Prologue

Aureon

I remembered the rain. It had been falling for three days, turning the dirt roads into mud and stripping the old willow's branches at the edge of the valley. I stood beneath it anyway, absolutely soaked, watching water gather at the tips of the leaves before falling in steady drops around me. I was so tired. I remembered that clearly too, aside from the rain. In that small, ordinary moment, I'd lose everything else.

People didn't think Gods got tired. No, Aevorian divines were known to be conquerors. Kings. Queens. Monarchs. Loved by all, sworn to protect and to lead. Exhaustion didn't seem like an option, and I didn't blame mortals for being so naive. I had always preferred walking among them - carrying symbols around my neck, assisting in building majestic temples, begging for children, healing, and fortune. What I liked most of all about being boring were the ordinary things. Things like a mother's love, or the heat from fresh bread just pulled from an oven. Now that I think about it, I realize I craved things that eventually ended.

I believe that's why I found myself so infatuated with mortals in the first place. They lived, knowing that everything ended, and they still chose to love things anyway.

A small, white flower peeked through one of the willow's branches. It immediately caught my eye, so I reached up carefully and freed it.

"You're going to ruin it."

I turned. That voice. It instantly brought me joy.

She stood a few feet away, holding her cloak over her head as she always did. It didn't seem to help - her chestnut-tinted hair was already soaked. She looked irritated enough to make me smile. Her small, fragile hands gripped a basket, and I watched as she helplessly tried to tuck it under the cloak's fabric.

"The rain already ruined it," I responded.

"It was growing."

"It still is."

She rolled her eyes and took the flower from my hand. "Just because you can manipulate growth doesn't mean you can manipulate everything that grows. I don't think Cicida would appreciate that, would you?"

She was always so curious. Even as a toddler, she'd beg me not to use my magic - she always saw the beauty in the natural things. Her mother taught her that. I never argued; simpler was better, especially in her case. Though at the mention of Cicida, I pondered the idea that she might be too smart for her own good. For a child who didn't care for the divine world, I didn't expect her to name-drop another god.

"No, darling," I nodded slowly, taking a mental picture of her facial features with my eyes. She was a perfect mixture of both her mother and me - brown, wavy hair that looked gold in sunlight, ember eyes, and freckles that dotted most of her face. I smiled wider. "You shouldn't be out here."

"But I am." She stepped closer and placed the flower back on the branch as best she could. Eventually, the rain would push it off, but I admired the effort. "You should come inside, Father. It is getting rather dangerous outside."

I couldn't help but chuckle. There was a reason the weather was so mean, why the wind bit at our skin with each second that passed. I'd come to terms with it.

"Go inside," I reiterated, eyes glued to the blood-red horizon.

"Father--"

"You promised." My glance moved back to her, and for once in my long, unending life I saw something encouraging. There was something in her eyes, something that told me we'd find each other again. She didn't respond, and instead bowed her head once. I said the rain was the most memorable. That I remembered that more than anything. But really, it was the sound of the rain on her boots as she turned away from me one last time.

Minutes passed before I finally heard the stomp of horses and boots in the distance - they emerged from the trees, carrying evolved weapons marked with Academy sigils. What killed me the most was that some of these soldiers prayed to me at some point in their lives; some even studied beneath my temples.

I looked back at where she disappeared to, noting the imprint of her shoes in the mud.

Before I knew it, all I felt was pain. It shot through my being like ice. I could hear her screaming my name as I staggered backwards. I tried to breathe, but it seemed impossible. In that moment, I knew I had lost, which was funny because I never imagined a forever ending.

Perhaps nothing was really eternal.

The last thing I felt was the earth beneath my hands, and I breathed a hymn to Cicida. I forced my eyes closed, even though my fighting body begged me to keep them open. The rain came down harder until all I felt was numbness mixed with dread. Everything went black.

What didn't shut off was my brain. My senses. But I was paralyzed, and my heart stopped beating.

They kept me in a vegetative state for hundreds of years, away from her. Away from what kept me alive in the first place.

You'd have to imagine what went through my body when, one random afternoon, I heard her voice again. I didn't know if I was hallucinating, as she certainly would've been dead by then. But as soon as I heard it, my adrenaline spiked. Something primal in me woke. I just needed to open my eyes.

And with each day she visited me, I felt myself getting stronger. I wondered if she knew who she was. I wondered what the gods did to keep her here.

All I could do was wait, so I did. Until then, I manifested that I was right. That my daughter wasn't lost and that I didn't make the wrong decision. I repeated her name subconsciously in thirty-minute intervals, in hopes she'd hear it through the walls and remember.

Maraya.

Please, remember.