Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147649 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
I was weird in the kind of way that puts people off. And this off-putting became a part of me. When you’re that girl you have two choices: You can change the deepest levels of who you are and pretend to be someone else. Or you can just give in to it.
Maybe some can embrace the weird. Celebrate it and turn it into something unique.
But I wasn’t that kind of weird girl. I was the sick kind of weird girl.
No one embraced me. No one accepted me. I mean, Jacqueline did, obviously. But by the time we met, Pia was not something I talked about. I was hiding who I was. Jacqueline liked the public face of Pie Vita. She had no idea what was going on inside my head.
And all the people who came before her tried to talk to me about depression, and offer up diagnosis after diagnosis to help me come to terms with—not who I was, but what I was not.
They wanted to medicate me.
Even after I started lying about Pia and pretending she didn’t exist, they could still tell that I was… wrong. That I didn’t belong.
And I guess they were right. Because I am a genetically engineered lion chimera who was made by the alchemist to the gods, and was born into a… what? Royal family is not the right word.
Royal… menagerie?
Closer.
The intentions of this Caretaker Ceremony might be to pair us up with some member of the families of royal beasts sitting in the tiered sections of this room. But we are not like them. Our bloodlines were manufactured. We are products. Possibly even made to order.
Special. So special that now I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.
House of Fire.
It reminds me of the truth-or-dare room in the hallways. House of Bucks. House of Moths. House of Dragons.
And this bothers me too. Because Pell is so much more than some random male animal. And I am not the sum of those moths. And while Tomas is a dragon, he is faceted. Like a cut diamond. I mean, for all intents and purposes, he’s a shapeshifter. He’s so many things.
And now I’m mad at that hallway room. Because what gives those hallways gods the right to define us?
What gives anyone the right to define us?
It’s bullshit.
I guess everyone’s allowed their opinion. Whatever. But I’m so used to being misunderstood, and mislabeled, and called all the different kinds of crazy that I’m practically immune to it.
And anyway, I’m not crazy. I’m completely sane. It’s the world around me that’s gone mad.
But at least now I have finally gotten the truth. And it’s not very romantic, and not very humanizing, and not very comforting. But it is the truth.
I snap back to the presentation and realize my eyes are still tipped up to the gods. They all stand and there’s a lot of shouting from the people in the center of the room. They are asking for things. “Give me a good life. Save someone from sickness. Give us a good crop.” And they are clapping, and laughing, and cheering.
Fucking gods.
Who made them boss, anyway? It’s not like they’re in charge of anything. So they have powers, or whatever. And riches, obviously. And followers. Cults, as Pell would say.
And the stories. Can’t forget the stories.
And then there’s the little fact that they’re immortal.
Or are they?
Tomas said something interesting when I was in the dungeon. He said everyone dies. Even Pell, one day.
And if that’s true, then these gods will die too.
Or maybe not die, but fade away.
Egyptian. Titan. Greek and Roman.
There are a lot more myths and legends of gods around the world where I come from. Thousands and thousands. I mean, India has a shitload. And China. And Japan. The Vikings. The Native Americans. Well, pretty much every culture has their own gods, right?
So why are these four pantheons so special?
Maybe they’re not?
Maybe they just spent time in the wrong world the same way I did?
Maybe the people who saw them there got the wrong impression.
And maybe… maybe someone figured out that they didn’t belong in that world. And when that happened, they stopped being gods and just became… weird.
The kind of weird that warrants… banishment.
This revelation is like a sun exploding in my head. The idea that the ancient gods were kicked out of my human world resonates so perfectly with me, I get a little dizzy.
Damaged gods. That’s what they were.
So they left that world and came to this one.
Maybe through a door.
Maybe through a hallway.
This place where they can still position themselves above all others, and command the royal beasts, and do their alchemy, and have Fireday, and Earth Hour, and ten-day work weeks. Where dragons have been forgotten, and the common chimera are the peasant class, and they can offer little magical gryphon girls up to the ruling class to make them feel special too.