BORDER

Prologue

PHANES

The meeting room is full of conversation as I strut into it. Countless minor gods eye me down as I adjust the cuffs of my shirt. It does not take much of a glare to get their peering eyes cast aside. Imbeciles, the lot of them.

Five glittering thrones sit at the top of the room. Three of them are occupied by the divine siblings: Evangeline, Blade, and Kano. For a moment I wonder about the whereabouts of Pandora, the mother of the trio, but it is no surprise she is not here, she hates me as much as I do her. The years of fighting have eroded any relationship we could ever have. It is a shame the God of Creation can not be in tune with the Goddess of Truth.

Evangeline, the ruler Goddess, appears bored at the conversation milling around the room. Her green eyes scan everyone around her with a chilling look. Evangeline never does like a full room of dull people she needs to please. The goddess arches an eyebrow at me as I approach.

I bow deeply. "Your highness."

Her blonde curls shift like an ocean as she adjusts in her chair. "Phanes, you are late."

The tone in her voice clips me. Does she not know who she is talking to? The God of Creation, that is me. I created almost everything. How dare she? If only...if only she was not the ruler, if only someone had the backbone to rip that pretty little crown off her head. But no, Evangeline can not be hurt. They will never betray her and I suppose a part of me wouldn't be able to either.

I ease my anger into a fist and think about why I am here. I came because I am ready to offer my preposition to the three, minus Pandora of course, highest gods and goddesses. It is us who make up the rules and laws of all that I create, we do it together. Neither of us making decisions that could affect all of us, it is better this way, as Evangeline claims.

Harmonious.

But I did not want harmony at the expense of my greatness. I can not continue to sit idly by while this little girl, that decided to magically take the crown and declare herself ruler, did everything I wouldn't do. I need something that is mine. Something that I can rule without their interference or permission. It is my right.

My new plan is going to work. It has to. There are too many people here that can stop me and my secrets. It will be foolish of them to let an opportunity such as this slide by. This is my passion project of sorts. I have spent the past five centuries working on this. I created an entire world. Not them. Me.

This world is everything to me. It is not built on someone else's beliefs, the beings I will create will follow my rules, my laws, my declarations. It is my imagination and nobody else's and it is endless. Gelda, home of the divine, Gehena, home of the damned, and Morta, home of the mundane, have been the sole kingdoms for far too long. Gehena and Gelda have been two equal realms in Etna, one not better or more expansive than the other.

But with Evangeline's decree that everyone is accepted into Gelda, she has blurred the lines of the divine and damned. There has to be rules and regulations otherwise, our kingdoms will fall apart here in all of Etna. It is too risky just to accept anybody.

"Excuse my tardiness, Evangeline, I wanted to prepare my proposal properly, for you." I say through a tense jaw.

There's a snicker throughout the crowd as Kano yawns. "Excuses, excuses, Phi, you are drenched in them."

Kano, the god of oceans and seas, is an irritatingly attractive man to deal with. Though more times than not, we see eye to eye on many things. One of those things is the election of his sister as queen. The All God, Ara, their father, our creator, had deemed his daughter the appropriate ruler. It is something Kano has never gotten over. Kano does not hold respect for females of any species. A female feels too many emotions and hormones to do a proper job, add in a goddess's powers to that female and you feel as if you are walking on eggshells all the time. Maybe it is because Pandora, his own mother, tried to kill him all those years ago.