AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“What did you see, baby?” my mother asked softly.
“Mommy, I saw a boy! He had the prettiest eyes, like the sky when it rains, and he called me his little Tuli, and then he made a kissy face.” Six-year-old me made a face that made my parents laugh before she asked, “What does Tuli mean, Mommy?”
“I don’t know, my love, but we’ll look it up when we get home, okay?”
My eyes went wide at the exchange. I couldn’t remember any of this happening, but I knew who I must have seen in my vision at six years old.
You saw your future with Markus many times when you were younger. You just don’t remember. They might not have meant anything to you then, but your visions helped Mom and Dad see that you had a future, and it kept them fighting for it,Kara said when the scene dissolved back into mist.
Kara, why? Why are you showing me all of this? What does it mean? Who was that man they were so afraid of?I asked.
Some things are destined to come to pass. You need to understand because you can’t blame yourself for anything that happens in the coming months or what you will learn happened in the past. It is not your fault. It is destined, and you must trust it, just like our parents did.
What’s going to happen?
I don’t have that knowledge. I only know what Selene tells me, she replied sadly.
We walked out of the mists more frustrated than when this whole thing started. I was being shown so many visions, and I had to believe there was a purpose, but all I got were cryptic explanations. I only hoped when we got to the top, it would all be explained.
We reached the last platform, and I hesitated. This one was different. The mist was golden instead of orange, and I could hear strange things already happening inside. I looked down at Kara, and she looked a bit worried, but she gave me a firm nod to grab onto her, and together we stepped in.
We were instantly in the middle of a war unlike anything I had ever seen. We were on the steps of an ancient plaza. A strange pyramid loomed in front of us, and another one some way away. But these pyramids were not like the ones from Egypt you could see in movies. They looked older… more ancient and primal. I could practically taste the power and magic in the air as the fighting surrounding us continued.
The pyramids in front of us had several levels tapering up to a small platform, with big stairs going up the middle, stretching all the way to the top. The area was surrounded by similar-style platforms, as if they had begun building smaller pyramids but had stopped after the first level. Bodies, animals, blood and weapons littered the ground. Humans were fighting humans, wolves were fighting against humans, and even other species of predator animals were fighting everywhere I looked. The growls, howls and screams were all around us, and I put my hands to my ears, trying to block out so many agonizing sounds.
My heart was breaking as I took in the fighting, seeing how many souls were lost. Every warrior’s skin was a deep copper, and muscles rippled through their bodies as they played a deadly dance against their fellow warriors. Each one was dressed for battle in leather and feathers, their chests bare and painted, often stained with blood, while their waists were covered with leather loincloths, and their heads were adorned with animal headdresses: eagles, jaguars, wolves. Brothers fighting brothers. It wasn’t right.
They belonged to an ancient period, their weapons made of wood and stone, and I was sure that was exactly where the mists had taken us. The warriors were as beautiful and deadly as the wolves they were fighting for and against.
I felt myself jerked forward and was transported to the top of one of the pyramids. A woman was sitting on the ground near the platform’s edge, a dark beauty to her. Her face was ethereal, though, at the moment, she was smirking at the two people fighting each other in a way that made me shiver. Something was off about her, and I swore I could almost make out a dark shadow standing behind her.
I turned to look at the two people fighting, a man and a woman. They were both beautiful, and I recognized a resemblance between them. Sibling fighting sibling. It wasn’t right.
The woman had raven black hair flowing behind her down to her waist. Her flawless copper skin was adorned with paint in hues of blue and gold. She wore a giant feathered headdress and a matching chest covering made of cloth and gold beading, her loin cloth in the same style, the skirting dropping below her knees. She held a spear in one hand and a curved crystal knife at her waist. Every movement she made was defensive, never attempting to attack the man.
The man was beautiful and looked like he had been kissed by the sun. His body was dark and full of muscle adorned with the same paint as the woman. He wore a smaller but more vicious-looking headdress with blue feathers adorning an eagle's skull, a leather shoulder piece resembling a cape and matching loin cloth. He was holding a big, flat, bat-looking weapon with sharp, flat stones attached to either side of the wood. Where the woman was only defending, he only attacked.
“Brother, I am not your enemy!” she cried in an ancient language I could somehow understand as she deflected another attack.
“She’s lying! You saw her trying to kill me, son!” the woman on the floor countered. She smirked at her daughter from behind her son’s back when the man charged with a roar. The weapon he held went under her defensive move, slashing her side. The scene sped up as they continued fighting. An eternity passed as I watched the sun and moon rise and set over and over as brother and sister jumped from pyramid top to pyramid top as they continued to fight.
Time slowed back to normal when they were back at the top of the pyramid where their mother remained at the platform’s edge. The sister looked down at the fighting, a sob catching in her throat as she took in the destruction. She turned to face the brother, her eyes glowing white while tears flowed down her face. Her face hardened for a moment before she threw her spear. The man moved to deflect, but he was not its intended target. The spear flew past him and, with a sickening thud, slammed into their mother’s heart through to the ground, shattering the spear‘s tip in three. The brother turned and ran to her, roaring in anger and grief as he held her in his arms and sobbed, breaking my heart as the sound tore out of him. He turned to look back at the raven-haired woman, his eyes black as night and full of hatred, while the woman sobbed again and dropped to the ground.
“I’m sorry, mother. I’m sorry, brother. There was no other way,” she whispered, looking again at the fighting below. “They will not be lost. I will bring them together, and one day, you will see the truth. Until then, I will protect my people.. and yours.” The brother stood and charged, but she grabbed the crystal knife from her belt and plunged it into her heart. A blinding light burst forth, and I had to shield my eyes from it.
The mists swirled, and this time, the fog disappeared until I was standing on the platform again while Kara whined and pushed into my side, needing comfort.
“What was that?”I asked her out loud.
“That was my end and the beginning of the shifter races.” I snapped my head towards the top of the path. The woman whose back had been to me was now looking down, and I couldn’t help but gasp. Her clothing was different, her hair longer, no longer adorned in paint, but there was no mistaking it. This stranger was the woman in the vision. This was the Moon Goddess, mother of all shifters and children of the moon. “Come, children. I won’t bite,” she said with a smile. Kara left my side and bounded towards her like a pup, jumping on her with her front paws to lick her face. The Moon Goddess laughed and buried her face in Kara’s fur. I watched, enthralled with her ethereal laughter as I walked towards her.
I arrived at the top to see Kara on her back, twitching her leg as the Moon Goddess rubbed her belly while sitting on the ground, somehow looking graceful even on the floor.
She stood up and smiled at me. “So you found me. I have been waiting for you for a very long time, Celeste,” she said as she pulled me into a hug.
There’s no describing the feeling of being hugged by the Moon Goddess. It was like every crevice and wound in my soul was filling with love and light. All the physical pain and emotional turmoil disappeared. The exhaustion I felt, the feeling of failure, of not doing enough and not being enough, while in her embrace, went away. All I felt was peace in my soul and love in my heart. As much as I loved my parents, I knew this was all of our mothers.
She pulled away, and I wanted to pout, but she grabbed my hand and led me to sit on a bench.
