9. To Capture A Sun

Enyrgia congregated around the Marker Stones, swarming them like an insect plague. The brightness of it, the squashing of so much energy in so little space, hurt Feria’s godly eyes. The creatures seemed shocked themselves. Shocked there could be so many in one place.

Shocked that they were sucked out of the sun.

“Stop it!” Feria climbed the mountain, skipping large parts at a time. She reached for Alix, both physically and with her magic. “Alix!”

“Why?” asked Alix, and he seemed honestly confused. “It’s better this way! I won’t need food ever again! Nobody needs to die!”

Feria had trouble finding her path over the stone mountain. She slipped and tumbled back down, only to be saved by Bellafax.

“Are you insane?”

The sun was weakening quickly. Its rays were bent, twisted, until they all disappeared inside a Marker Stone. Sucked in. Ripped away.

Alix had placed them all in a circle, connected like points of a star. He’d figured out a way to connect them and put them in full view of sunlight. He’d figured out a way to recharge the Marker Stones with the energy of the sun.

“You’re going to destroy the sun! It would kill everyone!”

“No, no, no. It’s worth it, right? You said it yourself!”

Alix bathed in the energy, stood amidst the Marker Stones. He closed his eyes, faced the skies, so he didn’t even have to see the darkness creeping over the rest of Somnia.

“Ah. Such wisdom. Such power. My mind’s full of ideas, Feria! Great ideas already!”

“And if you kill us all,” Feria said. She clenched her teeth and made the final leap to the top. “Then who would be there to see all those great ideas?”

She was close enough now to tap into his life force. To see his beating heart, his soul, like a dot on the spider web of life. Even if partially obscured by the piles of Enyrgia enveloping him.

She could have stopped his heart and ended all of this. Bellafax stood next to her and pleaded that she’d save Alix, pleaded she would not be the final Giant Fox there ever was.

Feria could not do it.

Her indecision lasted long enough for the Gosti to touch the Marker Stones too and turn into Smashers again.

The mountain rumbled and slid away from underneath her feet.

She rolled to the side and grabbed a branch. Multiple Smashers effortlessly created holes through the mountain, tunnels that weren’t there before. They precisely aimed for anyone but Alix. What had he done to earn this loyalty? Promised the Gosti they could use the power too?

Another Smasher split her side of the mountain in two. The crack widened and traveled until it split Feria’s branch and sent her tumbling further down.

“Can … can he really do that?” asked Bellafax. She clung onto Feria and, even without sunlight, cast a disturbingly dark shadow over the goddess’ face. “Can he … capture the sun?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. He’d at least weaken the sun and make it die far earlier. This is not natural.”

Boulders tumbled down as if thrown by the clouds. Feria held Bellafax tight and let herself glide downwards.

“Bring yourself to safety. Bring your—”

Her siblings arrived. Cosmo, a giant bird, had the best hearing of all and the fastest travel speed. He needed no explanation and dove straight at Alix, followed by a flock of angry crows.

The Smashers used their immense speed to shoot them out of the sky. One by one, crows fell dead around Alix’ paws. Cosmo twisted and danced in a panic to avoid it all.

Night had fully returned now—too soon, of course, and unnatural. They fought by the glow of the Marker Stones. The sun still tried to rise, but any time it slipped over the horizon, any time a few sunrays hit an animal’s fur, they were sucked into the Marker Stones again.

Buzzing with energy, Alix swatted Cosmo aside.

“Don’t attack him!” Feria yelled. “Take away the Marker Stones!”

She couldn’t find Bellafax anymore and hoped she had hidden herself well. Again she climbed, her eyes trying to find Alix all the time.

“Please, listen to me,” she said, as sweetly as she could. “You know we need the sun to survive. We’re a family.”

“Are you? The gods who can never agree on anything? Who’d leave Darus alone, slowly dying underneath a large boulder? If even the gods can’t be a family, how can you expect it of your humble servants?”

“We’re not perfect,” Feria said, reaching for the first Marker Stone at his feet. “But we try. You would be dead thrice over if it wasn’t for somebody coming in to save you!”

Alix pretended not to hear. Nothing was going to change his world. Nothing was going to change how much energy he needed for his brain and how the universe had only a limited amount. This was the solution.

Feria grabbed the first Marker Stone. It burned her paw as she cast it aside, to tumble down the mountain.

Darus showed up behind her. He had recovered from the incident and was now master of Stone again. All or nothing magic, and fortunately, it was all whenever Feria was in danger.

He caught the rocks thrown by the Smashers and sent them back from whence they came at the same speed.

Gosti after Gosti was tossed from the air. Their speed broke everything in their path, which is why Darus aimed for them to land in the ocean. Even if it meant they’d drown.

“Get out of there, Feria!” screamed Darus. “This is my domain. You’re vulnerable.”

“This is my fault,” she cried.

In pitch-black darkness, she fumbled around and touched another Marker Stone. She knew that, for it sent shivers through her entire leg. She kicked it away from Alix too.

The entire mountain wobbled and staggered. As if a stone giant had woken up and tried to stand, but all the creatures seeking foothold weighed it down.

And when you’re heavy as a mountain, it doesn’t take long for you to lose balance and fall.

Alix tried to compensate by moving the heavy Marker Stones. Feria, Darus and Cosmo shifted to the other side of the mountain too.

They might have been able to put it upright again, if it weren’t for the Smashers carelessly flying past them. Cosmo had to let go. Darus had to improvise and transform the stone into a shield. Feria felt the life force of the Smasher and stopped their heart, with tears in her eyes.

Yes, dear reader, Giant Foxes could not cry like humans. But godly foxes could. And what happened next would forever bring tears to Feria’s eyes as she slept at night.

The temperature dropped dangerously. Without sunlight, Darus had to keep moving or his paws would be frozen to the stone. He took another Marker Stone between his teeth, and another, and threw them all out of Alix’ reach.

“Just a little more, just a little more,” Alix mumbled. He already glowed with energy. The sun had capitulated to its new master.

Feria nudged Darus aside. She would not lose him for a hundred years again, because he touched those cursed stones for too long and was disconnected from Enyrgia.

Instead, she’d do it herself.

But Darus would not let her do that.

They kicked each other away from the Marker Stones. Cosmo was the only one grabbing them in his claws and dropping them into the sea. With every single one, sunrays hesitantly returned, but Cosmo’s feathers had grown gray.

And now he dropped from the sky like a statue.

“NO!”

Feria jumped straight after him, even though she could not fly. Darus rapidly built a bridge of stone through the air, connecting the mountain to where Cosmo was falling.

In doing so, he sealed the small mountain’s fate. One hole too many. One Smasher too many. One unbelievable imbalance too many.

It toppled over.

Alix lost his balance and fell amidst a rain of stones, cast in darkness. His eyes danced around, confused, unseeing, as if suddenly realizing what he’d done.

Below that rain of rocks stood a female Giant Fox named Bellafax, who had hidden herself well, but not well enough. She couldn’t be blamed for expecting a small mountain to stay upright instead of toppling. She couldn’t be blamed for anything, just as even in her final moments, she couldn’t blame Alix for needing that much food and trying to capture sunlight.

She was nevertheless crushed by the attack, holding all the Gosti in her embrace.