you do this. If you must take them from Amphedia, give them to Jarles. You have spen
t a very, very long time creating him for exactly this purpose. Let him rule the seas as your friend – as Amphedia never was.” She paused, looking directly into Giya’s eyes, but understood her mistake too late. Her own eyes, filled with stars from the cosmos Giya would never experience, reminded her of Lumas and of everything she had lost.

  “So be it!” Giya shouted, ripping her hands from Borja’s to thrust them at the ground, calling the seas back to her.

  * * * * * * * *

  Thrashing wildly, Jarles was drowning. No! He couldn’t possibly be drowning. He was Amphidea’s heir and had not only survived under water through the whole of his life, but he had thrived. He had been able to feel life from one end of any body of water to the other. He had even commanded sea creatures to do his bidding. How could he be drowning?

  * * * * * * * *

  Ceirat struggled to wake up. She knew she was asleep and desperately wanted to be awake. Something was keeping her from opening her eyes and her body from moving, and she didn’t like it at all. She could still feel the magic Batal had sent through Ordan working through her, making her want to squirm. First she felt hot, then she felt cold, and as if she might be coming apart at the seams. Literally – almost as if her body was splitting or changing or being torn apart. It was the strangest sensation she’d ever felt in a life filled with what most people would call certainly call “strangeness.” Her mind was aware, but her body wasn’t responding. She could hear Honsa moving about quietly, as if trying not to wake her, and other sounds further away, but she couldn’t move at all.

  * * * * * * * *

  Shaking his head in disbelief, Savaar was confused, and even a little angry to see that of the 14 brothers and sisters he’d brought with him into Nohoyo, only eight remained. Or, rather, six living siblings and two who were nothing more than skeletons – and those bones were not human in shape. This one, he thought, looking down at the distorted pile of bones, must have been Shihoru, because he knew that when she was in the water, she had always been more seahorse than human, and this woman-sized skeleton was in a very obvious shape of a seahorse. His chest felt tight as he walked over to the other skeleton. Nobody was saying a word. They were all too afraid to even begin to voice their fears, the largest of which was that they would be next to be reduced to bones.