Populations were decimated, and even after the sun god returned the realms’ temperatures to normal, devastating climate effects persisted.
The shifter realm plunged into a never-ending ice age as hundreds of glaciers melted and poured cold water into the warm ocean currents. In ten days, the planet froze over.
The sun god made a public apology to the realm and offered to increase the temperature, but students from the historic University of Enchantments calculated the planet would become uninhabitable if there was another warming.
The High Court declined to comment.
The shifter realm has not since recovered.
In the fae realm, seasons disappeared and were replaced with an endless summer. The monarchy became isolationists and banned advanced weapons development.
The moderate climate of the beast realm also disappeared, and the land has since been plagued with perpetual rain. Unlike the fae, the leaders invested heavily in the production of expensive weapons, and a few centuries later, they created the first enchanted guns.
A powerful realm was also divided into two; one side of the planet iced over like the shifter realm, while the other burned with perpetual fire.
For unknown reasons, the humans never invaded, and the Olympus realm was left unscathed. The few humans who survived the warming, but did not make it back to the human realm, were taken as prisoners of war to the underworld, Olympus’s maximum-security prison.
Planetary climate effects aside, at the end of the war, there were no armies to congratulate, because only a hundred of the strongest soldiers from all the realms survived the battlefield. Soldiers were either slaughtered by human weapons or succumbed to severe temperatures.
The Official Peace Accords, the OPA, were passed unanimously by all realms and executed with enchanted bindings. The peace accords were signed by the High Court and the sun god, and the mostly uninvolved moon goddess, in order to prevent future atrocities.
Narrow understanding expanded into a wide frame as context colored everything in shades of black and gray. The lack of human presence in the realms wasn’t because they were primitive and weak like everyone was taught.
A sinister false remembrance.
I stopped clinging to the spatial illusion, and books tumbled off shelves. Hundreds of stacks fell over as my mind palace crumbled into nothingness.
SNAP.
Consciousness returned.
Pain stabbed across my skull like a hot poker, and I sat up and heaved.
Luka’s arm was hanging over the side of his bunk, and I was gripping his hand.
My head throbbed.
My gasps were loud in the quiet room as the rest of the legion slept in their bunks.
I started to shake.
How had I forgotten such terrifying information about the sun god? It hadn’t been Jinx, because she’d said the memories she’d taken were unrecoverable.
Why were my memories from fourteen so shrouded in fog?
My bunk trembled from the force of my convulsions, and Luka’s thumb stroked against the back of my hand like he was soothing me in his sleep.
I pressed my quivering left palm into my eyes, then grabbed the diamond of death that hung heavy against my chest. It felt warm against my frozen fingers and vibrated at my touch.
I dropped it, and it went still.
Sweat dripped off my forehead and streaked down my sides, then stopped its trail as it froze to my skin.
Frost covered the bedsheet beneath me.
I felt sick.
After the Legionnaire Games, Lyla had spread her arms wide and said, “Every few millennia, a red giant explodes in the galaxy. It collapses in a solar system that contains a portal connecting it to realms within the jurisdiction of the High Court.”
My vision blurred.
History was repeating itself.
The last invasion had nearly destroyed us all, and now it was the ungodly’s turn, but there would be no sprawling army at our backs.
There would be no gods to save us.
We were sacrifices, fodder for slaughter, collateral.
I squeezed Luka’s callused hand until my fingers turned white.
Then I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to be awake anymore.
Chapter 3
Luka
CODEPENDENCY
Amorist （noun）： a person who is in love.
Aran wasn’t speaking.
I didn’t like it.
I was the one who stayed quiet, and she was the one who hung off John’s shoulders while cracking inappropriate, morbid jokes.
My twin had his arm slung over her shoulder, but they weren’t leaning against each other like usual.
No.
Crystal-blue eyes were wide and unseeing as John dragged Aran through the trees.
Lilac sunlight and emerald from the valley forest reflected across the shimmering clouds. The new realm was colorful, and the weather seemed mostly mild.