Chaper 117

The way it had been explained to me, Faith - with a capital F - was a strange kind of energy that every mortal generated without even realizing it. It was the scaffolding of reality itself. The quiet, invisible framework that defined how the world worked - like the laws of physics back on Earth.

Mortals believed in what they perceived, and that belief gave things weight. Gave them substance. Made them reality. Fire existed because people believed in fire. There was a theory - half philosophy, half madness - that if every living mind stopped believing in it at once, fire would simply… cease.

Of course, that was impossible.

How do you stop believing in something that burns your skin when you touch it? That cooks your food? That lights the dark?

It was a loop of logic with no clean beginning. Fire existed because people believed in it - and people believed in it because it existed.

But the result was undeniable.

Belief accumulated.

Mortals generated Faith in the things they knew, and once those things were fully realized - woven into the fabric of the world - that Faith had nowhere left to go. So it lingered. It gathered. It pressed in on itself like heat beneath stone until, eventually, something remarkable happened.

It woke up.

That awakening - the consciousness that formed from that pressure - became a god.

And that god didn’t just embody the thing. It governed it. It could bend it, shape it, strengthen or weaken it in places. Not rewrite reality outright - but nudge it. Guide it. Keep it from tipping too far in any one direction.

In that sense, Faith was like magma. Always rising. Always building. A god was the mountain that formed around it - the volcano that held the pressure in check, vented it when needed, kept the world from splitting open. It could send the molten flow toward destruction… or guide it harmlessly into the sea.

But if you destroyed the mountain - if you killed the god - the pressure didn’t disappear.

It couldn’t.

It had nowhere to go. So it erupted.

Fire and stone hurled into the sky. Shockwaves tearing through the land. Ash **** the air, blotting out the sun, changing the world in ways that could last for generations. Enough of it - and entire ecosystems collapsed. Species vanished. Civilizations with them.

Eventually, the system corrected itself. It always did. The pressure gathered again, found shape again, and a new volcano rose to contain it - a new god, born from the same inexorable weight of belief - but fundamentally different. The god didn’t have the same the experiences, circumstances of birth, or personality. It was a new consciousness.

But that took time.

Years. Decades. Sometimes centuries.

And until then, the world burned.

Nyssira was a supervolcano.

She hadn’t just inherited one mantle - she had taken almost a dozen of them. Ripped aspects from at least ten gods, maybe more, and bound them into herself. Ten sources of pressure. Ten domains of belief, all compressed into a single, unstable point.

If I killed her, it wouldn’t just be an eruption - it would be the end of everything.

But I couldn’t just lock her away and pretend she didn’t exist, either. I believed in rehabilitation - maybe foolishly, maybe stubbornly. If I could unravel the Faith she’d stolen, separate it, release it slowly and safely back into the world… then new gods would rise. Smaller volcanoes. Manageable ones. Pressure spread out instead of concentrated into something catastrophic.

And maybe - just maybe - if I could convince her that what she’d done was wrong, that the world didn’t need to be conquered to be fixed… then no one else would have to die for it.

So I came down to the containment chamber every day.

I checked on her. Talked to her. Told her stories - about my life, about this world, about others. Gods and mortals alike. I tried to debate with her. Tried being the key word. Most days, she just screamed.

I brought food, even though she didn’t need to eat. Mirri and Gram’s cooking had softened harder hearts than hers. I hoped it might do the same here.

I brought books, too. Stories from Earth she’d never heard - Les Misérables, Charlotte’s Web, Little Women, A Wrinkle in Time.

She never thanked me. Never acknowledged any of it. Most days, her hatred was absolute - sharp enough to cut through anything I tried to build.

But sometimes…sometimes there was a crack.

A moment where we didn’t agree, but we understood. Where the distance between us felt… smaller.

I never expected her to like me. Or forgive me. Not for stopping her. Not for putting her in chains.

But I had to try something.

So I sat there, like I had every day before, settling into the same conversation we’d had a hundred times already.

“So how does it work?” I asked, eyes fixed on the Faith-scape as I scribbled notes into my journal.

Nyssira glared.

Her parchment-like skin crawled with jagged lines of script - angry, venomous words etched by unseen hands. They faded after a few moments, only to be replaced by new ones, harsher than before. Her face - featureless in form - burned with shifting constellations. Stars flared, guttered, vanished into nothing as though swallowed by unseen voids, only to explode back into existence in violent bursts of light.

It was chaos. Beautiful, terrible chaos.

And for a goddess of veiled secrets, she wore her turmoil with startling clarity.

“Zelmyra once told me we’re slaves to our Faith,” I continued. “That Elyndra, as Truth Revealed, couldn’t lie. That you couldn’t speak a complete truth. That Aurelion couldn’t deny rightful authority. That Miralis couldn’t willingly bring catastrophe.”

I glanced up at her.

“But you…” I said. “You carry at least ten aspects. Maybe more. You should be bound in a dozen different directions. And yet - you’re not. You can still lie. Even with Elyndra’s aspect inside you.”

She didn’t answer.

But the stars on her face churned harder, brighter - rage given light.

“I know you took from Ashira, Dromaia, Thalos, Elyndra, Lunythera, Vathryx, and Vaelis,” I went on, shifting approach. “But there’s more in there. Who were they?”

Silence, though the motion beneath her skin slowed - just slightly.

“Is it that you won’t tell me?” I asked. “Or that you can’t?”

Her gaze slid away, fixing on nothing at all.

The Faith within her was a storm - layers of color and motion folding over each other in ways that defied clean separation. Lunythera’s silver, blue, and black shimmered like phases of a restless moon, bleeding into Thalos’s distant horizon of gold and pale blue. Everything blended. Everything blurred.

Except one thing.

A thin, solid strand of gray. It moved differently - coiling, slipping between the others without ever truly ing them. Resistant. Isolated. Wrong.

That one unsettled me.

I didn’t know whose Faith it was. Didn’t know what it meant. But something about it set every instinct I had on edge.

Nyssira offered no answers.

At least it didn’t feel like Myrddin corruption. But that didn’t make me feel any better.

* * *

I stepped out of the containment chamber and back into the keep, the air shifting from cold, carved stone to the familiar warmth of home. Orrik and Dur had just arrived from Northgate, Elarion lingering nearby after ushering them through. The fact that he could still slip in and out of the demesne at will made distance feel almost meaningless.

I’d first met Dur and Elarion the day Lilae was taken. Cultists in Northgate - fanatics with a plan to “purify” the city by slaughtering every non-human they could find. We stopped them. Barely. I still ed how close it had come to killing me.

Weeks later, Tib lifted my coin purse and used it to bait me into an alley. That was where I found the rest of them - half my children, huddled together and trying to survive. Orphans, every one. That had been part of the ritual, too.

Dur had been an exception. He had family - an uncle, Orrik. It took some digging, but we found him and reunited them.

I never called Dur my son. It didn’t feel right, not when he had someone of his own. But I cared about him all the same. I was proud of the dwarf he was becoming.

He hadn’t spent enough time with us to gather the Faith needed to enter my demesne, so I made the trip to Northgate when I could. Not nearly as often as I wanted.

Elarion was nearly sixteen now, tall and steady in a way that hadn’t been there before. His family was in Caelwynne, tucked away in Ilyr’Vaeneth, but he visited often. Stayed, sometimes. We’d fought together. Lived together. I’d watched him grow into himself.

I called him my son, even if he chose to walk among his own people, he never drifted far.

I pulled Dur into a hug. He grumbled immediately, as expected, but there was no real heat behind it. Orrik clasped my hand next, his grip firm and rough with years of work, his smile easy and genuine. Elarion stepped in after, returning my hug with a quick, solid pat on the back before pulling away.

“How’s the apprenticeship going?” I asked Dur.

“Well,” he said, a grin breaking through, “I’m doing most of the smithing now. Learning edgecraft when I can.”

I laughed. “You’ll have to tell Ashie. She’ll want one of your axes the moment she hears. A Dur original.”

He tried to look unimpressed and failed.

“And you, Elarion?” I asked. “Your cousins can’t stop talking about your archery. And your woodcraft.”

He gave me that same restrained smile - the one that tried to be modest and ended up looking quietly proud instead. “Master Iriandor says I’ll have a place among the Tîr-Lîn Díneth, if I keep up with my studies.”

“If?” I scoffed. “Elarion the Pathwarden. I’m going to have to see that for myself.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m proud of you.”

A burst of noise spilled in from the dining room - laughter, raised voices, the unmistakable chaos of too many people in one place.

“You’d better go say hi to Mirri and Grams,” I said, grinning. “If I keep you out here, I’m the one who’s going to hear about it.”

They laughed and headed through the door to the left, pulled along by the noise and warmth waiting on the other side.

* * *

I felt the flare of Faith before I saw it - the air shifting, pressing inward as though an invisible wall had swept through the room. Dust hung for a heartbeat, compressed and trembling. Then Nim stepped through it, as if ing a threshold no one else could see.

I grinned and pulled him into a hug. “I’m glad you could make it. Are the others coming?”

His massive arms wrapped around me, then released. He gave a simple nod.

Nim was one of mine - not by blood, but no less my son for it. He was born to goblin parents the moment Urzan-Brek, god of carnage, was destroyed. A bloodchild - his ruddy, sunburnt skin, two rows of sharp teeth, and rose-colored eyes that marked him as something forged in aftermath and excess.

Most bloodchildren were cast out. Left to survive as feral things. Hunted. Feared.

We found Nim shortly after birth and we kept him.

Ascension had changed him. It changed all of my bloodchildren. But with Nim, it had made something already massive into something mythic. Seven feet tall now, built with a kind of strength and musculature that didn’t belong to mortals. His dark hair had thickened into a mane that framed his face and fell past his shoulders.

He rarely smiled. Rarely spoke. But he could.

And that alone set him apart from most of his kind.

He wore a thick gray leather tunic, shoulders reinforced until he looked even broader than he already was. Brown leather breeches, worn and patched in places that spoke of use, not neglect. Heavy boots reinforced with steel, soles thick enough to give him just a little more height - like he needed it.

Before I could say anything else, Clo was there.

No flare of Faith. No warning.

One moment it was just Nim and me - the next, she stood beside us.

I barely felt her Faith at all. It was like she’d been hiding it. Waiting. Watching for the moment my guard dropped.

She smiled and waved - too sharp, too deliberate, like she’d practiced the motion without ever quite understanding it. Her whole body vibrated with contained motion, afterimages trailing every shift of her weight. A fidget spinner in each hand blurred as they spun impossibly fast.

Another of mine. Another bloodchild. Another god.

She was lanky, all long limbs and narrow lines - built for speed, not strength. Five-seven, maybe. Tight, wiry muscle coiled beneath her skin. Her dark hair hung straight down her back, never once falling into her face no matter how fast she moved.

She’d lost her ear in the second Silent War. It hadn’t grown back. The scar twisted along the side of her head, red and raw-looking even now. Her stomach bore the same story - self-inflicted scars, remnants of a battle she had fought with herself as much as anything else.

And still she was beautiful.

In a way that had nothing to do with symmetry or softness.

She wore light leathers in muted greens and browns, fitted close to her frame. Around her neck and wrists hung small trophies - feathers, bone, teeth, polished stones. She was barefoot, claws clicking arrhythmically against the stone floor.

I pulled her into a hug. “It’s good to see you again. Have you been staying out of trouble?”

Her face twisted, searching for the right expression and not finding it. After a moment, she defaulted back to that wide, toothy grin - both rows of teeth on full display. She nodded.

I smiled. “Go say hi to the others. Ashie and Serah should be in the common room. Mirri and Grams are in the kitchen.”

They left together - Clo a blur that vanished faster than I could track, Nim moving with steady, purposeful strides.

Then Faith surged again.

The air thickened. Sound dulled. The stone floor darkened beneath my feet as something pushed up from below - not breaking through, but emerging, as though the world itself were giving way.

Moss dragged herself into existence.

She rose slowly, her dense, powerful form unfolding until she stood before me. She wasn’t taller than the others - but she felt heavier. Grounded. Solid in a way that made everything else seem lighter by comparison.

Her curves stretched over muscle that felt like stone beneath the skin. Her mouth - unnaturally wide - hinted at how far it could open if she let it. And her teeth… there were more of them than there should have been.

Another of mine. Another bloodchild. Another child we raised instead of losing.

She stood at five-five, the shortest of them.

Also the strongest - even able to outlift Nim.

Her long dark hair had been braided - messily, unevenly. An attempt, maybe, to look presentable for the party. Her clothes were layered in greens and browns, mismatched and practical. Some wrapped, some tied, others added without removing what came before. The front bore dark stains. One sleeve looked like it had been chewed and simply… left that way.

Her shoes didn’t match. One tall boot. One sandal.

Her breath smelled faintly of rootbeer - the birch pitch she was currently chewing.

“Moss,” I said, opening my arms.

She tilted her head, considering - then stepped forward and wrapped me in a hug that lifted me slightly off my feet and popped something in my back.

When she let go, she wasn’t smiling, but her eyes were.

“I’m glad you could make it. Are you doing well?”

She shrugged. Then wandered off toward the kitchen, already drawn by the promise of food.

Faith flared again - sharp and precise. Lines of light etched themselves into the air before me, forming intricate geometric patterns - angles intersecting, shifting like a living equation. Then, in a single, silent moment, they collapsed inward.

Thae stood where they had been. Goddess of calculated destruction. Architect of the perfect kill.

A bloodchild - but different.

My daughter by blood. And Serah’s. Which meant she was something that shouldn’t exist at all - a half-dragon.

Her copper hair - so close to mine it still caught me off guard - was braided neatly along one side. Her draconic features were impossible to ignore - the length of her face, the gleam of red scales, the slow, deliberate movement of her tail behind her. Her wings folded tightly against her back, too large to ever be mistaken for anything else.

She was lithe. Precise. Beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful.

Six feet tall, she was dwarfed by what her mother truly was when she stopped pretending to be human.

Her digitigrade legs and tilted hips gave her a balance Serah never had in her natural form - something uniquely her own.

She wore structured black and deep crimson. s of cloth and leather intersected across her body in sharp, deliberate lines, reinforced where needed, etched with subtle geometric patterns. Designed, not sewn.

Like Clo, she was barefoot. Her claws clicked softly as she moved.

She inclined her head in greeting, expression warm but restrained.

I stepped forward and pulled her into a hug, then rested my forehead against hers. “Thaeramyris,” I said softly. “My impossible ember.” I stepped back. “Have you been well?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “I want to hear what you’ve been up to. I don’t see any of you often enough anymore. I miss the chaos of a full house.”

She gave a quiet hum.

“The others are around,” I added with a smile. “Mirri, Grams, Dur, and Moss are in the kitchen. Ashie, Serah, Clo, and Nim are in the common room. Vel and Tansy are still on their way.”

She gave a short, precise bow, then turned and headed toward the common room - toward her mother.

I lingered a moment, the sudden rush of arrivals leaving the space feeling full in a way it hadn’t a few minutes ago. I waited for the last few arrivals.

The dining room door opened, and Elise stepped out, Morien at her side.

My daughter had her mother’s look - pale skin, white hair, eyes so gray they nearly disappeared. All the hallmarks of a void-mage.

At four and a half, she was far too young to wield the magic she carried. But I had no doubt she would sur even Elise one day.

I scooped her up and blew raspberries against her neck. She squirmed, making soft, almost-laughing sounds - joy, even if she didn’t express it the way other children did.

I set her down, and she immediately darted behind Elise, peeking out from the safety of her mother’s skirts.

“Lady Rosecroft,” I said.

“Lord Grimm,” she replied.

I kissed her - slow, deliberate - and she flushed just slightly. Even now, after everything, that small reaction felt like a gift.

“Headed to see Ashie and Serah?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, smiling faintly. “Morien wants a story before dinner. It will need to be a short one… but I cannot refuse her.”

“Have fun,” I said. “I’ll be along shortly.”