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My thinking was probably too small given the ease with which the guardians discarded their bodies and reshaped them. That gross process they had of shifting from one form to another must be the way they reassembled all the parts using the same basic organic materials.

They weren’t balls of light in their winged guardian forms. Their human forms were semi-permanent, from what I could tell.

“Did ya always have a human form? Or did ya make a dragon body when there were dragons on our planet?”

“We took whatever form was necessary to communicate with whatever species we were guarding on your world. The short answer is yes—I once had a dragon body. I also had a Venusian one. However, my current human form closely mirrors my last incarnated form on my original world, except I am much smaller and I have only one set of arms. Where I lived had far less gravity than Earth. Our species grew very large. Those of us who ascended helped our planet survive and support those who remained as they were. Ascension became a normal end-of-life choice for my people. You either died and reincarnated... or you ascended. It is the most important life choice a soul ever makes no matter what species or planet they occupy.”

Why was I so surprised by what Rasmus was saying? Zara bluntly told me that humans should worship guardians as their superiors... and their saviors. She said her goal was to help humanity reach the point of leaving the reincarnation cycle. I still felt like that wasn’t her job. Yet I also wondered what Zara hadn’t said to me because she had thought I couldn’t understand.

Goddess, maybe I was naïve compared to them. Maybe my thinking was limited by how much I valued the human form I walked around in every day. While I didn’t look forward to my death and the cycle of rebirth, I supposed it seemed more natural to me.

Who knew how many forms Zara had worn since she’d ascended? Who knew what wearing them had cost her? I knew it had cost her a Venusian lover. No wonder the female guardian thought so highly of herself. My guardian grandfather, Orlin, looked as young as me in his human body. Rasmus had changed his appearance multiple times or at least had varied it.

I was learning something important from our breakfast conversation. I was learning that the arrogance I hated in guardians came from them mastering the life cycle and their abilities to make new bodies as they pleased. They thought the science they’d mastered had made them superior to us.

I believed in reincarnation for nearly the same reasons Rasmus mentioned, but The Dagda taught me long ago that not everyone played the game of incarnating by the same rules. Using Rasmus’s terms, The Dagda was an ascended being. He’d become a being of light. All members of the Tuatha de Danann were. They ascended but left behind descendants like Ezra and me who were still endlessly cycling. One day The Dagda would leave his new human body and ascend again. He’d told me that.

I shook my head and drank more coffee. “Hearing this stuff hurts my brain, Rasmus. Did ya help Orlin make the body The Dagda is using?”

He nodded, but reluctantly. “Your brain hurts because it is stretching beyond its normal thinking. Your ancestors called us gods and didn’t try to fit us into their ideas of reality. The reason you’re trying to figure it out is because you are related to beings considered to be gods. You have inherited their soul knowledge and their powers. This can’t help but cause you to think of yourself as being slightly superior to your fellow humans. My situation does not differ from yours. It’s just gone on for a much longer time.”

Snorting, I glared at him over my coffee cup. “I bet the guardians loved our human ancestors believing they were gods.”

Rasmus shrugged. “It made intervention easier. Humans did what we said without fighting us. Progression happened faster. We gave your kind knowledge of your planet and of yourselves.”

I grunted. “Some of us might have gone along with ya, but I’m betting not all of us did.”

“True. Some humans knew we weren’t gods back then. That is still the case,” Rasmus said, grinning at me.

I sipped coffee in silence for a few minutes, but I couldn’t shake off the subject. “Zara rationalized the harm she did by trying to convince me it was for my greater good. It wasn’t good for the five young women whose lives she stole. She seemed incapable of seeing it that way. Will those women be reborn one day? Yer rogue guardian took what made them who they were and used it up. Being a guardian doesn’t mean her life was more valuable than theirs. I told her that and I still believe it.”

“The life source of those she killed will leave her over time to rejoin the cycle of all who are native to your planet. Zara views it as ‘borrowing’ one incarnation. Once all the energy of the person is released from her, the parts will gather again and quicken inside an unborn child to begin another cycle. So yes, Zara is using them to survive but she is not using them up.”

“Okay. But that’s beside the point, Rasmus. Those young women she killed weren’t living this incarnation only to give their lives up to Zara. Their purpose was to use their energy for themselves.”

Rasmus shrugged. “You cannot know that for certain, Aran. The destinies of those five women might have been to make sure Zara lived. Zara’s destiny indeed could be to advance human magickal knowledge and forcibly move your people forward. My brethren and I discuss it often.”

Here was the same impasse I always got to with any guardian.

I grunted at the futility of the conversation. “Using yer reasoning then, my destiny was to stop her from killing more young women, which I did. Do ya see how this argument could go on endlessly with each of us defending every bloody thing that came to pass by calling it destiny? To hear ya talk, Rasmus, free will is worse than an illusion. It’s nothing more than a fight to the death between two beings for who gets to use the other’s energy for their wicked purposes. Value is in the eyes of the beholder.”

“Yes, I see how the argument leans in that direction, which is why I find you so fascinating. You and Zara share a similar level of commitment to your ideals.”

Rasmus studied his cup. I could tell he was searching for unfamiliar words that might prove I was the one who didn’t get the point. But I got it. I accepted his explanation, but I didn’t like that it bred neutrality toward killing innocents. The gods I served wanted me to survive and they helped me to do. They weren’t trying to suck the life from me so they could walk the Earth. It was a matter of respect. It was a matter of seeing that everyone had equal value.

This morning I regretted Zara waking Rasmus up. Sharing sex was great but not sharing the same viewpoints was traumatizing, given his kind was more powerful than mine. Why had I never felt that way when I was with The Dagda? It made no sense, yet was still true.

“The creators thought they could spare humanity a few hundred thousand years of enduring the life cycle if higher beings like us gently sped up your growth as a species. But humans are not like the other species that have thrived on this planet. Early genetic alterations made humans like us, and more remarkably, like the creators themselves. Human evolution is genetic poetry. You and your people are unlike any other creation on this planet. But along with the good you do, your kind also destroys each other and the planet without thought. A guardian’s job has changed from educating humans to maintaining balance so your kind doesn’t die out.”

I snorted. “Maintaining balance is my job as well.”

Rasmus shrugged. “I am no longer actively intervening. Instead, I have returned to my pre-ascension roots to become once more a scientist. I am observing your efforts to maintain balance and giving them significant consideration.”

Rising, I walked to the coffeepot and poured myself a refill. “Do ya want more tea? We need to get ya a brewing pot that holds over two cups. I like a four-cup one myself. I need to add that to my online shopping cart.”

“Did my explanation disturb you, Aran? You’re trying not to continue this conversation.”

Blowing out a breath, I swung around to face him. “No, I got all the philosophical stuff and most of the science part. I’m just struggling to reconcile my understanding with the version of ya who spent the night connecting our body parts as often as I’d let ya. Ya have a huge sexual appetite for an ascended being, Rasmus. If ya’re carnal in other ways, I haven’t noticed, but ya’re no slacker between the sheets.”