Chapter 107

SEVEN THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

I , God, held the body of a dead child and wept as the sky burned.

Ash and death. All had become ash and death.

I had formed an avatar capable of touch, and it clutched a limp corpse. I closed my eyes, but as I was divine, I could still see the dead littering the ground around me. Thousands and more dying as the air clogged with smoke.

The first planet burned.

Rayse appeared before me, tall as a mountain, hands clasped behind his back. “That did not … go as planned,” the deceitful one said, surveying cities full of the burned, armies that were now nothing more than charred bones. “Perhaps we went too far.”

I, God, roared in agony, my head tipped back.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Tanner,” Rayse said. “There are always more people.” He tapped his foot against a charred body. “Too far though. This was too far …” He vanished from my sight.

The kingdom I raised up had fought valiantly, resisting Rayse’s empire, and the power inside me was pleased . My followers on Alaswha had died with honor. To the power, honor in death was the same as honor in life. That was all it cared about, which terrified me.

I … I could feel all of these deaths directly, particularly of the people who had come to follow me. Their souls fled to the Beyond, escaping this planet, renamed Ashyn for the smoke and destruction that was now its only biome.

I wept for them. For their hopes cut short. For their loves set ablaze. For their dreams …

A voice. Nale was searching among the dead. He could not see me, but he screamed when he found the body of his sister, and held her.

A man approached, badly burned, followed by a small force of soldiers. They did not attack Nale, though at their head was a man I recognized. Leader of one of the city-states that had joined the empire, adopted its ways. They called him Jezrien. He found Nale’s uncle sitting apart from the bodies, exhausted and burned. His stare looked as if it saw too far, into the realm of gods, or into the shadows of nothingness. Empty.

Jezrien held out his hands to gesture for peace.

Nale’s uncle, Makibak, didn’t rise to confront his enemy. He bowed his head and spoke softly. “You come to finish us off?”

“No, Makibak, I come to offer the hand of friendship,” Jezrien said. “We’re gathering those who have survived, and we’re taking them to safety.”

“I hope,” Makibak said, “that you lead them off a cliff, you bastard.”

Jezrien knelt. “Zoral, he who was named the Voidbringer, is dead,” he said. “I am king now, and I will be a better leader. Ishar can take us to a new world. He’s found the songs. Bring your people.”

“I have no people,” Makibak said, watching his nephew cry over a corpse. “I lead only ghosts.”

“ He is alive,” Jezrien said, pointing. “ You are alive. Others live. Bring them. The firestorm is returning, and the very stones are melting in rivers of lava. With luck, we can make a portal and flee. Join us.”

“Just like Zoral said all those years ago,” Makibak whispered, ash blowing past him in the breeze. “‘Join us’ …”

“This will be different.”

“Can you promise that?”

Jezrien stepped back. “If I wasn’t willing, would I be here?”

Those words. They cut through some of my pain.

Loss was inevitable. It was part of mortal life. I had to help the living. I saw a king trying to make amends with his enemy. They stood upon a mountain of corpses, but maybe …

Maybe something could be salvaged.

I traveled home, to Kor’s embrace, and wept in her arms until the portal opened. They were here. Rayse, of course, had come with them.