season avatars 01 - seasons beginnings (11 page)

girl goddess.

“You are in a dangerous position, Kron Evenhanded, and you put

Us in a delicate one.” She plucked a few daisies and wove them into a

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chain. “I admit We favor you over Time, but she has more magic than

you.”

Time seemed to hold Salth’ grudges; it was almost enough to make

Kron believe Salth was Time. But Salth wasn’t capable of manipulating

time. No one was. Was this a joke? It couldn’t be; she had no sense of

humor. Besides, why would these strange magicians be part of it?

“Is Time—or whoever spoke to us through Pagli—really Salth?”

Kron asked. “How did she get time magic?”

The Four raised Their eyebrows. All of Them had exceptionally dark

eyes, eyes that made Kron uncomfortable.

“Perhaps you should portal—is that what you call your mode of in-

stantaneous travel?—to Salth’s house and see for yourself,” Winter

said.

“Without preparation? Are You trying to collect his soul, Winter?”

Spring shook Her head, and the flowers in Her hand drooped. “I doubt

Time would let You keep him. She’d prefer to put him on display, or

torture him for eternity.”

Kron tried not to squirm. Yes, that sounded like something Salth

would inflict on him. Sometimes when he saw a young boy that resem-

bled Sal-thaath, he had to restrain himself from calling out Sal-thaath’s

name—or using a protective artifact. He reminded himself he’d had to

stop the pair of them from hurting other people….

He sat upright. “But if Time is really Salth, what’s to stop her from

hurting people? She thinks she can harvest magic from them!”

“She hasn’t Ascended, so she’s not as strong as one of Us. We can

prevent her from directly harming someone in Our domain,” Spring

said. “However, within her realm…” She let the dead flowers fall from

Her hand.

Kron hoped Salth’s domain was smaller than an urn.

“How did Salth master time?” he asked. “Does it have something to

do with the golden haze that fell from the sky last year?”

The Four exchanged glances, as if They were holding a conversation

on some level he couldn’t hear.

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“Have you noticed any changes in yourself in the last year, Kron

Evenhanded?” Spring asked.

“Well, since marrying Bella, I’ve been happier, and eating much

better—”

“That’s wonderful.” She smiled. “But what else has changed? Is

there anything different about you, or your magic?”

Magic did seem easier these days, not just in terms of putting arti-

facts together, but coming up with new ideas. But he’d thought that

another happy benefit of being a married man and looking at life

through Bella’s eyes. As for himself, he didn’t need as much sleep as

he used to, so he sometimes crept from the bed and worked on a new

design or prepared materials. And his beard grew so slowly he only

needed to shave once a moon. Was that what she meant?

“Those could be part of your transformation,” She agreed as if he’d

spoken his thoughts out loud.

“Transformation? What do you mean, transformation? I’m still hu-

man!”

Spring sighed. Even Her disappointment created beautiful songs.

“You were born human, Kron Evenhanded, but when you absorbed star

magic last year, it made you into something more.”

He reluctantly remembered the night he’d killed Sal-thaath and res-

cued Bella. He wouldn’t have been able to do that if Salth hadn’t

become distracted by the star magic and wrapped herself and her son’s

body into a cocoon. “I remember some of the magic came to me as if it

wanted me to take it in, but I refused it. I thought it was dangerous.”

“But it still wanted you,” Spring said gently.

Kron studied the grass. “What would have happened to me if I’d

embraced it, the way Salth did?” He tried staring at Spring, but Her gaze

disturbed him so much he had to look away.

“That would have been entirely up to you, Kron Evenhanded, and

how much you were willing to … embrace,” Winter replied.

Kron shuddered. “I could have become a corpse-molester like

Salth?”

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“Star magic can only change your nature, not your heart. And I don’t

see it in you to desecrate a corpse, especially a friend’s.”

Kron wondered what was in Salth’s heart now, if she still grieved

for her son.
Of course she does. Why else does she seek vengeance on

me and Bella?
“Can these changes be undone?”

Spring raised an eyebrow, as perfectly formed as a petal. “Why

would you wish to do that? The star magic not only enhances your own

magic, but your health. You can live much longer now than you would

have as a human.”

She must be forgetting about Salth’s plan for vengeance.

“But if he were to complete the Ascension, or Time does…”

Kron started when the green-skinned youth spoke. The other three

glared at Him as if he should have remained silent. Winter rubbed his

bearded chin.

“There isn’t enough star magic left over for both of them to manage

it,” He said. “In fact, the only way one of them could do it now would

be to drain the star magic from the other one.”

“Another reason we should protect Kron,” Spring said. “Salth—or

Time, as she calls herself now—has more star power, but Kron seems

better able to cope with Ascending.”

“Ascending? What’s that?”

The Four glanced at each other and remained silent.

“Well, if you’re not going to tell me that, could you at least tell me

what Salth would be like if she succeeded? Would she gain even more

power than she has now?” Kron wondered how she could even measure

her strength. Magic couldn’t be heaped into baskets or weighed on a

balance.

“Her magic would never be exhausted,” Spring said.

Winter lifted a finger. “It can be temporarily drained if, for instance,

She created Avatars as We plan to do, but Her weakness wouldn’t last

long.”

“Then how do we stop her from gaining such power?” Kron asked.

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“Keep her far away from you.” Winter slowly brought His hands

together, but a sheet of ice crystalized between them before they could

touch. “Or drain her own power. I would prefer that. She’s already

tipped her domain hopelessly out of balance, to the point where it could

affect Ours.”

“You expect me to drain her? How?” Kron asked testily. “Better yet,

why don’t you do it? You seem to be more powerful than her.”

“It’s because We’re so powerful that We can’t do it Ourselves, Kron

Evenhanded. There would be too much backlash, both in Our domain

and with others like Us, with domains throughout the rest of the world.

That’s why We need to create Avatars, humans who share in Our power

and serve Us in protecting Our domain.”

There were more powerful magicians like Them in this world? More

importantly, hadn’t They admitted They planned to recruit sweet, inno-

cent Bella, who wept when she had to sacrifice her birds for food, as

One of Their avatars? How could They expect her to defend herself

against Salth? Kron grabbed everything in his pouch, heedless of what

it was, and let it fuse together. “You’d hide behind someone weak?

Shame on you!” He pulled his impromptu artifact out of his pouch, in-

tending to do something threatening with it if necessary. Instead, the

clump of wool, wood, beads, and clay fizzled, emitting an unpleasant

burnt odor. Apparently his magic hadn’t been enhanced as much as

these Four claimed.

Spring held out Her hand. “I’m afraid you misunderstand, Kron.

When we gift Our Avatars, they won’t be helpless. Even so, We hope

you’ll help them learn how to use the magic We share with them.”

“But Bella—”

“Will be happier with magic than without it in the long run. We see

this, Kron Evenhanded.”

He struggled to keep his feelings off of his face. After the wedding,

Bella had borrowed the family cradle from her sister and filled it with

swaddling and baby blankets. But every moon, when she bled, she wept.

Last moon, she’d angrily covered the cradle and placed it in the back of

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the storage area, as if it had been meant to hold food instead of a child.

Maybe learning magic would distract her from her empty womb—or

help her find a way to fill it. But Kron had other reasons to reject this

task.

He crossed his arms. “How can you expect me to teach anyone when

I failed with Sal-thaath?”

“Sal-thaath wasn’t ready to learn what you wanted to teach him, es-

pecially with his mother telling him something else.” A breeze touched

Kron’s cheeks. “The Avatars We pick will be older, but still able to

learn.”

“My earlier advice stands,” Winter said. “Protect yourself with

every artifact you can create, then portal to Salth’s domain and see for

yourself what she’s doing.”

“We will have a formal ceremony granting Our Avatars their magic

in four days,” Spring continued. “I hope by then you’ll be more willing

to help Us—and them. In the meantime, be careful.” She raised Her

hand. “Farewell until We meet again, Kron Evenhanded.”

Kron found himself back in the market with his collection of arti-

facts. A faint stench of something rotten lingered in the air, but there

was no sign of Pagli or his cursed sundial. Kron pinched his arm. The

pain proved this wasn’t a dream. How could he dream up walking, talk-

ing corpses and green-skinned gods anyway, let alone the notion that

he wasn’t human?

I’ll portal to the Magic Institute first before I visit Salth,
Kron de-

cided.
I need to find out if Pagli really is dead, and if so, what happened

to him. Maybe someone there can tell me more about these super-ma-

gicians and Salth. Maybe they’ll have something I can enchant into

protective artifacts for Bella and me.

Bella came into view, her hands empty but a broad smile on her face.

“Kron, you’re never going to believe what happened to me!” she said.

“I was bargaining with a weaver for some cloth when I saw a man pass

by with a wriggling bag. It was full of kittens, and he wanted to drown

them in the Chikasi River. I told him he shouldn’t do that, that kittens

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can grow up to be good mousers, but he said this litter had all been born

deformed. I told him it was still cruel to drown kittens. Then he turned

into a young girl, about ten or eleven, and She told me She was the

Goddess of Fall and animals!” Awe filled her voice. “She wants to grant

me magic to heal animals and have them do my bidding, and I said yes!

Now I’ll be able to help animals—and people.” Her eyes sparkled.

“What do you think of that?”

Stunned, Kron felt his legs give out, and he sat down heavily, smash-

ing several enchanted cooking pots. “That’s…that’s amazing, my

dear.”

If the young girl he’d seen was a genuine goddess, then Salth—or

Time—was too. And so was the threat to Bella. Could the Goddess give

her enough protection from Salth? Kron couldn’t take that chance. He’d

have to prepare his own protective amulets and portal to the Magic In-

stitute as quickly as possible.

C H A P T E R T E N

Timeless Artifacts

Kron found he and Bella couldn’t even return home without encoun-

tering other new Avatars. There was Galia, an elderly midwife; her son

Janno, a carpenter who leered at Bella; Caye, a petite weaver who did

little more than smile at Bella and gift her with a shawl before scurrying

away as a noblewoman named Domina proclaimed she was going to be

the most gifted Winter Avatar of them all; and others with names Kron

forgot as soon as he heard them. Bella, however, seemed to know sev-

eral of the Avatars already. She hugged Galia and whispered something

in her ear, ignoring Janno’s attempts to flirt. When Domina ran Caye

off, Bella looked after the weaver as if she wanted to talk to her instead

of the sharp-nosed woman wearing more jewelry than both Bella and

her sister possessed. By the time they finally made it back home, all

Kron wanted to do was retreat into his workshop and develop protective

artifacts. But first he had to explain to Bella why they needed such ar-

tifacts. Hopefully there wouldn’t be more Avatars banging down their

door during their conversation.

Kron made sure the door was latched and that Bella had calmed

down before saying, “Dearest, there’s something you need to know be-

fore you agree to become an Avatar.” He sat at the table and indicated

she should do the same.

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Bella brought some peas over to shell before complying. “What do

you mean, Kron?” She gave him a sharp glance. “Don’t tell me you

don’t approve!”

“Of course not.”

She raised her head and stared at him.