Immortality was a lie—at least, to mortals. The only true constant was power. Even ascension to godhood didn’t grant eternal life; it simply meant wielding and shaping the forces that already existed. Deities were never the source, only the conduits, bending reality to their will. In the end, they were still subject to the ebb and flow of the cosmos, just as any mortal was. The fabric of reality did not flow from them—they simply learned how to weave it.
Nyxeria didn’t know all the details, but her father had always been an anomaly among the original gods. He never cared for followers or temples built in his name. Instead, he was drawn to shaping the world in peculiar ways, as if bending reality to amuse himself. Why? He never said. His motives were as cryptic as the stars themselves. Then came the one thing that disrupted his careful games—a mortal woman who captured his heart. It was a strange twist of fate, but being a god, he did what gods do—claimed her. To her relief, the woman loved him back. And from that union, she was born.
While that all worked in theory, in reality, the heavens were mostly stagnated on a large time scale; most deities were able to maintain enough influence to never be truly threatened. From what she could tell so far the realm had changed from when they were first created. Before the Pantheon was venerated in a broad sense giving mostly equal power across all of them, but now since the beings they used to populate this world began to worship specific deities they began to change and spawn new races that worshiped one or two deities only. The power began to change dramatically and her father…in his usual carefree self didn’t keep proactive.
Now she was here doing what he ought to have done probably a thousand years ago when he still had a few cults floating around the realm.
Her mother, though practically a demi-god by now, had not yet completed her ascension—a process still ongoing. Of course, her father had seized the opportunity in her absence, burdening Nyxeria with this dreadful mission. It was just like him to offload the responsibility. If she had her way, she would have remained in the dark, somber realm her father had sculpted, wrapped in its comforting shadows. But no—she was here, hurtling toward the mortal plane, tasked with something she had little interest in.
Nyxeria never admitted it to her father, but she liked his style. However, if he wanted to keep a semblance of his cozy status in the heavenly realm he needed to acquire loyal subjects.
The trouble was that her father wasn’t well-liked among the other deities, broadly speaking they only came to him to break ties in votes when the council made decisions about this world they governed together, but recently he had been increasingly shut out from decisions altogether.
Her father’s endless complaints about the other gods had become her constant companion. He grumbled about their growing power, their scheming, and their disdain for him. And now, thanks to his self-serving nature, here she was—plummeting through the sky like a blazing comet. It was the last place she wanted to be. Politics, divine or mortal, had never interested her. That much, she’d inherited from him. Still, that didn’t make her current situation any less infuriating.
Where was she falling? She hadn’t the faintest clue. What would she do when she arrived? Well, she’d figure that out when she got there. Planning had never been her strong suit—and honestly, she preferred it that way.
Nyxeria had never been the best of planners anyway…mostly cause she never needed to plan anything.
One thing was certain—the shift from divine to mortal wasn’t just uncomfortable, it was agonizing. Her body burned as her godhood was stripped away, leaving her vulnerable, raw, and fragile in ways she had never known. The sensation was overwhelming, and to her shock, it knocked her mind into unconsciousness as she fell, her descent spiraling into darkness.
