Chapter 5: Divinity

Pain wasn’t anything new. Everyone took a beating now and then and survived, and even forgot the hurt in time. There was no forgetting the feeling of ascending, or the way the power ripped through Adriana’s flesh and bone and dug into the core of her soul.

Ascending had always looked equal parts glorious and painful, and now Adriana knew exactly why. Whenever she saw someone else consume Divinity, it was over in a few seconds. This agony stretched on endlessly, so bright and all encompassing that nothing else existed. Fire consumed her from the inside out while the Divinity remade her.

Then, almost as suddenly as it started, it ended, and Adriana found herself standing on top of a cliff overlooking the end of the world. Stars twinkled and danced overhead as water rushed on either side of her, tumbling over the edge for eternity. Behind her, the cliff stretched on for miles.

Adriana patted herself down, but all the pain was gone. She barely felt her own touches, as if she were in a dream. “Where am I?” She called out to the night. “Where is Hessius?”

The night silently considered her words for a few seconds before a rumble passed through her. It took her a second to realize it was laughter. She looked up, and the stars changed.

In the dark, colorful night sky, stars re-arranged themselves into three hollow faces surrounding her. The faces came down from the sky until they loomed just a few dozen feet away. They dwarfed Adriana, and the small, panicked fear of a rat worried its way through her nerves. She wanted to run, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Look sisters,” said one of the faces, the one who looked like a girl just a couple years younger than Adriana. “The Sun God has fallen against the Maw, and a mortal inherits everything.”

Adriana shivered, and put a scowl on her face. “Who are you?”

The second of the faces, somewhat motherly looking but austere and terrible, leaned in closer for a look. “Nothing special. Not on her own. Just another terrified orphan. I’m not sure there’s much to measure.”

The third laughed, and it was the sound of bones creaking, dust settling, and eras ending. The crone’s face looked Adriana up and down, inside and out. “You underestimate her, I feel. We seek an ending for the Maw, do we not? And I can see now she’ll be quite a many endings, if we let her.”

Adriana didn’t like the way they talked about her, as if she wasn’t there. Like she was something to be judged by them and then cast aside. “Who the hell are you?”

The three sisters made of stars spun around her, lazily floating in the air as they looked at her from every angle. When they spoke, it came out of them simultaneously, though Adriana heard it as a few snippets of words from each, going in and out.

“We are the Sisters of Fate, and we measure out one’s destiny. From the time you are born, Clotho spins the thread of your life. She sees what you can be.” The young woman bowed graciously, and Adriana could practically imagine a lady-like curtsy.

“Lachesis carefully traces your trajectory.” The stern, almost motherly face stared holes through Adriana, like she could see her every secret and bad memory. “She sees who you are and rewards you accordingly.”

The final, older woman smiled grimly, and the three spoke in their odd, alternating way. “Atropos sees your end, and decides whether it is suitable. She is the end of all, at the right time.”

Adriana turned in place, looking over the Sisters of Fate one by one. When all was said and done, she was impressed and nervous, and would never admit to it. “I’ve heard of many Gods,” she said. “Everyone knows Hessius, just as everyone knows Orobaal the insatiable, ever-shifting Jerikas, and Iosephos the plentiful. I’ve never heard of any of you.”

Atropos’s terrible smile widened. “That’s because we are to the Gods as the Gods are to you.”

“The Gods are our creation,” said Clotho, full of serenity and grace. “It is us who issues out the power. To them, and to you. That is why you are here, Adriana. You’ve collected a chunk of power, and now you have some choices.”

That was news to her. “Choices?” Adriana said. “I thought we get what we get.” She continued to look between the heads, fingers itching for a weapon or similar. Rather than fading with time, her unease only grew.

“What would the point of power be if you had no agency in which to use it?” Lachesis scoffed. “Everyone has a choice. Some more than others, but you will either choose the power you get from a small selection, or…”

“Or?”

The Sisters of Fate stopped their slow circuit around her and stayed in front of her. “Or we pick for you, based on our measurements of your life, your potential, and your death. You in particular have a number of choices to make. But first…say you get this power. What will you do with it, Adriana?”

Of all the questions to be asked, it was the one Adriana didn’t know what to do with. So she just laughed. “What do you think I’m going to do with it? I’m going to get even stronger, and I’m going to become a God.”

“But why?” Clotho’s voice was almost mournful. “What will you do with it? In the end, what do you want?”

Adriana’s mirth dried up. “I’m going to get strong,” she said. “Strong enough that I can take on anyone who could ever threaten me.”

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Lachesis glowed brighter. “So fear is your motivation. Yes, I can see that. You’re afraid.”

“I am not!” Adriana snapped. To her surprise, even her anger was calmer than usual. No matter how much she wanted to throw or insult the Sisters of Fate, she felt herself pacified, unable to really act or do anything other than speak and respond.

“Yes you are,” said Lachesis. “You’ve spent your entire life terrified. Now you want to be the terror, to be able to scare others. How perfectly…ordinary.”

“I don’t want to scare others, I want to be invincible. I want to be stronger than anyone, and I want to use that strength to kill monsters.” In her mind, at least, there was a difference. It mattered.

“Oh, is that so?” Atropos cackled. “You’re all about altruism now? Why do you want to kill monsters, Adriana? We all know, but we want to hear you say it.”

Her anger went out like a doused fire. The question shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did. Why would anyone want to kill monsters? All they did was rampage across the world and destroy and consume whatever they could. It didn’t matter how many homes or families were broken in these attacks.

“I want to kill the Maw of Monsters,” Adriana said. Hessius’ last words came to her, and she dismissed them just as fast. “So she stops killing people. So there are less orphans.”

“So you wish to save humanity from extinction?” They asked as one.

Adriana thought about it, and then shook her head. “I don’t care about that. It’s personal. I want to kill her for what she’s done to me, my friends, my family…And Hessius. Out of all the Gods, he seemed to be less of a bastard.”

The Sisters went silent. The stars making up their profiles dimmed, and Adriana took it as them thinking. Though whatever Gods of Gods had to think about was beyond her. “Will you take up his cause, then? Would you take his place among the Gods and in the fight against the Maw?”

Adriana shivered. Even she could tell this was the question that mattered above all others. “I will. I’ll fight off the Maw and become the greatest of the Gods. I’ll go to Hessiopolis and join the fight, I guess.”

Clotho twinkled. “You say that now…but I can see your potential. As a hero, or a destroyer. You could do it. You could take your place and win, if you tried. If you were to accept the right kind of power.”

“The right kind?”

Lachesis floated higher into the night sky. Beneath her, the edge of the cliff was bathed in warm light. A few seconds later, there were two chunks of orange crystal. One was huge and jagged, the other smaller and polished and in the shape of the sun.

“You have a choice few mortals get to make. You could either take more power now, and you would be one of the strongest Demigods in the world, ready to fight lesser Gods right at the start. Or you could take less power now, but go on the true path to Godhood and --”

“I choose that one,” Adriana blurted out. “I’m going to be a God, and if that takes me on that path, that’s the path for me.”

Atropos chuckled, and the jagged crystal faded from view, leaving only the polished gem. It floated to Adriana. “You already have the power, you just choose now how it manifests. Or you could trust us to give you everything you need to destroy all your enemies.”

Adriana understood just how many options there were. Dozens, hundreds of possibilities pressed against her mind as she reached for the sun stone. Each of those hundreds of possibilities had countless combinations and ways to work. She faltered.

“You’ll give me everything I need to destroy my enemies and win?”

Their perpetual circuit sped up, picking up the pace until it was dizzying. Adriana stopped trying to keep up with it and instead closed her eyes. The world continued to spin, and her with it. She rose into the air, suddenly weightless, before opening her eyes once more. The faces were close enough to take up Adriana’s entire world. From all directions they peered into her, seeing her as no one ever had before.

“So much anger, so much pain, so much hate,” Clotho whispered, only a few feet away from her. “You let it burn you from the inside out. Should your enemies burn as you do?”

Yes, Adriana thought. She was what the world made her, and if she had a chance to dish it back out to those who deserved it, that’s exactly what she wanted. Clotho giggled, and a word entered her mind. Smoldersap.

The sisters spun around until the matron settled over her.

“You work for whoever will pay you. You’ve killed before, and you’ll spend the rest of your life killing and destroying. But you have your limits.” Lachesis dissected her with impersonal fascination. “Will that change when you’re the one with power? Will you become what you hate? Will you remain as we predict, or will you grow and change and need to be remeasured?”

Through the fear and discomfort, Adriana bared her teeth. She would use her strength, and then her future followers, to kill monsters and reinforce villages and towns. Maybe she wasn’t perfect, but there was always the drive for improvement, always something new to learn to do better. Lachesis nodded, and a new word came clear. Flamespitter.

Atropos considered her silently, the stars that made up her face twinkling hypnotically. When the old woman spoke, it was more thoughtful than the others. “You are a destroyer. A person like you doesn’t create, innovate, or provide. All you do is remove.”

For the first time, Adriana doubted herself. Her first instinct had been to claim that that’s what monster’s did, and there was a difference. Maybe she was a destroyer, but if it was true, she would be like a surgeon and cut away diseased flesh. Atropos cackled, and a third and final word came to mind. Flashfire.

Finally, the sisters retreated back to their original positions, where they no longer moved. Adriana breathed a sigh of relief. They spoke again as one, voices overlapping once more.

“Those three abilities are yours, gifts worthy of the power you have taken inside you. The world will know you for your powers, every man, woman, and child. The world will see your path.”

She puffed up in pride. “Good. When I am done, there will be no better friend to mankind or worse enemy to the Maw than me.”

Laughter emanated from the sisters. “And those are just the start. Your other gifts, you will discover when you wake up. And it is time.”

That was good enough for Adriana. She’d take the power, and then she’d do everything she could to strike against a world full of roving monsters. With one last nod, she put her hand on the sunstone and drew it inside herself. The power greeted her with no pain this time, only the sense of…more.

“Just one last note, child. When you wake, you will remember none of this until the next time you come to us. Let our words here guide you in the waking world, and fight for your place. Fight for us, champion!”

Adriana heard the words distantly, but it was like the last few seconds of a fading dream. She looked up at the Sisters of Fate one more time. The stars twinkled out and died, and the night went dark. Her last thought before returning to herself was of glee. She had power now.

No matter what, she’d be a God.