Of Stars, Steeds, and Gods

A bright sky spread over the world, jeweled with the same stars I had first seen when the fog had parted for me. Their light could not reach this place; it was too shallow, too soft. Only the distant lamps from the street outside pressed dimly through the curtains, painting long shadows across the walls that whispered things only I could hear.

A ceiling hung between me and the stars, more a veil than a barrier. I lay still on the soft bed beneath it, the quiet hum of the District pressed faintly through the walls.

I turned my head and found her beside me, breathing slow and even, a faint curl of hair fallen over her face. The thin light that slipped through the curtain faded against my cloak, drawn into its fabric so it wouldn't fall across her face and wake her.

I wasn't wearing a cloak at all. "It's not polite to walk around with that ominous cloak indoors. Wear something more… comfy," Meris had said, nudging me toward a folded shirt. Yet the liquid shadows hadn't vanished; they simply hid beneath my skin, coiling through my veins where only I could see them.

That made me wonder if there was a way to show her the things only I could see, such as the stars above the fog and the vastness beyond it. But every method I knew was laced with danger. And no star was worth endangering the one light that had already outshone them all.

It felt just as dangerous as allowing myself to sleep at her side. So each night I waited for her breathing to deepen, for her hand to slip from mine, and then I would rise—quietly, always quietly and leave for the workshop. By dawn, I was back, lying where I'd been before, as if I had never moved at all.

In truth, I no longer required sleep. My body had long abandoned such needs, though I could still sink into it if I chose. But I feared what waited beneath consciousness; the voices within me might not keep their silence and maybe speak truths no mortal ears should hear.

I watched her one last time. Her sleep had deepened, her pulse steady under the skin of her throat. I stood, careful not to stir the floorboards, and slipped from the room toward the low thrum of my workshop.

We started living together merely days after my return. A home she had been planning for a long time while living in her shop, not because she lacked coin, but simply because staying there had always been more convenient for her.

With my return, she no longer wished to wait. I suspected she feared I might not stay for long, or that I might break my promise and fail to return when the next mission came. Perhaps she wanted to enjoy the time we had, fearing it wouldn't last.

Fortunately, we secured a good place near the center of the District, entirely our own. It was granted by the District with my brother's approval, as it had once been the workshop of a prominent family who perished during the rebellion.

The District had granted it at my request; I needed a space suited for the preparations required for the run, and this workshop was the only one that could withstand the work ahead.

Beside the workshop stood a small craftsman's house, once meant for those working in the workshop. We claimed it, stripped it of dust, filled it with light and warmth until it felt ours. It was small by any measure, humble beside the cold grandeur of the City of Ice, but it was cozy and all we needed.

Sadly, what came next was something I could never give, a family, and she knew it. We never spoke of it, but she could sense the life within others and knew what I lacked whenever she touched my skin, the absence of the very essence that made one human.

Still, within our small home, we found happiness.

***

Back in my workshop, I returned to the task that had consumed me in these past weeks: preparing for the most important run of this generation. All the way from District 99 toward District 11.

Based on the old maps, the distance was at least 120 miles along the Via Appia, likely more. The veteran run had been the last attempt, many decades ago, and it was no mystery why that event had dealt the greatest blow to the chainrunners in recent history.

The true miracle was that anyone had survived that run at all, though their survival had been less a victory and more a defiance of death itself.

Two hundred chainrunners were being prepared for this run. Each carried boots that increased speed and reduced fatigue, along with armor and weapons forged by Lucious himself. People still called them sub-artifacts, though the name hardly did justice to the destruction they could unleash.

But even with all that preparation, it was not enough. The boots could carry a body only so far before the flesh failed. My first impulse was the familiar one: refine the gear, strengthen the enchantments, forge something deadlier than Lucious ever dared. More tools of war. More cold instruments of survival.

It would have been so easy, another creation shaped for killing, another weapon added to the long list of things my hands had wrought. But I stopped. Not this time. Not for this purpose.

If not for the chance of crossing paths with other gods along the route, I might have carried all two hundred chainrunners on my ice and cut down any beast foolish enough to approach. Moving without my aura would weaken me, but the difference would have been negligible against most creatures lurking in the fog.

Besides, that path would only cripple them in the end. I had learned that lesson with the Frostkin: protection, when offered too freely, rots into dependence. Strength withers when never tested. No, if they intended to reconnect with the lower districts, they needed to be capable of making the journey even on their own.

There was another way, one I had been studying and designing over the past weeks. Today, as I sat on one of the workshop benches, a book lay open before me: a zoology text from the world before the fog.

The handwriting was familiar: one of Elina's transcripts, a copy she'd given me at my request. It described the animals that once walked this world before the fog, most now extinct. Including the one I was studying.

The horse is a large, quadrupedal mammal distinguished by its elongated head, forward-set eyes, and a mane of coarse hair running along the neck. Its limbs are long and highly adapted for endurance running, each ending in a single hardened hoof that allows efficient movement across open plains.

Known for its generally docile disposition and strong social instincts, the horse forms cohesive herds in the wild and responds well to training in domestic settings. Its combination of strength, stamina, and speed has made it invaluable for riding, transport, and agricultural labor throughout the world.

Among the extinct species, the horse was often mentioned in ancient history, a former pillar of society, and I wondered whether I could bring such a being back.

The answer was simple: yes, I could.

I had come to believe I could craft life not solely from ice, but from flesh and bone, an undertaking that demanded my grasp over life itself rather than cold. But with nothing more than brittle sketches and contradictory texts to guide me, I shaped the creature in the language I knew best: the Frostkin.

Not a Frostkin made for war or the Abyss, but something built to live, rather than to be another killing machine.

The workshop lay in disarray, strewn with limbs of ice, some splintered from failed attempts, others preserved in eerie perfection. Each piece was a guess, my attempt to decipher the anatomy of a creature extinct for eons, rebuilt from nothing but ice and librarians' fragments.

I raised my hands, and the runes etched along the walls shivered to life, blooming into a soft white glow. The moment they awakened, the workshop fell into sealed silence; no sound would escape to disturb Meris sleeping just beyond its walls.

Then, I stepped toward the long metal table at the center of the workshop. Upon it rested the vessel, equine in shape, unmistakably Frostkin in design, and yet unlike anything that had ever breathed before.

This was the iteration I had poured the most into. I had breathed short-lived sparks into its ligaments, granting it moments of motion only to watch for flaws. Each cycle sharpened its architecture. Ice-hewn muscles layered with living tissue, ligaments tuned to respond to mana, lungs crafted to bind breath and mana together.

"Breathe," I said. It was merely a whisper, but also a command, a nudge upon the very essence of life.

I did not reach into the grey for an old soul; I opened a space for a new one to awaken. A will would gather within the vessel, fragile at first, shaped only by the instincts and fragments I allowed it to hold.

It would rise knowing only the barest outline of what a horse once was, the rest left blank by design. It would open its eyes to a world it did not yet understand, learning purpose step by uncertain step.

Oxygen seeped into its crafted lungs, binding with the mana radiating from its ebony core until the mixture surged through every vein. Its eyes snapped open as a raw, broken whinny tore from its throat—half cry, half desperate gasp—its chest rising and falling as it claimed its first breath and its first sight.

Its nostrils fluttered in frantic bursts, breath shuddering through its untested lungs. Confusion rippled across it—too much sensation, too little understanding. I reached out, softening my voice. "Don't fear me."

It was in no danger, and even if it was, it did not yet know what danger was, yet panic rose all the same. Its throat, shaped with long, elastic vocal folds like those described in the texts, was built for resonant, guttural equine cries, not for the delicate shaping of speech. The creature's first sounds were rough and primal.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

The horse's breathing hitched, then steadied as my hand settled on its neck. Its ears flicked toward my voice, and the tremor in its flanks eased with each quiet word. "Calm. You're safe." Slowly, its panicked snorts softened into long, shuddering exhales.

"You are the first of your kind, a Glacier Steed," I said.

The creature stood as a quadrupedal, equine form, its body sculpted from condensed ice reinforced by subtle layers of living tissue, and at its center pulsed an ebony heart-core.

It was Frostkin in nature, yet shaped around an ebony core rather than a crimson one since no chainrunner alive could handle a creature with greater force. And the ebony core granted me one mercy: I didn't need to claim a soul from the grey to animate it.

Placing a new soul, that is, a newly formed will, into a vessel with an onyx or crimson core wasn't impossible. But fragile wills shattered under such pressure. Only the strongest could bear the weight of those cores without breaking.

Once, all Frostkin had been human, though that was no longer true, and only a fraction of them proved capable of handling the vessels they were given. That showed me that will was not strictly bound by the core, for even humans had proven capable of occupying crimson vessels.

But a newborn will was inevitably weak, and burdening it with more power than it could bear would only corrupt its very essence.

Even fully grown in body, the Glacier Steed's soul was newborn, its understanding blank. It would require guidance, training, and patience. A task I hoped others would take on.

I had told no one what I was attempting, as it was difficult to explain my craft. Better to reveal the finished creation than to explain its pieces. Even so, I couldn't guess whether they would see it the same way I did.

With the horse finally calm, the workshop returned to its quiet hum. Only the soft crackle of frost along its newly formed limbs broke the stillness. Then I heard a faint sound from the entrance, the creak of wood under a cautious hand.

The door eased open.

It was late, with most of the district asleep, but I was not surprised. I saw it coming the moment Meris flinched in her sleep, when a will had pressed against my senses, patient, deliberate, far older than the body it wore.

The one who entered my workshop was Meris, but it wasn't truly her.

It moved differently, with slow, curious motions, as if testing each limb for the first time. Her eyes, usually a soft green, now held a deeper hue, tiny motes of light drifting within them like floating spores.

She approached the horse and let her fingers glide along its frozen neck. The creature's ears flicked, breath misting as it understood fear for the first time.

I watched her carefully. "I honestly don't know if I should be angry and offended by you using her in such a way," I began, knowing any human would, and yet feeling no such thing. "But I've wanted to speak with you for a long time. Truly speak. With words, if you can."

Meris tilted her head, studying me with a stillness no human possessed. Her mouth curled into a slow smile, and when she spoke, her voice was deeper than Meris's and carried the same pressure I had learned to suppress when speaking to humans.

"It's pleasant to finally greet you," she said. "And don't worry. I speak well enough."

"Then allow me to thank you," I said. "For caring for Meris in my absence, Mister or Miss Life Tree."

The smile widened, not with offense, but amusement.

"It was my pleasure, Mister Human."

Does it not know my name?

"My name is Omen," I corrected.

"Oh? I thought your name was Human." She raised a hand as if demonstrating a point. "Just as every Life Tree is also named Life Tree."

Her smirk held no malice, yet the smile was too forced to belong to any human.

I realized, not for the first time, how little I knew the names of the gods I had met. The elf surely had a name, as did the spider, but I never asked during the battle with Sjakthar. And I could have asked Winged Death for his true name, yet the thought never crossed my mind.

"Fair enough. What's your name? Meris never mentioned it," I asked.

"Indeed, that's because she doesn't know it either," the entity said. Her fingers drifted across the horse's jaw, leaving faint trails of greenish light that evaporated into the cold, and the horse simply didn't dare to move or make any sound. "I have not spoken to her directly so far, as it has not proven necessary, only faint nudges into things she misses from time to time. She is lost regarding the origin of her power, but you can hardly blame me for it since you could've told her as much as I could."

The motes in her eyes flared brighter, like embers stirred by wind.

"But since you ask… some call me the Green." Her gaze lifted to meet mine. "But I prefer the name Thelora."

I had many questions, but one rose above all the others.

"Thelora, what is your claim?" I asked.

Meris's head turned toward me with slow, deliberate grace. "Can't you tell?" she asked as her borrowed eyes studied me as if searching for a lie. "You'll learn to distinguish claims soon enough. My claim is Nurturance. And yes, I know yours is Creation."

I was rather surprised to learn it was possible to determine a claim. It was a serious advantage any God would have when facing another if the other could not determine the claim. I had only been capable of doing so with Winged Death, but I watched him ascending, so I guessed that made it easier.

"So you see," she continued, "our claims are not opposed. I nurture life, but I cannot create it, nor touch the grey where souls drift. You can."

I raised a brow. "Does that mean you don't oppose us? I thought you might hate humans for… treating you as a slave, a cultivation artifact."

Her expression shifted into something forced that Meris's face was never meant to wear, thoughtful and almost amused. "A slave?" she echoed, tasting the word. "They tended my roots and I grew their fields. They fed me cores, and those cores allowed me to ascend. That's not slavery. I was never held by chains."

When Thelora put it that way, it didn't seem like slavery at all.

"Have you been with District 2 for long?" I asked, curious how the district had acquired a Life Tree.

"Long?" She considered. "I rooted here long before the first humans set foot on this soil. Before Araksiun. Before this place became a one-city empire. Before the fog or the beings that came with it. If that counts as long, then yes, I have been here quite a long time."

I inhaled sharply. Thousands of years. Perhaps tens of thousands. District 2 had not acquired a Life Tree; they had built around it all along.

"The mana in you feels… new," I said carefully. "Your auric power. Despite your age." I wasn't entirely sure that was true, and suspected it might simply have been a tactic to lure other gods to attack.

Thelora smiled faintly. "The path toward godhood is a long one; not all ascend into it in only a few breaths as you did. I ascended only moments ago… that is, a few decades in human terms."

She paused, Meris's face growing distant.

"A shame the cost was so high," she murmured. "I did enjoy watching the humans who lived near me. Even with all their concrete, their lives and minds were interesting."

At that, my breath stopped as I considered her words. "Did you destroy them once you ascended?" I asked.

Her smile faded.

"Not directly," she answered. "But yes. A sad necessity. There was a construct that prevented beings of my nature… auric, from remaining within its radius. It had to be destroyed, or it would have killed me."

I wanted to be angry, to condemn her. But how could I? She had lived through epochs, watching empires crumble like sand. To her, humans must have been like insects to mortals—brief flickers of warm life scurrying at her roots.

And I, who had slaughtered to survive, could hardly judge.

"So you destroyed their Obelisk," I said quietly. "The tall construct at the center of the district. What of the other districts? Their Obelisks fell the same day."

"No," she replied, her tone firm. "I didn't touch the one at the center. I destroyed the second one. The hidden one. My senses only recently extended beyond this district. I had nothing to do with the others."

Her answer settled nothing. If anything, it split the truth into even more fragments, each pointing in a different direction.

She didn't deny destroying an Obelisk, only clarified that it was a hidden one, claiming it had nothing to do with the others, even though all of them fell on the same day.

Maybe it was all a lie.

But why lie about this when she openly admitted to genocide?

Could it be a coincidence that they all fell at the same time?

No, it was connected somehow, in a way not even Thelora knew. Whatever happened that day was linked to the fall of the other districts, even if she hadn't caused it.

That made me think of the Great Ward, a myth to most, but one I now knew was real. Perhaps it was that ward Thelora had struck during her ascension. But if so, it meant it protected not just one district, but the entire city from the gods.

Which should have made the Abyss's existence under Sjakthar's influence impossible.

Unless…

Unless Sjakthar had always remained in the deepest parts of the Abyss, many miles below ground and beyond the ward's reach, using his warlocks to control everything closer to the surface.

She noticed my silence and my difficulty processing what she'd revealed, but said nothing. We stood in that stillness for a long time before I finally asked, "So that's why you're here? To confess? Ask forgiveness?" I shook my head. "If so, you've chosen the wrong person."

"No," she said calmly. "I don't seek forgiveness because I don't believe I did wrong. Even if humans were dear to me, their era is ending. I saw no reason to sacrifice my existence just to stretch theirs by a handful of dying breaths."

Her words were harsh, but expected. "So why are you here, then?" I asked.

"I know you intend to reach the lower districts," she said. "So I offer you safe passage through District 2, now and in the future. None of my children, nor any who live under me, will harm a human. But my offer comes with two conditions."

Her offer caught me off guard. Even though I knew we would have to pass through her forest eventually. I thought there would be confrontation when the time came, not cooperation.

"What are those two conditions?" I asked.

"The first is simple," she began. "Anyone who remains outside the ward long enough is corrupted. I will restrain those who live in my territory from attacking, but not once corruption reaches an advanced stage. If any human lingers outside long enough for corruption to take hold, that human will be killed. This is safe passage, not a sanctuary for your people."

"That's… understandable. I didn't expect otherwise. Fine. What's your second condition?"

"The second is even simpler. I offer you safe passage, and one day you will offer me the same. A favor for a favor."

I was surprised. "You want to pass through District 98? Or have someone travel through it using the Via Appia?"

"Don't worry about the details," Thelora said. "When I ask, you'll grant me safe passage. And I assure you, it will be something within your power."

I was confused. Allowing someone passage through the Via Appia was no issue, but why ask it of me? A detour should have been possible. Which meant her request might not involve District 98 at all, but something else entirely.

In any case, Thelora offered no further clarification, only assurance that it would be within my control. "Deal," I said at last.

With that, safe passage for the chainrunners through District 2 was secured for when the time came.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.