Page 43 of This Cruel Fate

Xolia and Adonis ate a comfortable breakfast in the nice kitchen. The kitchen closer to the garage door was for staff to use when making food for parties and events that his parents hosted, Adonis explained. She marveled at the impracticality of it. That people had enough to hide away the help. Of course, it was similar to how she had been reduced to a dimorphous shadow before the rebellion. Back in the days of shadowing politicians and business tycoons to protect them from any real or imagined threats lurking in the streets of the city.

Would her life be like his parents’ if Peter was re-elected? Surely her time would be of too much value to be wasted on menial domestic labor. Everyone had a role to play, and there was no shame in supporting the lead players. Those roles weren’t for her, she would be best used at the top. There was no shame in admitting to that either.

They hadn’t discussed the previous night. Not what they had done nor Adonis’s revelation. Even with their proximity in his car as they sped back to the city, they remained quiet. Xolia couldn’t stop turning it over in her mind, the possibilities that Rheathism had opened. The priest had been so certain they would meet again, and now Xolia believed that too.

“What’s the creation story?” she asked, turning away from the window to face Adonis. He stared ahead at the road, eyes only looking at her for a brief lingering moment.

“Sel was expelled from the heavens after arguing with their siblings. There were no stewards for the animals. The land. The planet was in chaos. While their siblings delighted in watching the untamed wildness from up above, Sel couldn’t bear it. They value control and order most of all. So they made humans in secret. While their siblings slept, Sel fashioned humans from earth and different parts of animals, molding all the pieces together until humans existed. Sel offered a piece of themselves to give the humans sentience. Weary of their immortal life, Sel gifted humans a brief life span but endless curiosity.” Adonis looked at her again. “You’ve not heard this before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve gone to the church once. Marshall—” She cut herself off at the mention of his name, but Adonis didn’t appear perturbed, so she continued, “Marshall thought they could counsel our failing relationship or something. I talked with one of the priests, but that was it. So no, I haven’t heard it before. Continue with the history lesson.”

He readjusted his grip on the wheel. “Well, it might not be history. Just a story.”

Xolia scoffed. “You go to church but have no faith?”

“It’s hard to come by,” he said, shrugging. “Anyway, Sel hid them amongst the trees and caves. For a time, they taught the small population how to shepherd over the animals and how to tend to the earth in an orderly fashion, all set in cadence with the seasons. Sel returned to the heavens, satisfied with the growing order of the land. Humans celebrated Sel, and they flourished. Their population grew until they could no longer hide. The wild spaces disappeared, and the curiosity in humans brought them running out of hiding, seeking new places to settle. Naturally, Sel’s siblings found out they were the culprit. They expelled them down to Ris, where they would be forced to live amongst their own creation.

“For a time, Sel relished the worship and bounty laid at their feet. But the years dragged on. Humans grew. Prospered. Surpassed the simple teachings of Sel. They grew haughty. Unappreciative. The offerings stopped.”

“I imagine it made Sel unhappy,” Xolia said. As much as she was loath to admit it, she understood Sel. Everyone had deferred to her during the war. She’d had Silas’s influence, and thus, everyone had fallen in line around her. Other than Atlas, there’d been no pushback. No questions. No sooner had the war ended than everyone had started to question Xolia. No one listened to her, they all just wanted to make her into something else. They wanted to tell her what to do. That made her unhappy.

Adonis nodded. “The humans owed everything to them. Sel made up their mind to destroy humanity. But they were their own creation. How could they? Sel was not so barbaric as that, and above all, they believe in order. Sel ran back to the cover of the caves, snatching humans and animals and making all sorts of sacrifices to the heavens to lure one of their siblings down to Ris. Eventually, one answered. Lamina. Perhaps the only sibling sympathetic to Sel. Lamina came down to Sel’s cave under the cover of a thunderstorm.”

Unease prickled along Xolia’s scalp. Unconsciously, she found herself leaning closer to Adonis.

“You can’t kill a god. They are without beginning, without ending. Somehow, Sel managed it. They killed Lamina and mixed their godly remains in with the human and the animal and the earth until the first of the variants were created. Created in likeness to humans but, of course, longer lived, harder to hurt or kill. Quick to heal. In control of the elements. Humans were made to be stewards of the land and animals. Variants were created to be stewards of humanity.”

“What happened to Sel?”

Adonis gave her a rueful smile. “Not even a god can kill another god without consequences. Sel’s corporeal body was destroyed, melted from the inside out. In their last moments of consciousness, they latched onto a variant who was the steward over all. He became known as the Selermine, the direct mouthpiece of Sel.”

“The priest mentioned the Selermine.”

Adonis nodded. “The order is extremely tight-lipped about them. If their history is to be believed, the first Selermine was the first king of Ris. While there was not consistently a Selermine, if one appeared while another king was on the throne, the king was immediately removed for the Selermine.”

“And there hasn’t been one since the last king,” Xolia said.

“Rheatha’s popularity dwindled once humans took over,” Adonis said.

Xolia chewed on her bottom lip. “Only the church can find the Selermine?”

He nodded. “Do you think it’s fate or circumstance that finds them, Xo?”

“Faith is hard to come by.”

“Exactly.”

A sigh escaped Xolia. She leaned her head back against the headrest. “I guess I can see why humans haven’t declared Rheathism the official religion of the country.”

“I don’t know. From what I can tell, they have a dedicated human congregation.” Adonis tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “I think there’s almost something freeing in their beliefs. If you don’t have to be in control of yourself, you don’t have to worry. Someone else can worry.”

“Unless you’re the Selermine.”

“But I’m not,” he said. “Besides, even the Selermine is merely the mouthpiece of Sel.”

Xolia hummed. She couldn’t relate to Adonis’s sentiments, but she supposed she could understand them. “And you don’t know how they choose, or find, the Selermine?”

“Those secrets are kept under lock and key. I wasn’t allowed to read any texts about the process,” he said. Adonis turned off the highway, taking them back to familiar city streets. It comforted Xolia to be back amongst the crowds and noises that had been so conspicuously absent from Dresden Bay.

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