Текст книги "Alien god"
Автор книги: Ursa Dox
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Table of Contents
NOTICES
ALIEN GOD
CONTENT WARNINGS
Stone Sky God Name Pronunciation Guide
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWO | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THREE | Torrance
CHAPTER FOUR | Torrance
CHAPTER FIVE | Torrance
CHAPTER SIX | Wylfrael
CHAPTER SEVEN | Torrance
CHAPTER EIGHT | Wylfrael
CHAPTER NINE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TEN | Torrance
CHAPTER ELEVEN | Torrance
CHAPTER TWELVE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THIRTEEN | Torrance
CHAPTER FOURTEEN | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FIFTEEN | Torrance
CHAPTER SIXTEEN | Wylfrael
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Torrance
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Wylfrael
CHAPTER NINETEEN | Torrance
CHAPTER TWENTY | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | Torrance
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | Torrance
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | Torrance
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN | Wylfrael
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | Torrance
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THIRTY | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN | Wylfrael
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT | Torrance
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT | Torrance
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE | Torrance
CHAPTER FIFTY | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO | Torrance
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE | Wylfrael
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR | Torrance
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NOTICES
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be copied, used, transmitted, or shared via any means without express authorization from the author, except for small passages and quotations used for review and marketing purposes.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and incidents in this novel are fictitious and not to be construed as reality or fact.
Alien God Copyright © 2023 Peace Weaver Press Inc. President Veronica Doran
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ALIEN GOD
Brides of the Stone Sky Gods
Book One
By Ursa Dax
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CONTENT WARNINGS
For a complete list of content warnings, please see my website.
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Stone Sky God Name Pronunciation Guide
Wylfrael – WOLF-rye-elle
Maerwynne – MARE-win-nuh
Skallagrim – SKAH-la-grim
Rúnwebbe – rune-WEB-buh
Sceadulyr – shay-AH-doo-leer
Cynewylf – KOO-nuh-wolf
Heofonraed – hay-OFF-enn-rad
Sionnach – SIGH-on-nock
Vizhiri – viz-JHEER-ee
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PROLOGUE
The stone sky god Cynewylf found his mate, a Sionnachan woman named Sashkah, during the deadliest Sionnachan snowstorm in a hundred eons. But despite the breathless howl of the wind and the drowning drifts of snow that made his steps heavy and numbed his wings, he felt no cold. He felt only the blood-boiling fever, the starburn that consumed him, at the discovery of his fated one after an immortal lifetime of searching. At long last.
When he claimed Sashkah as his love, his mate, his destiny and only desire, his immortality was snuffed out like a star getting swallowed by the tender dark. It happened to every stone sky god when they claimed their mate – the agonizing, beautiful, and inescapable shortening of their lifespan to match that of their mortal love.
It was then that Cynewylf understood why only mated gods could serve on the Council of the Gods in the hallowed halls of Heofonraed. Why the gods with mortal brides were considered the wisest, to be held in esteem above all others.
Because immortality made even the best of men into fools.
Too much time to waste.
Too much time to ruin.
Too much time to fix it all, to build it all up – a world, a universe – and to ruin it all again.
True wisdom came to Cynewylf, as it had to every mated stone sky god before him, when he became mortal in the embrace of his bride. Finally, he understood. Understood that everything could fall apart.
Even him.
When Sashkah bore him a son, a glorious new stone sky god they named Wylfrael, Cynewylf felt the merest flicker of his old, boundless life inside him, brushing at the back of his skull like a feather fallen from the wing of his own long-dead father. In his immortal child Wylfrael, he saw the star-tipped sprawl of the universe that had once been endlessly his. He saw love, like that he held for Sashkah. And the death such love would bring.
His wisdom deepened. And so too did his pain.
Because in that wisdom, he had learned the sharpest and oldest truth of them all, the kind of truth that could break even the heart of a god:
The things we are born to love the hardest are always the things that die.
And when they die...
They kill us, too.
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CHAPTER ONE Wylfrael
With my cousin Skallagrim’s fingers around my throat, I smashed through the stone of the sky and plunged into the world of the gods.
Heofonraed.
The home of the Council of the Gods – the only stone sky gods powerful enough to help me now.
I needed them to capture and bind Skallagrim.
He should have found her by now, I thought, grimacing as Skallagrim’s weight drove me down into the pearlescent stone of Heofonraed. He should have found his mate. Mate-mad.
Brideless immortality unwound even the staunchest, most stable stone sky god’s brain eventually. All stone sky gods were susceptible to going mate-mad.
But not all of them had berserker blood like Skallagrim.
That berserker blood was beating hard within him now. Making him faster, stronger, more brutal, more brutish, than before. His weight was immense upon me – a mountain of green and gold scales, broken up by the flashing of white fangs in his snout and the fury of his remaining eye. One of his eyes had been ruined during our fighting, though I could not pinpoint when.
“Let me go, Skalla,” I choked out, scrabbling at the fingers that threatened to crush my throat. His snout gleamed as he snarled in my face. Though we were cousins, our fathers being brothers, we looked little alike. Skallagrim took after the snouted, scaly Bohnebregg berserkers on his mother’s side, while I had features from my Sionnachan mother. We both had wings, as all stone sky gods did, and star maps. But that was largely where our physical similarities ended.
Unfortunately, I was the smaller of the two of us. Strong, like all stone sky gods were strong, but weaker than my cousin, especially in his fevered rage. My last clash with him had nearly killed me, and I’d spent the stars knew how long slumbering under the sand-battered mountains of another world, trying to regain enough strength to face my cousin again and to bring him here, before the council. I’d finally woken and managed to drag him to Heofonraed through the stone sky door. But we weren’t finished yet.
I need to get him into the hall.
I jerked in Skallagrim’s grasp, my wings trapped and shuddering beneath me, pinned behind my back to the stone. This was bad. I’d let him gain the upper hand, and I was still weakened from our last battle and opening the stone sky door into Heofonraed.
Surely the council must know we are here. We are right outside their gates!
Even beyond the bulk of my cousin’s body, I could see the Eaforswynne – the two massive horned boars that stood guard at the base of gates so high the tops became a blur among pale and shifting clouds.
Using every bit of strength I had, I smashed my fist upward into Skallagrim’s injured eye. He howled. Silver-white blood, the same colour as my own, poured from the wound. I used that sliver of a moment, his distraction, to loosen his grip around my neck. My wings pushed against the stone of the ground, and before Skallagrim could pin me again, I launched into the air, dragging my cousin up with me.
“I call upon the Council of the Gods to open the gates!” I shouted as my cousin fought me. “You must bind Skallagrim!”
The Eaforswynne watched me from below, their red eyes rolling further upwards in their great white heads to keep us within their view. But otherwise, they did not move.
And neither did the gates.
“Cursed stars,” I hissed as my grip on Skallagrim faltered. He wrenched away, dark green wings beating hard. His star map lit up the spaces between his scales, golden, like cracking sunlight. The veins of that light webbed over his torso and along the gargantuan spread of his wings, the same way mine did, but gold where my star map was blue. A tumble of tangled black hair whipped around his face as his wings beat mercilessly.
“End your rampage, Skalla,” I rasped, hoping against hope that there was still some shred of sanity in there somewhere. Once, Skalla had been my dearest friend. Once, he had been clever and charismatic, beloved among both his mother’s people and the stone sky gods. I could still see him, beautiful and powerful, a prince grinning on the banks of the largest Bohnebregg river, his hair bound in a sleek braid adorned with the loving sheen of the setting sun.
But that Skalla was not this Skalla. I did not know the beast before me. The beast who’d already tried to kill me once and who’d smashed his way through untold worlds since then.
A desperate sorrow pierced me when I realized there would be no calling him back from the brink now.
I turned my attention from my cousin, hoping that the gates had opened and cursing murderously to see that they remained closed.
“Open the gates!” I bellowed. I barely got the last word out before Skallagrim caught me in his claws, dragging me back down to the sleek stone below. I beat my wings furiously, trying to remain aloft, knowing that the next time Skallagrim got me beneath him, I’d be doomed.
But it was little use. My beautiful, broken cousin was too strong. He’d kill me and I’d really die this time, bleeding out on the white stone of Heofonraed.
I reached for the shining, carved stone of the gates as Skallagrim’s weight bore me faster and further downward. Pain lanced up my tail, my spine. It felt as if I were being torn in two. My wings pulling me upward with all their strength while Skallagrim clutched at my waist, claws slicing, yanking me back down.
We hit the ground with a terrific smash, landing between the Eaforswynne. The giant boars snuffled and snorted, angry with how close we’d gotten to the gates when their masters so clearly would not open up to us.
Why will they not open? I asked myself dizzily as Skallagrim once again seized my throat in his brutal grip. The Council of the Gods was supposed to be open to the petition of any stone sky god who needed help or guidance. And they were the only ones strong enough to restrain a god gone mate-mad.
So why would they not answer me?
I got no reply. Not from the Eaforswynne. Not from the gate – so close and so closed that it seemed to mock me. Not from the silent stone sky council, hidden in their halls. Not from Skalla, either. My cousin scraped his knees along the stone on either side of my chest, bearing down on my throat with all his strength. I clawed at his shoulders, his neck, his once-regal face, but his scales deflected my weakening claws. I scratched at his bleeding eye, but he seemed past the point of pain now and did not let go. His other eye was fixed on me, burning and bright. The only thing I could see. The only thing left as everything else went dark...
Until it was gone. I gasped as the pressure at my throat instantly eased. Someone had pulled Skallagrim off of me. Relief mingled with regret swept over me as I forced myself up into a standing position. Relief that the council had finally heeded my calls and opened the gates to help me. And regret at the fact I’d now likely never see my cousin again.
But...
The gates had not been opened.
A lone male restrained Skalla. I could not see him well – he stood behind Skallagrim, and though he was about as tall, Skallagrim was broader, blocking my view. But even so, I recognized the arm looped around Skallagrim’s neck, muscles straining beneath black hide interspersed with the glowing stars and veins of a magma-coloured star map.
Maerwynne.
I still did not understand why the council had not opened the gates. But I did not allow myself to stand idle for long. Maerwynne was a powerful stone sky god, but, like me, he was no match for Skallagrim alone.
But between the two of us...
Between the two of us, maybe we’d be able to finally kill him.
It was what I’d wanted to avoid. It was why I’d used all my strength to drag Skalla here in the first place. To bind him instead of end him.
But he was already overpowering Maerwynne.
And I had no choice but to attack him with everything I had. I flew at my cousin, snarling and striking as he shoved Maerwynne away. Maerwynne jumped back into the fray immediately, trying and failing to catch Skallagrim’s heavy, smashing limbs. One of those limbs – the boulder of his fist, it turned out – connected with my temple and sent me reeling. I staggered, righting myself just in time to see Maerwynne thrown against the white stone so hard a crack formed beneath the black and red lines of his body.
A mere moment later, Skallagrim was in the air, throttling upward, fist rising.
No!
I knew what he was doing.
“He’s going to open a sky door!” I need not have bothered saying it. Maerwynne knew it already. He launched into the air, and I followed, my weary wings straining.
But we were both too slow. The sky turned dark and opaque ahead of Skallagrim, hardening into stone. Skallagrim brought down his fist against it, cracking it with a catastrophic boom. The door was open now – a wide, dark crack in the stone of the sky. Without a glance back, Skalla hurled himself inside.
Before we could reach the door, the stone began to disintegrate, ebbing away like the vestiges of a half-forgotten dream dissipating into dawn.
“No!” I roared, clawing at the shimmering mist, all that remained of the stone sky that had been so solid just a heartbeat before. “Maerwynne, open another. I’m too weak.”
If we opened another door now, before Skallagrim’s power faded completely from the air, we’d be able to track him to whichever world he’d fled to. But if we waited too long, the lingering traces of his path across the stars would be lost.
I ground my fangs when I realized Maerwynne was not moving to open a sky door.
“Maerwynne,” I growled, my voice laced with deadly fury. At this point after the battle, Maerwynne was much stronger than I was. And I had no right to threaten him. But I couldn’t let Skallagrim escape. Not now. “Open the sky door.”
Maerwynne’s eyes met mine. The red within black of his gaze reminded me so much of twin crescent moons, two curving scarlet slashes in each dark eye, their tips meeting at the top and bottom, creating deep black pools in the middle.
“You have been gone a long time, Wylfrael,” Maerwynne said slowly. “I have much news to share.”
“News can wait!” I snapped. Who knew where Skalla had ended up? Who knew how much damage he was doing already? He should have found her... He should have found her by now!
“I do not think so,” Maerwynne said. His voice was even, but I was not so stupid from my wounds to miss the hardened edge of warning there. “Things have come to pass that make Skallagrim the least of your concerns.”
“My mate-mad cousin nearly killing me, twice, and then going on a bloody, berserker rage through the cosmos is the least of my concerns?” I scoffed. “You must take me for a fool.”
“I do not.”
I stared at Maerwynne in disbelief. Our wings held us aloft, making us into mirror images of each other. Maerwynne’s star map was a different colour than mine, flame-like against the darkness of his black hide, but its shape was identical. Since we were currently on the same world, our star maps showed the same thing, the constellations stretched over our bodies in the exact same positions, reminding us where we stood in the universe.
Except...
Except, our star maps weren’t the same. The stars that should have glowed on his lower left arm, the way mine did, were gone.
He caught the direction of my gaze and raised his left hand in the air between us. His mouth twisted in a mirthless smile as he closed his starless fist.
“You have been gone a long time,” he said again, softly this time. So softly I barely heard it.
Dread hardened in my guts as I tried to figure out just what it meant that a stone sky god’s star map had started going dark.
“Tell me, Maerwynne.” There was no hope of following Skallagrim’s trail at this point. I would have to regain my strength and try to track him down another way. But for now, I needed to know what had happened to Maerwynne. What had happened everywhere, to everyone, since I’d been gone, recovering under the red mountains of a far-flung world. “Tell me everything.”
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CHAPTER TWO Wylfrael
Maerwynne and I descended to the immaculate white stone of Heofonraed. Well, immaculate except for the crack that had opened up under the force of Maerwynne’s body being flung upon it. If I ignored the crack, looked only at the smooth white, I could almost pretend I was descending upon the winter snow of Sionnach. My mother’s world. The world I’d occupied until Skallagrim had crashed through the sky in his delirious rage and forced me into battle so long ago.
I may not have stopped him yet. But at least I saved Sionnach...
But this was not Sionnach. We landed in front of the gates, the Eaforswynne watching with their silent red eyes.
“Why does the council not open the gates?” I asked bitterly, studying the impenetrable white. If they had simply opened their gates, used Heofonraed’s power to help me, as was their duty, then Skalla would be bound. He’d be safe, along with the rest of the cosmos.
“They will not open to us. They will not hear any petition now.”
I whirled on Maerwynne.
“What are you talking about?”
The whole purpose of the Council of the Gods was to govern and assist the stone sky gods. They were the only ones with access to Heofonraed’s full power – power that was supposed to be used to answer petitions. Petitions like mine.
Maerwynne raised his starless hand again, staring at the extinguished star map. Now that I was closer to him, I could still see remnants of the map that had been there. Dark greyish marks. Scars where there should have been stars.
“It’s the star-darkness. They fear it will spread to their halls. They will allow no unmated god inside.”
“Star-darkness...”
Maerwynne stretched his hand out, his palm in front of my face.
“Star-darkness. This.”
I looked at my own palm, glowing with my star map. Just like Maerwynne’s should have been, but wasn’t.
“What is it?” I let my hand fall, and so did Maerwynne.
“I do not know. When my stars started going dark, I went to see Rúnwebbe. To see if she had answers.”
Rúnwebbe. The whisper weaver. Older and wiser than any stone sky god.
“And?” I pressed.
Maerwynne grimaced. His wings, deep red, gave an uneasy sort of flicker, making his long crimson hair shift behind his shoulders.
“She did not know what it was, nor where it came from. She did have other whispers for me, though. She told me that it was spreading among the mateless stone sky gods. She told me that Sceadulyr’s star map has completely gone out. He is trapped, now, in his Shadowlands palace.”
“Trapped?” I echoed, feeling suddenly off-balance. Maybe it’s the blood loss. I folded my wings and sat heavily upon the shimmering ground. I frowned down at my torso, slick with silver blood coursing from wounds inflicted by Skallagrim.
“Trapped,” Maerwynne replied flatly. “Every place that goes dark on your star map is a place you can no longer open a sky door to.”
I was glad I had seated myself. Because otherwise, Maerwynne’s words would have toppled me.
A stone sky god who cannot open a sky door?
It was unheard of. Impossible.
Maerwynne was no longer looking at me. He gazed at the gates of Heofonraed, his face unreadable, his star-dark hand opening and closing, over and over.
“Does it hurt?” I asked.
His fist clamped tight and stayed that way.
“No,” he replied, turning his black and red gaze back to me. “I feel nothing there, Wylfrael.” His voice caught strangely in his throat. “Nothing.”
I swallowed hard, looking down at my own hands, arms, chest, places that thrummed with the soft murmur of the star map’s power. I opened my wings and twisted, inspecting them. In a movement roughened by clumsy haste and blood loss, I stood, yanking off my Sionnachan leather trousers. I stood naked under my own fierce inspection. I was aware that Maerwynne was inspecting me as well, no doubt looking for the same thing I was. Any sign of star-darkness.
At least for now, everything seemed right with my star map. The blue flickers of the constellations glowed along my legs and across my groin as they always had. I fixed my trousers while Maerwynne turned his face from me. Not before I saw a strangled sort of emotion upon his features. I could not tell if it was envy or relief.
“You say this is spreading among mateless gods?”
“Yes,” Maerwynne said.
“Why then does the council block our entry? They should not be susceptible.” The Council of the Gods was comprised only of mated, mortal gods. It had always been so. Losing their immortality meant they acted with greater care, because they were more keenly aware of death and destruction. And because they died the moment their mortal mates did, it meant no god served too long a term and became entrenched in his power and place.
“I do not know,” Maerwynne said. “I am here for the same reason you are. To petition the council. I wanted to speak to them about the star-darkness, find out what they can do to stop it. I did not believe Rúnwebbe when she told me the council would not open their gates. I was flying up, trying to reach the top of the gates, trying anything to get them to open to me. That is when you and Skallagrim came through the sky door and I heard you calling.”
“This is unacceptable!” My roar caused the Eaforswynne to toss their bulky heads in warning. I ignored them, pointing a furious finger at the gates. “They are the only ones with access to the Heofonraed power of the stone sky relics!” They were supposed to use that power for the good of all of us, not hoard it.
“While they will not hear general petitions, they will allow mated gods to put themselves forth as candidates for the council.”
I sighed, lowering my hand.
“So, the only way to understand what is going on behind that gate and to talk to any of them is to be voted in by the current council?”
“It appears so.”
“Who is on the council now? Gunnarwyr?” I scowled, trying to remember the names of the other gods on the council before Skallagrim had sent me into my near-death slumber.
Maerwynne’s red eyebrows rose.
“Stone of the sky, no. He and any other council members you may remember are long dead. You have been gone for many mortal generations, Wylfrael.”
I tensed, letting out a harsh breath between my fangs. I’d had no sense of how long I’d been recovering after my last run-in with Skalla.
That means that every Sionnachan I knew, everyone I fought to protect from Skalla’s rage, is dead now.
Maerwynne kept speaking, and I fought to focus on his words through a clutching haze of grief.
“The current council members are gods I do not know. They are named Aelfsige, Beorht, and Paega.”
I inhaled and pushed my pain away. I watched Maerwynne expectantly, waiting for him to name the rest of the council.
He didn’t.
“Only three?” I asked, startled. I could not ever remember a time that there were less than seven gods on the council. Only three? How is that possible?
“Several newly mated gods have applied to join the council. None of them have been successful. I do not know what has happened to them since then.”
“Wonderful,” I muttered. “You’re telling me that since I’ve been asleep, everything has started to fall apart.”
“There is some hope,” Maerwynne said, though I heard little of that hope in his tone of voice. “There is apparently a cure for the star-darkness. Rúnwebbe told me she’d heard whispers of one stone sky god who found his mate. His star map returned.”
“Have you confirmed this?” I asked sharply.
Maerwynne’s wings shuffled.
“No,” he said. “He was one of the recent applicants to the council. I have heard no news of him since then.”
I grunted, dragging my fingertips through my hair. My head was beginning to ache.
“So, what are you doing wasting your time here with me, Maerwynne? You should be out there finding your mate. Before...”
Before all your stars go dark and you have no hope of finding her at all.
“That is my goal,” he said, his voice hardening with determination. “I will find her. And then I will apply to join the council and find out what is going on in there.”
We both turned to look at the gates once more, neither of us speaking aloud the ominous truth that lingered under Maerwynne’s declaration. The truth that he could go entirely star-dark, or mate-mad, before he ever found her.
“There is one more thing I must tell you, before I go,” Maerwynne said. “I fear I should have started with this news, but I knew you’d want to leave immediately once I told you, and you would not stay to hear the other things I had to say.”
“What is it?” My heart rate increased, every sense focused on Maerwynne and whatever truth he’d left until now to tell me.
“Rúnwebbe told me that a fourth race has achieved star travel.”
I did not think Maerwynne could have shocked me any more than he’d already done. But he had. The only ones who could travel the cosmos were stone sky gods, our uneasy allies the warlords of Riverdark, and our enemies the Tvarvatra.
“Who are they?” I hissed.
“Rúnwebbe calls them human,” Maerwynne replied. “Like the Tvarvatra, they do not travel with their own power but rather in machines. They are weak, but they are clever. They can use their machines to kill. And they are thieves. They plunder the worlds they find.”
“So why wait to tell me that?” It was important information, certainly, but it seemed less pressing than Skalla’s rampage, the star-darkness, and the disturbingly cloistered council. I did not see why such news would make me leave here with haste.
“Because, Wylfrael,” Maerwynne said gravely, his wings drawing around him like a scarlet shield, perhaps to protect himself from the explosive fury I felt at his next words. “These humans have landed on your world. They have invaded Sionnach.”
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