Page 42 of A Reign of Storm and Madness

I look at him like he’s crazy, my brow furrowing in confusion at such a random question. “I know what I’ve been taught, Your Divinity,” I say. “That the Gods came to us and shared their knowledge and—”

“I thought we’d been over this,” he stops me, dark ebony eyes turning my way. “My name is Caedmon, and I’d prefer it if you called me as such.”

“I—Caedmon,” I amend, lowering my eyes as the sight of his own seems to make dangerous vibrations arise in my stomach. Not arousal, not interest, but something more ancient. Like a warning.

“I didn’t ask what you have been taught by the classes here at the Academy,” he continues. “I want to know how much of our truth you know.”

“Your truth?” I ask.

He returns his attention to the statue of the woman. His features soften as he gazes upon her. “We did not come down from the skies like many believe we did,” he states. “We came from somewhere else.” He glances my way once before returning to the statue. “Did you read the book I gave you?” he suddenly asks.

Heat steals over my cheeks and I duck my head. “A little,” I admit, “but I wasn’t able to finish it.”

He nods as if expecting that answer. “What did you think?”

My breath catches in my throat. Is he asking me my opinion? A God to a seemingly mortal girl?

My lips part and I answer him. “It was interesting.”

“In what way?”

I consider the book he’d given me to read as I stare at the statue of the woman, my eyes roving up and over her face again to the crown that looks half like a sun and half like a dozen spikes sticking out of the back of her head.

“There was no author,” I say, “but it was clear to me that whoever they are, they don’t consider the Divine Beings as anything more than interlopers in this world.” These words feel dangerous, especially to speak them to a God, but Caedmon doesn’t grow angry or chastise me. He’s the one who gave me the text, after all. I assume he’s already read it himself.

“The author wrote that humans came from the Hinterlands and that the Gods are afraid of that place,” I say.

Caedmon remains silent as I talk and I take that as my cue to keep going. “They said that the Hinterlands were a place of refuge and safety.” I peer at him out of the corner of my eye and decide to give a little truth of my own since he already knows that I’m from that place due to the fake last name I’d chosen when I entered this Academy.

“I remember it being a brutal place,” I admit to him. “The winters were colder than any outside of the woods, darker too. The summers were hot and the autumn and spring were mild. More than anything, though, I remember it being so quiet…”

An old memory surfaces, a day like any other. An image of my father and I walking down to a local stream appears in my mind’s eye, both of us carrying heavy pails as snow crunched underfoot. The sun bore down from the sky and it had made everything seem so much brighter as it reflected off the white glossy surface of the stream we had gone to. It hadn’t been too cold that day, merely chilly after the storm had passed. In those woods, my father had learned to hunt and he’d learned to build, he told me.

He had shown me ways to set traps for the smaller animals and had instructed me on offering thanks for the lives they gave for ours. It hadn’t been easy, living in the middle of nowhere with no friends and no access to the outside world and how others lived, but it had also been simpler.

“Quiet?” Caedmon prompts me as my voice trails off.

Shaking my head and the old memory away, I turn and look at the God at my side. His eyes fall to mine as I answer him. “It was peaceful.” And maybe that’s why I want so badly to return. Because the Hinterlands, to me, are not a place of darkness and fear and the unknown. The Hinterlands are a place of beauty and peace.

Caedmon tilts his head as if considering my words before he slowly pivots to face the statue. “It is important for you to understand this, Kiera,” he says, his voice growing quieter as he talks. “The world is made up of different stories, different points of view. The ones that get taught and learned, though, are only one side. History is not written by the farmers or the peasants. History is written by kings and gods, by conquerors and rulers. The true history lies somewhere in between what is written and what is not.”

I frown, confused more than ever now by his strange cryptic words. “Why are you telling me this?” I brave the question, feeling very much like I’ve somehow been picked up by a much larger being than myself and put into a small pond with other fish, all of whom are curious if not a bit hungry—trying to decide if I’m food or friend.

The smile he gives me is a bit sad, but when he answers, it’s not what I’m expecting. “Even Gods lose people too,” he tells me. “Divine Beings are only Divine so long as their blood remains untainted. Nothing ever remains the same eternally. Time changes all in this mortal world of yours, Kiera. I want you to be prepared for the challenges you will have to face in the future.”

“What chall—”

He doesn’t let me finish as he continues. “Both you and those boys you find yourself growing more and more attached to will need to overcome what is to pass. That is … if they wish to overcome their own monsters.”

I stiffen at his words. “I’m not—” The denial leaps off my tongue before I can stop it, a refusal to believe what he says because the second he starts talking about ‘the boys’ my immediate thoughts drift to the Darkhavens.

Caedmon stops me with a raised palm, and the darkness of his eyes swirls, the ebony color receding a bit to reveal the warmer depth of brown there. “I am the God of Prophecy,” he states. “I see far and I see much, but I can only see what may come to pass, not what will never come to pass. Remember that.”

I don’t know how I can forget it—his words resound inside my head, spinning around and around even as I struggle to truly understand their meaning.

Caedmon moves back slowly as if he is forcing himself to pull away from the statue of the woman. I glance from him to her, wondering who she is to him and whether or not she’s important to him or important to me since he brought me here to talk to me of history and pasts and futures.

“You're dismissed from the rest of your shift today,” Caedmon announces as he turns to go. “And from all future shifts in the library.”

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