11 Years Later
"Rilet, Deitep of Wealth. Come forward and hear your sentence," Mother said, her soft voice echoing off the crystal walls in the large Throne Hall.
Rilet—a tall god with silver eyes and golden skin—moved to the centre of the room, his shoes clicking against the glass floor. Above him, the ceiling was painted with the arched rays of the setting sun. Yellow mingling with blue, purple, red. The ceiling had been blue when the sessions had started. Midday.
My throne sat high on a raised dais, the seats of my advisors placed a few feet below mine, two on either side of me. There were only four—that was the way it was, Mother said. So she sat on the larger throne to my right. It would be mine when her regency ended following the Sundance Ceremony, and the throne I currently sat in would someday be home to my King, when I chose him.
But for now, Mother sat in the throne reserved for the Celestial Ruler. She said it was better that way.
I watched her peruse the report that listed out the High Deity's crimes.
"Rilet," Mother finally said, tapping her nails delicately against the golden arm of her throne. She spoke softly, as always. To raise one's voice was a sign of a flawed character, she always said. "You saved the life of the mortal duke Terin of Ludjan, who was fated to die at an assassin's hand. This has resulted in upheaval in the Ludjan kingdom. The crown prince who was fated to be king has been usurped by his cousin the duke, and now hides with what few followers he has in the Night Forest."
At the mention of the Ludjan Crown Prince my head went up. I wanted to ask more questions, but Mother did not like it when I spoke during these sessions.
"Why would he seek refuge there?" Daroz, one of my advisors, asked.
Many magical creatures made the Night Forest their home, and most were not welcoming of outsiders. As a result, mortals avoided the place. That magical creatures lived there was simple myth and legends to them, but still, their instinct for survival drove them to avoid the place.
"The crown prince believes it his divine right to rule," another advisor, Biya, said. "He must think the gods will provide him aid."
"And they will," Mother said. "After all, this mortal prince is not wrong. Fate says that he should wear a crown. We cannot hand it to him, of course. But that does not mean we must stand in his way." She turned to a messenger who wore winged sandals sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. "Send a decree to the inhabitants of the Night Forest that the mortal prince and his men are to be given safe haven. They can do what they like with any other trespassers in the forest."
"Yes, Celestial Regent," the minor deity said, the feathered wings on his sandals blurring as he lifted off the ground and flew through a circular window.
"Why did you do it?"
I blinked when I realised the question had come from me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mother look sharply at me. My shoulders hunched and I sunk a little into my chair. What had possessed me to ask in the first place? What ties I might have had with Kelien ended eight years ago. What happened to him now was no concern of mine.
Rilet's silver eyes moved over my advisors. He paused on Mother for a moment, lips curling in what looked almost like disgust, before coming to rest on me. There was something in his look, something deep and unsettling. I resisted the urge to shift where I sat.
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Rilet said. "I had no choice."
"There is always a choice," I said.
"Not this time. I work for an authority higher than you."
"Careful," Pefor said. "There is no authority higher than the Celestial Queen."
Rilet merely bowed his head. My mother's hand came up, tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear. "Enough," she said, so softly only I could have heard.
Turning back to the deitep she said, "Rilet, High Deity of Wealth. You have intervened in the affairs of mortality and have caused a terrible change that will affect the fate of millions through the generations. The Celestial Queen has judged your involvement to have caused too great a change to go unaddressed. To truly understand the changes you have wrought, and to ensure the scales of fate remain in balance, you shall be sentenced to irelis. You will go and live in the Ludjan kingdom as a mortal, to truly understand the changes you have wrought. You shall appoint a minor wealth deity to take your place while you are mortal, and once irelis has been prepared shall be administered to you.."
There were two main punishments a god could receive. Irelis was mainly given to gods who had affected great change in the mortal realm and had gone against what fate had planned. Essentially, it stuck a god in a mortal body. While they were stripped of most of their powers and their immortal body, they still had some of their power. And they kept their immortal soul.
It was dangerous, though. There were two ways to kill the god. One, stab them in the right place with varynth—Celestial Steel. Or two, put their immortal soul in a mortal body, then kill them that way. Trapped in a mortal body, the immortal soul was vulnerable and easily destroyed. Very few could ever claw their way back after having their immortal essence destroyed. And even if they somehow managed to, it was an agonising process that took millennia.
The mere threat of the process was enough to dissuade most gods from even attempting to get overly involved in the mortal world. Gods were not able to assist those who took irelis as punishment for becoming overly involved in the mortal realm. In fact, most of the time the deity receiving irelis had their identity hidden from all in Relasia to dissuade any do-gooder deities from he;[ing out their friend.
Though you did get the occasional god that got it into their head that living as a mortal was a rather romantic notion, and so volunteered for irelis. They were always watched closely to ensure nothing horrible happened to them.
The second type of punishment—evasceren—was given out much more rarely, and only in extremest circumstances, when a deity committed a terrible crime, such as deicide. Evasceren stripped a deity of any trace of immortality, turning their body and soul completely and utterly mortal. They were forced to live a cursed mortal life, and upon their death were dragged to Azarkien's realm where their mortal soul was tortured for all eternity.
Suffice to say, we did not have many cases of gods killing gods.
Rilet bowed his head as two minor war deities came forward to take him away.
"An authority higher than the Celestial Queen," Abafor mused once the doors closed behind Rilet. "Could he have meant Naija?"
"Naija holds no authority within Relasia," Daroz said.
"And yet it is she that we turn to when it is time to choose the next Celestial Ruler."
"An impartial party, that is all she is," Daroz said, waving a hand.
"Besides, everybody knows Naija only takes an interest in gods," Biya said. "She leaves the mortals to us. What reason could she possibly have for wanting the life of a mortal duke spared?"
"None whatsoever. That Deitep was simply looking for a way to escape his fate by scaring us into thinking he had Naija on his side."
"He did not look overly frightened to me," Abafor said.
"Enough speculation," Mother said, at once silencing the advisors. "He has been punished. The matter is ended. We're done here."
And just like that, court was over.
