Balance Of The Worlds (12 page)

The air in Levia had changed. Gone was the sweetness of flowing water, of flowering plants, and luscious fruits. In its place was a type of staleness Nelciana was not used to.

The barriers between so many of the worlds had been dissolved that some of the characteristics were starting to blend together already. Only a few of the layers remained unaltered—most of the outer, Gaia, and Evalanedea. And the Three Hells. The rest of the worlds had enough of what others were calling the
blending
to have noticeable, and terrifying changes.

She understood why the fear remained. The panic. No one knew what was coming.

Phaenna was hurt. Whatever she had learned when the Fates had pulled her through the barriers to wherever they were had her visibly trembling. She fell to the ground and lost the contents of her stomach.

Nelciana rushed to her side, as best she was able. Loren was already pulling Kennera to her own feet.

They were all shaken.

Everyone around them was.

What had they just done?

***

Lothonos found Nelciana near the center of Av, next to her sister and the girl goddess. Nelciana was trying to assist the Laquazzeana Phaenna, but the other woman was so distraught she was not cooperating.

Jushua scooped the woman into his arms. “Shelter,
now.
All of you.”

“Hang on. I think this will work.” Loren chanted something, and a barrier of some sort formed around them. “Damnit, not what I wanted. Hang on again.”

She said something else and within a blink they were back in the center of
his
study.

Nelciana’s sister was an extremely powerful creature, wasn’t she?

Even he could not move eight people through space like that. Himself, yes. Maybe carrying one other person. But not eight.

Acylias was out of the form of the bird, looking confused and a bit pissed.

Not his cousin’s normal appearance. Well, the pissed part was pretty normal.

“Sorry. I worked the spell to include anyone of close familial connection to Lothonos’ and Eiophon’s children. I figured that would catch quite a few in the circle.” Nelciana’s sister apologized to Acylias. “I am not sure…”

Acylias fashioned some clothes to hide his nakedness quickly. “Eiophon is my brother.”

“That explains it then.” Loren was already turning toward Phaenna. The darker skinned female had at last stopped wailing. But it was obvious something had terrified her. “Phaenna, can you talk yet?”

“The Fates…we have angered them by our interference,” she whispered.

“Our interference? It was more like the Dark Sorcerer’s,” Eiophon said. “That’s a bunch of shit, and they know it.”

“They raised me.” Phaenna said it with such hurt Lothonos felt a rare rush of sympathy for her. “And now they have told me that I am unwelcome in their world. That my actions have led to too much chaos
for them.
That had we allowed the barriers to remain frozen forever, they would have
approved.
That because of what we did, the war’s path has been altered forever.”

“In a good way, or bad?” Loren asked.

“They refused to say. And then…they cast me out. For eternity. I am no longer allowed in the land of the Fates, for as long as
they
remain alive. I have no family. I have been
cast out.”

She collapsed, weeping again. Gone was the irrepressible creature of such odd humor. In her place was a shell of a woman.

“Of course you do.” Nelciana was on the floor next to Phaenna, her compassion so clear to him.

Lothonos felt completely useless.

He looked at the three other males in the room. “Come. We must check our Kinds. See what we need to do next. Acylias—can you located Erasomophus and any of the others?”

“Meet in my home as soon as we are all able.” Eiophon was helping a pale and filthy Kennera to a chair.

Lothonos thought for a moment. Many of his safeguards were based on similar power structures to the barriers that had always protected Levia. He wasn’t certain they would hold in a world where the barriers no longer existed. But Eiophon and Kennera’s castle had held for three thousand years. He’d helped design the containment himself—something that had taken Eiophon a few centuries to forgive—and it was far different than the barriers. “I will be relocating my family and my household there, as well. I cannot be certain my strongholds here were not affected by the change.”

And while in his cousin’s castle Lothonos would do the one thing he absolutely must.

He’d make it known to the goddess of family just exactly how it was that he felt. He had thought they would have more
time
before the Dark Sorcerer turned his attention to Levia. But he had been so grossly wrong about that.

He had planned to prepare for the inevitable attack, and
then
focus on Nelciana. Once he knew that she was safe.

But that had been a wrong assumption, hadn’t it? He hadn’t expected to almost lose her before the war in his world had truly begun. That wasn’t a risk he was going to face again.

She carried her daughter against her chest as they made the walk from his home to the castle, hours after the barriers had first come down.

Chaos reigned throughout his house, and the land. They had ordered the priests and priestesses and all the others who had answered her earlier call to travel throughout Levia, to all of the lands and all of the Kinds, delivering edicts that Lothonos and Eiophon had issued.

The other cities were to send delegates to Av as quickly as possible.

Delegates, and warriors to protect the main city. The place where the deities gathered and lived.

And she knew the Kinds would answer such a call, even though it meant many would fall.

“We will stay with Eiophon and Kennera for the duration of the war, I believe. Their home has been fortified well for over three thousand years. I saw to that myself.” He walked at her side, Dres bundled against him. Lothonos did not seem uncomfortable holding their son, but he did not seem affectionate either. But maybe that was just his way?

When she had stepped outside of the manor he had been waiting. He had taken their son from Brynnja without a word. As if it was his right, and his duty.

Which is was, wasn’t it?

Dres would grow up to be his father’s heir, just as Nella would grow up to be hers. They would one day train with her and with Lothonos if he was willing—just as she had trained at her own mother’s side.

She looked at the little babe in her arms and felt a rush of sheer love go right through her.

Lothonos was the god of logic—if he said the castle was the safest place for the babes now, then she’d damn well fly them there if she had to. “Is it safe for us to walk today? Can you not just take us there?”

“You know I cannot do that.”

“Then take
them
first, Lotho. I do not like them out here like this, exposed. Anything can happen.”

The castle of the deities was located on the second smallest body of land in Levia. There were five, plus a large chain of islands that connected four of the five.

The castle city of Av was on the last one, and contained most of the homes of the deities.

It was isolated from the others by a bit of distance, and by the fact that most of the stores of power and energy were contained on that island. It had had to be the place where Eiophon and Kennera were incarcerated for so long.

The deities, with the exception of herself, had ensured the palace was to be as safe and secure as it could have been. Kennera and Eiophon had been exceedingly vulnerable there for so long. If someone had chosen to attack, the other deities had not wanted them to be easy targets.

It stood to reason that they would be safe there.

Plus, Eiophon’s Lupoiux wolves guarded the place well, now.

“Take them.”

“As you wish.” He looked at a large male beside him. Acylias nodded.

He was very much a mystery. Why was he with Lothonos today? Acylias rarely came down from the skies, or wherever it was that the bird shifter lived.

“Guard her well, Aki. And watch her closely—she will often defy logic.”

“They all do, cousin. But go, see your babes settled. In the five minutes you are gone, I will protect your female.” There was definite humor in the male’s tones.

“I am not his female.”

“Lady, the kid in your arms says the opposite. You were at least his for a few minutes, weren’t you?”

Lothonos stepped closer and took Nella in his free arm. “I will return for you shortly, Nelciana.”

She watched him disappear within barely a breath’s time. She did not breathe again until he returned.

Lothonos wrapped strong arms around her, and she closed her eyes. Clung. When she opened them again, she was in the center hall of Kennera’s home.

***

Kennera met her in the nursery when Lothonos flashed her to the twins’ sides. Her friend, the woman who was once almost her sister, hugged her. “I was
so worried. No one knows what is going to happen next. Phaenna and Loren and Jushua returned to Relaklonos to see what was happening there. They returned a few moments ago.”

“They are here?” It had hurt to part from her sister last. She had been so convinced they would never see each other again.

“In the room Eiophon is calling the war room.” The fear Nelciana felt was reflected in Kennera’s gold eyes. “They are making preparations for it to happen again, Nelci. I don’t know if I can do it again. Not with my family in the way this time.”

Five thousand years had passed since they’d last faced the Dark Sorcerer but the pain he had caused lived fresh in Nelciana’s heart. How could it not? She had just as much to lose today as she had back then. Perhaps more now, because she’d known the pain before. “He will not touch them. Not while there is a breath left in my body.”

“Nor mine. This I vow to you.”

Nelciana took Kennera’s hand in hers. “We will not lose to him again.”

***

Her rooms at the castle were beautiful and ones she had stayed in many nights before. Kennera had had them specially designed for her shortly after the enchantment was placed upon her and Eiophon.

Nelciana had divided her time between the Gaian world where the remainder of her people had relocated and the Levian forest where an even smaller fraction of Nellanas had remained. But when given the opportunity she had spent time with Kennera. They were as close as sisters, and always would be.

Her babes slept in the nursery with Kennera’s. The thought of the four little ones gave her such hope for the future.

And determination for the present.

Nothing would harm them.

She needed to find those who could help her ensure that.

They needed numbers, data and strategies. She could not lead her people if she was kept in the dark. And for that kind of information, she needed Lothonos.

She was as familiar with Kennera’s castle as she was her own home, though the building had once been divided evenly into two sections. Kennera and Eiophon had merged what had once been their prisons into a beautiful place for all who lived there. On the edge of their castle was the small, but growing, Lupoiux city.

It had been a place of sanctuary for the Lupoiux that survived the purge of evil ones Eiophon had enacted when he’d realized his Kind had turned violent and cruel without his guidance over the millennia. Now the city housed a school and homes and families.

Innocent children, like her own.

If this world was now vulnerable, they would all have to be protected.

She stared at the city from the window in the small hall where she waited for Kennera and Eiophon to join her. How many lived in the city? In Av and Zea and Prek? In Levia total? How many lived in Relaklonos, and Easchau, and Gaia? In the other worlds that she hadn’t ever learned their names?

How many families still lived in Evalanedea, if any?

Who would be champion of all of
them
?

She looked away from the Lupoiux city in the south, and to the north of where she watched. Lines of people were gathering, weren’t they? She could sense the Lothon and Nellana Druid and Witches preparing. Her people, Lothonos’, heeding the calls she had sent out for warriors. For fodder for the Dark Sorcerer. They came, because she had asked them to.

It was beginning.

The enormity of the war that threatened, that had already started, threatened to consume her.

Nelciana hit her knees.

***

Lothonos found her in a deep trance in a small room that had once been used as a meditation suite for Kennera.

Her eyes were sightless and her body still. Tears covered her pale cheeks, and her skin was cold to his touch.

Her grief was a palpable haunt in the room.

“Nelciana?” He needed to get her warm, didn’t he? His first reaction was to call for a healer, Kennera perhaps. His first
panicked
reaction. His first sensible one was to grab a warm afghan from a small ladies chair and wrap it tightly around her shoulders. He lifted her, and then sank into that chair. She turned her face into his neck, seeking his warmth.

He just held her until her crying ended.

Finally she sighed and laid her head down on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Care to share why?”

“Too many people, too many families, are about to be ripped apart again. And I am so afraid. Afraid mine will be one of them when I just have one again. Afraid it will be those of friends I care about. And those who are so innocent. And there is nothing I feel I can do to stop it before it truly begins.”

He understood. The futility and inevitability of what was about to happen hurt his heart as well. “We will get through. He will
not
win. And…you have my word that
your
family will be protected.
Our
family will. No matter what it is that I have to do.”

***

Nelciana wanted to cling to him, to use him somehow to forget what it was that they faced. He was there, and willing. Would it be so wrong to take the comfort he offered? He wrapped his hand around her neck and leaned closer. His lips brushed hers.

He kissed her, sure and strong against her.

The male before her wasn’t the least bit cold. She could feel the heat radiating off of him. Nelciana put both hands against his chest, not to push him away—but to hold on.

She could feel the muscles beneath the Gaian cotton, and her fingers wanted to curl—to touch the warm, soft skin she knew was there.

She had never been a sexual being—she and Jushua could have shared more than what they had back millennia ago, but she had wanted to wait until after their vows.

Nelciana had long felt guilty for the fact that she hadn’t been greatly sexually attracted to him—though he was a very beautiful male. Jushua had been so much like a brother to her.

She knew that now.

There wasn’t anything brotherly about what the male in front of her was doing.

Lothonos’ kiss deepened, until her arms were wrapped around his shoulders and he was leaning them both back against the chair. Their followers, tens of thousands of them, were gathering in the courtyard beneath where they sat. Waiting for her and Lothonos to lead them into this coming war. To prepare them to fight for what they loved. Yet she selfishly wanted only a few moments with Lothonos to erase the fear of what was to come. So she took those moments.

Lothonos’ fingers ripped the sleeves of her
vestis
, and he pulled the dark blue fabric to her waist. Hard strong fingers wrapped around her breast.

He squeezed gently, then drew one finger slowly across the tip. Nelciana’s breath caught in her throat.

“You are beautiful. I have always thought so.”

“More beautiful than Kennera or Iustacia?”

“Of course…the darkness of your hair, the paleness of your skin. The eyes. The curves that a man just wants to worship with his hands and his mouth. How can you not see that you put the other goddesses to utter shame? You are absolutely beautiful, Nelciana. Don’t ever doubt that again. More, though. It is what you
feel
that draws me to you, time and time again.”

She wanted to believe him, but she knew. The other goddesses had had males lusting after them for thousands of years. Nelciana hadn’t.

Whenever a male expressed interest—and it was usually his cousin Domustri—she had always turned them away.

But she hadn’t turned Lothonos away, had she? He and only he had touched her before.

He lowered his head until he grazed her nipple with his lips. She didn’t want to, but she whimpered.

“You have fuller breasts now. Did you know that I dream about your breasts almost nightly since we were last together? What I would do to them, how I would touch them. How they would taste? I have lost my senses where you are concerned.”

She wasn’t certain she believed him, but the words coming out of his mouth had her arching against him. She wanted him to do more, so much more, and she wasn’t entirely certain of what that
more
was. This was so different from what they had done together before.

Before they had started in her bed, in low light, and they had been perfunctory. When they were finished he had dressed and left, with an order to tell him whether the pregnancy attempt was successful. She’d been extremely pleased that it was on the first try—that way they wouldn’t have to do it again. Because that one time had confused her so much.

That was nothing like this.

Lothonos stood, and she wanted to protest the sudden loss of his warmth. Had she done something wrong?