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“It’s so beautiful,” he said in wonder, his eyes seeking to take everything in, but that wasn’t possible.

We grinned, then laughed, feeling a lightness we hadn’t felt since that fateful day.

Oemis was complex and multifaceted. There was so much to discover, and we would, together.

We drew him down the plaza towards the two daises, broken still, not repaired like everything else was, but a hum inside us pulled us closer.

Screams, the sound of stone cracking, an unearthly howl.

Our eyes flicked around, the current reality reasserting itself, the only other sound that of the others who had followed us through.

I looked back over my shoulder and saw them come, the girl, the two women, and those men.

We smiled, slow and sly, our focus flicking from Sylvan to the guys and back again.

A pack of five… The idea was positively delicious.

They would never tire. We would be able to move from one man to the next, slaking our lust, the others waiting for us to turn our attention to them.

We would do this from the suite in the palace we had formerly occupied, restored by the goddess just for us.

As if in response to that, the Great White Wolf paused, sitting down behind the statues that stood by the dais.

She awaited our return, her conduit, the only one who had ever been truly worthy, and now with a consort fit to stand by her side.

The others would be concubines of a sort, adjuncts to our power, but we were getting carried away.

We needed to complete the ascension rite, the great marriage here, on Oemian soil, restoring the land as we restored the balance between the conduits.

We felt almost shy, ascending the dais on the White Wolf’s side.

We had longed, planned, plotted, manipulated, and strove for so long, to finally experience this?

One foot after the other, we felt the rush of power that came from taking our place, and when we looked over, the flushed, heightened look on Sylvan’s face said he felt the same.

Then, with the sound of a gong, the Great Black Wolf appeared.

We had plumbed our ancestral memories of this rite, and the appearance of the Great Wolves was an auspicious thing, largely something that happened in our deep, dark past, their appearances coming less and less as time went on, so it was fitting they had arrived.

Having a crowd of cheering well-wishers would have been lovely.

Instead, we were forced to deal with the sullen stares of the women that had come through and the fearful ones of the men.

That pricked at us, threatening to unseat the immense feeling of wellbeing that swelled within us, but not for long.

We’d dealt with displeasure and those who wished to hem us in too many times to worry about that now, so we turned our backs on them and turned to face the White Wolf.

As she stared down at us with those lambent green eyes, it felt like she saw all of us, in all our incarnations, with the warm, caring eyes of a mother.

She had birthed us as a people and then shepherded us through our different existences, everything bringing us to this.

Our arms went wide, and we sank down, in an attitude of surrender.

The first time we had done this, we hadn’t meant that at all, just desperate to grab at the power due to us, but now?

We had paid the price, learned our lesson, and now we would reap the reward.

We waited, on our knees, for the touch of the goddess and her power.

It came, just not for us.

“Maiden, mother, crone,” came an arch little voice, her tone throbbing with malicious intent. “They are phases we move through, never meant to be held tight to. Each has its power, its strength, but to keep living, you need to keep moving, through all of the goddess’ divine forms.”

I slid an impatient look sideways, saw the little girl standing beside me, on my dais, looking upon my goddess, pontificating at me, but knew this was only temporary. Once I ascended?—

“You bore no children, Branwen, but you birthed a people. You created us, for entirely selfish reasons as far as I can see, in anticipation of creating a captive audience, one who would feed your insatiable need for energy, for life.”

Our jaw tightened, our arms starting to tremble, but we looked up, staring into the goddess’ eyes, sure she would only tolerate this desecration of her rite for so long.

Perhaps she would gobble up the child and the old woman who had come to stand on our other side, just as the Great Black Wolf had done Sylvan.

We let out a tight sigh, whistling through our teeth, feeling the energy in the plaza build and build, the crystals’ song growing louder.

But not enough to drown her out. That little piping voice cut through everything.

“The crone brings the world wisdom, experience, a knowledge of what was tried and failed, what came before. How did we end up here?”

We glanced at the old bag. Flora, her name was? She just stared into the goddess’ eyes like we had, and we were glad for her silence. If only the impudent little bitch would do the same. This child had been alive a mere blip of our existence. She would not have even come to be without us.

Which proved to be a somewhat ironic thing later.

“And the maiden. I am the sharp, hard, new energy of young women. I am the push of new shoots, wanting to grow up into something never seen before. I am the rush of spring, the flowering of plants in the new season. I am the blade that cuts through what was to create what should be.”

That was the only warning I got, the energy surging at that moment, the goddess’ muzzle sinking down, down, until her nose was a mere few millimetres from mine. Her breath was the wisp of a cool morning breeze on my skin, and her eyes, they pinned me to the spot.

I had seen ritual sacrifices before, sheep and cattle brought forth, docile and amiable, right up until the moment the knife hit their throats.

As one did mine now.

What was inside me, her Tirian, her, my unworthy bloody vessel, it all thrashed around within, warning me late, too late of what was to come. The Great White Wolf’s muzzle pulled back, her teeth revealed, the darker side of the mother coming to the fore.

She was the mother that devoured young just born, pink and bleating, but her instincts told her were too weak to survive.

She was the mercy killing of those too far gone to age or illness.

This demarcation point we made between life and death, it was an artificial thing.

Death was inextricably linked to life. We consumed the bodies of the animals we slayed, their carcasses mouldering under the trees, the nutrients restored to the land by bacteria, insects, and other carrion feeders.

So as I stared, as the little girl conjured a knife from thin air, as it bit in, a thin trickle of blood escaping, running down my chest, I saw the Great Wolf flicker.

Black, white, black, white, they saw me, judged me, and ostensibly, found me wanting.

There, as I felt it, that death sentence handed down and landed squarely on my shoulders, I felt the sharp slash of the knife and then nothing.

I fell to the ground, me, Bec, my hands slapping down on the tiles, nails digging in with one, the other going to my throat.

“Fuck, Bec!”

They came running towards me, and I didn’t even need to look to see them, sensing their presence as they came near, and with that came the sense of my body. Blood didn’t pump from between my fingers, coating the tiles below. My skin was whole.

I was whole. Almost.

Then I was swept up into their arms, and I really felt the word applied to me. The kisses and hugs were a background thing, because I felt them. A throbbing, intense bond, snicking back into place now my body was my own again, back where it was supposed to be.

“Fuck, I thought…”

“You’re…”

“Goddess, I thought…”

I stroked them idly, hoping to soothe them, but it was Sylvan I saw climbing back down from the dais and straight towards Arelia.

The expression on her face hurt to see, her back ramrod straight, even as she flinched internally, bracing herself for rejection.

So when Sylvan swept her up into his arms, holding her close, bestowing all the kisses she deserved upon her, her expression was completely transcendent.

Branwen thought she’d been waiting for a long time?

Well somehow, her impatience had nothing on Arelia getting her heartfelt wish fulfilled.

Fulfilled, that was a good word for it, for them. He let her down, but not far, tugging her close and devouring her mouth with a passion that finally had my eyes jerking away.

“We’re not done.”

My eyes jerked down to see an indomitable Kailee standing by my side, but she redirected my focus back to the Great White Wolf that still stood there, waiting.

A sharp spike of fear sliced through me as I faced down the monstrous-looking thing, but I needn’t have worried. She pulled back, nodding to me.

Power is always meant to be held lightly, passed on, growing greater with each release. Sharing power increases power.

“You’re not the mother, not yet,” Kailee said.

“But you will be if you want to be.” Flora moved closer and took my hand. “It’s not for you, this power.”

“Oh thank god,” I blurted out, then my eyes darted sideways. “Goddess, whatever. I dunno what the hell this whole thing is, but I don’t want it. I’ve never wanted it. I just want… I want to go home.”

The guys stiffened at that, not understanding what I meant, but there was no time to tell them. Flora smiled, gentle as a breeze, and then patted my hand.

“Of course, my dear, all in good time. Come then.”