Lapidary

“Look at me,” someone with a luscious voice said.

My eyes opened, but the world seemed blurry. I blinked a few times before a beautiful face came into view. The woman had hair as red as the sunrise, and as long as a willow’s branches. Her face was angular, with perfectly sculptured high cheekbones and a thin, pointy nose. Her eyes were big and round, green like a fern, but troubled. I had only seen this face in pictures.

“Ayana,” I breathed. The pictures I had seen of the goddess of the elves didn’t do her beauty justice. As I lay there, I realized it was not normal to see her, and jumped to conclusions. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” the goddess of the elves told me, “but we don’t have a lot of time.”

I sat upright and looked around. I was in a white room, but there weren’t any walls. I didn’t see any colors around us, other than white. The place was empty, like a mind with amnesia. I sniffed the air but couldn’t smell anything, which made me suspect this place wasn’t natural, wasn’t a part of Testatha.

“Is this real?” I asked. “Or are we inside my head?”

“Both,” she responded.

I looked around. “I didn’t realize my mind was this dull.”

She smiled. “It’s not. I just took you to a quiet spot because I didn’t want you to get distracted.”

“Why did you bring me here?” I asked.

“I have to talk to you about the White Crystal,” she said.

“What about it?” I asked.

“Years ago, Duras Foreswift begged me to help him find a way to be with Paris Venven, the archangel. At first, I refused, but he was persistent. Against my better judgment, the other gods and I gave him the White Crystal. I explained to him the crystal could do two things. One, it could bring people back from the dead. Two, it could open rifts to the countless other worlds. In order for a rift to open from Heaven’s Window, at the time it was the only place where the veil was thin enough, the crystal’s power was needed. But it wasn’t enough. It would require a life, too. That’s why I gave the crystal resurrection properties – Duras would die opening the portal and be resurrected.”

I gaped at her. “He never jumped off the tower, did he?”

She shook her head. “He didn’t jump. He died and fell, but he also lost the crystal in the fall, and thus his chance of resurrection.”

Ace had died when he opened a rift. He had given his life, unknowingly, to open the rifts. If he hadn’t taken the crystal from Dev, Dev would have opened the rifts and died. Shit.

“When I gave Duras the White Crystal, I warned him that there would be consequences. I warned him the world would never be the same, and it wasn’t. Half-rifts opened, and the veil thinned. Angels couldn’t return to Heaven, daimons couldn’t visit from the Netherworld. The reapers couldn’t help the dead move on.”

“So, why did you give him the crystal?” I asked. “What was in it for you?”

Ayana straightened. “The other gods and I made a deal with him. We would give him the crystal and ten years’ time.”

My chest felt tight, as if someone was pushing against it. I touched it, but there weren’t any hands to push away.

“Ten years to do what?” I didn’t like where this was going.

“Ten years before he broke a curse, on the gateway between Cruretis, world of the gods, and Testatha. We wanted him to let us in here.”

“What? You gave him a crystal that shook the world, because you wanted to find out what it was like to live here?”

“We know what it’s like to live on Testatha – we used to travel here all the time, until the gateway was cursed. Duras agreed to break the curse, to let us in, and he is twelve years late.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, don’t wait for him to keep his word.”

“Of course not,” she said, “but, I must warn you, there are other religious fanatics who will try to get the crystal, who will try to keep Duras’s promise.”

“What would happen if the gods came here?” I asked.

“They tell themselves that they will visit and they will leave, but I don’t believe them. I think once they get a taste of Testatha again, they will never leave. They will stay here and rule.”

The world was already unfair because of the different power levels. Humans were already oppressed because they were the weakest. If the gods came here, everyone would be oppressed.

“We can’t let the gods come here.” I shook my head. “Why are you warning me? You’re one of the gods!”

She looked away, ashamed. “I never intended to have too many people die. It must stop somewhere.”

“I assume the other gods don’t agree,” I said.

“They don’t even know I am here, and it is best no one finds out. Go now, Natka. Throw the Crystal off The Edge so no one can find it ever again and break the curse.”

I was struggling to breathe.

The last thing Ayana said to me was, “Wake up. You’re drowning.”