A Gift from the Goddess

Book Two – Ch.# 47

“Seven times?!” I gasped. “H-how…? How is this possible? And why can’t I….” 1

I could see the faintest traces of memories, but they were all nonsensical, just painful flashes of random images rather than providing any sort of insight. Yet the more I tried to dive deeper to look, the more it pushed back at me.

“Come on, Rheyna! Look!” Clarissa demanded, pointing at my marks. “Doesn’t this look familiar? Don’t you remember?!”

“I-I… I don’t know… I don’t think so. I just …”)

“GODDAMMIT!” she yelled, a fury in her eyes that made me flinch. Though it only flashed for merely a second. Just a second before her gaze then slowly fell to the floor, a look of defeat washing over her. “…God- fucking-dammit. Why now?”

It was the first time I’d seen her look so upset. Not angry anymore, just… sadness. An emptiness as she accepted that I wasn’t able to tell her what she needed to hear. A change from her normal bratty attitude.

“Clarissa… There’s no point in wasting time if this really is all true,” I said awkwardly, doing a bad job of trying to navigate her mood. “You’ll just… need to explain to me what’s happened. Does this mark thing have something to do with why you’re sick?”

Her little body sighed and was quiet for a moment, assumedly trying to pull herself together. The news of my amnesia had hit her incredibly hard.

“…I’m not sick, per se,” she started after a minute had passed. “Sick implies you can get better. The truth is that I’m just… slowly dying. Again. The first time being when I was just a small child with my parents. The war was soon ending and we were ambushed. There was nowhere we could go, nowhere we could hide. I remember being scared… and then there were enemy wolves surrounding us. But we’d drunk that spiked suppressor water. Everyone had for months. And inevitably we were all cut down.”

“But if you were brought back, doesn’t that also make you a Saintess then?” I asked.

“Well… not quite,” she said. “No, I’m… I’m a bit different.”

I went to ask what she meant but, before I could, she pulled aside the top of her pyjama shirt so I could see her skin better. And though the small campfire light wasn’t great, I could still make out what I needed to. I could still see her inflamed red skin, her veins spreading in an incredibly painful- looking manner.

“Clarissa…,” I whispered, having too many questions.

“I contain the immense power of a God, yet it’s trapped within the frail body of a mortal. Not just a tiny piece to help revive such as you, but enough so that it burns away at me from the inside.”

“But… why?”

“Selene,” she answered as if it should have been obvious.

“The… Moon Goddess? The one that apparently created werewolves?”

the one to originally discover her dirty laundry. Turns out that making a sub-species of humans breaks whatever contract

lot…,” I said,

were on her back and wanted to start digging into what she’s been up to. And she knew what they would find. So when the war inevitably killed off the ranked Silver Mist members capable of being a vessel, she chose me of all

Goddess now?” I asked.

But I did pick up her ability for rebirth, assumedly since foresight at its core foundation is just a type of time manipulation. Though it’s not as strong as Selene’s, of course. Not to mention that every time I use it, I burn up my insides. more and

end? What do

dark, a cloud of hatred forming around her. A seriousness to her that took me off

cost… we need

by this revelation now. To think the young girl could do anything that warranted this kind of reaction was hard to comprehend.

asked confused.” Kieran’s sister? What? How is she involved in all

wars we win, something always happens… and the little psycho brings forth

to rip her to shreds. I must have retained some sort of recollection. Deep down, I must

still

tell, she’s just a kid… a bit religious crazy, sure, but that’s not entirely her fault, I guess. I don’t see

eyes. “Well, I’m certain that ‘kid’ is

I

always happens….”

“What happens?”

point, but it was her next words that made me freeze up,

Kieran. Something always

for details, yet also wanting so badly to know. A confliction that brought a sharp stinging pain to

a second to allow her words sink in but, after a moment had passed, slowly

living her best mortal life. And so, instead of Selene hearing the prayer… another receives it instead. A Goddess by the name of Nemesis, one who presides over balance, law and retribution. Of course, it doesn’t take her long before she discovers what Selene has

but mortals who hold pieces of Gods. ‘Abominations’ as she kindly put

asked, surprised. “To this

the wolves who kill us, they’re not nearly powerful enough to stop us, but there is nothing we can do against a fully powered-up Goddess with the ultimate authority to bring balance to the world. And she wins. She always wins. And at that point, I’m forced to burn myself up inside more and more just to bring you back in time a few months to try again. Or, at least, that was the case before. No… as I already mentioned, this is it, Rheyna. No do- overs.

and down. It was true, she looked in terrible shape. I could only assume then that the dramatic overnight change in her health, the one Myra had spoken of, was therefore because of me. Because of the day we must have come back in time to. Though this did tell me something else as well.

tell Myra,” I stated as a fact. ” You didn’t tell her what

“You think I’d keep it from her without a good reason? Simply knowing what will happen doesn’t make things always end perfectly, Rheyna. If

eye contact, staring at me intensely for

more danger?” And she turned around to seat herself by the fire, clearly exhausted from the duration of