Chapter Fifteen
"Why are you so devoted to Atlan?"
I'd finally managed to corner Dianna the next day, after another meeting with Atlan in which he politely forced me to eat until my stomach felt like it was bursting. Apparently a single plate of food and two cups of wine was not nearly enough food for a person like me, according to Atlan, and he thought I was lying again, so he sat there and watched me eat a second plate before he let me loose until our first training appointment later.
So far, Atlan appeared to know that I was playing his game. He knew and he was going to try harder to convince me to join him, and he was going to start off by pretending to care and acting like Clymene by forcing me to eat when I didn't want to and train when I really did not feel like getting my ass kicked. If Atlan thought acting like my mother was going to encourage my loyalties to switch, he was really going about this the wrong way.
In the meantime, I needed to find out more about Atlan and how he planned to play this game. And what better way to do that than to pin down his loyal servant?
His only servant, from the looks of things. I had yet to see another living creature in the palace during my stay, and Dianna seemed hopelessly devoted to Atlan. Why, I wanted to know.
So after I fled the dining hall, I managed to guess my way down a hallway of doors until I found myself in the lavish industrial style kitchen that would make Hannibal positively giddy. Dianna was scraping leftovers off into a clay pot, probably to throw out or feed to the animals outside, humming a strange tune.
"Hm," Dianna looked up at my question, then wrinkled her nose, "I had hoped your food coma would've knocked you out along the way." I glared at her impatiently and she rolled her eyes. She certainly didn't act like a servant, but when I brought it up to Atlan, he'd laughed and passed it off as "woman playfulness". Was that even a thing?
"Answer me first," Dianna said, turning away to wash the plate off in the sink, making me frown and approach her to hear her over the rushing water, "What makes you so devoted to your hybrid?" For some reason when she asked, my mind went to Arikos, then I quickly steered my thoughts toward Hannibal, her words making me frown.
"Blind stupidity," I answered. Dianna tsked and shook her head, shaking her hands off over the sink before shutting it off and turning to face me with an arched brow, her arms folding over her chest. If that position didn't call me a smart ass, I wasn't sure what did.
"You trust him, no?" She asked.
"I did up until a short time ago," I muttered, leaning back on the steel counters behind me. Dianna's eyes flickered with something I couldn't identify, something that made her avert her eyes and bite her bottom lip before she swallowed and looked at me.
"May I speak freely?" She asked. I frowned.
"Don't you always?"
"No, not always. A woman knows when to shut up. It's men who have the problem."
"Well, then my apologies on behalf of the penis-bearing population," I replied drolly, making her lips twitch in an attempt at a smile, but it faded when I said, "Continue." She inclined her head. She glanced toward the door, rubbing at her arm before she looked back at me, a darkness seeping into her bright green eyes.
"When I was brought back into this world from the Source," she began, her voice shaking for a moment before she cleared her throat and continued, "I was not returned to my home on the island of Atlantis. I was not given my family back. I was deposited like nothing in the middle of the ocean." She stopped, gritting her teeth tightly and I felt a wave of sympathy for her when I realized how traumatizing that had to be. She'd drowned in the ocean like the rest of them, surely. To have to relive that horrible nightmare again was definitely not a very good welcome basket. And judging from the fact that her family hadn't been returned, she either couldn't find them in the vastness of the universe or they had died before the island sank.
"Back in my world, I was a priestess," she murmured, making me cock my head, trying to picture her as a reserved woman of religion, "The Atlantean people revered me because of my hair." She reached up to stroke the red locks that fell around her face in beautiful waves.
The Atlantean sacred color was red. Temples were decorated in the color, priests and priestesses only wore red. It was thought to be the blood of the gods that made everything, including the humans.
"Even when I took a husband and had four children with him," her voice choked and she placed a hand over her mouth for a moment before calming, "Even after that, the people continued to view me as a sacred gift from the gods. My life was good until the Greeks went to war with our people. The war took the life of my husband and my oldest son. Sickness stole my infant daughter and my other daughter was captured by a Greek army and never heard from again. I still tried to have faith in the gods. I still struggled to figure out why they were torturing me the way they were. And then the island sank and I realized they were preparing me for the worst. They were taking my family away from the horror that befell the Atlantean people. But I wasn't sent to Xandria. I never saw my family where I was. I was in some kind of hellish nightmare."
She closed her eyes, a single tear flowing down her cheek and I hesitated, suddenly feeling guilty for forcing her to talk about this when it obviously caused her an incredible amount of grief. She blinked her eyes open to look at me, her gaze haunted.
"When I was brought back, I thought I had been given a second chance. That my hellish existence in that cold dark world was punishment enough. Except it wasn't over," she whispered, clenching her fists, "I was dumped in an ocean so cold my lips turned blue in minutes. I was sure I was going to die, but I didn't. Something was keeping me alive... Days later, I woke up in the arms of men I'd never seen before. Men who tore at my clothes and touched me in places that, should they had done such a thing in Atlantis, they would've been killed for it on the spot. I could do nothing. It was as if they were demons sent by the gods to torture me further."
Her words sent a cold chill through me. My breath caught in my throat, my heart clenched so tight it hurt. Instantly I saw exactly what she'd seen. People she didn't recognize, and never would, leering and grabbing and treating her like nothing more than a play thing, as if she herself did not matter. That horrendous sensation of helplessness. No matter how much you screamed, no one heard you. No matter how much you fought, you couldn't protect yourself.
The feeling was all too familiar.
"You ask me why I am devoted to Atlan," Dianna breathed, making me snap out of my own thoughts to stare at her intense glare, "Because if it were not for him, I would still be on a ship out in the middle of the ocean surrounded by men I couldn't understand, couldn't speak to. It was as if they were speaking a warped version of one of the Nubian languages. I only caught one or two words and they were never kind. I woke up in the middle of the night to them all screaming, the smell of smoke choking me, the sound of an alarm. And before me stood Atlan. He took me in his arms and brought me here to his island." I frowned.
"You're devoted to him because he saved you," I concluded. Dianna scoffed, making me arch a brow as she turned to pick up the clay pot, pouring it through a chute in the wall.
"No, silly Greek. I am devoted to him because he chose to save me. Of all the people returned to this world from the Source, of all the humans, he could have saved... He chose me. Despite my loss of faith, despite my loss of purity, of my damnation in the Source, he chose me."
"Do you even know what he did to his children?" I challenged. Dianna narrowed her eyes.
"Not all gods are goodness, Menoetius."
"You defend the rape and murder of his children with that?" I asked. Dianna's eyes snapped fire.
"And what of you, Menoetius? Are you pure goodness? Are you a white light in the darkness that is our world? Are your hands clean of blood? Are your loins as pure as the day your mother birthed you?" Her words cut me and instant anger welled up inside me. I never claimed to be a good person and I knew I wasn't. For fuck's sake, I was the god of violence and anger. Nothing about me was good. I was murder incarnate. And nothing about me was pure anymore.
And that hit hardest of all. I'd never raped anyone in my life. I'd never hurt a woman, or a man for that matter, not like that. Many of the other gods had partaken in the act, particularly with humans, since by our laws, there was no such thing as the rape of a human. In my day, the human was considered to be grateful. I'd never been able to see it that way, not after seeing with my own eyes what it did to someone. I'd never been able to stand the screams in our camps, the screams of my mother, nor could I ever forget the look in Hannibal's eyes from those damned videos. The light that died there crushed the last part of me that gave a damn about anything.
I'd stupidly hung onto my virginity. A childish part of me had hoped that maybe one day I could give it to the person I desperately wanted to share it with. Even though I knew for a fact it couldn't happen between Hannibal and I, for some reason it felt like my heart had been ripped out and stomped on in front of me. I'd lost the one thing that I could call mine. I'd lost the one thing that gave me any kind of hope. How stupid was it to depend on something like that. If it was so worthless that anyone could take it...
It's not fair.
"I'm not a good person," I said at last, making Dianna frown and look up from washing the pot, "I'm not a good god either. The Source knows my father was happy to remind me of that every time he laid eyes on me. Yes, my hands are bloody. I lost my purity. But its through all of that that I know exactly the type of monster Atlan is. Because I have to look at the same monster every time I look in the mirror. If you were a priestess, then surely you know that no one is without sin. We're born from it."
Frustrated and wanting nothing more to do with Dianna for the day, I left the kitchen and tried to find my way back to my rooms, not that that was going to be easy considering I probably just pissed off the only person who knew their way around this place.
I stopped halfway down the hallway to wipe my hand down my face, taking a deep breath. I ran my hands through my hair and went to the nearest window sill to sit down, looking out over the lush acreage of tropical foliage and the sparkling blue ocean in the distance, the waves calling to me. I was almost tempted to jump out the window and drape my worthless carcass to the water to throw myself in, but I had a feeling seawater wouldn't mix well with busted bones. Not to mention, I had no idea what was lurking out there. For all I knew, Atlan had his guards outside the palace, not inside.
He chose to save me. So Atlan choosing her held significance in her eyes. I almost wanted to laugh at that and the fact that Atlan had pulled the same shit with Dianna that Hannibal had pulled with me. Save us, make us grateful, then make us hopelessly devoted to you. Unfortunately, what I felt for Hannibal went on far longer than the past few months of hell since my rebirth.
I didn't thank Hannibal for saving me.
I fucking hate him for it.
Now, it was more than just the fact that Hannibal brought me back from a peaceful death. It was also the fact that I couldn't die again without destroying the entire universe. It was the fact that I was going to be alone in a world that hated me, a world that I hated right back, after all this was over. After the war, everyone would go back to their blissful lives. Arikos would decide to stop playing with me and go find someone more worthy of his attention. Hannibal would request my leave from his apartment.
Hatred burned hot in my veins and for a moment, my vision flashed red and I panicked as I shot to my feet. I looked down at my hands, letting out a low cry at the blood that soaked my hands, dripping in a constant stream to the floor and when I looked past my hands, I saw Hannibal's body laying at my feet, rib cage torn open, organs nothing more than mashed meat and bones jutting out, his eyes glazed over in death, and a scream tore my throat.
I blinked rapidly, stumbling back until I slammed into the wall across the hallway, breathing hard as my hands trembled. I stared at my hands, seeing the blood soaking me for a second, then in the next blink, it was all gone. I turned my hands over and over to check for blood, then looked at the floor where Hannibal's body had been lying, but nothing was there. It was clean, as if the grotesque banquet had never been there.
Sick to my stomach, I pressed the back of my hand against my lips before turning to vomit on the floor, shaking violently as I sank back, shivering and squeezing my eyes shut.
What the hell is going on with me?
It was that same burn, same rage, that I had felt when Atlan released me from that chair to kill Tiberius. Was that the power of the Key? Was that my Source powers trying to surface? Was that what Atlan wanted to unleash upon the world? It made me sick to my stomach and I wrapped my arms around me tightly as I sat back against the wall, trying to block out the image of Hannibal lying dead at my feet. I expected some sort of satisfaction from it, some kind of hope that maybe Hannibal didn't have as strong a hold on me as he did, but the more I tried to face it, the more ill I became and the more worried for Hannibal I became. I squeezed my eyes shut, then felt a strange laugh building up in me.
Fuckin' A. Even if I did want to turn on Hannibal, I couldn't. The bastard has me wrapped so tight around his pinkie that not even my soul can contemplate betrayal.
Atlan was gonna be pissed.
"Menoetius?" I stiffened at the sound of Atlan's voice and snapped my head up to see him standing over me, an eyebrow arched curiously. He had changed out of his flowing black robes into a pair of black sweatpants and a tank top. In fact, it looked like he'd just finished working out judging from the sweat streaking down the back of his shirt and down the sides of his face, his black hair pulled back into a ponytail.
"Are you alright?" He asked, silver eyes swirling with concern as he drew near me. Uncomfortable with his nearness and the fact that he stumbled upon me sitting in the hallway with sick on the floor, I moved away from him, getting to my feet quickly. I started to apologize for the mess, but he waved his hand at it without even looking, disposing of the mess as if it had never happened.
"You look pale. Did I force you to eat too much?" He asked, frowning. I shifted uneasily. Gods, I hated that tone of voice. That intense concern that I knew was rooted in lies and selfishness. It wasn't honest at all, and worse, it reminded me of Clymene.
"Yes," I said testily, "I told you I wasn't hungry." Atlan took my tone in stride.
"Of course. I'm just impatient is all. My apologies for forcing you to do something you don't want to do; I'm sure you've had enough of that," and while his tone was casual as if he were talking about the weather, his words cut me to the quick and I swallowed back a surge of anger and hurt, "Would you rather train with me?" I really rather not, but getting the chance to see Atlan in action would be a good way to figure out how he fought, figure out his favorite moves and tricks.
Not to mention, my muscles were aching from lack of use. I was so used to daily workouts and constantly being on the move that sitting still for too long made me ache.
So I nodded and Atlan seemed to brighten at that. And as we walked through the halls to his training area, I was suddenly reminded of Arikos. How he'd gotten excited when I told him we could go out for dinner when I had cancelled our lunch plans on him for a meeting with Hades. He managed to look positively thrilled, just like Atlan did now. The same glittery silver eyes, same smile.
Same motivation.
Oh, shut up, I snapped at myself. I was jumping to conclusions. I had been angry when I had thought Arikos had tricked me... Still, something about his kindness made me uneasy. It had since the very beginning. I wasn't accustomed to it and knowing Atlan was using the kindness tactic to draw me to his side, how likely was it that Arikos would think of the same thing? How alike were they truly?
My sunlight.
His moonlight and stars.
Would someone truly go that far just to trick someone? Was Arikos capable of such a thing? He'd tricked Hannibal, I'd been told. He'd brought Hannibal to Atlan in the beginning, and it was how they met in the first place. I wanted to be angry about that, truly, but oddly enough, I found myself able to forgive Arikos for that. I had passed it off as yet again being blindly loyal to Hannibal, because if he could forgive Arikos, so could I, but was that really it? Was that really why I forgave Arikos for hurting Hannibal? Or had Arikos wriggled his way into the same place in my heart that Hannibal had done? How?
It was the same with Hannibal. I could never quite figure out why I had fallen in love with Hannibal. I'd been too young, too stupid, to understand that kind of love. But I'd somehow felt it the moment I saw him, that insane urge to protect him, to want to be with him, fuck, even looking at him made me feel blissfully happy. Or at least, it did. I wanted to be happy when I saw him. After a while, the feelings had become warped and twisted with the hatred that burned inside me for everything and everyone around me.
With Arikos, I still felt that strange airy delight whenever he took me somewhere he knew I'd like, somewhere I felt independent and comfortable. Now that I think back on it, even when he asked me to help him cook when I knew nothing of the kitchen, I'd felt a strange swell of excitement that someone wanted me near them, and even more so to help, to learn something new, something I'd been fascinated with as a child and had long since abandoned after being shamed for it.
But was it real?
Or was Arikos the next poor bastard I'd find myself infatuated with on an unhealthy level?
The thought of that shocked a sudden spear of fear in my heart. I didn't want to feel like that again. I didn't want to feel that intense hope, that senseless love borne from nowhere at all, forged with steel, unbreakable, unwavering. I didn't want to have my heart crushed again. I didn't have anything left, but shattered pieces.
I squeezed my eyes shut, raked my nails down my forearms, itching to go back to my room to find the shard of glass I'd hidden under my pillow when Dianna had come across the mess there. I blinked my eyes open, fighting to ignore the itching under the skin on my wrists.
"Dianna told me what you did for her," I said, distracting myself. Atlan glanced at me, appearing curious.
"What did I do for her?" He asked. I eyed him closely, trying to pick up on his mood, on his tone, or his feelings. At the very least a facial twitch that would indicate he was preparing a lengthy bullshit story for me. However, Atlan was very adept at acting. His expression was flawless confusion and intrigue, his soft smooth voice calm and friendly even. No wonder he could smooth-talk people into obeying his every word. He was awfully convincing.
"You rescued her," I said. Atlan shook his head, frowning as he looked down the hallway.
"Not in time."
"But you did rescue her. Any longer, she probably would have died. She's human, I'm guessing," I added. Atlan nodded, but frowned as his fists flexed at his sides, as if the conversation topic upset him on a deep emotional level and he needed an outlet.
"I should've done it sooner. I hadn't been able to reach her back in Atlantis when it was still in the throes of war against Greece. I heard her screams in the Source, and I heard her screams in that vast ocean. I should've come much earlier."
"She doesn't blame you for it," I pointed out, making him glance at me with what I swore was hope, "She sees you as her savior." Atlan appeared pleased by that.
"No," he said after a moment, shrugging as we came to a pair of double doors at the end of a very long single corridor, "She's mine. Were it not for her, I would completely alone in a universe so vast." Without another word, he opened the doors and led the way into a huge ancient arena, my mouth falling open at the size of it.
It had to be nearly double the size of the one on Olympus. I could just see Zeus throwing a hissy fit over that fact. While the one on Olympus was quite large, and hung off the edge of a cliff that way opponents could throw each other over the side of the mountain the way Hera had done Hephaestus, this one was by far larger, far more open. A crescent set of stands ran around the side of the arena that we emerged from, far above the entrance we used was a large viewing box for royalty and nobility. The stands were overgrown with foliage, a flock of colorful birds taking off into the bright blue sky above, a sky that nearly blinded me because it was incredibly bright compared to the palace.
The rest of the arena was made up of a training area that opened up into a large pool that was constantly filled and refilled by the ocean's waves beyond, jagged and unfriendly looking rocks scattered around the area to keep it separated from the rest of the shoreline that ran off either side of the arena.
"You must have a lot of friends to have an arena this big," I said without thinking. Atlan's eyes darkened for a moment before his expression became bitterly sad.
"At one time," was all he said. I raised an eyebrow at his response, folding my arms over my chest as his expression cleared up right away and he led the way out into the center of the arena.
"We will do most of your training here," Atlan informed, turning to face me, "First, we must strengthen your physical skills. Then we will focus on your mental. Then your magical, and finally, your soul." I frowned.
"Who fights with their soul?" I asked. Atlan smiled.
"The Key of Atlantis," he responded, then he stepped back from me to give us space, "Now, let's see what you can do right now, see what you need to improve and how. Attack me." I tried not to laugh at that, baffled at the fact that he would openly say such a thing and spread his arms wide open, daring me to come at him. Though, I was weak right now, in comparison to how I used to be. I had a lot of catching up to do if I wanted to restore my physical body to the way it was... mostly.
"Don't hesitate," Atlan warned me, making me glance at him curiously, "Just attack. Gods know you've probably been itching to since the moment you saw me." He had no idea. Still, I wasn't sure I wanted to jump him right now. And while I wanted to read his movements, his attacks, I knew he was doing the same with me.
Unfortunately, I didn't have time to debate whether or not I should attack him because he went for me first. He threw his fist at my head and I ducked, spinning out of the way and bringing my leg around to kick him, but he blocked with his arm and twisted his other arm to go for my rib cage, but I blocked him. He smirked.
"I told you not to hesitate," he reminded at my glare. He swung at me again and I dodged, then went for a right hook to his face, but he tilted his head to the side to avoid it, then slammed his fist into my stomach. I doubled over, gasping in pain and stumbling, sinking down to one knee. Atlan went to grab a handful of my hair, jerking at it hard. I hissed through clenched teeth, peering up at him with a glare before I headbutted him in the stomach, sending him backward. I lunged to my feet and attacked him again.
He knocked me back and I slammed into the ground. Again and again and again.
"Goddamn it!" I snarled, slamming into the ground again as Atlan lightly pressed his foot to my throat. He cocked his head, looking down at me.
"You're out of practice is all. It probably doesn't help that I'm quite older than you."
"Age means nothing."
"Age means experience," Atlan said calmly, lifting his foot from my throat and holding his hand out to hoist me to my feet, "Let's continue until you learn not to fall. Come at me with rage, not calm." I frowned at something that contradicted how I'd always fought. I'd been drilled to never attack out of anger. Anger blinded someone, made it difficult to focus on moves, to coordinate them. The adrenaline pumping through someone when they were angry made them sloppy.
"Fighting in rage will just throw me on my back again," I told him flatly. Atlan arched a brow, but said nothing, as if he were questioning me on whether or not that was true. I lunged for him again, and again, and I was tossed on my back a hundred more times before Dianna arrived in the arena with a tray of food and drink.
"Thank you," Atlan told her briefly, taking a goblet of wine. Dianna bowed low to him, then turned to me and handed me the goblet. She bowed again before taking her leave. I turned away to glance out over the ocean, only just now realizing that it was growing near to sunset. I downed the wine and took a handful of crackers to eat as I took a seat near Atlan on the ground to watch the sunset.
"Menoetius, what do you think of the stars?" He asked suddenly. I blinked, confused by his random question, then followed his gaze when I realized he wasn't watching the sunset, but the blanket of stars that were steadily being unveiled from beneath a sheet of orange, pink, and purple as the sun faded below the horizon.
"They're nice," I said, not elaborating and biting into another cracker. Atlan smiled.
"Have you ever felt a connection to the nighttime? Ever felt more peaceful in the dark?" He asked. I hesitated, looking down at the cracker in my hand before looking at him. He was gazing up at the sky in fascination and I fought to keep my eyes off the sky overhead, but it was too hard to resist, so I tilted my head back to stare up at the sky, my breath leaving me in a silent gasp of awe.
The sky was even more beautiful outside. It felt strangely closer. The stars were so much brighter out here, a very faint orange glow from where the sun was set, clashing with the darkness of the night sky to create a mist of purple glow around a spray of silver stars that twinkled and winked. The moon a waxing crescent gem laid out not too far. All of the light from the sky cast an eerie glow across the black outlines around us of the stands and trees.
"The nighttime is the Source's time," Atlan said suddenly, making me blink and look at him curiously as he stared up at the moon, "It is when the Source wakes, when it greets all its creations with its truth and its justice. With the night, with the Source, comes the ultimate truth... It's why humans fear it so. It is a power far beyond their comprehension, far beyond even our own." How curious. I'd never thought of it that way. I'd always thought that nighttime was the time of truth, sure, but the feeling brought on by the Source?
"Do you feel the Source?" I asked. Atlan inclined his head, but his expression was no longer mystified and amazed by the sky. He looked troubled.
"All those born of the Source can feel it the most. Like a weight on our shoulders. While the Source has done good, it has also done bad. It is an objective cosmos that dictates our lives. It is the Source that made us who we are, the Source that feeds the prophecies to the Moirai. Our paths are written out by the Source and we are faithful servants to their calling."
"I don't understand."
"It is the Source who controls us," Atlan explained patiently, making me frown as he picked up another cracker and washed it down with a swallow of wine before he tilted his head back to stare up at the sky again, "We are pawns in their game... You know the demon Joxeia, yes?" I had to think for a moment before I remembered that St. John and Joxeia were one in the same. I nodded and Atlan's silver eyes swirled with incredible pain.
"Joxeia lost his brother and his sister, because the Source dictated that he should suffer unimaginable pain, prayed on his greatest fear, in order to mold him into the bitter cold demon he is today. The Source wanted him to feel like that, and wants him to be their pawn. He plays their game because he is so terrified of losing what he has now."
"So the Source is threatening him."
"Basically," Atlan replied grimly, "And the Source threatens me as well. However, unlike Joxeia who bends to the will of the Source, I've never done what the Source wanted. I broke the laws and now the Source calls for my blood. Even now as we sit here, I can hear my Creator screaming in my ears, can feel its talons wrenched in my soul. The Source created the Great Prophecy, which foretells of my demise at the hands of the hybrid and his people. The Source has done to the hybrid what it has done to Joxeia. Beaten him down, tortured him, and forced him to submit to its will. He, too, is frightened of what the Source might do to him should he break the laws, so he submits."
What Atlan was saying would be considered blasphemous. The Source was the Creator of all things. The cosmic void so powerful, that not even gods could conceive of its great abilities. The Source was the objective master of the universe. They did control the Fates, and they did control the universe, but our destinies? The Source gave us a map. It was our job to find which path we wanted to follow, to find which destiny we wanted. They couldn't dictate us... And yet, what Atlan said made sense.
While the Source could be objective, I wondered briefly what objectivity even meant. Was it black and white? Was it several shades of gray? Was objective dictation of our destinies or was it giving us the choice to find our own?
Who really knew the Source, except those who'd been born from it? Then again, from Atlan's words, it appeared that even Source-born entities weren't sure how their Creator worked. How unnerving to serve something you couldn't see or feel or even understand, really.
"What does the Source tell you?" I asked. Atlan glanced at me, then away at the sky, his expression brittle.
"I am darkness. I am evil incarnate. My destiny is death and my destiny is suffering. It was chosen for me the moment I was created." Well, that kind of sucked. Born to die, born to be evil, and all you did was wake up one day. Didn't even have a chance to do anything and already people had slapped a label on your ass that you were evil and that was it. Pure evil wasn't supposed to exist. Even Iapetus had preached that to us when we were children.
"Everything in the world is made of three things; good, evil, and the bridge between them."
I felt a strange wave of understanding now, why Atlan was so angry, why Atlan wanted to change things... and even why he did the things he did. He was born to do those things. It was like killing a tiger for hunting its prey. Why kill something if it was meant to do so? It made no sense.
But neither did the fact that nothing of pure evil or pure goodness could exist. Everything was a delicate balance that was often tipped from one side to the other, then righted again. It was a scale. Atlan could have made the choice to tip the scales in the opposite direction, but in the end, he was doing exactly what the Source said he would do; tip the scale so far down into the pit of evil that he was breaking said scale.
A strange discomfort started in my stomach as I wondered if I was doing exactly the same thing. The Source claimed I would help Atlan and destroy the universe. Would that also come true at some point? Did it not matter how much I fought it? In the end, would I also join Atlan on that broken scale?