Chapter One (Part 1)

Thanks to PieForLife for your support!! :)

“If you have a problem, don’t bother me. If you have a question, don’t bother me. Only come talk to me if the palace catches on fire. Actually, not even then. Find Idris for that.”

Three wide pairs of eyes blinked up at me fearfully. I don’t know what Idris was thinking, asking me to introduce the new guard trainees to the palace. Did he think I had time for this shit?

Technically, these three had already been at the palace for a couple months, but they’d mostly been following Gabriel around like little lost puppies, heeding his every command. Gabriel had recently been sent out on a mission, however, and was unable to finish their formal introduction to the palace. Instead of giving the honor to Samir or another high-ranking member of Idris’s guard, the god king himself had decided I should do it, but I think it was only because he didn’t want me running around causing havoc outside, as I had originally planned to do.

What were these kids’ names again? Let’s see…

The one on the left was Mykala. She had curly chocolate brown hair, pale skin dusted with glitter on the cheeks in the custom of Lam, and coal-black eyes that were currently looking me up and down like she was having trouble believing I was real and not a figment of her imagination. She was also short as fuck, standing at maybe five foot six to my seven foot.

Fucking tiny, but according to Gabriel she packed one hell of a punch.

The one in the middle was Dani, a spindly boy from Abdos. He was much taller than Mykala, maybe six foot seven, with curly black hair shaved close to his skull, deep brown skin, and golden eyes. He watched me fearfully, like the others, but was also incredibly curious about everything around him, regardless, gazing at the wall décor, fingers twitching like he wanted to touch the marble statues at the corners of the room.

The last one was the only new recruit actually from Esen, a girl named Bela who was only slightly taller than Mykala. She had shiny black hair coiled back in an intricate braided style that looked like it took hours to do, a flawless dark olive complexion, and cat-green eyes rimmed expertly in eyeliner. She was the most well-put together of the three, managing to even make the boring uniform given to all of Idris’s guards look fashionable. I was unsure why she had put so much effort into hair and makeup that was probably going to be ruined by sweat at the end of the day, but hey, to each their own.

“Any questions?” I continued, raising an eyebrow. Dead silence. They all glanced at each other warily before returning their gazes to me, mouths pursed up tight.

What a shy bunch.

“Good. You’re dismissed.” I wiggled my fingers at them, and like they had been unfrozen from a spell, they all dispersed immediately, scampering out of the foyer to return to the guards’ quarters. I scowled at their retreating backs. Well, that was kind of fucking rude. Not even a thank you?

Anastasia teleported into the foyer in a flash of golden light just as the trainees were leaving. She raised an eyebrow with a smirk, watching them flee, then crossed her arms over her chest.

“What’d you do? Threaten to eat their entrails?”

Anastasia was a devastatingly beautiful goddess, with wild, curly red hair, fiery orange eyes, and skin the color of cream. She and I had been enemies for the longest time, but we’d found equal footing recently, and I now considered her a friend of sorts. Didn’t mean she wasn’t annoying, though.

“I was perfectly polite,” I sniffed, turning on my heel to stride towards one of the many lounge areas throughout Idris’s palace. Ana followed me, high heels clicking on the marble floors.

“Yeah, sure you were. Hey, is Idris here? I need to give him these reports.” She whipped out a file folder from nowhere, waving it around for emphasis.

As though saying his name had summoned him, Idris himself appeared from a nearby hallway, approaching the both of us with a gentle smile. He nodded to us in greeting. “Rook. Ana.”

I frowned immediately. “Were you watching me?”

His smile widened, eyes shut into innocent crescents. “No,” he said, clearly lying, and then changed the subject. “Are these the reports on this month’s influx of souls to Chrysos?”

Ana nodded, handing over the file folder. Anastasia was the goddess of rebirth, and she was in charge of sorting the god realm’s souls. Some were offered reincarnation, some damnation, and others simply wandered listlessly in an empty field within Chrysos, Ana’s kingdom, awaiting judgement. She also kept note of not only how many deaths the realm had within each month, but also the cause, in order to catch severe issues before they could become worse, like plagues, murderous cults, wars, or famine. Many of these became apparent to Idris long before Ana caught them in her death counts, but the reports were helpful, nonetheless.

When the god realm was first created, it was separated into two parts: paradise, and the venomous forest. Idris, as the god of creation, had made it this way in order to protect the people from all the evils of the world, shoving everything harmful into the venomous forest. Including me. But after a series of horrifying events, Idris had realized the error of his ways and merged the two halves of the realm.

This unfortunately came with quite a few side effects, including increased deaths from poison and disease, higher rates of mental illness, and increases in crime, which meant regular reports on rates and causes of death were becoming more necessary.

That’s not to say that the merging of the realm was a bad thing. It was just…something that needed to happen. Idris thought he was maintaining balance when he created the realm the way he did, but he wasn’t, not really.

Things were never meant to be so clear cut. Good and evil, dark and light. If everything was ruled by extremes, there would be no true meaning to life. After all, we learned by slugging through the gray areas, through moral struggles, to become the best or worst versions of ourselves. One mistake won’t make you a villain for the rest of your life, and one good deed won’t make you a hero. Every person was shaped by the choices they made, good or bad and everything in between, but nobody was ever entirely one or the other.

Not to mention, if everything in the realm was truly an extreme, there would be no dawn, no twilight. There would have only been bad weather in the venomous forest and good weather in paradise, but even Idris realized back then that nature needs a little bit of rain to grow, and snapping from day to night like flicking a switch would be rather disruptive. He hadn’t gone that far, at least.

But it still wasn’t great to separate things like that, so the merge was definitely needed. And good things had come from it, like the recent boom in the medical industry, cures made from plants that once only grew in the venomous forest, and a surge in literature, travel, and art.

Regardless, there were plenty of people who were outraged that their cushy lives in paradise had been disrupted. Although, it wasn’t like mental illness, death, and disease were unheard of in paradise previously, they were just better hidden. After all, nothing bad was ever supposed to happen in paradise. How could anyone speak up and say they were struggling when everything was supposed to always be hunky dory? Now that the walls had come down, literally and figuratively, people were being more outspoken about their troubles and actively seeking help for them.

“Thank you, Ana,” Idris said. “Did you just come by to drop this off?”

His tone held a bit of wistfulness, suggesting that he wanted Ana to stick around a little while longer, which made sense. It had been over a year since we’d killed Calix, Ana’s baby brother, and while Ana had healed quite well from the incident, she still tended to be withdrawn, moping about in her palace all day and refusing visitors. Getting to spend quality time with her was something Idris cherished considering she was his best friend, and he worried about her constantly.

“Yeah,” Ana replied, mouth twisting a bit guiltily as she registered Idris’s desire for her to stay, “Wynna’s coming over in a bit, and she hates being in my palace alone.”

That, unfortunately, also made a lot of sense. Wynna was another of Ana’s siblings. She, Calix, Ana, and their other two siblings Hari and Amani, had all grown up in Ana’s palace in Chrysos, so the reminder of their early days, when Calix had been a relatively normal person, would be a bit depressing. Plus, the final battle with Calix had happened in Ana’s own garden, so the place didn’t exactly have the best memories for any of them.

“Alright.” Idris nodded easily. “It was good to see you, anyway.”

She smiled. “You too.” Those orange eyes shifted to me, and her nose wrinkled. “Bye loser.”

I snorted. “Bye bitch.” She glared at me, but her lips twitched in a way that suggested she was fighting a grin. With one last wave, she vanished, leaving Idris and I alone in the hallway.

I stared at him. He stared back. And because I was a little shit and made it my life’s goal to annoy everyone in my vicinity, I stuck my tongue out at him childishly, and then brushed past him to continue to the lounge.

Far from being annoyed, Idris just smiled like a loon and followed me. With each passing day of being married to him, I was more and more convinced that he was a masochist. He would have to be to put up with me for as long as he has.

“So, since you were watching me like a creep, I’m assuming you know how the send off went for the little guards,” I drawled. “Just so you know, I don’t do shit for free, asshole. I’m expecting compensation for my hard work today.”

Idris huffed a laugh behind me, and I felt a gentle tug against a lock of my waist-length black hair in the back. I chose to pretend I hadn’t felt it and only deigned to look at him once I’d flopped on the couch in the lounge.

This particular lounge was just off to the side from the main dining room, which had all windows in place of three fourths of the walls, showing a gorgeously maintained garden strung with fairy lights. Idris had given me permission to do whatever I liked with that garden, and I’d happily taken him up on it. He’d reassigned all of his gardeners, giving me full control over it.

I had shown incredible restraint. I’d only put one poisonous plant in there. Just one! And they were just my favorite blood-drinking vines, nothing egregiously dangerous. Idris is lucky that I’m considerate of his employees’ delicate dispositions.

The lounge room also had a generous view of the garden, but only one wall was made up of windows, the rest of the room was decked out with shelves full of books, a television, and a small kitchenette. A long blue sectional couch was surrounded by matching armchairs at the center of the room, and I happily sprawled over the couch, lazily scooping up the remote so I could flip idly through the channels.

“What would you consider fair payment?” Idris mused, taking a seat in one of the armchairs.

I pretended to think about it, humming contemplatively. There weren’t many things I could ask for that Idris wouldn’t just give to me regardless. I had full access to his money, everything in his palace, and anything I could find in the city below. There was very little he would deny me, much less anything I would ever have to actually earn through doing hard work.

Except one thing.

I changed the channel from some cooking show to one of the trashy reality shows Ren liked and tossed the remote aside. Here goes nothing. “I want to see the temple.”