I opened my eyes and immediately shut them, having been blinded by light. I opened them again, squinting, before blinking multiple times. Eventually, I realized I was in Sylvis’ office. Hopefully in my body and not hers.

  “She’s awake!” I heard Finn say with a relief in his voice I had never heard.

  “Thank the goddess,” Marge sighed. “Or uh, thank Sylvis…?”

  I was finally able to see clearly and reached for anything nearby that would help me sit up. It was Rosalie who grabbed my hands and forcefully sat me up.

  “We’re home, aren’t we?” My voice was quiet, and I could feel tears drop down my cheeks. We had finally won. We weren’t trapped. We’d probably never go on vacation again, or at least not for a long time.

  “Yeah,” Aidan’s voice cracked as he smiled at me.

  Everyone was sitting around me, and it was making me feel slightly claustrophobic. Sylvis eventually helped me up onto a chair and was much more gentle than Rosalie. She was also back to her more casual attire, which is probably what she had left her body in anyway.

  “Let me start from the beginning.” Sylvis folded her hands together in front of her, taking a deep breath and releasing it.

  “Oh boy! An exposition!” Finn rubbed his hands together before he turned to Maverick. “Can we get some popcorn?”

  Maverick snapped his fingers, and a bucket of popcorn appeared in Finn’s hands, and then in his own. It felt a little weird sitting on a chair in front of a bunch of people who were standing and may or may not be eating popcorn… I could see Rosalie out of the corner of my eye taking a piece of popcorn from Maverick’s bucket. I momentarily wondered if Sylvis would put on a PowerPoint presentation.

  When I turned back around, Sylvis was standing with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. “It’s rude to eat while others are speaking.”

  “Says who?” Finn asked with popcorn in his mouth.

  Sylvis rolled her eyes, and the popcorn magically disappeared. There were a few groans, but Sylvis continued, or I guess started with her explanation. “As many of you know, Alina died at the end of the Great War. She sacrificed herself to what legends refer to as the void. However, when she… when I arrived in the void, I was given the choice to reincarnate. Etheria had already shattered into five continents, and so I split into five selves, each given authority over their respective continent. In truth, I’ve known about Avaline for some time.”

  “And that’s why you were against us going,” I recalled.

  “Correct.”

  “And you didn’t do anything about it? Didn’t at least warn us?” Maverick’s voice was getting dangerously loud.

  Sylvis shook her head. “You didn’t know who I was, and at that point, it would’ve been too late to tell you. Besides, Rosalie already saw that you would win.”

  “So you knew all of this would happen?!” Finn’s gaze switched between Sylvis and Rosalie, who weren't standing remotely near each other. “You played with our lives like… some sort of god that you apparently are?!”

  “I didn’t play with them!” Sylvis snapped back. “It was your choice to go to Celut, after all. We didn’t tell you to go.”

  “You also didn’t tell us what would happen if we did go!” I threw my hands in the air. It really did feel like we were used.

  Sylvis pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath. “While you were on Earth, Rosalie saw a vision of you in Celut. When I asked her about Avaline, she initially saw a vision of Avaline defeating you. We came up with several dozen plans, and eventually we realized I could travel to Celut if I transferred my soul to another body. Originally, I had asked Aqua, but Letheria volunteered instead after having overheard the conversation, as she has ancestors from Celut.”

  “So, why didn’t you just come to begin with? Why did Rosalie disguise herself as you?” Marge asked.

  “Because Avaline also had the ability to see the future. We needed to trick her into thinking she could defeat me, so she wouldn’t have time to come up with another plan. So, I used my magic to make Rosalie appear as myself.” Memories of Zuri and her Talent flooded back to me. She really did have access to all magic.

  “Does that mean you can read our minds?” I asked.

  “I can, but I choose not to.”

  “How can we trust you?” Maverick asked. “How can we trust that you’re not lying to us, like you were about your identity?” That last statement came off pointedly.

  “Because if I had read your minds, I would have intervened. You more than anyone should know. Zephyr would have never messed with the conduit, Rosalie wouldn’t have found and destroyed an ancient artifact that happened to be a statue, and—”

  “But you still watch us. It’s how you found Elaina. It’s how you knew Aidan had healed his sister.”

  “And that’s why you stopped my magic on Earth. How did you do that anyway?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. You just happened to run out of ether at the exact moment you tried to use it,” Sylvis answered.

  “I— What?”

  “Your magic had just awakened, and in a world without ether. You didn’t have much ether to begin with.” I supposed that made sense, but I still felt distrustful of her.

  “You mentioned Rosalie had a vision of the future,” Zephyr interrupted. “What about you?”

  “I…” Sylvis began before closing her mouth and clenching her fists. She released them before speaking. “Rosalie is a special kind of Ethereal. She’s the first, but her conception is different from the rest. I made her an Ethereal. I rescued her from death’s door, but in order to prolong her life, I had to give up one of my abilities. So, I gave up my ability to see the future. Now she has that ability.”

  So, Rosalie wasn’t the descendant of a Royal. She didn’t even inherit a Royal’s power after they had died.

  “In theory, there’s another Ethereal out there with her same ability,” Sylvis continued.

  “You mentioned you were transferring the ether from Vafir to another continent… Where did… how did…” I fought for the right words, but my head was already spinning with so much information.

  “I simply called upon one of my other selves. When Etheria split, one continent, Celut, wound up with too much ether, while another continent ended up with not enough. Nothing grows there, and nobody lives there besides my other self. She, through me, was able to siphon the ether from Celut to her continent.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Maverick was shaking with anger once again. “When were you going to tell us, Sylvis? When were you going to tell us that you’re a fucking goddess?! Would you have told us if we had never gone to Vafir?!”

  “In truth, probably not. It would have changed nothing.”

  “Damn you, Sylvis! And damn you, Rosalie!” Maverick shouted at both of them, and then started walking to the door, but uh, the door outright disappeared. And I assumed he was unable to teleport. “Care to explain that little trick?” Maverick gave Sylvis a forced smile.

  “My teleportation is cancelling out your teleportation,” Sylvis explained. “Because I know you’ll try to teleport out, I can simply repeatedly teleport you to where you currently are.”

  Maverick cursed under his breath. Is that how Avaline had prevented us from leaving? But that would mean she was watching us at all times… I felt a chill down my spine.

  “With Avaline,” Sylvis cleared her throat, “dead, the beginning of the end has been triggered.”

  “What do you mean the beginning of the end?” This time Rosalie was the one upset.

  “The void will return.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?!”

  “See how it feels?” Maverick chided. Rosalie smacked him across the face.

  “Then why did we kill Avaline?!” Finn asked.

  “Because we didn’t have a choice!” Sylvis replied. Harshly.

  “And let me guess, you want us to deal with it?” Maverick asked.

  “I was thinking of enlisting your help, yes.”

  “Learn to do your own laundry for a change. If you’ve said all that’s needed to be said, I’m out of here.” Maverick disappeared, meaning Sylvis must have finally let him teleport out.

  “Me too.” Rosalie also disappeared.

  The door reappeared, and Marge and Zephyr both took their leave, leaving Finn, Aidan, and me, who all seemed to have our own questions.

  “You said you choose not to read our minds,” Finn began. “Does that mean I could learn not to read them as well?”

  “Theoretically, yes. Though it will take much time and effort,” Sylvis answered. She seemed slightly detached. Then again, she did just tell us that the thing that split a continent in five is returning, so maybe that was why.

  It was Aidan’s turn next. “You told me before that my sister has a second soul—is that at all related to the soul transferring thing you did earlier…?”

  Sylvis sighed, her expression grew more patient this time, and her eyes softened with pity. “Yes. Most likely, an Ethereal is trying to take over your sister’s body. For what reason, I couldn’t tell you.”

  “I see…” Aidan seemed lost in thought. Maybe if there were some zombie we could offer the Ethereal, she would leave his sister alone…

  “The master is your daughter, right?” I asked, recalling she was also a Royal. “Why does she want to kill you?”

  “Because I’m not the same as the mother she knew,” Sylvis answered, but I had a feeling the answer was a lot more complicated. Still, I doubted she would tell me. “If you’re interested, your bloodline can be traced back to me. That would make you my great, great, great, great, and so on, granddaughter.” And here I had wondered if she was my biological mother. Still, I didn’t expect to have a literal goddess as an ancestor…

  “Should I start calling you Princess?” Finn winked at me.

  “I feel like we’ve had this discussion before.” I sighed.

  Aidan and Finn chuckled before taking their leave. I was about to leave as well, but Sylvis called me.

  “You’re the only one unfamiliar with the Great War,” Sylvis started.

  I had a feeling this would take a while, so I sat back down in the chair I had been sitting on before. “Zephyr explained it to me a little. But not in detail.”

  “In the Great War, Alina—I fought against the void, an entity that sought to consume Etheria. My plan was to dive headfirst into the void and consume it, ending both our lives. But when I arrived, I felt… scared.” Even someone as powerful as a goddess could feel fear when faced with death… I supposed it made sense. “It offered to spare my life, and I would reincarnate. In exchange, it wanted a place in this world. The void is the real source of ether corruption.”

  My breath hitched as my chest tightened. “You allowed something that tried to destroy your world a place here?!” That didn’t sound very goddess-like to me.

  “Only because I knew I’d have power over it. All ether is infected with the void. When large amounts of ether gather, the void takes over. You’ve seen it with those creatures on Celut.”

  “And what, may I ask, was your plan on stopping it? Surely you had a plan?”

  “My only plan was to stall. The five of us remember the deal we made, and our responsibility to our people. So long as we’re alive, we can prevent the void from ever taking over. Celut was an exception since it received more ether than any other continent. With Avaline gone, there is no one left to regulate the ether in Celut. The void’s presence will grow stronger without my divine light.”

  “But Avaline couldn’t use light magic,” I reminded.

  “The light magic you speak of is different from natural energy a divine being radiates.” Sylvis shook her head.

  “Then I’ll ask again.” I crossed my arms. “What are your plans for defeating the void?”

  Sylvis crouched before me, meeting me at eye level. She grabbed both my hands into hers, and pulled them towards her chest. I could already see the tears in her eyes. “My sweet Elaina, I have none. That is why I need your help.”

  ——

  I couldn’t believe it! What sort of goddess was she, taking out her only fail-safe? And why would she endanger her entire kingdom for a chance at reincarnation?! It was so stupid! I’d be a better goddess!

  I sat in the dining hall watching Maverick and Rosalie chug their alcoholic beverages. I knew the dining hall didn’t serve alcohol, so I didn’t know where they got that from. Maverick probably teleported it from some bar.

  “I should’ve told you,” Rosalie said through slurred words. “That Sylvis was the 'fucking goddess.'” She used air quotes with her free hand.

  Maverick laughed loudly, though it sounded forced. “You should’ve told me you were only interested in women when we dated.”

  “I didn’t know back then. Even if I did, I still wouldn’t have told you.” It was Rosalie’s turn to let out a forced laugh.

  “No wonder you sucked in bed—” The remainder of Rosalie’s drink was poured over Maverick’s head. “Hey! I’m not getting you another one!”

  “I don’t need another one. I’m going to apologize to mommy goddess.” She swayed out of the dining hall, knocking over every table she bumped into. Those were some strong hips…

  “You want a drink?” Maverick raised his stein in my direction.

  I shook my head. “You two have reminded me never to get drunk.”

  “Hey, Elaina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you.” He made a kissy face at me, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Tell me when you’re sober.”

  I decided to leave the dining hall. The only person there was Maverick, and a couple of other people sitting in the corner as far away from him as possible. I wondered if they’d heard the two (loudly) drunkenly mention Sylvis was a goddess. Oh well. That was Sylvis’ problem, not mine. Kind of like how the void wasn’t my problem either, isn’t that so funny?

  “Are you okay?” I could hear the concern in Finn’s voice as he sat down next to me. We were sitting in the garden, which somehow always ended up being the place I’d go to think.

  “What do you think?” I asked, trying not to sound hostile or annoyed.

  “Honestly? I’m with you. I don’t know why Sylvis only told you. Maybe she thought you’d be sympathetic towards her. I can’t believe that history has always spoken of the goddess sacrificing herself to save us, when in truth, she sacrificed us for herself.”

  “What’s going on?” Zephyr joined us, book in hand. He closed it as he sat down on the grass beside us. Finn and I filled him in. He was quiet for a moment. “I don’t think Sylvis is our enemy. Could any of us say that we wouldn’t make the same decision as her if we were in her shoes?”

  “She’s a goddess—” Finn was cut off.

  “And you think her feelings and emotions are less than ours? What even is a goddess, anyway? An extra powerful Ethereal? A human with extraordinary capabilities? I don’t think Alina made the decision she did with the expectation of dooming us.”

  “What bugs me most is that she didn’t have a plan for when things inevitably went to crap.” I hugged myself, feeling anxious and angry at the same time.

  “Perhaps it was because she didn’t know what form the void would take when that happened. This is Sylvis after all—I’d find it difficult to believe that she has zero ideas whatsoever. She’s probably looking for suggestions.”

  “Why ask me instead of Rosalie?” I asked.

  “That, I don’t know.”

  I looked up at the top floor of the manor and noticed the curtain in the window moving. Nobody was there, though. Had Sylvis been watching us…? Yeah, right. It’s not like she isn’t always watching us.

  Some of what Zephyr had said made sense. At the end of the day, Alina—Sylvis—they weren’t that different from us. Sylvis had done well protecting Meridia so far. But, Vafir… Who would protect them in Avaline’s absence? It was a weird thought to have when you considered what she was like.

  I thought back to when Sylvis’ soul entered my body. Yeah… Maybe she wasn’t all that different.

  “I think I want to help Sylvis,” I said. “I think. Right now, I’m still trying to calm down from everything. But… I don’t want to see Etheria destroyed.”

  “Well, if you’re in, then I’m in.” Finn smiled at me.

  “We’ll do this together.” Zephyr agreed.