Dragon Knight - The Ancestor Gods Saga Book 2

Prologue - The Dying Goddess

Dust trickled down from the ancient pillars. Stardust, rather than the dust of decay, though there was decay all around. The pillars that had once stood proudly supporting the roof of the palace now seemed to tip and lean and the ceiling was in many places gone, revealing the stars of the galaxy overhead.

Among those stars rested Her brothers. Long gone to their slumber, if that is what came after death for them.

She had no knowledge of Her creation. She had assumed She had always simply been here, in one form or another. Never-ending. Eternal.

But now it appeared there was an ending for them after all. Even Her, the most ancient (as far as She knew), the first among the greatest.

Her brothers had embraced the inevitable, or so it seemed. They perhaps had never awoken long enough to realise what was occurring to them. She could have been the same, had not the demigod Tylesin wandered into Her palace and disturbed Her.

Fickle, base creature that he was - no sense of loyalty or honour - he had forgotten who he owed allegiance to. Still, She would make him pay for that.

For now, She walked the corridors of Her palace as best She could. Her form was weak, wore down by the centuries. Carelessly, in the early days of the world below, She had given up parts of Her life force to create creatures that pleased Her. She had always assumed there would be more, that Her reserves were infinite. Now it seemed She had been mistaken.

And what had become of the many sparks of life She had donated over the years while She slept? The dragons She had first spawned as playthings for the gods, Her divine children, had been slowly destroyed by the mortals - the playthings She had made for Her children after the dragons ceased to entertain them.

She was not aggrieved at the mortals killing Her dragons. It was the way of things and the dragons had been just toys, disposable in their own way. But it was their souls She mourned over. Each of their souls had been derived from Her, yet when they had died their spirits had not returned to Her. They had vanished.

It might not have pained Her, except She was now afraid She was dying and that Her only escape from death was for Her donated life sparks to be returned. If She could salvage the pieces of Her soul She had once so freely given, then She might yet survive.

So many had already been lost!

The dragons had contained the biggest portions of Her. Hundreds of them, dotted across the world. Such a big chunk of Her own soul was lost for good!

She felt She was weakening. Her palace, a construct of Her own mind was a mirror to Her continual deterioration. It was disintegrating all around Her. There were rooms She remembered that now She could not find because they were missing. Were they lost for good? She would walk down corridors endlessly hoping to stumble upon them or find a turning She had forgotten.

When that became too much, She returned to Her throne room and sat on the floor, looking up into the night.

There had been twelve of them once. Beautiful, divine beings. Perfect in every way and with such power! Her brother the Builder had created the world below from His own earthy flesh. He had laughed as He crafted it, awing them with His skill. Her sister, the Grower, had spun the trees from Her hair. Designing new shape after new shape. Toying with the height, the width, the line of the branches.

Her brother, the Unifier, worked on the mountains and valleys. What he took from the earth to build upwards, He later shaped into deep ravines and the deep beds of the oceans. Her sister, the Mourner, wept tears into the space he left to make the oceans, creating the salty waves that one day would be sailed by mortals. Her other sister, the Chaos, had relieved Herself in the smaller channels to make the streams and rivers. The Unifier had been furious and called it a defilement. Chaos had laughed and the thunderous roar of their two voices had become the sound of the storms that roamed the world.