Ride the Wave

21

“I thought the Dragons were created to keep the balance between elementals and humans,” Jasin said.

“That is one of their duties, yes. But they were also created to ensure that the Life Goddess had assistance in protecting the world from the Death Goddess. Kira you are actually a descendant of the Life Goddess, as were all the other female Dragons before you.”

That would explain why the bone cage harmed me the way it did, but not why my mother was immune to it. “What about Nysa?”

“I'm getting to that.” Doran scowled and stared at his bottle. “When Nysa turned twenty, she became a Dragon, like her mother. Back then she wasn’t dark or evil, not like you know her now.”

“What happened?” Slade asked.

He took another chug of his drink as he gazed into the fire. “Shortly after she became a Dragon, shades began appearing in our world in vast numbers, sucking the life from both elementals and humans alike. We learned later that they were the creation of the Death Goddess. She'd grown tired of living in the Realm of the Dead and jealous of her twin for having all four mates to herself. She sent the shades to attack us, and they fed her power with each life they took. Soon, she had enough power to leave the afterlife and return to our world. When she did, she brought death and darkness everywhere she went, and every time she took a life, she grew stronger. And with the Death Goddess gone, the way to the Realm of the Dead closed, trapping all fallen souls between the two worlds. No one has been able to find peace since then.”

“Enva mentioned that,” I said, nodding.

Doran arched an eyebrow. “How do you know of her?”

“She comes to visit me sometimes.”

“Does she? Interesting.” His eyes turned haunted, the firelight flickering in his eyes. “Yes, the Death Goddess’s arrival changed everything. The Life Goddess fought her twin sister, but their battle nearly tore the entire world apart. The Death Goddess had become too powerful from all the lives she had stolen. As a last resort, we worked with the Gods to bind the two Goddesses together again, but all it did was create a dark, twisted Spirit Goddess who began to devour all life with an insatiable hunger. We realized we’d made a terrible mistake, but the other Gods refused to help us separate them again. The Spirit Goddess was their mate, their queen, their leader, and they had to obey her. So we decided all the Gods had to be stopped, for the sake of the world.”

“How do you stop a God?” Reven asked.

“It’s not easy.” Doran drained the last of his bottle and tossed it aside. “We imprisoned all the Gods in their temples, one by one, using the element that is their opposite. Fire versus water, earth versus air, you get the idea. Once they were gone the Spirit Goddess was weakened and we tried to imprison her in the Spirit Temple, but we failed. She was too strong, even then. But Nysa found a way to cage the Spirit Goddess...by trapping her within her own body.”

I gasped. “The Spirit Goddess is inside Nysa?”

“She is. It was the only way to stop her, although we didn’t realize the consequences of doing such a thing.” His jaw clenched. “Nysa fought against the Death Goddess's darkness for years, but eventually she succumbed to it and became the Black Dragon. She still maintains some control, which is how she keeps the Spirit Goddess contained, but she’s become twisted…and incredibly powerful. She controls both life and death magic, along with all the elements, making her nearly unstoppable. With a single touch, she can drain a person's life, and her body heals itself immediately. That’s on the rare occasions she is injured at all, since she’s immune to all five elements.”

I dug my toes into the sand, taking in everything he’d said. It was a lot to absorb, and it made our task seem even more daunting. “Is it even possible to defeat Nysa? And if we do, what will happen?”

“It’s possible but won’t be easy. And if Nysa dies, the Spirit Goddess will be unleashed upon the world again. This is why she started sacrificing her own children…and why we reluctantly went along with it.”

“I don’t see how any of you could agree to that,” Slade said with disgust, echoing my own thoughts.

“No, because you didn’t see how bad it was when the Spirit Goddess was free. She would have wiped out all life on this world within months. If we let her continue, this would be a second Realm of the Dead under her rule.” Doran pinched the bridge of his nose. “Nysa was desperate to keep the Spirit Goddess contained, and she tried draining humans, elementals, and shades, but none of it extended her life. But then she had a daughter, continuing the Dragon cycle. The magic within the child was strong enough to keep Nysa—and by extension the rest of us—alive for another thirty years, when she could have another child.” He shuddered a little. “It was horrible, but we told ourselves it was one life taken in exchange for millions saved. We didn't realize what the toll would be on our own souls.”

“And yet you kept doing it,” Jasin growled. “For hundreds of years.”

My father dropped his head. “We had no other choice. Until Kira and her twin sister were born.”

“Why were we different?” I asked.Doran’s eyes rested on me again. “All of our daughters were born with both life and death magic inside them, except for the two of you.