Page 40 of The Goddess is Awakened
Ididknow if the ghosts wanted a show and I wanted the next four years to be peaceful for me and everyone I cared about, roping my brother’s new pixie boyfriend into letting Kaylee know there were consequences to her actions was required.
It could prevent anyone from dying and frankly, after dealing with her and watching her with Dexter, it would just feel fucking good.
george
Azren was super late to class. They hadn’t been all semester, but when you were as old as the universe, time really had no meaning anymore. My dad was up cooking breakfast for us, seeing us off to school, and he was on time for every game or performance we were in. If it didn’t involve the kids or was important to my mom or one of my other dads, he just took the start time as a guideline and showed up whenever.
I called my family all the time before bed. Matilda and I spoke to them on speaker. From what they told me, Azren had an even shittier sense of time than my dad did. I personally wasn’t shocked they were late, especially since I knew the real reason they were here. The rest of my classmates didn’t feel the same. Kaylee was the worst about it.
“I hear that in college, there’s a rule that if your professor is five minutes late, then class is canceled and everyone can leave without being penalized,” she said. “We should all leave and tell my mom Azren can’t be bothered to do their job.”
“I heard it was fifteen minutes, but this isn’t justanycollege and Azren isn’t a regular history teacher. They threatened to turn you into an eggplant andeatyou on the first day. Sorry, but the vampires like Azren and we’ll be staying,” Belladonna huffed.
So far, Belladonna hadn’t started anything further with me because of Church, but at least she hadn’t teamed up with Kaylee. She seemed to dislike her, but that didn’t make Belladonna my friend. Belladonna was pretty racist about magical species mixing, but Kaylee had a lot of unpopular views a lot of the magical community didn’t have. Belladonna probably didn’t want to be associated with that, even if she had some pretty shitty opinions of her own.
“Well, thewitches—”
“You don’t speak for all the witches, Kaylee,” I said. “Stop acting like you do.”
“I speak for the witches who matter.”
“Actually, you don’t,” another witch said. She was a legacy student named Patches Breedlove. Unlike the other legacy students who got here because of their last name and seemed to be squandering this opportunity, Patches was quiet and I only ever heard her speak to answer or ask questions in class. She was a pretty brilliant witch, and she had her own group of friends.
Kaylee gave a nervous laugh and tossed her hair over her shoulder. The Breedloves were probably one of the most famous and powerful families here in terms of witches. Her dad was governor of the entire state and her mom was on the board of my mom’s library. Patches’s mom was one of the few board members my mom actually liked and all my parents helped campaign for her dad. From what my parents told me, they were good people, but they had a lot of influence magically and politically. Pissing them off was a stupid idea.
“You shouldreallyjoin the winning side, Patches.”
“You’re an idiot, Kaylee. This is college, not a dodgeball match. All you’re doing is alienating people later. You know you have to exist with some of these people in the professional world after college, right? Your mom won’t be headmaster to protect you. If you pullanyof this shit at a job, you’re going to get fired. I heard about your family’s little lawsuit and what happened in court. Honestly, you’re lucky your family isn’t getting shunned. You can ask Professor Morningstar if you last here long enough to take his class how long it took his family to get out of theirs,” Patches said.
Damn. IlikedPatches. That went straight over Kaylee’s head and she was glaring it me like it wasmyfault Patches Breedlove just put her in her place. Before this could go any further, Azren came bustling into the classroom with an armload of books. They never used them to teach us because they lived through all of it. I didn’t know what the books were for, but Azren looked harried and distracted.
“Miss Breedlove is correct,” Azren said. “Supernatural shunnings go back to ancient times when they’d kick people out of villages made of dirt huts to die in the elements if they couldn’t build shelter and fend for themselves in time. If this were ancient times, all these students you’ve been an absolute cunt to would banish you to be eaten by wild bears.
“I apologize for my tardiness. I take my teaching assignment here seriously and all of you are owed a history professor who is here on time. I was researching a side project and got sidetracked. It won’t happen again. Now, we were covering ancient civilizations. I know you were all taught Mesopotamia was the oldest, but that’s not true. There were many before that, it's just none of your archaeologists, human or supernatural, will ever find anything that makes them think they were civilized rather than just godless savages. What are the true signs of a civilization?”
Everyone started raising their hands and listing off what we’d all been taught in high school. Azren covered a lot of stuff my dad didn’t. My dad talked about all the fun things he got up to in the past, but not all the shitty things that came with being the God of Chaos. Some of the civilizations Azren was talking about that were wiped out to the point no record could be found were probably because of my dad.
Their existence was causing unbalance because of their actions. Their gods weren’t setting them on the right path, so a little Chaos got introduced into their society to shake things up. The numerous stories through different religions about an epic flood was probably also my dad.
One of the societies Azren was going to eventually cover tricked my dad and entombed him. He could have easily gotten out and punished everyone, but he left his earthly vessel to dry up and sulked in the Aether until my mom was tricked into bringing him back. I only knew that because my mom told us. Dad never talked about it.
Azren looked slightly less harried. They were in their element now—blowing a bunch of young minds. I was pretty sure they were about to blow mine, too. They already had several times. That didn’t mean I wasn’t furious with them that they thought I was going to go on a murdering spree over Kaylee fucking Krauss.
“Yes. A system of writing is a big one,” Azren said. “Archaeologists have gotten one major thing wrong about the societies that came before Mesopotamia. Cave paintings are art, yes, but they are also a system of writing. They also used animal hide as parchment, but didn’t feel the need to bury it with their dead, so the only thing that survived of it was what is on cave walls.
“They had other forms of art like pottery and music that was quite different from what you hear today.Youmight not be aware of the names of the gods that ruled over them, but they existed in addition to the primordials. Their system of government was both less complex and more complex than what you know. There were people in charge, but their decision making was based on what they thought their gods wanted and they thought they got those answers through violence. Their gods didn’t exactly set them straight,” Azren said.
So, my dad probably did.
Anne-Marie Knight, one of the wolf shifters who was friends with my sister, immediately shot her hand up. Azren nodded at her.
“If their gods didn’t keep them in check, who did?”
“A primordial doing their job or the Fates. My tardiness means I can’t really go into more detail since class is over, but now you know those civilizations were out there. You’re dismissed.”
I waited until everyone left and approached Azren’s desk. They already had their nose buried in a book. It was one of Professor Jinx’s history books on the Profane buildings. They didn’t even look up when I got to their desk.
“I’m a teacher, so I have a bit more leeway about being tardy to class, George. Say what you need to say at our tutoring session tonight. I have a theory to run by you.”
