Celestial Worm Pt 28 (Patreon)

Part Twenty-Eight: Ending Up

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by the author of Ties That Bind and The Long Way Home, Karen Buckeridge.]

[A/N 2: for other (non-Worm) Celestial Wars sidestories, see here and here.]

[A/N 3]: Following numerous critiques of the original ending, I've rewritten this chapter extensively.]


Armina, Mystallian Goddess of War

Armina pulled Gladiator around in a turn so tight she could hear the tendons in his wings creaking under the strain. He could take it, of course. In many ways, Mystallians and their mystallions were closer to one another than other celestials were to one another, and knew each other’s limits. Which was a good thing, because Janesha was being an absolutely stubborn little shit who refused to go down.

One small part of her mind crowed with pride over the fact that Janesha was definitely her flesh and blood, while the rest of her was getting more and more aggravated with her own inability to gain a decisive advantage over her granddaughter and end the fight. Already, the girl had lasted longer in this battle than anyone other than Chance ever had with anything other than a simple spar. Worst of all, she was doing it without attunement or a large powerbase. Just one mortal; that was all.

Of course, Janesha had arranged matters so the sole mortal who was her entire worshipper base could not be mindbent, pulled away from her or even easily harmed. In return, the little smartass mortal had bestowed upon Janesha the sum total of the warrior ethos of this mortal world, which Armina had to admit, Janesha had actually been making use of. The wings were an interesting touch as well, though they’d have to go before she took Janesha back to Mystal. Avis would not be pleased to see angel wings on anyone but Heshbon and her brood.

She aimed another swing at Janesha; with her knees, she communicated to Gladiator the command to perform a loop and nail her with his rear hooves as soon as the girl deflected the sword blow (as she knew Janesha would). Currently her granddaughter was wielding a double-ended energy blade that left coloured traceries through the air, and was nearly powerful enough to slice Mystallian steel.

Nearly.

Around came her sword, but instead of deflecting it as she had the last three times, Janesha backwinged just far enough to evade the blow. Then she brought her wings together in a stunning CRACK that sent Armima and Gladiator tumbling backward through the air much harder than she should have normally. It was a cute little trick, but that was all it was; a trick. Spinning her blade one-handed, Armina dug her heels into Gladiator’s sides. Fully in tune with his mistress’s wishes, the silver mystallion in black armour whinnied a challenge and bored into the attack once more.

And then, everything changed. Armina wasn’t quite sure what had happened (well, she knew it had to be something Chance had pulled, but beyond that, she had no idea) but Janesha’s wings vanished along with the sword, and the mortal girl snapped back into her ordinary form. They both began to fall, even as Cloudstrike swooped in to catch her mistress. Eyes wild, Janesha stared all around herself, then focused on Taylor. “Believe!” she shrieked.

An instant later, while Armina was still working out what was happening, the chime associated with bloodlinks sounded in her mind. She let it come through, turning her head so that she could maintain line of sight on her errant granddaughter, who was just beginning to reach for Taylor.

The bloodlink formed; Chance, standing next to Danny Hebert. Doing the one thing she’d warned him against doing.

Immediately, she reached her hand out and grabbed Chance’s, pulling him into an internalisation. He was her only backup on this mission and if there was one thing the Mystallian goddess of War never did, it was leave a man behind. Also, the last thing she wanted to do was face off against another Mystallian under the thrall of another mortal. What was it about this realm, anyway?

They reformed in a three-dimensional diorama of the battle between Janesha and Armina, updated to show both teenage celest and teenage mortal plummeting from the sky. Also, off to the side, the golden form of Scion just starting his run to pluck the mortal girl out of danger.

“Well, that was fun,” Chance said with his trademark smartass grin. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“I had her,” snapped Armina, irritated at her little brother snatching victory from her grasp. “What did you do?”

“You didn’t have nearly as much of an edge over her as you thought,” Chance noted, buffing his nails on his sleeve. “Taylor’s made her mildly prescient. She would’ve seen even your best shot coming.” He held up his hands disarmingly at her growl. “Hey, no matter what skills she gave Janesha, she couldn’t beat yours, but … I’m also reasonably sure she gave the kid the best approximation of your skills that she could. And basically gave her the power that she couldn’t lose a battle.” He rubbed his chin. “I’m thinking that may have been their undoing, actually.”

Armina leaned against a pillar that had emerged from the floor just for this purpose. “Explain.”

“Gladly.” Chance’s grin would’ve lit up the room. “If Taylor also saw discussions and arguments as battles, it means that no matter what reasonable suggestions her father put forth for them to slow down, he would never get his point across. Janesha would always ‘win’. Which, because he couldn’t get through to either of them, drove him to pray to me.”

“Hmm.” Armina frowned. “Very well. So, the main reason we’re in here. What in all the realms do you think you’re pulling, letting him put a powerbase on you? After I specifically told you not to!”

Chance cleared his throat, and nodded apologetically. “Hear me out, sis. Yes, I accept there was a potential for danger there. But here is a mortal who specifically forced himself to believe in me as a saviour, not for himself but for his little girl. A man who had never believed much before, even when his wife was alive. If anyone, he would’ve been one of YHWH’s. But he saw Janesha as a goddess, then was still able to believe in me, which he still does, strongly enough to give me a solid powerbase.”

Armina sighed. “So once we’ve got this sorted out and Janesha’s back in Mystal, we’re going to have to come back and pry you away instead?”

“Oh, no,” Chance said at once. “Once we’ve got Janesha secured, he wants me to leave. That’s the beauty of it. The thrall includes my marching orders. I literally can’t stay past a certain point, even if I wanted to.”

Armina blinked. “That’s … not usual. In fact, that’s nearly realm-damned impossible. He’s kicking you out of the realm?”

Chance snorted with laughter. “I know, right? That’s gotta be a first.”

“Well, first or not, we’ve still got to deal with the here and now.” Armina pointed at Janesha’s falling, flailing form. “How’d you manage that?”

Chance shrugged. “Turns out one of the powers Danny gave me was to be able to take anyone who’s ever even heard of Janesha, and make them believe one simple thing. That she’s a superhero, not a goddess.” He held up his finger as she began to speak. “That includes Taylor, very specifically. Despite the fact that she’s wearing a ring of seclusion.”

“That fits with what I saw.” Armina walked around the diorama, indicating Janesha and Taylor. “Janesha’s wings have gone, she’s not glowing anymore, and the little mortal shit is a girl again, not a bunch of bugs.” Absently, she pulled off one armoured gauntlet and started to slap her other hand with it. “What’s her next move, and why is she still moving and speaking? Shouldn’t she have collapsed into a coma already?” It was a solid fact; gods invested so much of themselves into their powerbases that being cut off from them sent the celest into a near-instant coma that they had to be nursed through. No one could withstand it, which made her wonder what was going on here.

Chance frowned. “Well, technically, yeah. I gotta admit, I haven’t figured that part out yet. Possibly because she can see Taylor right there, or even sense her through that tether.”

Armina gritted her teeth. She hated shifter shenanigans. Mind-bending was much more honest and up-front. That, and physical combat. She knew where she was with that. “That’s what’s keeping her up and moving, isn’t it?”

“It definitely looks like it,” Chance agreed. “It‘s how she pulled Danny Hebert to her. So long as that link exists, she’s gotta have some sort of hope she can regain her power. And she’s right; if she can manipulate Taylor’s body to pop that ring off, she can mindbend the girl into believing in her again, and we’re back to square one.”

Armina drew air in through her teeth. “And If I harm the mortal, we go to war with Scion.”

She wasn’t as sanguine about her chances of beating the golden-skinned god in his own realm and taking Janesha with them. No matter how silly his powerbase sounded, he was attuned, established and clearly more experienced than Janesha. She’d heard of someone losing a fight with a God of Clowns, and he’d been forced to wear clown makeup and a red rubber nose for a year and a day. That wasn’t going to happen here.

Chance shrugged. “So don’t harm her. If you cut the cord, the threat’s gone."

“Got it.” Taking a deep breath, she ended the internalisation and the bloodlink.

<><>

Taylor

Afterward, Taylor would have trouble determining the exact sequence of events; the only thing that would help her out was the image-capture trick Janesha had given to her visual memory. But the interval between ‘winning’ and ‘losing' was only a few seconds, and by the time she realised they were losing, they’d already lost.

When Chance realm-stepped away from the battle, that was the first indicator of trouble. There was nothing she could actually do about this; Armina knew about the connecting cord, and if Taylor ventured one foot too far from Janesha, that razor-edged sword would sever it as easily as Taylor herself could snip a cotton thread.

Still, she didn’t know how he could cause problems. Scion had laid down the law. If Chance or Armina messed with Taylor’s family, the Mystallians would be booted from Earth Bet with no option to return. Apart from coming at them from above or below while Janesha was distracted by Armina, Taylor wasn’t sure how he could change the outcome of the fight.

And a fight it was; not a curbstomp, and not a one-sided massacre. Janesha, buoyed by Taylor’s faith in her, met Armina’s every attack and threw it back. If she didn’t quite give as good as she took, that was excusable; in Taylor’s eyes, it was still good enough. From the pissed-off look on Armina’s face, she hadn’t had to push this hard for quite some time, especially not with someone of Janesha’s relative inexperience.

Janesha could win. Taylor knew it. She would win. She was the goddess here. Chance and Armina were tourists. As Janesha herself had put it, in Mystal they were unbeatable in their respective fields, but this wasn’t Mystal.

And then, just after Janesha delivered a wing-clap that knocked Armina away and gave her a much-needed respite, something happened. A passing thought occurred to her.

Huh. She’s just a superhero, after all.

Before she could dismiss it, the notion took hold, winding its way throughout her conscious mind and impressing itself over the core beliefs she had established about Janesha. Some small part of her saw it as foreign, but she could no more dispute its power than she could reach back to yesterday and change a single thing.

Huh. She’s just a superhero, after all.

It felt like hours had passed while her deepest convictions were being steadily rewritten, but this all happened in less than a blink of an eye. Her surety that Janesha knew exactly how to fix the world, even if she had to mind-bend some people to get it right, melted away. Replacing it was a different certainty; Janesha was a good person and a powerful person, but deep down she was really only human, and humans made mistakes like everyone else.

She liked Janesha, but even as a superhero and Taylor’s best friend, she didn’t have any more license to flout laws and alter governmental policy than any other hero did. Taylor wasn’t quite sure how she’d gotten the idea that Janesha was a goddess, but she suspected her dad was going to be ribbing her about it over the dinner table for quite some time. The most embarrassing thing was that only a second ago, she’d been cheering on Janesha as a goddess, but the more she thought about it, there was no way it could be true. Superheroes couldn’t just become gods because someone believed that they were.

Which made it even more puzzling when her body suddenly reverted back to human from a swarm of murder-hornets. When she tried to catch herself in mid-air, she belatedly discovered that the flight ability that Janesha had bestowed upon her (because Trump powers were so very handy) had worn off as well. As she began to fall, she looked around to see if Janesha could catch her, but saw that her friend was also suddenly subject to gravity. The gorgeous angelic wings Janesha had been using to fly had mysteriously vanished at the same time as Taylor’s extra powers.

She decided to worry about the power loss later. She was pretty sure she was still tough enough to land safely even from this height, but unless she missed her guess, it was going to be a non-issue, because Sagun was coming to catch her. Just as she went to call out to him to save Janesha first, she saw Cloudstrike swooping after the black-clad teenager. From what she recalled of Cloudstrike’s intelligence and flight capabilities, Janesha was going to be fine.

Just then, Janesha looked directly at her and screamed, “Believe!” It seemed to be an entreaty of some kind, but Taylor wasn’t sure what it was supposed to achieve. She didn’t have too much time to think about it, because Armina was back, sword raised and barrelling in on Gladiator like a steam-train.

Oh, crap. We lose. Taylor flinched at the sight of the huge black mystallion bearing down on her and Janesha. Just as her friend reached out toward her and grasped something Taylor couldn’t see, Armina swept by with Gladiator angled over; one wing up and one wing down. With a tearing sound that Taylor could only think of as tortured air, the razor-sharp leading edge of Gladiator’s left wing sliced between the two of them in an instant.

All Taylor felt was a mild tug. Too late, she realised that Armina had severed the cord connecting her to Janesha. For Janesha, the effect was much more dramatic; looking over at her friend, Taylor realised to her concern that she was unconscious. “Janesha!” she called out. “Are you okay? Janesha!”

“I got you.” The voice was familiar; Sagun. Catching up with her, he wrapped his arms around her then shifted into a bridal carry. “Don’t worry about Janesha; Cloudstrike’s on the job.” And indeed, when the mystallion came up again, she’d managed to drape the unconscious celestial girl over her saddle as if she did this every day. Taylor would’ve felt more reassured about it if Janesha had been awake for the experience.

Wings beating steadily, Cloudstrike looked toward Taylor until Armina guided Gladiator between the two of them, herding the golden mystallion away from her.

“Keep your mortal away from my granddaughter,” Armina commanded of Sagun, without looking at either one of them. “I have no quarrel with either of you, provided she comes no closer.”

“But Janesha’s hurt or something,” protested Taylor, reaching out toward her friend. “I’ve got all the skills of the best surgeon on Earth. I can help her.”

“Lord Scion! Remember our agreement!” Armina and Gladiator very deliberately situated themselves between Sagun and Cloudstrike, and Armina’s piercing gaze fell on Sagun. Sagun’s arms tightened protectively around Taylor, and if anything he backed away a few feet with her.

Gambler appeared then out of nowhere; or rather, he realm-stepped in, with Chance on his back and—surprising Taylor—her father behind the Mystallian lord. Danny’s expression seemed to be wavering between fear and exultation. She knew how he felt. There was a kind of high-five between Chance and Armina, then Chance turned to where Sagun held Taylor.

“What agreement?” asked Taylor in bewilderment. “What’s going on? What happened to her?” Things were moving too fast. Tears ran freely down her face.The powers she’d been bestowed from Bonesaw told her that Janesha was uninjured, physically at least. There seemed to be no particular reason that she was unconscious, and it scared Taylor.

“It’s alright, sweet pea. Lord Scion made an agreement with us that he would not interfere in the battle between Lady Armina and Lady Janesha, so long as you and your family were not targeted,” Chance explained. “As for Janesha, she’s asleep because she lost her powerbase. Surely she warned you of this. She seems to have told you everything else about being a celestial.” A little snark crept into his voice at the end.

Taylor seemed to recall something of that sort, but her mind was whirling so much that she had trouble making sense of it all. “But … she’s not a goddess,” she managed. “She’s just a superhero.” She wondered why they were going over that old story again.

Chance nodded understandingly. “And that’s what you need to keep believing, sweet pea. Yes, Janesha was a superhero. She had a power source which ceased to work for her, and now she’s in a healing sleep. We’re going to take her back to Mystal and assist her to recover. She will be okay. That’s an absolute promise on my part.”

Somehow, his words of assurance made her feel much better. “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.” She took a deep breath. “When can she come back?”

“Not for quite some time, I’m afraid.” Chance’s voice was firm and reassuring, and Taylor believed him implicitly. “We have to make sure there’s no underlying damage. Right now, it’s a waiting game.”

Taylor nodded. “Thank you.” She glanced around, relieved that Chance was being so considerate, especially since they’d won the fight. “Uh … everything she’s done here … will it be undone because she’s lost her powers?”

“Not unless she made it dependent on her powers,” Chance said. “Lord Scion will be able to answer that question better than I can.” He looked around at Danny. “I’ll just land so I can drop you off before we head back to Mystal.”

The landscape below had been ravaged by the overspill from Janesha’s powers, but Sagun gestured and a tabletop-smooth area of greenery flattened out neatly. Gladiator and Gambler landed under direction from their riders, and Cloudstrike a moment later at another whistle from Armina. Chance swung his leg over Gambler’s neck and dismounted nimbly, while Danny clambered down with somewhat less aplomb. “Come with me a moment, Danny Hebert,” the god of Luck said; it was halfway between a command and a request.

As Danny stood by and watched Chance lift Janesha down from Cloudstrike’s back, Sagun alighted and let Taylor down on her feet. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah, I’m okay. It was pretty hectic, but nothing touched me. Janesha did all the fighting.” Taylor lowered her eyes. “I just hope she’s going to be okay.”

“She will.” Chance spoke over his shoulder as he got Janesha settled in his arms. Armina stood between Taylor and the mystallions; her sword was sheathed once more, but Taylor knew damn well that she was specifically making sure Taylor didn’t get any closer. “We have the best healer in all the Realms to call on if necessary.”

“If that’s Lady Columbine then, yeah, I’m well versed in her abilities,” Sagun said. “She’s taking care of my sister right now.”

“Alright then.” It was Chance, holding Janesha in the same manner Sagun had carried Taylor. He stood back about twenty feet away, with Danny at his side. “It's time to get her back to Mystal. I’m thinking, to avoid powerbase withdrawal bullshit and to get her into care immediately, I might just bloodlink straight back to Mystal. You’ll be okay bringing the mystallions back?” From the chirpy tone of his voice, he didn’t really care if she was okay with it or not.

“You’re just going to bloodlink back.” Armina’s tone was flat.

“Yup.”

“And leave me to take the long way home.”

“Looks like it.” His eyes twinkled.

“You realise, I will take this out on you when I get back.”

He shrugged. “Eh. Tomorrow will take care of me.” His right hand sketched a wave. “Farewell, Taylor. Thank you for being Janesha’s friend.”

She took half a step forward. "Can I-can I say goodbye before you take her away?"

Armina's hand didn’t seem to move, but now there was a sword in it. Taylor stopped. I’ll take that as a no.

"Probably not, sweet pea," Chance said with a hint of sympathy.

Taylor felt her throat choke up all over again. “Okay. Um … when she gets better, can you thank her for being my friend, please?"

“I’ll do that.” He turned his attention to Danny. “And thank you, Danny Hebert. I can genuinely say knowing you has been a unique experience.”

“Uh huh.” Danny raised his eyebrows. “Trust me, Lord Chance, the feeling is mutual.”

“I’m sure.” With his trademark smirk, Chance made a small gesture. “Emi.” Taylor saw nothing at first, then a slender hand reached out of nowhere and took his. He stepped into nothing, he and his unconscious burden vanishing from sight in less than a second.

Bloodlinking, Taylor decided, was weird.

Sagun folded his arms and gave Armina a hard look. "So, what happens now, Lady Armina? Will you and yours ever come back here?"

Armina's return stare was equally uncompromising. "Not if I've got anything to say about it, Lord Scion. Your mortals possess uniquely dangerous knowledge, which might yet turn around and bite you when you least expect it. Were it up to me, I would return with an army and scour this realm of all life, just to ensure that this never happens again. But it is not up to me. According to the treaty between my brother and Danny Hebert, I am to leave this realm in peace. I will honour that agreement. Make sure I never have reason to revisit it."

Without waiting for an answer, she gathered Gambler’s and Cloudstrike’s reins and swung into Gladiator’s saddle. Both Cloudstrike and Gambler left off cropping the grass and raised their heads, nickering expectantly.

“Bye, Cloudstrike,” Taylor said softly, tears welling in her eyes. She barely made it through the second syllable before all three mystallions swept their wings down at the same time, and vanished from her sight.

A moment later, she was engulfed in a hug from her father. “Are you alright?” he asked urgently. “What happened after Janesha sent me away?”

Taylor stumbled on her words, wanting to hate him for calling in the Mystallian gods but not quite able to process anything emotionally right about then. “Uh, Janesha and Armina fought for a bit, then Chance went away and Janesha lost her powers and I couldn’t fly or bug-shift anymore, and then Janesha was knocked out and Cloudstrike caught her. What about you? Are you okay?”

Danny nodded. “I’m fine. Your mom’s fine. We’re all fine.” He sighed. “I was worried for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I got it.” Taylor shook her head. “I just wish I knew why we lost all of a sudden. I mean, Janesha was holding her own, and then she just ran out of everything at once. Why did her powers pick right then to quit?”

Her father shared a glance with Sagun, then cleared his throat. “Let’s … well, let’s wait until we get home until we talk about that, okay?”

She didn’t feel like arguing about it. With Janesha gone, it was like a part of her had been abruptly excised. “Okay,” she mumbled. Looking at the edge of the artificial plateau, she sighed. “I don’t even know where we are, or how long it’s going to take to walk home from here.”

Sagun snorted softly. "Hello? God of superheroes, here." He snapped his fingers. "And now that you are both mine once more, I bestow upon you both … flight."

"Or you could realm-step us both home," Taylor pointed out. She still wasn't over the fight and Janesha's sudden collapse, but she was starting to work her way through it.

"Or I could do that, too." Sagun put his hands on their shoulders. "You know how it goes …"

"... step," Taylor said, as Sagun and her father echoed the word. They stepped into the celestial realm, then out into their living room.

“Oh,” said Annette, getting up from the sofa. “You’re back. Is everything okay? What happened?”

Taylor took a deep breath, feeling it catch at the back of her throat. Tears welled in her eyes. “Janesha’s gone,” she said. It hurt to say, but she knew she had to face it. “Armina beat her, and they all went back to Mystal. Chance said it might be a long time before she gets back here, if ever.”

“Oh, honey.” Annette hugged her closely. “I’m so sorry. I know how much she meant to you.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Taylor swiped her tears away. “I’ve got to be the best hero I can even though she’s not here. It’s what she’d want.”

Danny nodded to Sagun. "Thanks for everything. I appreciate it." He held out his hand.

"You're welcome." Sagun shook his hand, then grunted as Taylor suddenly hugged him. "Okay, not complaining, but what's this in aid of?"

"For protecting Mom and Dad," Taylor said. "Armina really, really wanted to win."

"You're not wrong," he agreed. "So, this might be a little sudden, but my priests are all kind of volunteers and they mean well but they're pretty hit and miss …" He paused, looking at Taylor expectantly.

It took her a moment to get it. "Wait, what again now? You want me to be your high priestess?"

He shrugged. "Well, if you want to be. For someone who was thrown in at the deep end, you did a damn fine job with Janesha."

"Well, you know she was only ever really a superhero," Taylor pointed out. "So it's not like I was a real high priestess."

Danny and Sagun glanced at each other. "Maybe you should think about it anyway," her father suggested diffidently. "I think you'd do a good job."

Taylor pursed her lips to one side as she eyed the golden-skinned man. "Okay, I'll think about it, but you're gonna have to broaden your scope a little."

"... I'm listening," Sagun said cautiously.

"The problems Janesha was addressing. They're real, and they need fixing." Taylor prodded Sagun in the chest. "Now that she's gone, you're going to have to step up."

Danny cleared his throat. "I'm on board with that, on the condition that we all three sit down and work out a plan of action that doesn't involve bulldozing the world's governments into compliance. A little nudging, sure, but we have to at least give them the impression that they've got a choice, and that they're making the right one of their own accord."

"And how long's that going to take?" Taylor scrunched up her face. "Years? Decades?"

"As long as it takes," Danny said steadily. "You can't rush this sort of thing. Better to take a little longer than stir up people who'll go around sabotaging it the moment your back's turned. Something like this needs to be self-sustaining and long lasting."

Sagun nodded. "I like the way your father thinks. We'll take our time and do it right. And we'll address the problems that people are facing right now, at the same time. What do you say, Taylor?"

Taylor nodded. "I say you've got yourself a high priestess."

“Ahem.” Annette spoke the word rather than actually clearing her throat. “Lord Scion, I’m no superhero so I can’t begin to tell you your business, but I do have a concern.”

Sagun rolled his eyes. “Mrs Hebert, call me Sagun. If I’m going to be on first-name terms with your daughter, then I won’t be treating you or Danny any differently. But what’s your problem?”

“Taylor.” Annette reached out and gathered Taylor to herself. “She’s fifteen. She needs to take the time to unwind and destress from what’s just happened to her. A lot’s happened in a short time. Then we have to think about sending her to school—a good school, not that hellhole that she was in before—so she can finish her education before she takes up such a high-responsibility job as high priestess to an actual God.”

“Mom!” Taylor wriggled free and glared at her. “I’m not a kid anymore! I can be totally responsible!”

Sadly, Danny shook his head. “Sorry, Taylor. Janesha was too young to be a goddess. Right now, you’re too young to be a high priestess. You were both aiming too high, without the knowledge base to really understand the deeper aspects of what you were trying to fix. As a result, your fixes would’ve required tweak after tweak, until they were more patch than fix. I’ve seen it happen before on much less complex systems, and they failed catastrophically on more than one occasion.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong.” Taylor shook her head. “Janesha wasn’t a goddess. She just said she was.”

Danny looked at Sagun. “Do you want me to tell her, or should I?”

Sagun sighed. “I’ll have to remove the block first. Taylor, you might want to sit down.”

“Is this what we talked about, that time in the car?” asked Annette. She took Danny’s hand.

“Yeah, it is.” Danny looked acutely unhappy. “Do it.”

“Do what?” demanded Taylor. “What are you three talking over my head for? What block? Can someone make some damn sense for once?”

Suddenly, she felt the weirdest sensation, as though something had liquefied and drained away in her head. And then she knew. The pervading knowledge, the certainty that Janesha was not a goddess, was gone. In its place was the personal awareness that if she worshipped the celestial teen, Janesha would become a goddess once more. Once she got within fifteen feet of Taylor, of course.

The paradigm shift was profound. Staggering slightly, she dropped into an armchair and sat with her hands pressing on either side of her head. “Holy shit,” she mumbled. “Holy fucking crap. What happened? How did that get in my head? Is that how they beat Janesha? I thought the tiara blocked all mind-bending.”

Sagun went to speak, but Danny waved him away. “I got this.” He knelt down beside Taylor’s chair and looked her in the eye. “It got in your head because of me,” he confessed. “I gave Lord Chance the power to do it. You and Janesha … together, you were too powerful, too unstable. The only way out that didn’t involve inviting the destruction of the entire realm was … well, to kneecap Janesha’s powerbase before it got that far. Remove your belief from the situation, and they could take her and go home. Where she needs to be, right now.”

Taylor stared at him, unable to believe what he was saying. “You did that? You did it? How could you? How could you do that to me? To her? I thought you liked her!” It was like learning all over again that he’d called the gods in, but worse.

“I did like her!” Danny protested. “She was a good friend to you, when she wasn’t being a goddess! But once you gave her that power, it went to her head! To both of your heads! You stopped hearing ‘no’ and started hearing ‘well, maybe’!”

“We were fixing things!” screamed Taylor, anger welling up in her. A swarm of bugs sprang up, buzzing in circles around the room.

Sagun gestured, and the bugs vanished. “You were exiling people on the Moon and into other dimensions,” he said quietly. “Without benefit of trial or appeal. You made Janesha into a Goddess of Justice, among other things, then you promptly ignored that aspect of her powerbase, which allowed her to ignore it. Is being locked up without a chance to defend yourself, no matter what you’ve done, truly justice? Where does free will come in if you’re ordered to perform an action then mind-bent into doing it anyway after you refuse to do it the first time? How are those the actions of anything but a tyrant?”

“Janesha wasn’t a tyrant.” Taylor shook her head definitively. “She liked people too much. She liked Earth Bet too much. She just wanted to make everyone healthy and happy and safe and comfortable.”

“Which is to her credit, and yours,” Annette said firmly, kneeling on the other side of the armchair. “From what I’m told, when she first got here, her view of us—of mortals—was basically that we were disposable toys. Some were more interesting than others, but none of us were important in the long run. You changed that. You made her care. But she fell into the trap that many, many of us ordinary mortals have also fallen into.”

“Trap?” asked Taylor dully. “What trap?” By now, she was curled up on the chair, half-turned away from Danny. The posture was deliberate; no matter whether he was justified in what he’d done, she was still pissed as hell at him for going behind her back like that. Even if it was with good intentions in mind.

“Believing that her vision of how the world should be was more important than everyone else’s, everywhere. Believing that because her way was more right than anyone else’s, she was justified in using any means in doing things that way.” Annette smoothed some stray hairs away from Taylor’s face. “She only had you to draw on, and if I’m understanding celestial-mortal relationships properly, you were being subconsciously influenced by her to agree with the way she wanted to do things. So it was a self-reinforcing cycle.”

Stubbornly, Taylor shook her head. “I don’t believe that. Janesha wasn’t like that. She’s not manipulative. Not like everyone else around here.”

Sagun took a deep breath. “Taylor, can I offer an option? A way to see what’s truth and what’s manipulation? I give you my word, I’m not going to try to push you one way or the other.”

Still ignoring her father, she looked at the golden-skinned celestial. Of all of them, he was the one who’d treated her most like an adult. In fact, he’d just offered her a spot as his high priestess. He might not be on my side as such, but at least he’s not trying to con me out of anything. “Okay, go ahead, but I reserve the right to be not convinced.” She tapped the tiara. “And if you were going to try mind-bending, that won’t work.”

“That’s fair. I can’t mind-bend for crap anyway. My bloodline doesn’t support it. But being able to mediate disputes is a superpower that enough people believe in that I can do … this.” He snapped his fingers.

In the next instant, Taylor gasped. Her mind was absolutely clear for what felt like the first time ever, free of nagging doubts and lack of assurance. Her father’s actions were laid out like a map, with his intentions and motivations beside them. So were Janesha’s, Sagun’s and what she’d seen of the Mystallian gods. She poked and prodded at what she saw, trying to find any hint of insincerity or inconsistency, and came up short.

“Janesha wasn’t deliberately brainwashing me.” She said it almost defiantly. “She wanted the best for me and Earth Bet, just like you do.”

“Of course she did,” Annette said. “But wanting something doesn’t automatically confer the best way of getting there.”

That was so much a truism that Taylor didn’t bother answering. She turned to her father, who was still kneeling by the chair. “I’m still mad at you, by the way. You treated me like a kid. I’m not a kid.”

Danny shrugged. “Fine. I won’t treat you like a kid.” He stood up and headed into the kitchen.

Frowning, Taylor looked at Sagun then at Annette. “What’s with that? Where’s he going?”

Annette raised her eyebrows. “He’s treating you like an adult. There’s no more to be said and he can’t force you to see his point of view, so he’s walking away from the situation. This way, you get a chance to figure out what’s going on without spending all your attention on refuting his point of view because you’re angry at the way he resolved things.”

“I’m not doing that!” Taylor paused, not wanting to sound shrill. “I’m not doing that … am I?” She looked from her mother to Sagun and back. Neither one of them answered her, and in that she got her answer. “Okay, fine. Suppose I am doing that. What’s going on that I’m missing?”

Annette looked her in the eye. “There was no viable way for Janesha to remain on Earth Bet. That’s the truth that you’re refusing to accept.”

Taylor’s reaction was almost instinctive. “You’re wrong! We could’ve won! Janesha could’ve kicked both their butts and told them to piss off, especially if Sagun had been helping instead of standing back cheerleading!” She glared at the bearded celestial. “I thought you were on our side. How come you didn’t help us?”

“Because I spoke with them first,” Sagun said. “Chance suggested that I listen to your father’s arguments. They made sense. Not enough to turn me against you—I was only nineteen myself when I first arrived here, after all—but enough to put me on the fence. I decided to make it a fair contest, that the Mystallians couldn’t use you against Janesha or your family against you. But even then, your father saw the bigger picture where I totally missed it.”

Somehow, Taylor knew she was going to regret asking the question. “Bigger picture? That the Mystallians weren’t allowed to lose because they’d have hurt feelings or something?”

“Oh, honey.” Still kneeling by the chair, Annette gathered her in a hug. “He never cared about their feelings. He cared about the world.” She rested her forehead gently against Taylor’s, just below the tiara. “If you’d won the battle, we would’ve lost the war. By throwing the battle, he made sure we won the war. We survived.”

“No.” Taylor shook her head. “No. Sagun—”

“I’m good,” Sagun said. “I’m really good. But if they’d come back with a dozen others, just as powerful, no holds barred, all looking for blood and not caring who got splattered? You’d die, I’d die, Earth Bet would die. We’d lose.” He held out his hand, and a holographic representation formed, depicting a planet exploding in slow motion, repeated over and over. “Every world in the chain would be obliterated. The only survivor would be Janesha. And they’d probably mind-bend her into forgetting this ever happened. That Earth Bet, Aleph, any of them, ever existed. For all intents and purposes, we would never have been.” He looked down and away. “There’d just be Edeena, on Earlafaol, wondering whatever happened to me.”

Taylor clenched her fists. “But Janesha had a right—”

“No. She didn’t.” Sagun shook his head. “She was a minor on Mystal, just as you are here. She was a runaway. They weren’t dragging her back to an abusive situation. They were taking her home, where she’ll keep getting the education that a young celestial should be getting. The education that she needs to do the job properly, once she gets her establishment field the second time around.”

“Okay, now you’re making me feel like the bad guy.” Taylor dug her fingers into her hair. “If I hadn’t worshipped her, she would’ve been free to go back when they showed up. I basically kidnapped her and held her against her will.”

Annette snorted with amusement. “In a manner of speaking. But you were as much a victim of the powerbase and the thrall as she was. The real bad guys were the celestials who attacked you that time.” She turned her attention to the god in the room. “Did you ever find out who they were or what they wanted?”

“No, which is irritating.” Sagun shook his head. “As far as I can tell, they were messing with me since I got here. They were certainly the ones who attacked Edeena and cut her up. But why they did all that, just to screw us both over, I have no idea.” He clenched his fists. “If I see them again, though, I’ll be sure to ask after I kick their asses nine ways from Sunday.”

“Good.” Annette stood up and brushed her knees off. “Feeling better, honey?”

“A bit,” Taylor admitted. She got up from the chair and faced Sagun. “I appreciate the offer to be your high priestess, and if it’s still open once I finish high school, I’ll definitely take you up on it. But right now I’m feeling a little less than adequate for the task. Is that okay with you?”

“Absolutely,” declared the golden-skinned god. “The offer’s open as long as you want it to be. Take all the time you need. In the meantime, I’ll be dropping in occasionally if I need pointers on how to fix the world.” He held out his hand. “See you around, Taylor.”

“See you around.” She shook his hand. “And thanks. For everything.”

“You’re welcome. And you too, Annette.” He touched his forehead with two fingers, then vanished in a muted flare of golden light.

Annette sighed. “Well, that’s that. I think we’ve earned a quiet family night in, don’t you?”

Taylor hugged her close. “So long as Dad keeps his distance.”

“You won’t feel like that forever.”

“We’ll see.”

Epilogue One