A THOUSAND SOULS DIED TO MAKE ME.

I remember being a thousand shard empty vessel of a vibrant God in the form of a piece of every kind on earth. Being the fabrics that weave through the lives rooted to my mother, Earth.

Then a man in the form of a King requested for me to be made from the blood of everything wild and tame, from the anterpanthers stalking in the fields to the magifins swimming through the cobalt waves and the young children of every tribe.

The moon was brought down from it's place to bow to me on the night I was transformed from myth to a Goddess in woman form.

Now I run.

I don't wanna end up with an arrow in the brain like Nadia. Not with a rope draped down my chest made of the most precious gold and diamonds to remind everyone that status only gives you a more beautiful slaughter.

Brutus tears through the sea of purple sand matching his pelt to the white and black of his underbelly. The first gift given to me on the day of my creation from the king's son whom I was made for. Who was in mind when the crafter of magi made me from the souls he snatched from so many.

My father, Shaka, King Abus's right hand magi source never gave me a name. His hands never touched the bronze skin I got from mother earth's favorite material, her first gift to man. He was just a stern bastard with eyes grey like the sky before a raging storm.

His hands alight with the color of his chakra, the brightest of blues shiny like all the stars in the black sky above me. He grabs arrows from winged heifer hides hung on the walls of the tea room and pierced my human makeshift mother.

The butter cake on her fork falls out of her hand and into the fine dish she eats from, blood pooling down the gold chakra streaks in her long, luscious mane.

I hear the beating of large paws slam against the sand, a unified group of hunters on the backs of well trained singular horned shepherds. I'm no longer watching Shaka take Nadia's life, waiting for her to get up before the last light behind her eyeballs fades into death.

I'm not in the past and if Earth still loves me like she had before I was stolen from her very crown, she'll save me or at least give me a death worth dying.

My anterjaguar pulls against his large reins, roaring with each tug on the leather. I apologize, burying myself into the thick scuff of his large neck. His terror mimics mine, feeding off the sound of eager yelps and bark from dogs as large as half grown Baobab trees.

He angles his head down, avoiding catching his antlers on the low hanging branches of trees bordering the Jano southern border, their familiarity in the same horned vultures perched above the ground as always.

My skin burns like a hundred flames danced up from the blade of my shoulder down to the many rings on my fingers full of precious crystals and metals. I hate them and the reminder that they give me.

Magi of scarlet for the fight crawls from behind my skin, trudging in the cracks of my freckles. I fight the urge to scream as my joints and muscles lock and snap out of construction at the free will of the magi's strength.

My own magi, mixed with the blood of every chakra is damaged by the death of Nadia. Her demise and broken body lying slumped over in her iron chair crushes the fight that Earth and Shaka had given me.

She was the last person who made me feel like my meaning was more than to take a brass ring from King Abus's son and guide the tribe with strength and connection. Nadia was not a distraction from duties that I damn well didn't ask to be born for she was the reason why I didn't leave sooner.

Now, my reason is dead. I owe no king or man anything.

I can only wish to cross the border before the raid gets there. Wish that it's mother Earth and the soul of Nadia pushing Brutus faster to my sisters made from the lives of others.

Only if they would listen and want more than to be pawns.

"Hi'shi!" The hunters, adorned in the red of their chakras and magi call to each other commands in their coded language.

I was never taught that one. Just the basic tribal tongue reaching from the ebony sea to the flanks of the far south to the mountainous region up north where the icy waters touch the yellow sands.

Brutus snaps his black and royal purple spotted head back, snarling at dogs only feet away from his back paws kicking up so much sand that it's hard to make out their primary gold and silver pelts heavy with armor.

The puffs crawl to my gaping mouth and burn the gentle flesh at the back of my throat. My tears come as my only relief and salvation for now, cooling the burning of my cheeks still smudged with eye kohl and foundation much lighter than my skin.

"Come on, boy." I whisper to him, holding on to his giant antlers, curving my fingers right around their bulky angles. "You just have to outrun them. Fight and we'll never eat hog remain anymore."

The promise of roasted meat causes my stomach to growl but for the exchange of Brutus's eagerness, I push on. I feel the tingling of the ignites of my power return on in a sliver, kicking away the magi that were still controlling my muscles.

The earth itself wakes up in my blood, exploding in black smoke like the burning of meat and the finest vegetables to perfection yet it smells like death when mother opens her mouth and swallows corpses before the vultures steal their souls.

I inherited all her chakras but I was made to kill. To kill and give birth to more like me until my line dies out and returns to the earth only to be stolen again.

My sisters either kill like me, summon life, or heal.

The smoke stays small, stringing along in the fury bubbling up from the pit of my stomach. A wave of anger so strong that I don't let the danger of wielding my powers stop me. Even if I wanted to the claws were already crawling up the sleeves of my elaborate petticoat.

I twist my fingers between the cold coils of magi, ash black like the color of all the chakras crushed up into one bowl. Bolts of white shimmer between the fluffy curves, turning ebony edges completely silver like my braids.

The earth in front of me and behind all becomes manipulative, soft like wet clay. It shifts like the swishing of lavender fields, swimming through the tips. Though I can only see it, my courage blazes to the high sky.

Brutus knows what's next, leaping over stones of yellow and blue that shake at the ground's anger. Slight roars under the sand erupt from all around, groaning trees from every side of the frontier.

Mother latches on to my pleading magi, turning my chakra into the terrain's controller, pooled with every emotion possible. I feel a need to spill blood on the sand, soak the violet with red and imagine King Abus seething at the news.

To know just what he created was no longer fighting against the other side anymore.

The ground in front of Brutus upends, propelling us up past the first stretch of trees spanning toward the river that swings around the main city and runs up past the border.

A dog yelps, falling back where the new mountain of sand and mud only gives the jag more advantage. Sand dies down as the seconds pass and I create another form from the ground, this time much larger in it's distance from the ground.

A flock of weavers craw in protest, swing up to the sky at the shaking of a massive tree that had once been standing but now was falling faster than light tricking through stained glass.

I curse at the unstoppable destruction everywhere, filling the world in the song of falling trees, cracking earth, overflowing rivers and creeks, and wind casting the world in a glow of purple and yellow.

"What mother earth allows to die, she'll bring back if she figures need be."

A boerboel, gold as the sun comes charging through the purple fog, embellished in armor made of steel painted to attempt mimicking mother's detail with pigment. I can't see the rider, but seeing the beast enjoying the chase and duck between the curse of my magi drives me to question.

I flip on Brutus's back, hoping the heavy pants aren't a sign of him giving out. His soft fur groomed by the servants and beast keepers slide between my fingers in tuffs as I face the dog, my magi still rushing up my skin like water from the heart up.

Water spreads across the ground, kicking up as the dog splashes through it, a horn of ivory protruding from his head catching the light in it's cracks and ridges.

I copy the lessons that Nadia had taught me so many years ago in the courtyard, ignoring the pain my magi causes when my chakra feeds off the sadness that comes at the price of thinking of her.

Gold like her chakra burns my fingertips, exploding alive with the wind whipping around me as a force keeping it alive. The rocky bumps jolt me, but they don't falter, warming until their heat becomes too hot to hold.

The shepherd takes larger strides, slowed by the stones projecting from the ground's face, moving through clouds of stones and amethyst sand. It's rider, knocking a silver now into place catches eyes with me.

His dark skin, blanked by a golden chained headdress dropping below a face wrap dyed in the royal colors of purple and navy. His face, perfected from years of pampering and treatment take away the cast iron shell he's trying to portray.

A face I've only seen in paintings but it's so easy to pick out from a crowd of countless.

His moonlight eyes show an emotion I have yet to learn from my years of primary confinement besides to the palace gates and the beast sanctuary with the servants or Nadia. It's bitter, warning that he'll kill to take me back as his possession.

He's aware of every rule written by the first rulers of the Vèhra since the dawn of my mother's creations. It's honed in his blood like a second life force, his reason for living.

Edel. The prince.

He wasn't supposed to see me until the moon bowed again. That was the reason why I never went to royal luncheons and my invites to important festivals were lost.

Edel must not see my face so he won't reject me. So he can't break tradition. So no other man will claim me before he does. But he's seen my face and I won't attempt to hide it with my fancy handkerchief for respect.

If he wants to fight, then I'll use the elements as my weapon.

The golden magi in my hand floats off at the carelessness of my grip. It expands like a miniature version of the sun, hinted in white and black around the edges. Cool pain glosses my muscles, ripping in agony that causes me to scream out as it hit the ground only a few paw leaps in front of Edel.

He pulls on the reigns of his beast, letting his arrow fly up and come down beside him. A rider rides up, spear in hand but screams before could even position it correctly.

The man in red silk grips the fur of his mutt, drawing it up on back legs with a deafening bark. It lands down, knocking the limp hunter off the animal's back.

Blood remains of the mount's white fur, staining the sand as it oozes out the neck of the hunter onto the ground. In response, mother opens her mouth to swallow him whole. The sand reached up in a mounded casket, pulling him down into the ground.

My gold magi continues to grow, moving upwards with the swinging of my fingers through the air. Edel moves back, pulling back on his giant dog with the leather reigns.

I push the magi ball closer to him, creating a flame nearly uncontrollable from the inside. His mount barks as more pull in, snatching against their riders who urge them forward.

Brutus snatches his antlers up, lifting himself from the ground for another leap across clay walls this time. My hands fall from the air, losing their control over the flames.

The magi drops, smashing against the ground with a crack that can only drop hearts. Then for a moment see the blood again. See it staining Nadia's ebony cheeks and sliding down the bridge of her nose.

She's dead. My best friend died. My gold chakra burns for her and this is only a small amount of revenge that I could give the palace for their crimes.

Yellow smoke covers the riders, making their escape attempts fail in vain. They move from side to side, barking and howling in pain and terror to the sky goddess who turns her back.

Flames, bright yellow like the prince's ornaments, explode with a ferociousness that only a child of the Gods could bring alive. It's blinding, but before I fully register the havoc that I've caused Brutus clears the clay wall of the southern border.

A shock like no other tinges my skin like the tongue of flames has caught on to my skin. The silence of screams that had been a song I made just for Nadia. The prince was in the hunting party, Abus's most prized possession turned into ashes and bone. Not to be swallowed.

Mother doesn't swallow royal male blood. It tastes too bitter like stale gin and vinegar. Too full of hatred towards her beloved female creations.

In a world run by men, she can only hope that her daughter rebels. It hisses through the earth, snaking through the sand everytime one falls.

"Olá. Olá. Óólá."

"More. More. Many more."

It's the first time I've heard her speak through the sand and water. She's alive in everything and I've fed her for the first time. The leftovers from Edel's carcass will only lead his father beyond these walls.

Brutus lands on a stretch that looks as if it has no connection to other side. No sand or dead trees blacked with death as far as the eye can see. Just grass that was nearly rare in all parts of Jano except the gardens which were force grown by the chakras of yellow and green.

Walls of coral ran down in a straight path, blocking us from the main markets and trading areas that were closed this time of year. Brutus claws at the grass, drawing his paws across the soft spread of green and teal.

Flames cast shadows over the wall, spreading their heat before dying down again with hisses and snaps. Black and gold flood into the air, turning the sky grey.

Carving of clouds and a woman in blue glows alight on the clay walls all the same on either side. Her eyes turn black, hands and arms shimmering a the blue of the sky and grey of the wind.

I slide off my mount's back, using his saddle as a lowering. He dips down, lowering me with trained consideration. I touch the ground, expecting it to be soft rather than spiky.

Then again, this is real grass grown at it's will.

Brutus keeps his ears positioned towards the new boundary, edging behind me with sniffs at the air. His paws carefully hit the ground, shaking the earth with each step forward.

The goddess of the sky could never be caught by the goddess of the earth. She was too high. When earth moved her tides to capture the sky, she only laughed and said, "The sky is too high. I am the sky. I am the clouds that feed you water. The wind that helps clean you. I am the sky."

Nadia chanted the song to me as a child before I knew that the story was one of my history. It's written on these walls about a thousand times.

The sky goddess was nearly caught by the sun. The sun intensed her heat in attempt to melt the clouds that fed the earth. The sky goddess laughed and strengthened her blow, keeping the clouds in balance. "The sky is strong. I am the sky. I am the wind that holds you. The clouds that block you. I am the sky."

I move along the walls, placing my hands along the deeply invested clay shifting from brown to reddish grey. The engravings glow with my finger's touch, understanding that a niece of the sky has come.

The sky goddess greets me in silence, understanding that I can't understand her language that only her daughter can. I silently wish she'd take me to her without the hassle I anticipate.

The moon was the goddess that could catch the sky. For she was everything that the sun lacked. The moon was gentle and calm, shimmering in her lack of ambition. She says, "I am the moon. The sister who could always hold you. For I can turn you light blue like the turquoise stone or night black like obsidian and fill you with pieces of me. I am the moon."

"Old auntie of the sky, please show me your daughter. I need her company and the strength in hiding that you bestowed her."

A growl erupts from beside me, claws of silver flexing from the big cat. Wings flutter against the wind, beating above a sky that was slowly fading back into it's normal blue. They cut like blades, bright red in the reflection of the sun.

The rider, a small shape on the back of the bird pushed their knees into the animal's side as if to command it down. Light burst from the wings of the fire eagle, tracing back to the rider's hands wrapped in leather gloves.

A cloud forms from nothing but the air and water on the earth's surface, catching the bird's talons. It's beak curves down, deadly above me. I hold the reins on Brutus, stuffing down the beat in my chest.

"Trading is over until the sunrise of the shorter days. I hope you know that jumping over borders is punishable by death."