Page 1 of Heir Of Sun And Moon
Prologue
Itisquitethepredicament I have found myself in. I wince as sweat drips down my brow and a burning sensation courses through my body at the massive loss of my magic.
“It’s too late isn’t it, Father?” Solana asks solemnly at my side, her green eyes shining brightly. I nod from where I kneel, looking up to her with pursed lips.
“It is.” I sigh as I drop my head, brows furrowing in concentration. “I’ve given too much.”
My obsession with other worlds—with exploring what lay beyond my own realm—had led to this. As the being in charge of Void and Time, a god as some mortals have called me, I had used my magic frequently to walk within the cosmos. An insatiable hunger to learn and see andexperiencehow others lived propelled me to go farther and farther.
Every time I returned to my home world, I was left feeling stagnant, like rain water collecting in a forgotten urn. The politics of life there and the daily responsibilities I held were meek in comparison to what I was discovering lie beyond. I loved my family, of course; my wife was my moon and sun and every twinkling star in the sky. She understood the restlessness I felt though, the curiosity that burned within me, particularly when it came to observing the mortals.
When Solana, my oldest daughter by marriage, showed the same curiosity, I brought her with me to explore. Drawing my magic from the black spaces between planets and stars and galaxies, we moved through voids of time to see new worlds. During our travels, we came upon a planet named Damatus. It was full of mortals who brimmed with life and a curiosity that rivaled my own. Solana and I glamored our bodies to look mortal and visited them often, watching how they interacted and found beauty in a life that was so different from what we knew.
What no one on the planet could see, however, was that their world was beginning to die. The core of it lost more of its brilliance with every visit we made. This visit was no exception. When we had reached Damatus earlier today, I noticed that the planet had started to fracture, its destruction looming in the not-so-distant future. And with it, the death of every being that resided on it.
“There must be something we can do,” Solana pleaded, her eyes limning with silver as she looked out at the many mortals gathered in the city center. Children ran past, their smiles wide as they chased each other. I pretended I didn’t see the way Solana’s eyes lingered longingly on a nearby male, or man I supposed. She thought she was being clever at hiding her relationship with him, but much like her mother, she didn’t conceal her emotions all that well.
Truthfully, therewassomething I could do, but it would require an immense amount of my magic to do it. I wasn’t sure I would be able to save everyone even if I did act, but the look of anguish on Solana’s face moved me. As a long-lived being who generally wasn’t motivated beyond my own desires, I had to recognize that this might be a sign. Perhaps these mortals didn’t deserve death merely because they were on the planet at the wrong time. Or perhaps I just loved my daughter.
“Let us try then,” I replied calmly, chuckling at the widening of her eyes and the smile on her face. So like her mother, capable of feeling emotions far beyond what othergodslike myself were accustomed to. I had never tested the abilities of my magic this far before, but I was a being that drew my gifts from the vastness of space and the essence of measure. Surely I could save these beings and bring them somewhere better.
Drawing in as much magic from the surrounding cosmos as I could summon, I began to walk between planets, my sights set on a world I had visited millennia prior and my magic taking as many mortals as I could carry. If memory served me correctly, the planet was only home to animals but would be a hospitable place for all kinds of life. It could be a new beginning for a people whose impending deaths were premature.
Time moved slowly at first as the coldness of space and infinite worlds blanketed me. I found the lull soothing as my magic pulled and pushed within. Then came a rush as Time and Void caught up, stars and galaxies surrounded me in colorful blurs before I landed on the new planet, Solana by my side. I carefully brought the mortals into the atmosphere but held them above as I caught my breath. The continent we stood upon was large, but as I looked around, I wondered if it was big enough for the amount of life I had brought with me.
“There are too many for this land, aren’t there?” Solana asked, gazing out at the thick lining of trees just beyond the beach where we stood. When I answered with only a slight nod, she looked at me with a frown. “It used too much of your magic to get them here.” Not a question, but a statement of observation.
I felt weaker than I ever had, and it alarmed me. “I have never done anything like this before, but I am not sure I could move them to a new planet.”Or bring us back home.
Her frown grew deeper as though she heard my thoughts. Solana surveyed the ocean and then the jagged snow-covered mountains in the distance. “It is quite beautiful here,” she whispered before she brought her attention back to me. “What do we do?” Though Solana was an adult, her voice sounded so small and unsure, like she was but a child looking to her father for advice. It, again, tugged at my heart.
“If I help them adapt to this world, I do not think we can make it back ho—”
“I know,” she said softly, reaching out to hold my hand, “and I’m sorry to have asked you to do this.”
“Daughter, you asked nothing of me that I wasn’t already willing to do”—I squeeze her hand gently—“for you and for them…” I trailed off as an uncomfortable tightness clenched around my throat.
Solana understood what I couldn’t voice, her face relaxing as her eyes glistened. “Then let us make this place and these mortals truly represent that which we love most.”
And so the beings of this new planet came to be.
On one side of the continent, among the rolling hills of grass, wildflowers, and sparse forests, I placed the first group of mortals. They were already curious and clever, so I kept them as they were, for that was the characteristic that drew me most to them. These mortals had lived together in Damatus, so I followed the same pattern as I began bringing more down onto the planet.
In the center of the continent now lived beings that included the man Solana loved. To honor her connection with him, she gave them a sprinkling of her celestial magic. I infused an inclination towards peace into their souls, making it an intrinsic part of who they were. Mages, they would be called, because of their ability to manipulate magic in its purest form.
On the other side of the continent, I created what we had called fae on our home world, giving them pointed ears similar to my own. I had noticed dragons that lived in the high mountainous terrains that would be their new home, so I gave them the ability to bond with the winged beasts.
Upon a large island to the south of the continent, I gave the mortals now there the ability to shift into any of the various animals that lived on this planet. Animals to me had always represented bravery and tenacity, which were personality traits and magical gifts of some of the gods I was leaving behind on my own world.
Finally, to honor my youngest daughter—the one I would never see again—I created an all-female race that could live in the sea. Their dark skin and ringlet hair made in her likeness, while their beautiful, powerful voices and fierce femininity rivaled that of my wife.
For each of these kingdoms, I gave them everything they would need to begin anew here. I then wiped away only the memories of the old world that the beings had come from. Magic, like all things, required balance—a price to be paid for its usage. I had saved many lives and had formed entirely new beings, but I had done so at my own expense. Even the magic I had given to this world would have a price of its own, unique to each group of life; for no gift was ever truly free. My magic now lived in the continent and in the peoples, and I knew now with certainty that I did not have a way to bring Solana and I back to our own home.
Coming back to the present moment, I look down at the ground, sweat dripping from my face onto the sand as I repeat, “I have given too much.”
“It’s alright,” she whispers, her fingers finding my jaw and lifting my head back up to look at her. In the breeze blowing in from the ocean, her light blonde hair flutters behind her.
“I am happy to live here with them.” To stay among the newly created beings and the man, now turned mage, that she loved.
