Excerpt: Madgod

Solemn Hour

Seiren

But then I notice that there’s something not quite right. Edin’s skin is a little cold; I sneak my arms under his shirt to warm him now that the Birth Cross has left him. My fingers spread over his skin on their own. They know to search for that telltale pulse before I do, because I don’t think about any of that.

Then I feel it. Or rather, I don’t.

“Edin…?” I whisper. My fingertips should be rising and falling with his breath, but they aren’t. My heartbeat should be beating off-synch with his, but it isn’t; it’s alone.

My breath all but comes to a stop in my throat. “Edin?!

“I didn’t mean it!” I stammer, pulling back. “Edin, I didn’t mean it! That wasn’t me! Open your eyes, dammit! You’d better not be doing this to me!”

His eyes don’t open, his body doesn’t even support itself. His skin is as cold as a corpse.

“I didn’t mean it...”

My words fall on dead ears, and a gilded white hand falls on my shoulder. Miyu. “Seiren, it’s not like you haven’t thought those words before. Didn’t you even voice them aloud once, to Kineta? Don’t you remember?”

“I didn’t mean it then, either,” I growl.

“The Birth Cross, Seiren,” she whispers in her hollowed-out voice.

“Over my dead body,” I breathe. I’m still holding him, for goodness’ sake. I’m still having trouble thinking of him in the past tense. I’m staring Atenika and Kaine in the face. They are not happy.

Something is wrong.

“What was Edin doing with the Cross?” I demand, my voice suddenly hoarse and scorched.

“You know this already,” Miyu whispers to me softly. I shake my head.

“Not you. Atenika, Kaine. You answer me: why did Edin have the Crystal?”

“What’s it to you,” Atenika answers. “He’s dead. He didn’t come here expecting to make it out afterwards. We didn’t come here expecting him to make it out afterwards, either. He had his reason, and it was a good one. So Lady Miyu, you’d better take the Birth Cross like he wanted, and get on with business. We’ve got a war to stop.”

“It matters!” I shout, maybe ten times louder than I meant it in my head. Ten times angrier. “Did Edin get the Birth Cross from Ion?”

“Yes,” Kaine answered quietly.

“Did Edin kill Ion for it?” I ask. I need to know. From them.

Kaine shakes his head. “No. Not intentionally. During their conversation, Edin finally let go of his hatred for Ion. The Cross reacted with Edin’s heart and Ion died from the subsequent exposure to the light of the Shining Goddess.”

My eyes narrow. “The light of the Shining Goddess…?” I repeat. “That sure sounds like the avatar-in-waiting of Aiden, doesn’t it?” I mutter out loud, and close my eyes for a moment.

I let him go. I gently place his corpse on the ground, on his side as if he were sleeping like that day I tried to drive him insane. I didn’t think I would succeed. I’m heavy as a rock, but I get myself to my feet somehow.

“Avatar-in-waiting of Aiden,” Atenika echoes skeptically. She had heard me. “Where did you get that?”

“Why don’t you tell me,” I reply. I turn around and stare at Miyu. I pause. My emotions are raw; my thoughts frayed.

“I’ve been thinking. About what you said, what with my Century being the ‘Final Century’ or whatever. Some of what you said doesn’t make sense. Care to explain it again?”

“I will not be threatened by you,” Miyu responds delicately. No, not delicately. I’ve heard that tone before, typically from Edin looking down his nose at everyone and everything.

“Is that a bit of superiority I hear in your voice? Because that’s not very becoming of a goddess. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“My own Hopeful Dawn would use such harsh words with me?” she dares to say.

“…Yes. Unless you just want me to decide everything for myself. According to my brother, I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I might get some things wrong. So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on, so I don’t come to any incorrect conclusions?”

“You’re right,” Miyu says, as if she’s giving something up and she’s sad. “I lied,” she begins. “We—Earth knew why your Century connected back. Because the path of destiny, continuing on its way, had irrevocably wandered down the path of total bedlam. In other words, your Century was the most successful. Too successful. The influx of chaos was too great for Earth to handle, and the excess returned to your Century by way of the window through which you traveled beneath Levia, and to the very heart of Earth, the solidified Core.”

“At that point, we lost control, which was entirely unacceptable. Never before had one of the Twin dreams crossed over, and never before had anyone threatened the Birth Cross itself.”

“Edin…” I whispered.

“Your brother emancipated the rest of Twin’s Centuries, from the Third Millennium to forever, from our control when he challenged you beneath Levia. We no longer had any direct sway over their destinies. Additionally, this fluctuation in destiny created an after-image, a dream of a dream—the Second Millennium’s Tenth Century. Faith and Alissa’s,” she says, looking up.

It’s quiet as death.

“You could have lied to me again,” I tell Miyu. “You should have. What am I supposed to do now? What are we supposed to do? What’s this whole fight with Aiden, then, if we’re in control of our own destinies? Don’t touch him!”

But she does. She kneels by Edin’s side, takes his torso in her arms and gathers him close like a lost child, found too late. “Your brother once said that peace is but a shadow of death. It’s unfortunate that he was right. I never intended for the light or your fellow warriors to win, Seiren. Twin achieved such independence that the planet itself even elected the candidates of the Second Millennium for Miyu and Aiden…”

She is the first to look up, the first to see Zephyrus.