God of Discovery [high fantasy, slow build, mlm]

Arc 3 - 7. God of Music

Now that D'Argen had an idea of what to look for, it was much easier to spot the differences.

Lilian would ask him to join them in petitioning the five to help the mortals migrating out to the east, and a moment later D'Argen would remember that he was pulled away from that task when a war broke out on the southern islands. He rejected Lilian's proposal and instead sat in Evadia waiting for the call and hoping he was going crazy. It made no sense to remember something that had yet to happen, if at all, but as he waited around and contemplated: the call to go south came.

Abbot would wave him away as an annoyance when he offered his help, and when D'Argen was seething he remembered Acela reorganizing the ranking structure and that some event happened—will happen—that made D'Argen a rank above the God of Light. The first time he tried to order Abbot to do something, the orders coming out so naturally as if he had been giving them out for centuries, the artist laughed and walked away. The first time Abbot did it anyway, D'Argen got sick.

Acela would send him to run messages, and D'Argen remembered the contents of them. He would play games with himself, trying to guess every message that she told him to carry and though he was off on the exact words or the times sometimes, every message he had read before he also read now. Funnily enough, when he tried to read the messages, he never read in his other set of memories, they were not important at all. He was, however, berated for opening them.

But the memories that never overlapped were those of Vah'mor and the white shade.

D'Argen knew the white shade was another god, but when he tried to catch it out of the corner of his eye it disappeared. Even worse, when he tried to chase it down those few times it remained, he always found himself running into Vah'mor.

And Vah'mor never looked at him with a kind smile.

As D'Argen looked for Acela to deliver a message he never actually received, he once again found himself under the silver glare of one of their most powerful. He remembered Vah'mor reuniting the pilgrim mortals that first came to the field of the gods, but he also remembered chasing down the nomads with a white shade and then trying to clean the blood off his hands. He remembered Vah'mor returning from an envoy mission for Acela, and he remembered a deeper voice delivering the reports.

With every discrepancy he caught, he thought himself going insane.

It took him too long to finally succumb to the pull of his drained mahee—running too long and too much, even though he remembered running even more before—and look for the court physician.

Not court.

There was no castle yet.

The thought had him stopping on the spot in the open circle that was already the centre of an ever-growing city of the gods. The stone hall was standing strong with the sun shining high above it. It was not the arches he saw like a double vision that framed the castle of Evadia in the background. Acela and Vah'mor were inside. D'Argen could swear he felt Vah'mor's glare even now.

Simeal.

Finding the God of Healing took him too long. When he did, he remembered that she did not gain her title until a few thousand years later when Darania left Evadia and settled in the Rube Islands permanently.

His head was hurting.

"D'Argen? Do you have a message for me?" Simeal asked him as soon as he stepped into the small stone house Simeal had claimed for herself. It took him three tries to find it.

"No messages. I was actually wondering if you could help me with something."

"As long as I can, I will. What is it?" She brushed some powders off her skirts and the white cloud had the scent of flour. She was not healing, but cooking.