The warm darkness gave way to a bright white light. It was sht that I could practically feel the rays pushing against my skin as the damn thing blinded me. Evehe pressure a vanished, I found myself uo see. Slowly, inexorably, my visiourned. First as dots of random colors. Those slowly merged with their closest neighbors, f ever rger swatches of color and shapes until finally resolving into something I could make sense of.

  Or at least I thought it was something that I could make se of. I mean, I could see and uand what I was looking at but not why or how. Either I had died and this was what was oher side or something, or someone, ying a cruel joke on me.

  Laid out before me was a massive cliff overlooking a mountain range. Clouds crawled along below as they passed through. As I turhe structure set into the mountaintop was ohat I had only ever seen ond it was something I had been told, cursed, to never speak of other than to her kids. Given that she was a Kitsuhe first I had seen, I had to assume that she meant others of our kind.

  The shivers traveling down my spine had nothing to do with the soft and frigid breeze that lifted my hair off my back. They were from both the fear of meeting her again and the excitement that I could ask her questions if I did meet her. Not knowing what else to do, I walked out of the open and into the structure.

  As before, the Kitsune lounged in the chair. Smoke wafted from the pipe she was holding as she looked off into the distance. While I wao ask her a question or two about Kitsune, I feared that she would kill me this time if I so much as interrupted whatever she was doing. Well, that was assuming that I was still alive. If I was oher side, could I die? Yeah, I wasn’t going to be getting the ao that question. Not today.

  “Another of my kids has e forth to ask me questions about life and power. Why should I answer such questions when they have not yet learo walk?” She snapped out the st word as if in rebuke for even so much as entering her presence. With it, her eyes flicked down to meet mine. As she took me in, she tinued. “There are those among my brothers and sisters that believe that their kin should be forced to figure everything out for themselves. That there is no greater hindrao growth than someone giving even a hint of an answer.”

  The woman drew deep on her pipe before releasing a stream of clouds thiough to nearly reach me over twenty feet away. “Then there are those that believe it is the responsibility of those with knowledge to teach those without. That knowledge not passed on is knowledge destio be lost.”

  She paused as if to see my rea to her words. “And what do you think?” I hesitantly asked into the silence.

  “I agree with both aher.” Her eyes rolled as she leaned back. “Knowledge without the wisdom of how to use it and when is a recipe for disaster. Yet oher hand, rogress is there to be made if every geion has to rediscover everything? I mean look at those joining the World Tree from Earth. The ey of their knowledge was accessible by most anyone. Yet their civilization is, well was now, on the brink of colpse as the world around them failed. As the systems they had built failed one by one.”

  Just how much did this woman know of what had been going on oh? Who was she that she had been able to watch such things? What did she mean by the World Tree?

  As if she could see the questions flowing ay brain, she narrowed her eyes. Surprisingly, she seemed curious about something other than what she had been talking about. “Or are you like your stupid sister and stu a mating bond with an idiot? You do know not to have sex until you find your one – your mate.”

  “No, I am not boo anyone,” I spoke quickly. “Still a virgin.” And happily so thank you very much. I mentally added. I was also pretty sure that my face was well past pink and b on red.

  She hissed and suddenly, she was no longer lounging in the chair. Air smashed against my body as, between one breath and the , she crossed the distance separating us. Her face was less than an inch from mine as she stared deep into my eyes, searg for something. I refused to move, even as I noticed her ails moved to surround me. Out of the er of my eyes, I thought I could see the tips of each point inward. They looked as though they were ready to stab me if I so much as twitched wrong.

  “Who are you? Any of my children would have known that they have sex without bonding with someoo do so requires the person to be marked and it is not something that is given on act, ever.” She hissed out the question. “And tell me why I reize you?” At first, I thought she was not expeg me to answer. Something sharp poked into the flesh long the side of my neck. While it didn’t feel deep, it was enough to get her point across. Either I answered or she would kill me.

  “Because we have met before.” I got out in a rush.

  “That tells me nothing.” Her hissing voice was quiet yet seemed to almost fill the room. As if the very air around us refused to move lest it find itself on her wrong side. “I have met many people in my lifetime. Killed quite a few of them as well.”

  “The st time I was here I was human.” I swallowed over the lump in my throat. “You kicked me out after cursio be uo talk about what I had seen other than to your children.”

  “Yes, I remember a human showing up one day, but he was male, and human. You are her. Wait…” While they were hard to see, I noticed the top of her ears flick as she used her o take in a deep breath. Her eyes narrowed even further, nearly closiirely as she stared into me. Maybe even going so far as to look into my soul.

  Then, without warning, her head fell back as ughter burst out of her. Thankfully, she moved back, takiails with her. “Hephaestus, you sly fucker. How in the hell did you pull this off?” I thought she eaking into the air and so I was caught pletely off guard when the guy from the video walked around me.

  His hands were out as he spoke. “Inari, sister. So nice of you to call for me.” Her tails surrounded him as she hugged the guy. While seeing someone hug a self-procimed god was weird, it wasn’t as bad as realizing who this woman was. Of course, looking back over everything she had said and the number of tails, it made a bit of sense.

  Which meant that either of these two people would be able to wipe me from existence. Yeah, I was getting out of here before I pissed one or both off. Slowly I slid toward one of the nearby pillers. Hopefully, I could hide behind it long enough to figure out a way to get back to the door of this building. After that, I would just have to climb down from this pd somehow make it back to Xander. Maybe he would be able to pick me up.

  As she stepped back, her smile dropped, repced by a pout. “It’s not my fault that Fenrir has it out for me.”

  “You died his fur bright pink. Of course, he has it out for you.” The thought of a rge wolf with bright pink fur nearly caused me to burst into ughter. I mao keep from making a noise as I tinued moving. “While I help calm his rage, I doubt that is why you called me.”

  “Well, no. I will deal with the wolf ter.” The Kitsune waved off his offer. “What I want to know is how you pulled off such a feat.”

  “There have been so many things retly, whie are you talking about?” If anyone else had said this I would have thought they were boasting or something, this god sounded genuine.

  Her hand lifted in my dire. Not where I had been standing when she had st seen me, but where I was currently. Yeah, who was I kidding? There was no way I was going to be able to get away from one god, let alowo. I slowed to a stop as I let out a resigned sigh.

  He followed her hand to where I stood. His eyes roamed over my body. It didn’t feel like he was cheg me out or anything, for which I was thankful. His gaze was more like someone looking over a pieaery as he tried to puzzle out what someone was talking about. roblem they might have seen that he was missing.

  As if by magic, his eyes lit up and he ughed. “About time she showed up in front of you.” The Kitsune looked like she was about to smack him. He held up his hands in surrender. “You were the ohat agreed to her transformation and ge in status.” What did he mean by that?

  “You mean that little system error of yours?” She didn’t look or sound too impressed at something. “I notice how there are more of those tely. Just how much of the system did you break with this little experiment of yours?”

  He waved off her ent. “Nothing I ’t fix.”

  “And if the whole system crashes? How many lives will we lose? How much power will be lost? Will it affect the barrier?”

  Something about what she said caused him to snap. “You think I of all people don’t know how close we are from the edge? I built most of the fug systems keeping everything running. Where and what do you think I am w ht now? Most of my duplicates and instanced minds are w on issues as we speak. Sure, most of what they are doing is applying a temporary patch to a leaking system, the rest of myself are w with several others from across the Tree to implement a perma patch.”

  Hephaestus took a sed to breathe before tinuing. “Is the system I made perfeo. But you ask Hades and the rest of those who monitor the souls entering aing from the Tree just hoeople have been saved when pared to simir ps as they got ied.”

  “Fine,” while it sounded like she was dropping the subject, something about how she said it told me that she was going to do as he said and ask around. “But that still doesn’t expin how you mao do this.” Her hand once again waved in my dire.

  “Oh, that’s easy.” The guy’s smile was filled with pride. “I found that if you mix a soul-bound oath, a touch of transfiguration magid a retively fresh mana pool, you do quite a bit. It also helps that quite a few of us have visited the p once upon a time.”

  Inari sighed as if remembering something nice. “It was a nice pce to go for vacation.”

  “Helps that no one knew just how much of a trickster you were in the beginning.” He scoffed.

  “That sted a few geions before they started to keep a for those tricks.” The fact that she used geions to mark time reminded me just how old these people were.

  “Loki says the same thing every time I talk to him about Earth. Anyway,” He shook his head as if he o force himself ba track. “Quite a few of us left one or two children behind after every visit. While the subsequent geion may have lost access to mana and thus their magic, their genes tinued on. She had…” he flicked his hand up and looked over something before letting out a short, sharp ugh. “one pert Fox Shifter DNA. But it is matrilineal. In fact, that is the only geic marker from any of us.”

  “And for those of us that didn’t study how everything is built?” I was happy that Inari had asked the question because I wao but was too scared to do so.

  “It went from mother to daughter. Never once passing through a male retive. Looking at his family tree, every time it did, they never had a daughter, all boys.” Well, that expined my great-uncle. His wife wanted a girl but no matter what they tried, it never happened. “That and a few other markers pushed her close to the line. So much so that, from what I tell, the system tried to get her to switch multiple times.”

  “Why?” I mao squeeze out. Both of them looked at me as if they were waiting for something. “Why couldn’t the system leave me alone? I didn’t want to bee a woman. I was happy as a man.”

  Inari’s eyes softened a bit at my words while Hephaestus answered my question. “With all of the new people and ges being doo the system, the thing doesn’t have the resources or ability to handle all of the issues cropping up. As such, I have had to enable some of the early limits built into it. One such limit is to prevent anyone from being too close to some of the lines. Male and female just happens to be one of those lines.”

  His answer was both nid useless at the same time. Inari smacked the back of his head as she spoke. “You suck at providing any normal answers, don’t you?” She turo look me in the eyes as she tinued. “What he means, or at least I think he is trying to say, is that, if you had activated whatever it was that switched your species the system might have bee fused and done damage.”

  “Isn't that what I just said?”

  “Not in the slightest. And you said she had Fox Shifter DNA, not Kitsune.”

  “Bme the demons.” He grumped.

  She groaned. “Is that why you sent that log over to me a little while ago? The one where you asked for permission to ge the end species.”

  “Yes. What else did you think I was doing?”

  “I thought you were testing a hypothetical, not actively ging someone's species.” The way she said that made me think that I was an act. That she might not want me. I don’t know why but the thought that a god didn’t want me around hurt. Who else hid simir thoughts behind a mask? Inari must have seen the look on my face because she suddenly went from behind Hephaestus to holding me in her embrace.

  As soon as her arms were around me, my entire body stiffened up and my breath hitched. I didn’t know if she was going to kill me or not givehing. With the fact that she was a god and I was a lowly mortal, I was fairly sure she could kill me. Yes, I would usually e back from death thanks to whatever the system did for those of us making the trip from Earth, but something told me she could deliver a perma death.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I love every one of my children.” Her words helped calm my hummi as she tinued. “Sometimes though, this oaf fets to tell people if something is theoretical or not. If it is a test or is ging someone's path.”

  “It didn’t ge her path.” He helpfully threw in.

  “Shut up.” She lightly s him. Her words calmed me down as I realized that it wasn’t that she didn’t want me. She just wished she had been told of my existe was almost as if she arent that had just been told they had a kid they didn’t ked.

  “Just saying,” he mumbled. We stood like that for a minute before he broke the silence. “If you don’t have anything else, I do have some work to do.

  I felt her head lift and turn as she likely gred at the guy. “Not until you set up a few things for me.”

  “Like what?”

  “I need a way to talk to her and all my new kids. By the way, just how many are there?”

  His hesitation told me all I o know. Judging by the growl that vibrated through her chest, it didn’t go unnoticed by her either. “Seven, including her.”

  “So I have seven new children that are having fun without me?” I wondered if it was the fact that she didn’t know about us or the fact that we were having fun without her that she was more pissed about.

  “I will set something up. I go now?” He souired.

  “Go.” Given that he didn’t reply, I assumed he had vanished as silently as he had appeared. Her voice was soft as she spoke. “It is almost time for you to return as well.”

  “Return?”

  “To your body, you didn’t think you were powerful enough to reach here did you?”

  “I don’t know. Where is here?”

  “It doesn’t matter, nht now.” She pulled bad lifted my enough to look into my eyes. “What matters is that you get stronger so that you meet me in person, one day.” With those words, she pulled back just as something ya my core. It pulled me backward and into the air fast enough that everything became a blur. The sight ed me enough that I was forced to y eyes to calm my stomach. It was only for a moment but betweeime they closed and when they opened, I went from flying to lying on a bed looking toward a white ceiling that I didn’t reize.