Chapter 25

25

A mis | Sacramento, CA | Early 2000s

It had seemed like an eternity since Sheng first fed on him. Amis was often left in a weakened euphoria, wings out while his blood traveled down the punctures where Sheng's teeth had sunk in. As far as Vrae went, Amis felt lucky and grateful at times that the eldest and leader of them was so refined. He was no monster, not in the true sense of the word. Amis often had the suspicion that he himself better fit that description.

Sheng did have the impossible job of keeping the younger, more bloodthirsty Vrae in control, and those assholes were certainly not pleasant to be around. He would often find himself waking up hanging upside down over the pentagram in the ceiling, inches away from the portal energy that transported a being into Myrilosis, the same as the one in the Waihema forest. His blood would drip from open wounds into cups, sometimes even into their smiling mouths. They thought they owned him if Sheng wasn't around, as if he hadn't committed his life to finding peace between their species.

Amis pushed through the half-open door to Sheng's office on the second floor, ready to bid him farewell before he took off for his journey back to Waihema. A green indoor houseplant with gigantic leaves stood in the corner in a pale pink ceramic pot, surprisingly the only decor in the space. The walls were lined with shelves of manilla envelopes and hard drives in a manic, nonsensical order.

"I don't understand how you can actually get any work done in all this chaos," Amis chuckled. Sheng stiffened, acknowledging his presence without looking up from his computer.

Amis had been away from Waihema for too long—the village was overdue for a cull. The Vrae had gotten restless with Hadley's presence, the Kinnariblood running through her veins was off limits to them—a concept they were unfamiliar with. They didn't much like that. Amis was being fed on twice as much as usual because of tension. It was time to prepare the village for an attack to satiate the bloodlust. Thank gods they didn't all live in the same building together, though Amis supposed that they were all there so much that it likely wouldn't have changed the dynamic if they did.

Amis thought about the day that the Vrae first attacked them as children, staring at Sheng's back, his white dress shirt finely pressed, not a wrinkle to be found. He had been trembling and all but hiding in a corner of the temple as the oily, shiny skin of a Vrae in its true form stared at him with its gleaming red eyes before turning away to feast on Tristan. The boy, his brown curls steeped in his own blood, convulsed on the floor while three other Vrae continued to tear into his flesh.

Amis could never forget those sounds of pulling and chewing, the sounds of Tristan's screams as he was eaten alive. What was left of his body was bone, bits of skin, but yet he returned to them somehow, alive, choosing to live through dreams and not in the physical realm. So many years had passed without knowing, without suspecting that the trajectory of his existence had been manipulated by someone's secret survival. The attack had not resulted in a true death.

If Amis knew they did not really die, he may have made different choices. But after that attack, he left the temple in fear. He had been a coward. He flew until the ocean was underneath his feet and then descended once he hit land once more. His feet touched down where he sensed one of the four portals, undiscovered until then, which eventually laid the foundation for his village, for his Waihema.

It had been thousands of years since they last spoke of it, since Sheng had sighed and finally trusted Amis enough to tell him his story. Amis remembered as they stood on the outskirts of the Waihema forest, modern human civilization thriving only forty or fifty kilometers from where their little village had grown undetected. He had been watching Sheng, the Vrae who spared him, who had chosen not to attack him. He watched as he bonded with villagers, only participating in the slaughters enough for his survival, and learned to shift into a human form.

"When I was created, there was only hunger," Sheng's words still played in Amis's mind. "A lust for a special blood that pooled out of a body, out of wings, a dark blue. My creator, my mother, Ayurveda, held me in the palm of her hand and watched as I learned what I could do in my Vrae form. I was deadly, pure darkness, as she was pure light."

He still is deadly, Amis often reminded himself.

"Together we were going to rule both the Earth realm and Myrilosis. We had to eliminate the Kinnari first and in tandem, find a way to give Ayurveda more energy than even her creator possessed," Sheng said.

The Life Gifter .

"It wasn't long after that I was no longer alone," Sheng continued. "Other Vrae were created to aid in our goals. I was in charge of their care and education. We all were eventually released at your temple entrance. I still remember the groan of the stone door as we entered. The surge of energy when I bit into that Kinnari boy was unlike anything I had ever felt. It was my first taste. I was high and didn't ever want to feel anything else again. Then I saw your eyes, the terror as I approached to attack. My head ached from the conflict, not ever had experienced morals before."

It was my magic , Amis thought to himself, still not fully ready to describe exactly what he could do to the original Vrae as he looked out to the shore.

Amis had to bring balance back to the room, to the temple during that attack. There was too much fear, too much anguish. That's why Sheng couldn't attack him, that's why Djoser came into his power that night. Tristan had been taken from him just moments before. Death had to claim Vrae to stay harmonious. The Kinnari were made to foster life. A Kinnari death, even for just a moment, would result in a cosmic chaos that would force his magic to implode with no sense of control over a solution.

Amis sometimes wondered what Djoser's magic might have been if he hadn't intervened, or if it would have fostered any ability at all. He was thankful that none of the Kinnari understood his own power, that the gift of death had unintentionally come directly from him.

"Ayurveda didn't seem to notice when I sought you out after that," Sheng had continued, "When we found a portal that placed me in this forest. I confessed the Vrae's need for your blood. You then asked for a few decades to farm a solution, to keep your original Kinnari family protected from us.

"I didn't expect to fall in love with those beings, too, the part Kinnari creatures bred from humans. I wanted to protect them and instead, all I've seen year after year is a replay of a doll covered in blood hitting the dirt. A child that I laughed with, taught me to skip stones, dead. Her name, Emere, only remembered by me."

Amis remembered that child. She had been a part of the fourteenth generation of villagers. He remembered the garbled demon shriek that came from Sheng as he watched his own kind devour her.

Sheng paused, picking up a stone with solemn eyes as if he still grieved her. "Eventually, Ayurveda realized that we were not hunting Kinnari as we were created to. She noticed that we were not looking for a way for her to harness more power, to rival the Life Gifter. She still confided her plans, not realizing that I was the reason for needing them. She blamed only the others, and she often killed them as punishment, creating new Vrae in their place.

She was to wait for an organic birth of power that itself rivaled the Gifter. Karmakara showed her the possibility, or was forced to. She would harness that power before she realized what it was, turn it into her own personal weapon to move forward with that plan. She alluded that I had a large hand in fostering that power. I knew then my expectations were to breed, to wait patiently for the right womb. I knew that I could keep the other Vrae in check until that person came along. "

Amis hovered in the corner of the office as Sheng worked at his desk, looking at the yellow color forming on the edges of the gigantic leafed plant. Sheng was going through stacks and stacks of documents before preparing to leave for his business trip. He had to keep up appearances since he had built a shipping empire, among a few other businesses, with his immortality.

"Are you sure? Are you sure that having a child with this Kinnari will create the weapon that Ayurveda has been waiting for?" Amis asked.

Sheng looked up at that and turned his head towards Amis, his eyes curious about where this conversation was going. He nodded, his eyebrows raised.

"I am certain," Sheng said. "Knowing that ahead of time will give us a better opportunity to hide that child, raise it far away from the goddess that will annihilate all life simply so that she may conquer it, so that she is adored, worshiped and feared. Hadley's happiness is an unfortunately necessary sacrifice for the fate of both realms."

Hadley's voice in the distance made Sheng shoot up out of his chair in concern.

"You may go. You're leaving to tend to Waihema?" Sheng asked, not waiting for Amis to confirm. Amis heard Hadley's faint sobs again and rolled his eyes.

Does she ever stop crying? Amis thought.

"She is struggling." Sheng stood from his chair. "I must go tend to her. If she doesn't survive or mentally breaks beyond healing, then all this was for nothing."

"A monster trying to save us all," Amis chuckled. "Who would have known that our Kinnari slaughter farm would lead here?"

"I've always only looked for the best life path. I may be like a spider, hated by all, but biologically essential. I expect an update on the village when you've returned," Sheng instructed before running out of the room to aid and comfort the being that was supposed to one day give birth to their savior.

The dawn was breaking over the horizon now, purple and orange painting the sky as sun rays illuminated Waihema before him. The girl, Hadley, was special, he hated to admit. Her wings were something he had never seen before, like those of a glass-winged butterfly.

Amis shuddered, dew on long grass touching his ankles as he trampled down the pathway further into the village. He was feared here, in control, which was the opposite of how he usually felt. Fear, flight, and nightmares clouded his mind from being constantly surrounded by his natural predator, the two working hand in hand.

A small child ran out from a hut onto the pathway ahead with the determination to collect loose stones and rocks. An older sibling ran out to follow, laughing and bursting with new energy from their slumbers. The older child, a boy around six or seven years old, stopped mid-motion, noticing Amis. His eyes were wide, and he turned back to the hut to yell for help, for protection.

As the boy turned, his bare skin revealed the Kinnari mark on his shoulder blades. A true half-blood who would be raised to believe he would protect the village from the monsters who lived in the forest. Raised to believe that he had any sort of chance for a life after his wings sprouted.

Amis himself couldn't defend this village against the Vrae, should they choose to come through their portal. All he could do was keep them fed so they wouldn't come after true Kinnari, so they wouldn't unleash themselves into human society, slaughtering anything with warm blood.

The children's mother popped her head out, hearing her child call to her. Her eyes were sleepy, her hair disheveled, and she was obviously not ready to get up for the day. She saw Amis, and her expression changed to that of someone who had just been splashed in the face with cold water.

The mother urged her children back inside and closed the covering over the door, hiding from him. It was so sweet and innocent. His heart ached for the brutality to come for their small family.

A figure appeared far down on the path ahead of him. She moved slowly and hunched her back with every shuffled step. Amis began walking toward her to speed the process along.

"Remind me"—he smiled towards her—"that it's time to start training your replacement, Mother Waihema, as you look quite old."

The old woman smiled. It was filled with mischief and fire. She had been working with him for most of her life.

"There are not many old women to replace me, friend," she teased. Amis saw her as he had first met her, in the ceremonial hut while she undressed to do her village duty and provide children. Amis looked her up and down and watched her tremble. They were all always scared of him, but he did his best to be quick, touching them as little as possible. He got little joy from it, less and less as the years passed. He had never been with a woman in any other way though. He thought of Roksana, her magic driving him mad whenever they were together, to get the climax out of the way.

"I imagine you are here to impregnate more villagers? I will gather anyone eligible," Mother Waihema informed him, touching her hand to his arm. "If you still feel the need, we can also cull the new infants."

The old mother shot him a look, one that glinted with hope. Amis knew that look only too well these days.

"Do you still feel that we must cull?" she asked, watching his face for any sort of reaction.

Amis could have told her the truth. He did trust her.

He could have told her that if they allowed any infants to grow and breed that didn't have even the smallest hint of Kinnari blood, then this farm would grow useless. The Vrae would stray and look elsewhere to satisfy themselves.

He could have told her that the monsters that appeared in the woods and devoured their winged creatures the moment they sprouted and claimed themselves as Waihema protectors would hunt him down out of desperation and hunger.

He could have told her that he was working with his enemy to satisfy their lust for blue blood—that he feared what would happen to the entire world if that was disrupted. He never said any of that, and he never would.

"It's so hard to cull, I know. The screams of the mothers haunt me daily. There are simply not enough resources to keep so many children fed. We must give priority to any who inherit magic blood."

Mother Waihmena nodded, her eyes disappointed.

"There are six women in the ceremonial hut waiting for you on their backs," she said and turned to lead the way.