CHAPTER 25
The movement of the lake confused me. As far as I was concerned, water shouldn't move in caves unless there was an earthquake. But it was moving and it was moving higher and faster up my legs. I looked over at Ezra and watched his chest rise in slumber, his eyes dart behind their lids. I touched him, but received nothing in response.
"Ez?"
No answer. My presence didn't even register. That wasn't normal. The water had alarmingly reached my knees and was barely receding in its down sweep. I shook Ezra roughly and still nothing. Satiny sand slipped through my fingers and fell away as I reached down to push myself up. The water solidified and wrapped around my legs. Without a moment to acknowledge the fear that climbed up my throat I was wretched across the sand and away from Ezra.
"Ezra! Wake up! EZRA!"
My gaze shot up as I yelled and the cave gave me back nothing. There was no echo. Nothing. It held my terror in its grasp and never let go. The lake dragged me screaming to its source while used every ounce of strength I possessed to grasp onto sliding crystal sand. I was pulled into ebony liquid that brought back terror I had fought to eradicate from previous nightmares.
Sweet tasting water filled my mouth as I pulled for magic. The lake's hold pulled me deeper into its depths despite my frantic struggles. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had no magic to help me breathe underwater. My thrashings slowed with my lack of air and I felt a familiar stillness come over me. I was dying... again. Inside I laughed, thinking of Ezra's insistence the first time that I was merely lost. My last thought was, maybe he could pull me out this time too.
I was jolted into awareness when I actually got an answer.
'Maybe he will.'
The voice sounded female, impassive. The darkness receded and I surveyed universes around me. My eyes were open, but I couldn't detect an actual body attached to my inner conscious. A multiple of conflicting emotions made me speechless.
'You have an advocate. Her name has been tossed around in conversation of late.'
The only word that filtered coherently in my mind came to the fore, 'Eshera.'
'Precisely. And so I called you to me and made Ezra drift in my silence.'
'Are you... are you...' I was at a loss for words.
'Their creator.'
'Oh.' I paused to let her acknowledgement sink in. 'I thought you'd be more... animated.'
The stars twinkled bright and shot across dark patches of space. I think she was laughing at me.
'You mean angry.'
'Excitable.' I countered, not wanting her to go into angry deity mode while having me in her control.
'There was a time of such.'
'Is Eshera with you?'
'Not here. Elsewhere. She is a hopeless romantic. She believes in both you and Ezra?'
I hesitated, unsure how to go on with this conversation.
'I have been watching.'
Her focus was a weight pinning me down, as if she was waiting for me to continue. Like it was my turn to contribute. I just wasn't sure with what. 'Ah, and who exactly have you been watching?'
There was a lengthy silence and a star shot across the night of space in front of my vision.
'Wrong question.'
I fumbled in my mind for the right question. Ezra's whispered words when I finally decided to move out of my confusion and depression flared bright in my mind. 'What have you decided?'
A star exploded in the distance. 'To give you the answers. To meet with the son that should have been mine.'
I dared an impertinent question to the Goddess, 'To forgive?'
This time the silence was overwhelming and leaden. Space had more gravity in that moment then I was ever taught. If I was breathing I would have gulped air when she lifted the pressure.
'That is between my daughter, Zhora, and me. You will not intercede for her. I have given her much lenience while I waited for Ezra to become an adult dragon before cursing her as a succubi.'
I let out my stray thought carelessly, 'Incubi suck.'
The stars twinkled in a progression at my outburst. I think she was smiling. 'I will not lay claim to their creation. They are a clever turning made of swiftness of purpose and longing.' The lilt in her voice turned serious, 'Our time is short. There is only so much your body will tolerate before it succumbs to permanent death and Ezra cannot bring you back.'
'I'm listening,' I said, catching on to her urgency.
'I am not punishing Ezra. My consort saw Zhora flying and was intrigued. They created Ezra. I retaliated and my consort... left.'
She paused as if reminiscing and the whole of space went still, no twinkling stars or moving galaxies. I wanted to tell her to hurry up despite what I could only relate to as her inner pain. I didn't. I really wanted to though.
The Goddess started again, 'He sought revenge and met with one of my trickster brothers, who decided to help him create more of his offspring. He taught him how to fling his magical intention into the world while Ezra was a wisp of fire curled in a nest of embers. And so the creation of male demons populated the world. He wanted me to watch as they took other woman, any woman, as long as it was not me. Understand, he is a consort and any creation should be with me and no other. He turned his back on me. It was retribution for my abandonment of Zhora and the knowledge of what she would turn into once Ezra was an adult dragon. For my forbiddance of continuing their liaison.'
I could feel anger come from her as she continued. 'He is trusting, like you, and my brother caged him in your sun, away from me. But, before he did, he stole power from my consort and combined it with his own. It was cast out on shooting stars into your mothers, his human creations. And your kind were created. My brother has always been curious and impulsive.'
I was speechless. It was a Greek tragedy in Cliff notes.
'That is enough. Ezra is abasing himself to me for you. He has avoided me for too long.'
'For good reason. You were angry,' I said quietly.
