Chapter 6

6

A llienna | Kinnari Temple | 47 B.C

With a promise of death, Allienna didn't know whether to feel relief or despair. She massaged her fingers into the large communal table before her, the wood porous under her skin, ignoring the conversation that continued before her. The fire cackling behind her roared, and she did her best to focus on its rhythm so that the powerful beings before her did not see her fall apart. She wasn't allowed to fall apart. It was her duty to be strong and accept the pain of others. If she believed in destiny, that would be hers.

"If we go to war, if there is to be a fight, we should get Amis involved," Djoser said to the room. The familiarity of that name snapped Allienna back into attention as she peered at the space between Reign and Djoser, where a seventh body long ago sat.

"No," she whispered under her breath as the rest of the table nodded or voiced their agreement.

"No," she spoke up again, audibly this time. Silence fell as five sets of eyes curiously gazed upon her. Allienna was not usually a voice, not generally one to speak up. She was subservient, but today, she was making decisions.

"This is for both you and Reign. This is for your survival. This is for my survival. I couldn't make it . . . '' Arryn said, his eyes hinting at his confusion and sorrow. "If we ask Amis for his help or council, then he will participate. He is still one of us."

Arryn walked behind Allienna and placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezing slightly. Though it was meant as an act of comfort, Allienna felt only a small, kindling fire course through her body. Arryn had been using his creation all night with the food, the drinks, the fire, and the roaring snowstorm currently outside, so this, she knew, was his most relaxed state.

He let go of her, likely sensing a feeling of euphoria and realizing his burden on her. He got down on his knees, kissing the inside of her light brown wings for a moment, and placed his hands on her thigh, eyes pleading.

"Arryn, I'm sorry," she explained, "but asking Amis to send his children, his family, to war for the two of us is wrong. They will get slaughtered. They are barely more than humans."

"They will get slaughtered anyway," Reign interrupted. "if the Vrae walk the earth. Now, who do we imagine doing that, going through the realms, opening a portal between them? Only the Gifter and the goddesses that surround him."

Allienna held her hands up to her cheeks, struggling to concentrate. If she were to die, and that was unchangeable, every moment she sat there was nothing more than a waste of her breath. This meeting needed to end.

"I am adamantly against using the Waihema village in any conflict between the Gifter or the Vrae. I say we put it to a vote." She stood, her hands still digging into the wooden table.

"All those in favor of consulting Amis, please raise a hand," Arryn requested formally.

Reign, Precession, Roksana, and Djoser all voted in agreement, their hands in the air .

"Very well then, it's settled," said Arryn. "We fly to Waihema at once. Djoser, you will lead us."

Djoser nodded in agreement since he, like Amis, also left and started a civilization. He related the most to the living creature missing from the table.

"No, not yet," Reign said softly enough to cause eyebrows to raise. "We will wait until I am called upon. We will wait until I am sentenced and Djoser has been given the order. Our actions must come from defiance, not anticipation."

Reign stood up like a cat stretching, her wings flexing out to their full length, stretching behind Allienna.

"Go home, wait for a signal. When it's time, you will gather supporters from Waihema to show our strength. They can't kill us all without this planet's inhabitants suffering mass extinction. They will keep Precession safe at the least."

Precession smiled sweetly and stood up with a wobble.

"Daughters of the moon," she mused, and Roksana jumped up in anticipation of giving aid to her twin.

The rest of the table followed as they stood up and walked out towards their exit and back out to the Earth realm.

Only Arryn and Allienna remained. Arryn instinctually moved to her, ready to beg for permission to save her life. She had been kept in a bubble, Arryn's bubble, for her entire existence. He would never let her go, always needing that skin contact from her, that relief that they both told themselves was love. She had always been okay with it; she accepted it as her duty. This was how she served her creator. She would have none of that now.

Allienna twirled her fingers in Arryn's blonde hair, reaching up on her tiptoes even as he lowered his body down towards her. The two stood at the end of the table, and Allienna's world was filled with nothing more or less than anguish. The sadness that erupted inside her, fueled by the spiking fire pulsing from his touch, made her want to cry.

She didn't. She never let it show.

She kept the hurt and emotions that she pulled from Arryn as hidden as possible, not wanting to cause him more emotional turmoil. He felt too passionately at times.

"You can't leave me here alone," he said to her, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes without shame. "All of the love that flows from this world is nothing in comparison to how I feel about you."

"We were sculpted, made for each other," she replied to feed his emotional appetite. She still played with his hair, now curling it in her fingers before pulling her right hand down to caress the back of his neck. The instant skin-to-skin contact almost blew her back as she absorbed more of him. His eyes lightened, and his shoulders relaxed. His love was real, yes, but it was closer to a drug, an addiction to her gifts and how they relieved him.

She arched her face up to his, letting his lips bounce off hers. She fell limp, unable to move. Her skin drank in his until the pain of Arryn's gifts was too overwhelming for her body to handle. She was near a blackout, the edges of her vision fading.

This time, she let the darkness come on willingly. She had something to accomplish and needed a reason for him to give her space. Arryn was nothing but self-deprecating, a martyr, he would leave her be if his body didn't demand her.

The next time Allienna opened her eyes, she was alone in the temple, as she had hoped. Her body was sore from the overload of power and fire that she let Arryn push into her. She had been placed on their regal, plush four-poster bed with opulent blue sheets. Petals from white lilies had been placed around her as if she were Arryn's personal shrine. Small plates of food, crackers, jams, and cakes were set on the antique side table.

When he overindulged her, feeding her gift until she physically couldn't handle it, Arryn repented hard. She imagined him sitting outside in the snow, putting his panic and his regret into a storm of his creation.

It was time to get what she wanted. For the first time, she would push the boundaries that she lived inside. She would grow a child. She had a plan.

Allienna sat up and swung her feet off of the bed with haste, not knowing how much time she had before Arryn came back to check on her. Her barefoot steps traveled to the opposite side of the temple, to the hall that was the furthest point from the exit into the Earth realm. She walked down the pitch-black hall until she reached the large, heavy stone door. The entrance into Mrilyosis .

Allienna gripped the handle so hard that the joints in her fingers protested and tightened. She threw her body weight to the right and pulled on the latch so that she could pass through the door, a portal into the realm of their childhood.

The latch gave way and pushed the door wide open. Allienna stared out to see a carbon copy of the world she had just left, of Earth. Snow violently blew in the wind as she stepped out onto the peak of a mountain, her boots crunching in an otherwise untouched land.

Allienna didn't know how to do this, how to summon the goddess she was looking for. She was ready to beg, and hopefully, that would be enough.

She stretched out her wings, letting the wind drift her into the sky until she began floating down the mountain peak like a leaf carried in a breeze.

"Ayurveda," she whispered, letting the name stain her lips. She thought hard, trying to land on a strategy to bring the sun before her. She began rhythmically chanting the name, building in volume until the demand in her voice became both a song and a question.

This was so foolish of her. Reign, Arryn, and all the rest of them would never forgive her for trying to make a deal with something, someone so . . . volatile.

The air began to warm with hostility all too quickly. There was no sun emerging from the sky above her, no additional source of brightness in her vision. Instead, there was only the smell of sulfur and heaviness in the air that made Allienna struggle to take breaths.

The world before her turned dark while sand and black ash choked her. She fell fifteen feet from the air in a panic, mercilessly caught by the soft snow. Feeling relief from the singe on her skin from the fall, Allienna buried her face into the snow underneath her. She pulled up, the snow melting into puddles, and gasped for breath, not finding any oxygen. She was drowning, yet her immortality prevented the relief of death.

Allienna tried to call out for help, but with no air in her lungs, she had no other option than to lie there in the puddled melted snow while her skin cooked from the heat in the air. She was in an oven.

It was impossible to know how much time had passed. She could have stayed like that for seconds or days, but the ash became less violent, and the air no longer felt like it was pushing down on her.

Allienna took a breath, coughing and purging the ash from her throat and mouth. She pushed herself up to her arms and knees while convulsing and vomiting. Then, she opened her burning eyes to see the skin on her hands and arms melted, hanging off her muscles and bone.

She screamed.

"You called for me?"

A threatening voice cut through the thinning ash in the sky. Allienna looked up to see a bright blue light in the distance.

"I need to make a deal. I need a goddess. I need you, Ayurveda," she pleaded, standing up while her wounds pathetically attempted to heal faster than even her own Kinnari magic would allow.

The ash had stopped, like a sprinkle of rain passing through a valley, revealing the beauty and destruction of the volcanic eruption that now suddenly stood before her. In the form of mortal flesh hovered the nude figure of female divinity. Her body was thick with muscle, emitting power and lust. Her hair was long but partially translucent, radiating the light blue of the hottest of fires.

"Ayurveda," Allienna mouthed, unsure if she felt relief or fear.

She stood before the literal sun, the power that harnessed and helped mold this galaxy. Compared to their creators, the Kinnari were just toys, pets, and children.

"I've been looking for you," Allienna continued. "I . . . I was told of my inevitable immortal death."

Ayurveda presented a face that looked familiar to her, one with the proper lines and curves for lips, eyes, and nose. It was lovely but otherwise statuesque .

"An immortal death does not occur so often in the realm you foster. However, I suspect that this is not the reason why you've searched for me. I do not get called by your kind, nor worshiped. Though your human creations do love me."

"I want a child," she blurted out.

Ayurveda floated down, her feet touching the earth as it turned black and ashy.

"You have tried to conceive. You were created to foster life on Earth but not create it. Your body was not designed to carry a biological child," she said. Her voice rippled through the land, and flashes of power beamed out of her chest.

"Please, change me. Give me this before my death," Allienna pleaded, tears welling in her eyes.

"This will set things in motion that were never meant to be," Ayurveda said.

"If it isn't meant to be, then why does every atom in my body tell me that this is what I want? This is the true reason I am here, attached to Arryn in every way. I was meant to serve him so he could create life. Then I am here, to nurture it, to let that child grow with no pain, only happiness."

Ayurveda considered Allienna's words, the moment of silence feeling long and deflating.

"If you proceed, then I must consider that I am changing another god's creation. I am editing their purpose for you. This could mean an internal fight."

"A fight will be imminent either way." Allienna instantly regretted her choice of words. She knelt, putting her face in her hands. The skin there was now healed and renewed.

"You are willing to pay a price?" Ayurveda asked, stepping up to Allienna, radiating heat like molten lava.

"Yes, to anything you ask." She looked up at the Sun, begging.

Ayurveda put her hand on Allienna's chin, pulling her up to her feet while giving her second-degree burns. Allienna forced herself to not react, not unfamiliar with the sensation.

Moving her hands to Allienna's lower stomach, Ayurveda whispered an unfamiliar language as a glow of light emanated from her hands. She continued to whisper as the dress and the jacket melted away underneath her touch, followed again by more skin, more Kinnari blood speckling the ground.

Allienna let out a gasp, unable to contain the pain any longer.

"Keep still," Ayurveda commanded, continuing the incantation while burning through Allienna's womb. More tears flowed down Allienna's cheeks. She was terrified to stay, yet also terrified to leave.

Another thirty seconds passed before Ayurveda finished and removed her hands from Allienna's blood-soaked, burned body.

"It is done," she announced. "You will bleed for the first time as a mortal human woman one time. Ten days after the bleeding stops, you must procreate to create the child that your body will then grow."

"When, when will I bleed?" Allienna demanded. "What have I sacrificed for this?"

Ayurveda did not look at Allienna, floating now off the ground, ready to leave this realm that connected the gods and their magic to the portal of Earth.

"It is unknown. It could be today, it could be in a millennium. That I cannot control; it will be your divine biology."

"What if I die before then? What if I never get the chance?" Allienna asked in disbelief.

"When the child grows and circles the earth sixteen times, you will have to choose to gift your immortality or watch the child die. This is the price you pay to keep the magic in this world in balance. I believe one of your kind would initiate that process."

Allienna couldn't believe her ears. This price was nothing more than a beautiful gift. She would die, but it would be her choice and at Amis's gentle hands. She would get to raise and love a child.

She laughed out loud, victorious.

"What about yourself?" Allienna stammered, unable to keep the relief out of her voice. "What price did I pay you?"

"You might see this deal as one-sided, but you have just given me everything to form a path to get what I, too, look to achieve." Ayurveda' s stoic face broke into a smile that was anything but comforting. Allienna's eyes widened as she decided that it would be better to leave the matter alone. She did not want to know, and she could be long gone before it mattered, anyway.

Without another word, Ayurveda raised her body into the sky until she was no larger than a speck, and with a slight shake of the entire realm, the sun appeared back in the sky.

Allienna gasped, now alone and victorious. She turned around, facing the mountain's peak towering before her, and ignoring her wings, started working her way through the extreme incline to the temple entrance by putting one foot in front of the other.

Once through the other side of the portal and surrounded again by the temperature of a cozy fire, she let herself flop onto the bed. A rush of glory rose within her as she shimmied and swayed her hips with her shoulders. She had served her entire life, never asking for anything. Trapped in a relationship, never knowing what else could be out there for her, never swaying, would all be rewarded. She would cultivate and grow the truest love, a love for her child. She might never again feel alone in a room that pushed expectations down her throat.

"Allienna?" Arryn's voice sounded out of nowhere, and Allienna whipped around to see the concern in his eyes as he looked at the burns in her dress, exposing her stomach and other patches of skin.

"Why were you in Mrilyosis?" he asked.

"I was looking for you." Her heart beat faster from the lie. "I woke up, and you were gone. I thought maybe you had decided to go and stretch your wings, clear your head."

Arryn nodded, already dismissing the garment that hung off of her. Allienna stepped up to him, putting her hands up to caress his face, and placed her lips again on his, feeling the familiar burn mixed with crippling anxiety.

Arryn growled, "Not again. You can't faint twice in a single day. You have been pulling too much from me."

She kissed him again to keep his mind from wandering back, from asking more questions. "Take me to bed. "

Arryn did what he was told and scooped her up, before laying her down gently on the bed while entangled in between her legs. She wanted to writhe in agony, as was normal for this much contact. She swallowed her pain and gasped and moaned, filling her role as the love of his life.