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I sigh. “I’m up, I’m up,” I say, rising blearily. When I open my eyes, it’s to find my friends huddled in a circle around me, their expressions worried. Even Ixa is perched on the tree roots beside me, his body pressed to mine. He licks me with a rough pink tongue. I push it away.
“Why are you all staring at me? It’s not like you’ve never seen me faint before.”
“I haven’t,” Myter sniffs. “It was quite instructive. Now then, let’s try again—”
“Again?” I interject, all sarcasm. “When I just finished healing from the injuries you promised wouldn’t happen?”
“I promised you wouldn’t remain injured. And look at you. You’re completely healed.”
Which is the truth, I’m aggravated to acknowledge. My eyes squint. “Even so, why would I trust you again?”
“Because this time, I’ll show you how to harness the Greater Divinity.”
“The Greater Divinity,” I sniff dismissively. “The natural order you Maiwurians keep harping on about. If there even is such—”
“Shut your mouth and listen for once, Deka!” Myter’s roar is as sudden as it is unexpected, and it shakes every tree in the vicinity. As I stop, startled, they continue in a lower, very tired voice. “Whatever doubts you may have, I am here. And I am here because the fate of my existence lies in you. You—a child with no understanding of her power, much less that of the Greater Divinity. A girl who stumbles through every obstacle with very little awareness and even less common sense.
“Look around.” They point to the trees, which now seem even fainter than they were when I last saw them, their crystalline edges dim, as if they’re fading into the twilight. “Does this look like the pathways you first entered?”
“No.” My eyebrows gather as I examine the grove around me. “They look…faint.”
“That’s because Lord Bala is fading. His power is being drained by everything he now has to manage. Shadow vales are everywhere, not to mention an Oteran god actually breached the Great Barrier, bringing with her corruption.” Suddenly, Myter seems very much the world-weary, immortal godsworn they are, massive shoulders hunched over, eyes hooded with exhaustion, as they continue: “I should be at his side, helping him, but you and your friends are the only thing standing between this world and disaster. Between him and dispersal. So I will hold time for as long as I can here, and I will teach you until you have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the pathways and the Greater Divinity, so you have enough power inside yourself to fight the Oteran gods.”
They walk closer to me, eyes determined. “So I ask you again, do you wish to learn?”
“Yes, I do,” I reply, firm.
I thought Myter was toying with me before, so I didn’t understand. They’re under just as much pressure as I am, and my doubt and resentfulness has only added to their burden.
“Very well.” Myter must see the sincerity in my eyes, because they walk closer, brusquely point to my hands. “When you pulled me to you earlier, your energy was concentrated in your fingertips. That’s why your sores always start there—because that’s where you concentrate your power. It’s also the reason you got so exhausted. Instead of absorbing power from the Greater Divinity, you used your own energy.”
They glance at the others. “I hope you haven’t all been doing that.”
“And what if we have?” Keita steps forward, arms folded.
“Then you have been hindering yourselves. Stifling your growth instead of enhancing it.” Myter makes their way to the center of the grove. “I don’t know what they tell you in Otera, but in Maiwuri, they tell us that the Greater Divinity is like water, or the air. It is all around us.”
They gesture and suddenly, the forest appears to be underwater. Only, the sea around us is a sea of stars. It looks so similar to the river of stars in the Gilded Ones’ chamber, nostalgia pangs my heart—but only for the briefest moment. I’m no longer that girl who is seduced by the reassuring chains of familiarity, I remind myself. I am the girl who breaks the chains and doesn’t look back.
Myter continues: “Most mortals are only barely aware of the Greater Divinity. But that is why there are gods. Gods are the physical manifestation of the natural order. Since the Greater Divinity is too vast, too all-encompassing, to comprehend, we give each facet of it a name. A face. We breathe life into it.”
The air punches out of my lungs. “Wait,” I gasp, trying to understand what they’re saying. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think I am. “Are you saying we create the gods? Us, the lesser beings?”
“Indeed. Gods are the dreams of the sentient. It is our longing, our desire, that brings them forth into this realm.”
“But they came before us,” sputters Keita, who’s just as flabbergasted as I am. “They were here before we were.”
“Is that what they tell you in Otera?” Myter tsks. “Lies, all lies. Deities exist because we need them. That is why we are not lesser to them, why we do not serve them. We are all of us dependent on each other. All parts of one whole.”
Suddenly, I remember how solicitous of Myter Bala is. How he is always calm and loving with them—a doting and supportive presence, not just to them, but to everyone. Could it be because he needs Myter as much as they need him? That all the gods need us as much as we need them?
I try to remember Anok’s memories, the ones I experienced when I touched a sample of her blood. Did she remember a time before humans? It’s hard to say. The gods have such a strange understanding of time.
“But what about before? Before mortals were created?” Keita’s brow is furrowed as he asks this insistent question.
“Before, after, now,” Myter says. “It’s all the same thing, really. To the gods, time is a circle, never-ending. And they have the gift to understand how it all fits together. That’s another reason they exist. To caretake. To shepherd mortals. That is what the Greater Divinity seeks.”
“And how does it all relate to us here? Now?” Belcalis asks, impatient.
