Retribution Prologue

Author's Note: This is unedited and will undergo changes before being published. However, this prologue does explain why certain events happened in Nirel and Dissonance. I hope you enjoy it. If you have questions, let me know! I might tweak the prologue to help it make more sense if parts are confusing.

Imani

The end began the night I pushed Nirel twenty years into the past. Her mission to save Jase Nagden was the last defensive link I needed to protect Laeviin.

Dimension and I had fought each other for centuries, and I learned she could not defend herself against elemental fire. Her shadow shields were no match as the searing heat incinerated the forbidden magic’s semi-solid attributes.

Two hundred years ago, my attacks had her backed up to the crevice between our worlds. Air, water, metal, and earth wielders worked together to steady the rift while the fire wielders pressed her into the opening. Victory was moments away, when all my fire and water users disappeared from existence.

Murdered. Absorbed. Gone.

She’d traveled to antiquity, killing entire households and communities until most of Laeviin’s elemental strength perished.

We lost. Those who remained couldn’t overpower the life-sucking essence of forbidden magic.

I travelled back ages to save my people, but she followed me, undoing my work piece by piece.

Not this time.

I’d planned for every variation, no matter how improbable. I had four elemental wielders, including a water user. Nirel would rescue the fifth, Martin would help her, and Waylen stood by as a backup.

But even goddesses can be surprised.

Dimension interrupted my transport with forbidden magic. I threw Nirel into the vortex destination by herself instead of accompanying her. Separating her from me was the best way to keep her alive.

How did she pierce the flow of time? None of my visions ever hinted at this possibility. Such a warping of the fabric of reality shouldn’t exist.

How many lives did it take to achieve this feat of insurmountable power?

I’d underestimated her. Again.

A myriad of new future threads erupted from this sudden change. The ground shook from the catastrophic disruption.

I sensed the onyx blade skewer Martin. He wouldn’t be able to assist Nirel with rescuing the boy and his mother. He’d also not survive to help raise his nephew unless I spared him. I scanned the variety of futures and whispered to my most skilled timekeeper.

‘Waylen. Save two timekeepers in the Isataria vortex. Take Martin home first. I’ve arranged a healer there. Then mend the girl. She and the boy must live.’

My eyelids fluttered in relief at his immediate reply.

‘I’m on my way.’

I tumbled into an abyss between time and space, but observed Nirel’s safe landing in my mind’s eye, and her father bolting to the closest portal. While I considered calling Gertie into the situation, she was preparing for our trip to halt the prince’s assassination.

Hopefully, Nirel wouldn’t recognize her rescuer, but the several futures revealed she most likely would. I’d deal with that later.

The never ending darkness of the abyss did not bother me. This place in-between realities was my refuge. I landed without injury and planted my feet on the firm earth beneath me, waiting for my nemesis to reveal herself.

I sent a whisper of enchanting words to light a vanadium lantern nearby. The illumination dissolved into the expanse, but I still enjoyed the soft glow.

“Stop fighting the inevitable,” Dimension hissed as she emerged from the oppressive darkness.

I curled my lip in disgust. “This is my world. My time. The only eventuality is your demise.”

She invaded my realm after she ruined hers, but I would never let her have mine.

She laughed, raising purple gloved hands that sparkled with what appeared to be tiny amethysts. I once found her chuckles endearing. Now the sound scraped against my ears like fingernails against slate.

Her plum hued lips pursed into a crooked smirk. “I see the outcomes, too, dear sister. Or have you forgotten?”

“You lost the privilege of family when you chose forbidden magic over your divine calling,” I replied through clenched teeth. But of course she foresaw the future. All goddesses could.

However, no amount of power plundered from my realm could reanimate hers, no matter how hard she tried.

Forbidden magic feeds on death. The more life she sacrificed, the worse both our worlds fared. 

She clicked her tongue. “I don’t want to argue.”

I lowered my chin and glared. “Then leave.”

She examined her gloves, picking at the miniscule gems. “Remember when we planned how we’d rule when were young?”

The gentle response shocked me. Ancient memories transported me to running through unformed realities suspended in raw magic. We learned how to be goddesses and were assigned realms separated only by a thin magical dimension.

Until she discovered the energy siphoned life held. In an effort to heal her war-torn world, she destroyed it. She wanted to devour mine to resurrect hers.

She leaned forward. “We should have ruled together.”

Before I pointed out how that violated our divine orders, she gripped my upper arms. Needle-sharp grit pierced my skin, then white hot pain seared through my flesh. I gasped.

Not heat.

Cold.

A freeze that clung to my immortal bones and crystalized my blood, though my divinity remained intact.

“I found the Kyanisha sand.”

Her words terrified me, as agony ripped through me.

I struggled to say her name.

She tightened her fingers around me, digging into my muscles. I convulsed as the coldest material in the known universe froze me inch by inch.

A goddess cannot die. But our flesh can be harmed.

Vanadium burns shadow magic. Kyanisha freezes everything it touches, even divine beings.

The cold turned my deep brown skin blue. It crept up my shoulders, sideways to my organs, over my scalp.

Stop. I begged wordlessly.

She released my right arm, only to pat my side and send shivers of icy pain through my ribs, torso, and lungs. A cruel grin exposed her pearly teeth as she carefully pulled off her gloves, ensuring she didn’t touch the sand. She bent and draped them, Kyanisha grit down, on my feet. My toes, ankles, and calves solidified in seconds.

Then she disappeared into the flow of time, leaving me frozen, weakened, and unable to stop her.

Before I completely stiffened, I instructed Waylen to keep the queen and younger prince safe in the Dissonance timeline. He followed instructions.

I sent the wielder boy to his uncle with Nirel, then sent her back to the dissonance variation. I made a few more adjustments for my timekeepers, including sending everyone backward to stop Zarin’s assassination after Jase’s fire emerged. The ice crept up my knees, thighs, and moved into my hips. I refused to scream from the anguish. Only moments remained for me to set the plan in motion.

I noticed when Dimension infused her favorite seer’s body, Keigan, with his dead soul and transformed him into a fiend. They kidnapped Gertie’s daughter, compromising her. They jumped back and forth between timelines too fast for my chilled powers to follow.

A slow blink revealed Dimension, disguised as Kiegan, murdering a sweet girl wearing Nirel’s face, thus manipulating Jase into recreating the dissonance. This was a less predictable outcome, and the odds no longer favored us.

Goddesses don’t give up.

I widened my eyes so they would freeze open. I would be paralyzed and in incredible pain for an indeterminate timeframe, but I could watch the timelines unfold. One variation rose as more linchpins became critical to Laeviin’s survival.

To my horror, Kiegan tethered Waylen, killing the helper I relied on the most. Like a sick joke, they touched him just minutes before the next hour, meaning we had only moments to reset it.

‘Aevum levare!’ I tried to warn him. But he was distracted. In the few attempts to repeat myself and for him to comprehend the danger, our window to undo the tether closed. Witnessing his slow death was torture.

I took a shuddering breath and called to the one who might hear me through the expanse between realities. The timekeeper most receptive to time and sight magic, even if she was too inexperienced.

‘Nirel.’

Unfortunately, my incapacitated abilities sent it across multiple years, repeating over and over. The scattered call became nothing but background noise. I couldn’t respond when she asked if I was real.

I was reduced to a resounding echo.