“I have a present for you Malgenia, though I’m not sure if you’ll want it or not.”

“What do you mean? I love presents. Give me what you brought Dyrena, I want to see it.”

“Well, it occurred to me that we’ve tasked you with collecting the lost grace from all of those who will perish when we change the world. That’s a significant amount more grace than any of us has ever handled before.”

“It won’t be a problem.”

“Oh, don’t mistake me. I’m certain you’re capable of it. I asked Helgon for some calculations and he’s close enough to resolving them that I feel confident saying that.”

“And what would you have done if the calculations suggested I couldn’t manage my new underworld?”

“Asked you where Helgon’s numbers were wrong. Either you could have corrected a poor factor in the starting assumptions or we would know that you abilities require external augmentation.”

“Clearly they do not. So what present have you brought me?”

“External augmentation for your abilities.”

“You know, I believe I know how Vitor feels when I torment him now.”

“My intention is not to torment. Not is it to cast any aspersions on your talents. You, of all of us, are the closest to our eventual goal and gap between you and the next strongest of our number is profound.”

“Then why should I need any external augmentation?”

“You don’t. ‘Need any’ that is. However, what we need and what we may simply enjoy the benefit of are two different things.”

“Ah. You believe I am weak and will tire of holding the mass of grace I will collect.”

“That will be for you to decide. I am inclined to provide you with this in the case where you come to find you desire an evening’s reprieve.”

“And what would give me this reprieve you speak of?”

“A ritual I have extrapolated from your writings. It is intended to allow you to share the burden of your power with another, temporarily, so that they will shoulder as much of the load as you choose to forego.”

“And if I should forego it all?”

“If they had your prowess? You would returned to what you are currently, until the ritual’s duration expired.”

“And if they didn’t?”

“I expect they would not last long at all unless you were to intervene and whatever the results of that might be I cannot imagine much would remain of them.”

– Dyrena handing Malgenia the core elements which Malgenia would corrupt into the Assumption Ritual, just as Dyrena knew she would.

I’d never stood in sunlight before. Theoretically I had no proof that the illumination Sola was giving off was sunlight but what else could the God of the Sun be emitting?

“Uh…hello?” I am eloquent. A master of verbal wordplay. That’s me, for sure.

“A pleasure of meet you Insight,” Sola said. “Or do you prefer your full titles?”

“No. No. Insight’s fine,” I said, trying to figure out why the literal sun, unseen for lifetimes, was standing in my room?

“Sola’s has reemerged at last. She’s taken a Blessed!” Diyas looked pleased with this, so I guessed it was a good thing.

“It wasn’t my intention to stay hidden away until now,” Sola said. “But perhaps the timing is fortuitous?” The Sun God looked at me like I was something unique in all the world.

Which, technically I was, but I had enough expectations on me for pretending to be Malgenia, I didn’t want to have to pretend that I was someone who was actually important in her own right too.

“Fortuitous how?” I asked.

“Four of the Neoterics have fallen but they only know of three,” Diyas said. “This might the moment she planned for.”

“She who?” I asked, since they seemed to be resuming on a long conversation that I hadn’t ever been even slightly a part of.

“You would bring her up?” Sola said. “After what she was a part of? After what she did to us? And why?”

“She gave Night the key,” Diya said – still assuming a context which I clearly did not possess, and which Sola clearly did. “We’re only still here because of that.”

“Self-serving behavior does not an angel make,” Sola said.

“Not all of us are lucky enough to have had the Foxwinds to serve us,” Diyas said. “Most of the rest of us lost our assistants completely, without a trace that remains of them.”

“I don’t recall you ever needing assistants.”

“Yes. That’s what happens when something is completely erased.”

“Do you remember them?” Sola asked.

“Not as true memories. Just as a vague longing,” Diya said. “Be grateful there are Foxwinds who remain. The hole that is left behind is…unpleasant.”

“And you don’t hold that against her?”

“No. It’s thanks to her that you don’t have to feel like this and for that I am grateful.” Diyas had rarely spoken of how the Sunfall had injured her but even when she had she’d taken an ironic or vaguely annoyed tone. This was the first time I heard a real echo of the pain she still felt.

“Excuse who is this ‘her’ and what did she do to, or I guess for you?” Someone had hurt my god. I had a lot of power. Those two things did not math out to that person having a good time in the near future.

Which, yes, stupid. Diyas had been hurt before great grandparents were born. 

And I’d already known about it.

But hearing it in her voice?

It was fine that I started calling on Malgenia’s divine mantle. I was with gods. They could take care of themselves.

Or at least any divine commandments I let slip weren’t going to phase them much.

“Oh, this one was a good choice,” Sola said.

“Thank you. I thought she was worth the wait,” Diyas said, sending a calming smile my direction.

“Did I turned invisible? Can I hide from the gods themselves now?” I asked aloud.

In the back of my mind I heard Beauty, Inhibition, and Reason teetering and chuckling at me.

Because they’re mean.

What? No response? Really?

Ah. Right. They also wanted to see what the story was with the Sun God before revealing themselves because, honestly, the Sola probably had every right to want to smite Malgenia and in Malgenia’s absence the bearer of her powers could certainly make a reasonable target for divine wrath.

I mean, it was possible I could survive a divine smiting, so part of me wanted her to just let loose and get it over with, but a far larger part knew that ‘survivable’ was not on the same continent as ‘enjoyable’.

“You’re not invisible my dear Blessed,” Diyas said. “The woman we are speaking of was known as Dyrena and she was, at one time, a friend to the gods.”

I was a little jealous of her.

“She was also a Neoteric Lord, and possibly the one most responsible for our fall,” Sola said.

And then I was a little wrathful towards her.

“And the one we can credit with all of us, and the world, still being here, even if that is only in our mostly-broken current state,” Diyas said.

“That sounds very complicated.” Because what else could I say?

“That describes Dyrena quite well,” Sola agreed. “Always a delight and always on near edge of deserving a good smiting.”

“Wait, you said she ‘was’ a Neoteric Lord?” I asked as a flash of Malgenia’s memories flickered through me. “She was the first one they killed, wasn’t she?”

“Arguably,” Sola said.

“But…I could swear. I…” I struggled to find the right words for the dagger-like shards of memory that were assaulting me.

“Malgenia wasn’t directly responsible for Dyrena’s demise, but she did support the plan,” Diyas said. “If you can recall anything its likely because Malgenia watched from afar, probably hoping to see whether she could claim a Neoterics soul after death.”

“Yeah. Yeah that’s exactly what she was doing,” I said, still lost in the maze of poorly remembered moments. “Except…”

“Except that didn’t work out for her,” Diyas said. “Which in turn bought the next Neoteric more time and the final one still longer before the others tore them down.”

“Kurst and then Helgon,” I said as more memories tumbled in around the edges of my awareness. “Those were the next two to fall.”

“Malgenia was directly responsible for Kurst, though again she wasn’t able to retrieve his soul, and so lost interest in the process I believe,” Diyas said.

“She did. Or, she kept dabbling with it but she never pinned down what was wrong,” I confirmed from the bit of recollection which seemed true.

“The Neoterics aren’t part of Malgenia’s domain,” Sola said. “They’re a part of Dyrena’s.”

“What?” Diyas said.

“What?” I echoed her. “Dyrena has a domain? But that would mean…”

“Yes,” Sola said. “That is exactly what that would mean.”

“But that’s not possible. She would have been eaten by the Beast. That’s why Malgenia never let her power grow to that extent!” I couldn’t claim to be an expert on the divine – Malgenia had for fairly obvious reasons not included anything about the old gods as a part of the curriculum we were taught.

“I really hate her sometimes,” Diyas said with the exact tone of someone who had long ago learned not to be surprised by someone else’s actions.

“And you just know she was counting on that,” Sola said, her tone more or less identical to Diya’s.”

“But, no…” I said, unwilling to accept the Sun God’s claim quite that easily. “If she could do that, then why can’t you?”

I hated the idea.

Diyas couldn’t leave me.

I liked her plopping down on my bed whenever she wanted to.

But…

I mean, she could.

And if Diyas could go back to her heaven then exactly how gross would I have to be to want to deny her that?

Not gross at all, Beauty said.

And Diyas won’t leave you, you know that, Inhibition said.

If she wanted to go back to her heaven, she could have done that already too, Reason said.

They’re all right you know, Diyas said. Since, right, I wasn’t exactly subtle about my worries.

Oh, how interesting, there are more here on our side than I thought, Sola said.

Yikes!

Right.

God.

Speaking as we did was completely hidden from mortal, or even Neoteric, ears. Divine ones though? Apparently not so much.

“Apologies,” Reason said, manifesting fully in the room with us (though thankfully not on the bed, yes, there is room for all of us, Malgenia had the good taste to enjoy a large bed, but I didn’t feel like sharing Diyas at the moment).

“We were eavesdropping because we tend to disturb people,” Inhibition said, manifesting the chair beside the one Reason was sitting in.

“And because you scared the hell out of us,” Beauty said, manifesting in bed on the other side of me from Diyas. She blew me a little kiss which left me contemplating shoving her off onto the floor, but we did have a guest, so I behaved myself.

“I shouldn’t enjoy that, I know, but it’s kind of nice to have that effect. I thought my days of inspiring awe were lost along with everything else that’s gone,” Sola said wistfully.

“Oh come on, you must have inspired at least some awe in your new Blessed, didn’t you?” Diyas asked.

“Little is unique,” Sola said with a fondness that I’d dreamed Malgenia might someday show me.

I’m fond of you! Diyas objected.

Yes, and I love you too, I said. You’re too…I don’t know…real. I can’t worship you like I did Malgenia, and you don’t want me to. That girl could never have been your Blessed.

No, she couldn’t, Diyas said. And I’m glad you see that.

“Can you tell us about her?” Beauty asked.

“Well, she came to me with the blood of murder on her hands and the baptised herself by drowning in a bottomless sunken lake…”

And that’s how I knew that Little was going to be a hard act to follow.