The Creators: Book Three

Epilogue

Prelude: Aftermath

ASTRID

At some point in their training, every valkyrie had to participate in the most tedious exercise imaginable: orienteering. Generally, this was done during the winter months when the foliage was sparse, allowing for geological formations to be seen more clearly. Like all tasks of my youth, I treated my orienteering session as a direct challenge to my pride, and so I forced myself to become an expert navigator of the land around the Gratoran Wall. I knew exactly how far every rock formation was from every other and could chart the entire Gratoran Desert all the way to Hektinar's ruins. Julia and Willowbud's battle in the desert had destroyed many of these geological markers, but not all of them. That was how I knew I was currently two hundred miles west of Breyta. I had been in a dark cave beneath the volcano only a second ago. How I had ended up here was a mystery, but why I had ended up here was extremely evident.

I groaned, and squinted against the glaring noon sun. The Gratoran Wall was so far away that it was an azure sliver, and only the tallest mountains could be discerned from the horizon. Willowbud's mountain now stood like a great central spire of the wall, and would've been the most prominent feature on earth were it not for the thing that dwarfed it.

I didn't have the words to describe what I saw, other than that it was a big fucking tree. It was so gargantuan that the radian of the trunk closest to me appeared in clear detail, but the curved edges were so far from my perspective that they were blurred with distance. It stood where Breyta had once been, was a hundred miles in diameter at the base, and had roots that snaked for countless miles along the Gratoran Wall and into the desert. One such root was buried in the sand right before my feet. Here, it was only about twenty feet thick, but its girth widened the closer it got to its parent trunk until the root itself was taller than most of the mountains around it. I couldn't say how high the tree was, because I couldn't see its top. It shot straight up into the sky, then became translucent, then disappeared entirely. No Life Giver could ever have dreamed of making such a thing. The Creators were gods, yes, but even their most magnificent creations were limited by the earth itself. This tree was not of this earth, and neither was the God who made it.

"Hey, Astrid," Justina said, lying in the dune next to me. I only knew that it was her from her voice. Her black hair was now a shimmering white, her eyes were glowing orbs without pupils or irises, and energy moved in shapeless patterns across her bronze flesh. Sometimes the patterns almost looked like fire, fauna or water; sometimes they almost looked like the patterns that used to decorate me, but they were never static. I looked down at my body and saw that I was healed. My arms and legs were whole, the scores of scars were gone, and my wings were intact.

I turned back to Justina. "I thought you were an atheist?"

She snorted. "I'm not God, Astrid. I'm an idea. If anything, everyone else is God."

"Did everyone else make that?" I said, pointing to the bisected horizon.

"Love made that," she smiled. "I know it sounds sappy, but love is the bridge of existence."

"I never pegged you for a romantic."

"I'm not," she chuckled, shaking her head. "Lucky for me, all the groundwork for this relationship was laid down by someone else."

I frowned at her. "It's Petranumen, isn't it?"

She nodded.

I was quiet for a moment. "Justina, I'm not sure how to feel about that."

"Me neither," she sighed, burring her lips. "There's so much of her that I don't like. She's irrational, impulsive, and emotional beyond control."

"She's analytical, strategic, and views emotions as equations," drawled a human woman on the other side of me. Her hair was white, her glowing eyes were without pupils or irises, and her youthful alabaster flesh swam with myriad patterns. She relaxed in the sand as if enjoying a day on the beach, and simply stared at the horizon.