A Gods Blessing - Short Story

By Glen V C Kirby

The sun starts to descend across Averia, the lands of the mortal realm. A goddess, Sylvara, stands at the edge of a high terrace that sits amongst the clouds. This is Valdris, home to the Gods. She watches the sun disappear into a storm that is fast approaching. Her skin is tanned, with her hair that lies down to her feet, tinted green, her face is fair and bears marks of dark brown as if they were roots growing into her skin. Her eyes glowed bright as if they were emeralds plucked from the earth. She is the goddess of life.  

The palace of Valdris caught the last of the light, which is the way in Averia. The home of the Gods would be the first to be blessed with light, and the last to see it go. Their home is made of crystal marble, which would be thrown back across the sky in pieces. To the mortals down below, it looks like a constellation seen in daylight that would take the shape of a hand in the night sky.

Sylvara feels the presence of another. She feels her kin's disappointment. It is Eirlysia, the leader of their council. A goddess who controls the ice and air. One of the eldest of their kind. She steps out onto the terrace and stands beside her.

Neither of them speak for a moment. They both just stare into the distance, at the storm building at the edge of the world.

“ Is this your doing?” asks Sylvara.

“No, the ashborn approach from the North, there will be war soon” she replies.

Sylvara goes to walk away, but her arm is grabbed by Eirlysia

"Lucian?" she asks.

"What of him?" Sylvara replies.

"Forty-three years," says Eirlysia. "Since the first age, it has been outlawed, Sylvara. There is no peace in it. There never has been. You know this."

"I know this,” Sylvara replies.

"And yet. You gave him your blessing anyway?"

Sylvara turns to face Eirlysia. Eirlysia in person is what you expect if you have heard the name. The Goddess of Ice. Crystal blue eyes, pale ice white hair, tall, very tall. Her very presence casts a cool breeze around them, and even snowflakes form in the air.

"He has the likeness of Voltrys," Sylvara claimed. "Not only the face. The way his soul sang when he entered the world. The way he—"

"I know," Eirlysia interrupts. "I have seen it also. It is not nothing."

"Then you understand—" she states.

"I do. But there are consequences." She turned toward the liquid crystal wall that ran the length of the terrace — the great panel of living marble in which the gods watch the world below. She presses one hand to its surface. "Let me show you something," says Eirlysia.

The wall rippled. Like crystal water. Then it froze, and ice shards broke, revealing a secret within the walls.

The image that formed was Averia, but not as it was. Something adjacent to it. Sylvara approaches and takes a closer look. There is a valley she recognised. A farmhouse. A man with Lucian's face and Lucian's bearing, smaller somehow, contained, like a fire burning in too small a hearth. She watches him move through the years of a life that fit that of a mortal; he makes mistakes, has regrets, hurts people, hurts himself, and walks through life forgetting its frailty. Mistaking youth for immortality, being disloyal, and grotesque when alone. He is human. He marries a farmer’s daughter, a good woman. And has two children, both of whom he neglects in his duties as a father. A regret he knows too well, it is seen and felt behind his eyes, always, the grey rage of a man who suspects he was made for more than he was given. Then his death, buried in a mound, marked with a wooden symbol, that falters with time into an unmarked grave, forgotten no more than two generations passed. He dies having been nobody of importance other than to his immediate family. A person with a range of complex connections, of those who love him, those who hate him and those who feel indifferent to his existence.

Eirlyisa lets the wall go still.

"That is a mortal life," she says. "Imperfect. Unbalanced. Constrained. It is not a punishment, Sylvara. It is the condition. We give them free will because the alternative is be nothing more than statues. Puppets for our manipulation. Free will means the freedom to fall short. To rage. To live the life, they are given,”

Sylvara’s knees weaken; she uses the wall to steady herself.

"It is what makes them human," Eirlysia says calmly as she places her hand on Sylvara’s shoulder, comforting her.

"He brought peace to Averia," Sylvara claims.

Eirlysia removes her hand.

"He brought your peace to Averia," she replies.

"You looked down at a man with the likeness of one you once loved, and you made him into what you perceived your lover to be. Lucian is not a king, Sylvara. He is not a God," she pauses. "He is your grief adorned with a crown."

Sylvara says nothing in return. The gold in the terrace beneath their feet goes dark, vein by vein, as the sun drops below the mountains.

"Remove the blessing," Eirlysia commands.

"Now is not the right time. The Ashborn are marching on the empire—"

"Remove it!” bites Eirlysia. “his fate will be the same as the rest,” she calms. “It will be free."

She leaves Sylvara and heads to the doorway.

“I still do” said Sylvara

Eirlysia stops in her tracks and turns back to her.

“You said, once loved. I still do.”

Eirlysia bows her head, conceding and understanding. Then she leaves, and Sylvara turns to the crystal wall, pressing her palm flat against it. She closes her eyes. She lets go.

She then opens them, and the wall reveals the King; it reveals Lucian. Lucian is walking with his council — four men she knows, men who serve him and have done for twenty years. They all stride through the halls of the capital, discussing their defences.

Then the King loses his footing. He stumbles, and his men catch him.

A stone. A rut. Nothing.

He pushes the men off him, agitated. He then dismisses the trip with a smile, and they continue walking.

The crystal goes still. Sylvara stands alone on the terrace of Valdris as the storm rolls in from the north. A tear runs down her cheek, turning to ice. Her grief and loneliness turn the emerald green in her eyes to a dim amber colour.

The storm arrives, and the fabrics of the known world are shadowed by threat.

The End.