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ChapterSeventeen
“If you were to compare the level of your ability and the range of your power to that of a god belonging to the upper Pantheon, you would be shocked to see the degree to which theirs would dwarf yours.”
“If powers diminish with every generation, why do we still have any at all?” Jesse’s question for Professor Zhang could have been taken right out of my mouth. “Wouldn’t they have dwindled down to nothing by now?”
“First, you must take into account the immortal nature of gods. We don’t simply pass away, allowing our power to return to the finite collective. Second, you’re assuming that gods have children at the same rate as mortals. In fact, many gods can go thousands of years before producing another offspring. Others never have any children to speak of.”
“You’re saying some of these gods are as old as the dawn of time, yet they’ve never had a single child?”
“Children are rare among the gods now that they are no longer permitted to procreate with mortals. Believe me, the influx of demigods during the age of Ancient Greece was a mistake they all learned from. Now gods are only allowed to have children with their own kind.”
“But if we’re full-blooded gods, why do they abandon us to the mortals?” There was a note of sadness in Rocky’s voice, and I felt bad for her. I didn’t know too much about what her home life had been like growing up, but it sounded like it had been less than stellar.
Every time I heard about one of my fellow gods having grown up in homes of mortal families that wanted little or nothing to do with them, my heart bled a little for them. I supposed not everyone could get as lucky as I had. That simply wasn’t the way the world worked.
“It may seem cruel, Raquel, but it is actually the kindest thing they could do for you. Growing up among the gods would mean a life of neglect, of inadequacy, and of emotional distance. You have to remember, all gods have their own duties to handle. Even this far removed from Chaos and the rest of the Primordials, we have enough ability that we are kept busy keeping the world turning. That is why we were all put here, as a system of checks and balances among the mortals who would destroy the planet if not for our intervention.”
“So they abandoned us to give us the chance to grow up in loving homes?”
“Yes, to ensure you have empathy and a deep understanding of the mortals you’ll one day help protect.”
“Then it would seem that their decision to tear us away from those loving homes and prohibit us from ever seeing or speaking to them again is pretty counterintuitive.” My tone dripped with bitterness I was too angry to hide.
“It may seem that way to you, Miss Keres, but this is the way things have been done for millennia. As harsh as it sounds, your parents, and their parents before them, simply do not have the time or the freedom to raise you and teach everything you need to know. If they did, you might have pleasant memories with them and plenty of pictures in your photo album, but the things they are tasked with watching over would suffer. Is the potential health of millions of people, or perhaps the stability of their crops, less important than you taking fun family vacations?”
“No, I don’t think that. But I also don’t see the point in them taking us away from our human parents. Those are the people who taught us how to empathize in the first place. If they weren’t a good influence on us and our understanding of humanity, why would they have placed us with them? Removing us from that good influence doesn’t seem like the smartest move.”
“You’re not the only one to come to that conclusion, Miss Keres. However, it is one of those things that simply is. Nothing you or I can say would even reach the ears of those who have the ability to change it. It’s something we must accept.”
I didn’t like that answer, but I could tell from the finality in her tone the subject was closed for discussion. Whatever. I didn’t feel like wasting my breath on a pointless conversation any more than she did.
Professor Zhang continued her lecture, and I paid little–or no–attention. Not until she began discussing the way parentage impacts the powers a god receives. Remy had touched on it with me, but I still had a plethora of questions.
“Not every power is derived from the parents. Sometimes holes are left by the death of another god that must be filled, and the child’s ability will be something completely unrelated to their parents. Other times, a child’s ability can be decided by a void in the universe, a gap that needs to be closed in order to maintain balance. If something were to shift in humanity, for instance, everyone on Earth becoming lactose intolerant, someone would likely become the god of almond milk.” Everyone chuckled. Everyone except for Rocky.
I knew she was insecure about her power, and I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have felt the same in her position. What hole in the universe had led to her becoming the goddess of small pebbles?
“Then why is there so much overlap?” Siobhan Allen’s question surprised me. I never heard her speak in class, and she was quiet and reserved when we were in common areas, too. Sometimes, I forgot she was even there. Considering she was a goddess of lightning, that probably wasn’t a good idea.
“Some things are too vast for even the most powerful of the gods to maintain alone without severely draining themselves. It makes things far easier when something like water is broken into categories. Lakes, ponds, rivers, seas, oceans… when one god is assigned all of that, there isn’t enough time in the universe for that single person to oversee it all. But when it’s broken up, you see a decrease in tsunamis, floods, and tidal waves. And then things get broken down even more. Puddles, streams, swimming pools, bathtubs. Believe it or not, in a world like this, everything needs to be accounted for. Everything is important.”
If I wasn’t mistaken, Rocky’s chin tilted up a fraction of an inch.
“I’m sorry, but I fail to see how something like a pebble could be nearly as important as an ocean.” Xanaya’s catty voice came from behind me, and I rolled my eyes. I glanced back and shot her a dark look, but her gaze was focused on Rocky.
“You may believe that, Miss Rhodes, but consider a single pebble thrown into still water. The ripples would grow and spread throughout that entire pool of water, and who knows what kind of effect it could have? Throw a handful of pebbles in, and you might start a tsunami on the other side of the world.”
“Yeah, right, stuff like that doesn’t happen.”
“Maybe not in a literal sense, but you’d be surprised how often those of us with powers that are considered lesser end up being the ones who save the day.” Xanaya inhaled behind me, gearing up to continue her disparagement, but Professor Zhang cleared her throat and kept talking.
“Our next big assignment is going to be finding other gods with your ability. The resources you need will be found in the library. I want you to locate everyone you can who has a power that falls in line with yours. If your power is over pebbles, you need to find the gods of mountains, of boulders, of gravel, of stone. These people will be resources to you when you’re out in the real world again.”
“And if there is no one else with our power?” Siobhan’s question surprised me, since we all knew which god was famous for power over lightning. She shot a nervous glance at her partner, Naevia. Looked like her concern was for someone else. Working with other gods of conflict might be a little tricky, since it stood to reason they’d be less cooperative.
“Believe me, not a single one of you has a power that has never been seen before. It doesn’t happen. Even if you are the first god with your title, there’s someone else who has come before you with a power from the same family.”
I didn’t like the idea of looking up other gods of life, and I already had a death god at my disposal. But something about knowing there were others out there like me eased a bit of the tightness that always lingered in my chest. I never wanted to reach out to any of them, though. Every god that had been discussed since my arrival here seemed like a cold bastard, and I didn’t need that kind of negativity in my life. I had way too much to deal with already.
