Flames in the blackness gave way to stars. Nariah was alone, the bonfire extinguished in an instantaneous hiss. A low rumble deep within the earth crept toward her, growing louder the closer it got. Her body shook, the air chilling quicker than she had time to think.
Lightning cracked the sky like sunlight through an utterly black cave. A bolt of white, hotter than the flames of the burning city in her vision, nearly blinded her. Stumbling back, she shaded her eyes from the blue flames engulfing the bonfire.
Even the searing flames could not withstand the deluge that fell from the heavens a moment later. Steam rose, burning Nariah’s lungs and face even worse than sand. A second later, the burning gave way to frigid gooseflesh as a sheet of rain smashed into her, plastering her clothes to her trembling body and blowing her cowl off her head.
She fell, staring straight up at the roiling gray clouds that swept over the moon and blotted out the stars. Flames twinkled in the air, distorted by hail and sleet. Bombarded by frigid gusts of wind and elements large enough to leave welts and break bones, Nariah curled into a ball, desperately wishing she had died already. Her thick black hair stuck to her face and neck as the rain continued to fall. She could barely see through it anymore.
How many times had she wished for death in this moment?
Chilling clarity struck her with that thought. This was the vision she’d carried with her so many times—the opposite side of the goddess’s bargain.
Shielding her eyes with her hands and clawing her hair away enough to see, she turned her face to the sky. Flames flickered above her. A panda bear with flaming paws swooped down before her, a half-chewed stem of bamboo dangling from its mouth. Its rider was familiar, not just from her visions of him in the past, but of the beautiful man at the bonfire who’d had long blonde hair.
Life.
Lightning collected into an orb in his palm when he raised it, and his golden eyes bored into Nariah’s soul. There was madness and wrath in this seemingly gentle man, and before his judgement she could not bear to meet his gaze long.
“Unfit.” The word was not his, but a woman’s—the goddess with flaming hair whispered in her mind, though she was not in sight.
“Nariah!” another man shouted from behind her.
Unsure whether or not she should turn her back on such a blatant threat, whether or not it was meant toward her or the goddess whispering in her mind.
“Nariah!”
Death’s iron grasp on her arm pulled her from her thoughts, and he whirled her to face him.
“Leave him! He’ll deal with Irony!”
Whistling, Death half-dragged Nariah from the bonfire. Life sat still, his shoulders squared, his eyes fixed on—or through—Nariah as she left him behind. As Death crested the sand dune with her in tow, she looked over her shoulder one last time.
The tall man with blue tattoos on his bald head swept down from the sky, standing tall upon a flying carpet. A smirk curled one side of his lips, and a silver staff twirled thoughtlessly in his practiced fingers. His bare biceps glistened with rain. It was almost as though he were there to play more than to fight.
Seeing him stilled her breath in her lungs.
The lord of War was ready for the battle she couldn’t bear to watch.
Death whistled, and shadows gathered before him. Slowly, the shadows converged into feathers, a beak, and finally two thick, tall legs. An emu, twice as large as the largest one Nariah had seen, and black as pitch save for two flames where its eyes sockets should have been, squawked and tilted its head to one side.
Without warning, Death threw Nariah atop the restless bird and hopped on behind her. The hair on her arms stood up at the ice-cold touch of his skin when it brushed against her arms, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he steered the emu deep into the desert.
A red glow rose in the distance, and Nariah’s heart dropped. The fields of Ellonai were ablaze. The city, despite the storm surrounding its mountain, burned. Tears fell from Nariah’s eyes, but were lost in the rain. She bid her body not to shake, for her head to remain high, but the flames of hope in her heart flickered low.
“Dark!” Death said, motioning to the shadows, where the lord of Light passed off a handful of survivors, mostly children, to the lord of Dark who waited just beyond the boundary of firelight.
“Your people will live yet,” Death said. The warmth in his voice made Nariah grimace.
She should have been happy, knowing her people would live. Even as she watched Dark load the survivors into a carriage, she knew deep down that they’d never be coming back. Death was not coming for them—he was with Nariah, and she knew that. However, many fates are worse than death.
Unafraid of the flames, Death plunged into the burning fields. While Nariah felt the heat reaching for her like coils of rope, they bounced off of her—or Death, she figured.
“Live they may, but how long? Only you, Nariah, can say.”
Nariah grit her teeth against the goddess’s taunt. Time after time over the past ten years Nariah had borne the brunt of these visions. And yet no matter how many times she lived this nightmare, no matter which side she was on, the massacre of her people left her sickened and revolted by the goddesses she once served.
Death’s emu stopped short just outside the melting market gates. A gallant white steed with a flowing mane of shimmering gold stood between them and the market center. Its rider swayed, offering them a clumsy, drunken bow with a broad-brimmed leather hat. Flashing them a dashing smile, the rider rose to meet Death’s scowl with a grin.
“Karma,” Death whispered as though the name was a curse, “get out of the way!”
A thick strand of curly teal hair dangled down into Karma’s eyes as he returned his hat to his head.
“Whatever would I do that for, dear brother?” Karma leered, his smiling turning acidic. “After all, justice is being served here. Now be off.”
“You can end it all, you know,” the goddess with the flaming hair whispered in Nariah’s mind as the two feuding brothers each stood unrelenting at the gate. “Give us your Sight. Be our Oracle. We’ll let you have whatever you wish.”
The world shimmered before Nariah could think. The emu vanished beneath her, and she tumbled to the ground. Coarse sand met her palms instead of the burning sandstone of town. The heat of the fire was lessened to a mere discomfort, and a rush of cold wind whipped against her perfectly dry clothes and hair.
Six pairs of otherworldly eyes stared back at her, where she’d only focused on Death’s before having her vision. These six men were no ordinary men.
“You’re our lords,” Nariah whispered.
Her words sunk in with the recognition of their appearances. Teal curls flopped into Karma’s eyes. Life’s long, golden locks flowed over one shoulder. Blue runes shone out on War’s skull. Light and Dark, like identical twins with mis-matched white and black hair, stood off to the side in silence. And Death, the lord to which Nariah had been unknowingly praying all this time, was kneeling before her, scratching his chin.
“What are you?” he asked at last, breaking the uncomfortably long silence.
“Me?”
“Few call us lords,” he said.
“And even fewer float in the air with light shining from their eyes, nose, and mouth,” War added dryly.
Floating? Again? Nariah sighed, her eyes falling closed. Her strength was waning, but the night was young yet. How could she answer them, though? She was a nobody, an outcast.
“I’m an exile,” she finally decided to admit in honesty. If these lords would one day save her people, perhaps they would show her mercy as well. “I’ve had these… visions… for years. I’ve been a farmhand, mostly. But now…”
“Now Irony has her clutches in you.” Karma grinned, malice dripping in his otherwise amused words. “You’re the little toy she wants to use to get at us, but we’ve found you first.”
“Enough!” Death barked. “I’ve already told you she’s mine… floating or visions or not.”
“No!”
Warm arms wrapped around Nariah’s shoulders. Life’s blond hair tumbled into her face. The scent of roses, grass, and sunlight flooded her senses with memories of a happy childhood and a doting father. Fingers with skin too soft to have ever seen toil brushed up her arm and rested on her bracelet.
“It’s beautiful!” Life whispered, his fingers itching in the air as though desperate to touch it.
Looking up and realizing that everyone was staring at him, Life dropped Nariah’s arm and pressed her head against his chest.
“And she’s mine!”
“What?!” Death roared.
Light and Dark howled in laughter, and War just shook his head.
“You can just go claiming humans because they have jewelry you like!” Death objected. Motioning to Nariah, he added, “she’s not even that pretty! Come on now, hand her over!”
For a slender man, Life was surprisingly strong as he swept her off her feet and away from Death’s murderous advances. Nariah was frozen in fear. She’d challenged Death, praying for him to take her. She had forfeited her own life in her misery. But the goddesses still posed a threat to her people.
“Wait!” she begged Life, and was surprised when he actually stopped. “Please, my people need you. Without you, they’re all going to die!”
Life scanned her eyes, but tightened his grip. She wasn’t sure what his interest was with her, but she had to hope it was more than just a bracelet, for the wretched town’s sake.
“They exiled you,” Karma pointed out the obvious. “Death will be happy to take them.”
“No!” Nariah struggled in Life’s grasp, furiously trying to get away.
She needed to face Death, to bargain with him eye to eye with what little was left of her soul. When she closed her eyes to pray for guidance, her prayer died on her lips. Who would she even pray to? The goddesses had turned their backs on her; they wanted only destruction and power. These lords could potentially be no better, but at least they helped some of her people escape.
“Death!” she cried, and he was in front of her in an instant.
Life set her on her feet, but didn’t loosen his grip on her arm. She’d have bruises in the shape of his handprints for weeks, she was sure of it. Regardless, Nariah raised her head high and planted her feet.
“Death, I offer my soul to your service in my eternal sleep, if you will allow me to live long enough to see that my people are spared the genocide the goddesses plan for them.”
“That you wish for them,” the flaming-haired goddess’s voice whispered in Nariah’s mind. Nariah’s jaw clenched, her shoulders going rigid. Would her thoughts never be her own again? Could the goddess—Irony, if Karma was right—hear her thoughts? Or only speak to them?
Death’s eyes narrowed at the offer, and his hands balled into fists. Forfeiting one’s final resting place in harmony with the universe in order to serve as a shade at Death’s beck and call for eternity was no small offer. However, what Nariah had hoped would be an easy deal for the lord who transferred souls between worlds did not look promising.
“We’re out of time, boys,” War called out, rising and pointing at three bright lights approaching from the horizon. “We’ve got to move.”
The oncoming lights, still far in the distance, brought a heaviness ahead of them that crushed Nariah’s spirit. Death didn’t accept her deal. What would happen to her people?
Whistling, Death brought the emu from Nariah’s visions into view. Life’s panda swooped down out of nowhere, kicking up sand when it landed. Life swung himself up, then offered Nariah a hand. When she looked around, she was shocked to see that the bonfire had ceased to exist, without the faintest trace remaining. The other lords had vanished.
“Unless you want to meet the goddesses face-to-face,” Life urged her, “you should hop on.”
For a fraction of a moment, Nariah was transfixed where she stood.
The five lords she’d always dreamed of were real. The three goddesses she’d served really did want to end her world. And there was a fluffy, flying panda in front of her.
Clasping his hand, she pulled herself up behind him, her legs sinking into the panda’s soft white fur.
“Lily,” Life whispered, seizing red silk reins, “take us home.”