Goddesses

Goddesses

The Goddess of Altima Island

The veil shimmered, a gossamer curtain woven from pure energy, obscuring the jagged peaks of the Dragon’s Tooth mountains from the prying eyes of the outside world. Here, in the Hidden Valley, a pocket of vibrant, untamed beauty, my most precious secret bloomed. Avery. My Avery. The poor little orphan girl was surrounded by humans.

I watched her now, through a delicate scrying pool, the cool water swirling with images from the valley. She was laughing, a sound like wind chimes, as she played dragons with some puny boy named Tim. She was six in human years, so I didn’t need to check on her often. I won’t need to again until she’s eighteen. My lips curved into a faint smile, a mere twitch of an ancient muscle. Such raw, untamed potential. Such ignorance. It was exquisite. For years, a decade almost, I had nurtured this illusion, weaving a tapestry of lies so intricate, so seamless, that even the most astute dragon would never suspect. 

I had taken the desperate plea of a grieving queen, a mother sacrificing her child for perceived safety, and twisted it into my ultimate triumph. They thought they were hiding her. Those foolish, heartbroken dragons. Layla, her mates, Alden – they believed they were protecting their precious Avery from the wars, from the threats that ravaged their world. And in doing so, they delivered her directly into my waiting hands. Fools. 

My true form, a being of pure, luminous energy, pulsed with a quiet satisfaction within my sanctum, a chamber carved from the heart of a mountain far, far away from this valley. My power, vast and ancient, flowed through the ley lines, through the very fabric of existence, maintaining the illusion, maintaining my control.

The dragons entrusted with Avery’s care were loyal, yes. Fiercely so. But they were also simple-minded, easily swayed by my subtle whispers, my carefully crafted visions. They believed I was the ancient guardian of this valley, the benevolent spirit protecting their charge. They believed the constant, low um of magic that permeated the lands, I had them take a toddler Avery to, was a natural phenomenon, not the steady thrum of my own power, actively suppressing Avery’s true memories, actively severing her connection to her birthright. So it was easy to arrange for Avery’s protectors to be killed, and Avery was placed in that orphanage. 

The biggest threat, the most insidious one, was the mate bond. That primal, undeniable pull that linked one soul to another, often across vast distances. Avery had a mate out there. I knew it. I felt the faint, almost imperceptible tug in the cosmic tapestry, a thread connecting her to Talos, to Layla, to the very heart of the Fire Dragon lineage. If that mate ever found her, if that bond ever fully awakened, it would be a direct conduit to the truth. A crack in my carefully constructed reality. I had tried to sever it. Oh, how I had tried. Days, weeks, years, I poured my energy into fraying that connection, into twisting the threads. But the mate bond, when truly destined, was a stubborn thing. It resisted. It merely weakened, growing translucent, but never breaking. 

So, I built walls. Not physical ones, no. Walls of perception. Walls of false memories. Walls of carefully curated information. The dragons of the New World I created were taught that their magic, their very existence, stemmed from an ancient, benevolent guardian – me. They were taught that the outside world was a dangerous, chaotic place, devoid of true magic, populated by lesser beings. And Avery, my sweet, powerful Avery, was taught to believe she was human. Dragons got to rule, or at least think that they do, and I kept all of my puzzle pieces separate.

However, one day, Avery found Altima and me. She believed her parents were the matriarch and patriarch of this secluded clan, their faces always a little blurred in her memories, their stories always a little vague. A side effect, I had subtly suggested, of the valley’s potent, yet sometimes disorienting, magic. The truth, the vibrant, chaotic, loving truth of Layla and her four kings, was locked away, buried deep beneath layers of my insidious influence. A simple click in her mind, and the real memories would resurface, but I ensured that the click would never.

The worlds I had built, the intricate web of power and influence I had woven across countless realms, relied on a delicate balance. A balance where I, and I alone, stood at the apex of creation. If Avery were to fully awaken, if she were to truly understand the boundless, untamed power that resided within her, the power of the black diamond, of the Goddess of Creation… A cold dread, a rare, unwelcome visitor, brushed against my ancient soul. The realms I had built would crumble. 

They would unravel like cheap cloth, consumed by her raw, unchanneled power. She wouldn't just be a source of creation. She would be the only source. And I, the architect of so many realities, would be reduced to nothing. 

A mere whisper in the wind. 

No. That could not happen. It would not happen. 

My senses stretched, reaching beyond the veil, beyond the Dragon’s Tooth mountains, searching for the source of the disturbance. The Outlands. A desolate, ravaged wasteland. And there, a faint, yet unmistakable, resonance. A dragon shifter. A male. And another. A human female, surprisingly. The male’s energy signature was… familiar. A faint echo of Layla’s Fire Dragon lineage. A child of Talos. My awareness sharpened, narrowing in on him. Sam. Layla’s other child. Avery’s brother. Damn it. He was speaking to the human female, Susie. And Susie, bless her naive heart, was filling his head with legends, with whispers of the Goddess of Creation. Legends that were, in their own way, true. Legends that pointed directly to Avery. I will have to manipulate him and Susie when they arrive in Altima, because I know they will. No one is to remember Avery. No one!

—-Author’s Note—

I hoped you enjoyed this prequel to Hidden Flame: Bound to the Triplet Dragon Kings.