Prologue

"During the old world, there were no gods.” The old man said in between short and shallow breaths.

“There were only us mortals, the spirits, and the balance between the two true divinities: Alaya and Amara.” The old man sat achingly on the edge of a bench surrounded by a group of children buzzing with anticipation that only the young seem to have. After taking a few longer, deeper breaths he smiled and continued the story he had told countless times.

“Now the two did not bring balance to the old world but were rather halves of that balance itself. Alaya was the Light: the positive force that fed the world while Amara was the darkness: which fed upon it. So, each was dependent upon the other as the world depended upon them both. Without the Light, the world would shrivel and die; without the Darkness, it would grow too full and burn. But the sisters were careful, diligent stewards of existence; and the old world was vibrant, lush, and bountiful beyond imagination.”

“So, what happened?" One of the children asked. The old man chuckled at the interruption, happy to see there were still more eager members of his audience. He took in the rapt faces of the children who had become the very thing that kept him in this world. He allowed the silence to laden itself to its limit with their heavy impatience before continuing.

"In the world we know, the gods are the height of existence. But they began as deceitful spirits who betrayed the old ways to seize power. They scattered the light and trapped the darkness. They essentially took Alaya’s role in existence: giving and filling the world with both life and power. But where Alaya was impartial, giving everywhere equally, the first gods were vain, fickle, and often spiteful. The world became what it is; disjointed and at constant war with itself: wars gave way to different biomes that changed at the whims of the gods as they bid for more power. Still, the balance had to be kept if they wished to have anything to rule over. To preserve the world, the gods still had to feed Amara.”

“So, they did, after putting her to sleep and imprisoning her, of course. Her existence became a never-ending nightmare in which she devoured the very essence of whomever the gods deemed their enemies. Her prison, a pit that became infamous for being the only place to imprison some of the most powerful beings, was a well-kept secret among the elite of the new order; only a few knew the truth: that though it was a prison, there was only one ward; all who had been cast in were gone with no hope of returning. As if to add insult to injury, they named the pit Tartarus, meaning prison of darkness.”

“There she waited, for millennia through the rise and fall of the first gods, through the rise and fall of their children. She waited even as the divinity itself was tainted to keep the Light from returning. Even now, the Dark One lingers in the very depths of this world. As the eons pass, she grows stronger as she feeds on the meager offerings of her captors' children and the divine abominations. The ages roll forward like pages in a grand tome and the walls of her prison crack." The old man's voice increased in volume, sounding more and more like the voice befitting someone younger with each passing phrase.

"The Mage Mother has seen it! The reckoning that befalls the gods as Darkness rises; the retribution that awaits them as her bounds are loose and the world is plunged into eternal night." He ignored the worried and furtive glances as he continued with fervor.

"But the Mage Mother says not to fear. The Darkness is not death to the world but freedom: freedom from the corrupted light of the gods and their unjust dominions. The Dawn of the Dark is just that: a dawn. A new beginning. So, remember children, we must be ready. We must be prepared to greet the Dawn as Amara tears away her shackles; greet her and become her harbingers of the return to the Old."

Chapter One

Most people, if they could, would do anything to experience the divine. But few people understand just how mundane divinity really is. As such, no one turned their head or raised an eyebrow at the god slouched at the corner of the bar who fiddled with a fifth of scotch in his hands. During my time as a god, I have gotten pretty good at blending in with the mortals. Before my ascension, I was a shapeshifter but divinity is much harder to hide than the regular supernatural. Still, despite everything that had changed, one thing did not: fucking humans.

Humans are surprisingly irritating, and it is a damn shame they are needed for a god’s survival. To boost my power a bit, the goddess who would later become my wife suggested I alter a few destinies for wealth, fame, and whatever other greedy thing people would want. That led to me being worshipped as a god of fate itself rather than the god of misfortune I really am. Turns out it does not matter if the people who believe in you are wrong, the benefits of worship still work so long as your name is correct. And my name’s been used for many things over the last few centuries.

“Niavele!”

The ever more frequent prayers requesting my presence or patronage have become my least favorite part of this new existence. I used to be free to go where I wanted, do what I wanted, and enjoy whatever or whoever suited my fancy. Now, with almost 400 years of answering prayers and performing miracles just to keep getting stronger, divinity feels more like a burden than a privilege.  So, the last thing I feel like doing is listening to whatever this greedy mortal is going to ask me for.

“Avenge me!”

I stiffen in my chair. The sudden movement garnered a few looks from closer patrons of the establishment. I quickly knock the glass back, pay the tab, and exit the pub.

“What the fuck?"

I thought as I dissolved into the night air. I have been answering prayers for centuries; been asked for everything I thought I would hear from the hearts of men, but vengeance was a first and certainly a good bit outside of my wheelhouse. I debated whether I should just ignore it, but the last time I left a parishioner on ask, it somehow got back to my wife. I may be her husband by title, but I feel much more like a project to her than anything else. I must get stronger. On the surface, I assumed she just wanted a partner of equal status, after all, she is unequivocally one of the oldest and most powerful deities in existence. She could quite literally destroy me with a wave of her hand.

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Still, there is a part of me that wants to get stronger for that very reason: I want to get back to doing what I want, but that takes power. So, it is off to find the poor soul begging for vengeance. It is hard not to have expectations when meeting the mortals who call on me, but when they are almost all the same, it becomes such a routine it feels scripted. So even with the context of the prayer I received, I never expected to arrive at a murder scene. Mortals scrambled back in forth within their yellow-taped cordon, taking pictures and collecting samples for the divination art they called forensics.

The only person who was still was a young girl in black jeans and a bloodied blue hoodie standing over the white blanket at the center of the chaos. I did not pay her much attention as I passed through the tape until she crossed her arms and looked directly at me.

“Does time work differently in the afterlife, or do you always take forever to answer?” She asked, practically snarling at me. Suddenly it all made sense: this girl was dead, presumably murdered, and her dying prayer was for me to avenge her death.

“Maybe it does,” I said with an equal amount of animosity.

“But I remember mortals having better manners the last time I was here.” I retorted.

“Besides, I only came here to let you know you called the wrong god. I am not Nemesis.” I continued, still a little miffed at the obvious mistake. The goddess of revenge was no stranger to me as she often came asking for misfortunes to befall the targets of her patrons’ ire. Still, I hated the idea of being confused for that goddess; or any goddess in general. I had a lithe form and subtle curves, due to my vulpine origins, which did little to hint at my masculine nature. And even though that made me look androgynous at best and entirely feminine in certain lights, it had always been a sore topic for me; especially since my wife loved to tease me about it. 

“No shit genius. Look I am on a tight schedule so just shut up and listen, will you?” The girl glared at me as if I was genuinely wasting her time. I folded my arm and shrugged.

“Fuck it. I am all ears.” I retort. The girl scoffed and rolled her eyes but proceeded to pull a piece of paper from her hoodie pocket and hold it out to me.

“Good. Here is hoping you do not make a witch repeat herself. Normally none of us are allowed to contact other gods directly, but my mistress is looking for someone, and word in the ether is that you know someone who knows everyone. Bring that someone to the time and place on that note, and tell my mistress Harper of Hesperide 7 sent you. That way she knows who to reward.” I take the note and stare at her dumbfounded.

“Aren’t you dead? Why does any of that matter now?” I ask her. She frowns for a second and then bursts into laughter. I was kind of glad we were invisible and inaudible to everyone else at the scene because if this girl still had sides to split, she would have split them.

“What the hell is so funny?” I ask as she laughs some more but eventually pulls herself together.

“This is why I am dead dumbass, at least for now that is. I just need you to bring that special someone to that meeting and tell my mistress that I got you both there, then everything will be fine,” she said, pointing to the note in my hand.

“That is my dying wish, that is how you avenge me. Got it?” I snarl but nod, turning away before she finds another reason to laugh at me and make me reconsider helping at all. I did not have a clue who her mistress was, but I did not doubt that my wife did know everyone. The question was whether this was something I could walk both of us safely into, not that I was worried about Melinoe. I seriously doubt anyone a hedge witch could serve could pose a threat to her, but I did not need to be on her bad side again. Plus, I could not ignore the fact that she could be testing me. She has done it before and made requests through others to see if I was really answering them. I sigh heavily as I thumb the note in my hand and weigh my shitty options.

Before I could ponder too much about my predicament, my eye began to burn. Not in the metaphorical way the humans described their discomfort but, right there in its socket, my right eye caught flames and the world became a very strange thing to look at. It did not hurt the way one would imagine a flaming eyeball. What I felt was like what I was looking at was causing the pain and not the eye itself: everything around me was shrouded in the nighttime shadow and bathed in a blue light so bright it was hard not to squint.

“The fuck?!” I think as I dematerialize, hoping to rid myself of whatever this was. Wrong move. The fire that was not fire instantly spread to all my being. When I rematerialized, however, it was just the eye again. I gave up, no amount of punishment would be worse than all this craziness reaching Mel’s ears by anyone else’s lips. I decided to head straight home and risk whatever scolding I would get. Melinoe did not even look up as I burst into our room.

“You are early. What is wrong this time?” She asked, still eyeing the orb she watched the world through. She honestly spent more time here than anywhere else, including her trips into the realm of the gods.

“Nothing is wrong: I am still working. Got an odd prayer for a vendetta involving a girl calling herself Harper from Hesperide 7.” Melinoe’s figure tightened and tensed the moment I mentioned the Hesperides. Glancing up slowly, she then pales at the sight of my burning eye.

“What did you do?” The sharp, pointed anger that filled her question did not frighten me nearly as much as I thought it should. That was probably because I was too distracted by what my wife looked like to my right eye to fully process it. Though most of her was exactly how I had always known, her presence now reflected the god-awful blue that still made it difficult to see clearly. But more surprisingly, behind the silky caramel hair that fell over half her face, where her left eye should have been, was a flaming blue orb identical to my right one.

“Well…I answered a prayer, talked to a very rude dead girl, then freaked out a little when my eye caught fire and-'' I began until Melinoe scoffed angrily, setting the orb to the side before standing up and glaring at me. She interrupted me with a seething tone that came out more like a hiss than a string of words.

“Do not play games with me Niavele! Tell me what the fuck you have been up to before I get upset.” I did not know whether it was the way her frame was lit up like a kaleidoscope in blue tint, me finally losing my shit, or the bizarreness of it all making it difficult to take anything seriously, but I stared quietly at my wife for a moment before bursting into laughter. Even when I felt the air pressure shift with her magic due to her mounting anger, I could not pull myself together. I just howled at a joke that I did not understand as if possessed. My mind drifted back to the girl who had done the same to me not even half an hour ago and how upsetting it was.

Yet here I could not help myself. Perhaps Harper had been the same way? Overwhelmed by an impossibly odd situation. I assume dying was as intense an endeavor as a mortal could undergo. It seemed my wife, however, had heard enough. In the next moment, a blast of energy crashed into me with what I knew would have been enough to destroy me completely, but the wave just passed through me and completely obliterated everything behind me. Needless to say, I composed myself pretty quickly.

“Did you just?” I managed weakly. It was not that I was surprised that she could have killed me, but I had always assumed that if I did well, she never would. I had no clue what kept me from the same fate as our house but I decided it best not to test it out.

“I’ll see myself out,” I say before fading into the wind. What concerned me the most about it all was not the attempt at my existence, but rather the look she had on her face; one I had never seen before. Even now, I will never forget the creased, worried features of my wife’s face twisted in fear.