Eighty years ago. The Divine realm where gods reside.
High above the world where clouds floated like a soft white sea. There's a Divine Spire, a shiny crystal tower, glowing as it drifts among the clouds. Its edges sparkled where they touched the misty air.
It was too calm.
The silence was broken with loud and healthy cries of the newborn baby. The mont the cries began, a shockwave of pure, unrefined power rippled through the celestial building. The entire garden of silver flowers below turned towards the sound at once.
The force staggered Celestia, who was waiting in the corridor, one hand flying to her chest.
She burst into her sister's chamber in panic.
Ersyn lay in the center of the room on a bed made from golden-white clouds. Once the most feared deity in existence, the Goddess of Death and Ti was now at the edge of death.
Her white hair spilled across the pillow; her once bright golden eyes were dimming like a flickering, dying candle.
Yet she was smiling.
In her arms, wrapped in starlight, the newborn baby was still crying.
"It's a girl," Ersyn whispered, her voice barely audible. "Look, Tia… I have a daughter."
A maidservant glided forward and carefully lifted the child. The mont tiny fists left Ersyn's skin, the servants trembled by the infant's unconscious power.
Celestia fell to her knees beside the bed.
"Ersyn. There has to be another way." Tears tracked down her cheeks and fell through the cloud-bed, vanishing into nothing. "You don't have to do this."
Esryn's weak lips curved in a small, exhausted smile. "It is necessary, Tia. She must live."
A trembling hand lifted, brushing the Celestia head softly. "She is proof that love between a mortal and the divine can create sothing greater than the world ever allowed. This is punishnt for leaving him heartbroken there."
Celestia's eyes widened, holding her sister's hand. "You could have lived. You and Reo could have—"
"No." Ersyn's eyes found hers, suddenly sharp despite the fading light. "My daughter will live. Even if I must die a thousand tis to buy her one lifeti."
The newborn's cries quieted, as though she understood.
Esryn has to die for her daughter, not because of illness or other things. Ashtarya snatched her ti authority in great calamity centuries ago. The authority costs her half of divine energy.
The child between mortal and divine won't have enough life energy to survive; she has to sacrifice her remaining authority to save her daughter, leading to her death.
"Promise , Tia." She turned her head with an effort, her golden eyes finding her little sister's tear-filled blue eyes.
"I will reincarnate as a mortal. I will find him again. We will finish what we started." Her voice grew weaker with every word.
"Until that day… Keep her away from us. Keep her hidden. Let her grow without any worries."
"Promise you'll protect her. No matter what cos. No matter how many decide she should never have been born."
♢♢♢♢♢♢♢♢
Present. The Garden of Life.
The garden was too quiet after Reo's spoon stopped stirring.
Celestia stared into her tea as though it might show her a gentler future. When she finally spoke, every trace of teasing was gone.
"Heaven is turning upside down," she said, her voice low. "Old rules are breaking. They all felt the ripple the mont my niece drew her first breath eighty years ago. Power like hers… it has never existed before."
Reo narrowed his red eyes, watching her.
"They call her the Anomaly," Celestia continued. "So call her the End. A few of the younger gods worship her already. Most of the older ones want to take her power for themselves."
She lifted her head. Her expression was different from usual, tired, and—for the first ti Reo had ever seen—afraid.
"When she fully awakens, she will sit above every throne in heaven. And none of them will allow that to happen peacefully."
Reo set his cup down. "You didn't drag here for a history lesson. Get to the point."
Celestia's fingers tightened around her porcelain cup until faint cracks spidered across it.
"I have hidden her as long as I can," she whispered. "Sealed most of her power, sent her to help you so they won't find her."
"But the vessel temporarily weakened. She revealed herself just now. And now everyone in this realm knows where she is."
She drew a trembling breath. "I am only one goddess, Reo. I cannot hold the heavens back alone."
Reo leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "You're seriously asking to fight every divine bastard from here to the edge of creation for a kid I barely know? I'm already neck-deep in the favour you bought with Chloe. I don't have room for another war."
She slid from her chair and knelt in front of him.
Actually knelt.
The Goddess of Life, eldest of the celestial circle, pressed both palms to the marble ground in front of Reo's feet.
"I am begging you," she said, and the words trembled. "Protect her. Keep her alive long enough to choose her own path. Keep her free."
Reo stared down at the crown of silver hair bowed before him, stunned into silence.
Celestia did not look up. "I have watched you tear apart fate with nothing but stubbornness and a bad attitude. I know you can burn worlds to keep one girl safe."
"If there is anyone—mortal, immortal, or anything between—who can stand between her and the heavens themselves, it is you."
A long pause.
Reo's voice ca out rough. "You're asking to beco the apocalypse of gods."
"I'm asking the apocalypse to stand in front of the kid," Celestia answered without raising her head. "A child who has spent eighty years waiting for soone to choose her first."
Reo held the teacup tightly, and a crack appeared in his teacup. He thought for a mont; the silence stretched.
Finally Reo knelt down, gripped her wrist, and looked at her face directly, his expression unreadable, but she could see sothing in his eyes.
"Get up," he muttered. "Goddesses don't kneel to assassins. It's bad for the brand."
Celestia's eyes shimred, but she let him lift her.
His red eyes t hers. "You want to protect your niece? Fine. But when the heavens co—and they will—I'm not going to be nice about it."
A flicker of her old smile returned. "I never hired you for rcy."
Reo looked past her, toward the endless bloom of the garden.
"Then tell every god listening to start running."
"Because if a single one of them lays a finger on that kid, I'll remind the entire cosmos why mortals invented night."
___
Far away, on a tiny restored patch of forest on a little blue-green world, a silver-haired child slept curled between her parents.
She smiled in her dreams, unaware that a crimson-eyed man had just drawn a line across the heavens in her na.
She had no idea the holy war had begun for her.
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