Anassa ran her fingers over something cool and smooth. If it was wet, it would be slippering. She slowly peeled her eyes open. The sky was a wonderful blue up above and… Anassa stood up in shock. Was she still in Arika? All around was deep blue water, murky and almost bck as if it was dirtied with soil or ash. Had she nded in an o?

  Anassa realised the isnd she was on wasn’t an isnd whatsoever. She turned around, two enormous red eyes were looking directly at her. The ground below her was not ground at all either, it was the huge scales of a reptile. Anassa bli the beast and didn’t grab at sorcery. There was o, she had humiliated the mohe st time they faced off against each other.

  She merely stared into those eyes, they were intelligent. That was the part she was totally uo prehend. Why would an intelligent creature save her?

  Ciria readjusted the colr of her coat as she jumped out of the helicopter carrying her. By all rational observation, she should not. Frankly, it wasn’t just rationality, every bone in her body told her not to e. To leave the UNN and Newford to its fate. She wasn’t Kassandora, who had all the great books written about her and who all the Divireated with so much awe and adoration that she existed as a Goddess among Gods. She was not Anassa, arently was so powerful she had entire libraries dedicated to the tragedies ying at her feet. She was not Olephia, who even Alsaria had once said was uable. Nor was she Fortia or Maisara, who had no powers yet could inspire cities to move as one. Alsaria, Ciria was her, the Goddess of Light cast a shadow se Ciria felt as if she could drown in it.

  And she was not Essa, who had caused this crisis in the first pce.

  She was merely Ciria, Goddess of Civilization. Supposedly the highest title of this era, supposedly the greatest to exist amongst them. Her husband was Halkus, of Industry, anreat God. Supposedly the sed greatest of this era. After all, what had ged more in the past thousand years than the advent of industry and the stabilization of civilization? For the first time in history, nations weren’t being wiped out at the local ruler’s whims. Halkus fixed his sleeves and gave Ciria a smile as he jumped from the huge helicopter too. The two Divines nded with a crash onto the crete of the Newford’s many piers. “I’ll clear the ships, you raise a floodwall.” Halkus said and Ciria smiled as she gave o g her husband.

  Eta, Goddess of Democrad Patron of the UNN, had called him here. Newford had eight million people. It was a jewel of the UNN, with skyscrapers that reached the clouds, eae seeming to race the others in a bid to be the tallest. The other coastal cities were in just as bad a situation, but the only saving grace was that even the sed biggest only stood at four. And they were siderably smaller. Halkus, in his dark blue coat which matched Ciria’s, raised his stands as he took over the ships that were left abandoned in Newford’s port.

  Ciria got to work.

  Wave hits Alkai, Southern UNN.

  Uh Toll: 1,800,000

  Ciria closed her eyes, there were times when she had respoo natural disasters before. Usually, it was her or Kavaa. And Kavaa was there to heal, not to prote the same way that Ciria could. The various magis who happeo be iy started to help too. That was another reason Ciria had e to Newford, magi density here was the lowest out of any other city on the east coast. The others had defenders which could potentially raise something akin to barriers.

  A crete wall, fashioned out of the tarmad pavement. The nd simply shifted as Ciria used her powers to pull them up. It was the same thing as shaping sand, simply using the material in the ground and guiding it serve a different purpose. Ciria saw several of the mages in the distance lift off into the air as they went to deal with the crowds. Cars were stalled behind Ciria, two trucks crashed into each other. No one had been hurt, but the vehicles had been made immobile. Ciria turned as she watched the magis used winds to lift one of the trucks into the air and open up the road for more people to flee. She almost smiled, theopped. The crete wall reached the height of the sed floor window. Ciria almost got hopeful, and the the little voi her mind to move faster guide her.

  Who was Ciria joking? Aire ti been shifted.

  Ciria started to pull the wall higher.

  Wave hits Endmond, Southern UNN.

  Uh Toll: 4,250,000

  Ciria’s crete wall reached the fourth floor of the buildings behind her. Some of the people this high up had decided to test their luck by staying iy rather than attempting an escape. Ciria did not know if she deserved that level of trust. A year ago, she would have been happy that the people were so fident in her ability. And now? She had failed in the Peace ference back then, she had simply given up and decided that it was not worth it. That the old breed of Divines was simply unsalvageable.

  Well, maybe the old breed of Divines was not her problem. Maybe they should simply go and kill themselves for the good of Arda. But if it was as simple and as easy as that, then would there have been a Great War in the first pce?

  Halkus jumped from the pier onto a yacht that erating itself under his and. The great tainer ships and tahat had been docked where being guided by Ciria’s husband out to the sea. It didn’t matter where, they simply shouldn’t be in the port for wheidal wave came. Ciria held her breath as she pulled oo reinforce to her wall. crete was good, crete was strong, but she doubted that crete alone would stand against the whole might of a shifted o. Metal from the plumbing systems, from the street mps, from the buildings themselves and from the cars that had been abandoned on the roads by the people, shot into the crete and started iwining through it like spider-webs. A few helicopters were flying in the sky, now purple from the setting Sun, as more pnes were flying to the cities in the south.

  Ciria saw the tide start to retreat. It was ing.

  Wave hits Onktoral UNN.

  Uh Toll: 12,800,000

  To the sixth floor, Ciria’s crete wall rose. Iwined with steel for support, it was a challeo put, goo save people from avanches before. She had reinforced cities in times of flooding too, and she had stopped a few tidal waves in the past. But nothing like this, never had a floodwall o be so thick, so tall, and on such a short notice of time. Behihe roads had died down. People were actually starting to return to their homes.

  That was good, they should head to the upper floors, even if the wall fell, then Ciria could reinforce the structures so they would not colpse. Whatever breed of God Essa was, Ciria was the exact opposite. The Goddess of Civilization smiled at the thought. That was ohing she could be proud of: she was not Essa.

  So Ciria kept ing the wall higher, as helicopters circled around her, rec the event. As other helicopters went out to scout the retreating waters. As people cmbered onto rooftops and started ying sandbags out in front of their homes. As the Sun began to set over Newford, Ciria kept on pulling every inaterial not crucial for a building with people in out of the city and into her protective barrier.

  Wave hits Mulley, tral UNN.

  Uh Toll: 23,900,000

  Ciria stared out into the o. Fish and other sea creatures were jumping on ft ground as Halkus returned on a helicopter. He dropped from it o Ciria and looked around grimly. “Are the ships gone?” Ciria asked.

  “I got most of them past the wave and onto the open o.” Halkus said. “I’ll hold the ohat the wave carries.”

  “Is it big?” Ciria asked.

  “It’s big.” Was all Halkus said. Ciria felt her knees shake and sweat stream down her fad dampen her shirt.

  “Hold me Halkus.” Ciria said. “Keep me standing, I’ll keep on pulling it up.” Ciria closed her eyes and worked without seeing. There was nothing to see anyway, she was simply repeating the same motion. More material pulled into the foundation, the foundation would be shifted upwards, metal would be collected, the metal would reinforce her barrier, and then she would repeat the a. She was gd Halkus didn’t say anything, her mouth was too dry to answer right now. Instead, he merely stood behind her, ed his arms under hers, a Ciria standing. Ciria heard a crash. In the distance, like a thousand different thurikes all overpping over one-ahe Goddess of Civilization opened her eyes.

  Ciria saw the horizon move.

  Wave hits Newford, Northern UNN.

  Ciria caught her breath and almost gagged at the sight. That wasn’t a wave. That was a wall. A moving wall of blue so dark it may as well have been bck. The cargo ships it had swallowed were little more than tiny little needles in it. Ciria felt her eyes tear up in fear. She pushed it away, Halkus’ touch stabilized her emotions, and she merely kept on raising the wall as that moving mountain, stretg endlessly from ead of the horizon, barrelled towards them.

  It crashed half way across the distance, ung a spray that may as well have been rain towards Newford. And thankfully, the waters did not rise even to half the height of that first wave again. Instead, they roared onwards, straight at the defences Ciria had put up.

  Ciria raised her arms higher as the floodwall started to climb. The o crashed into it like a battering ram crashing into a castle gate. If Ciria was not reinf the stone underh with magic, stantly re-arranging itself to re-fill cracks as the material groaned. For a moment, Ciria had oupid thought that the waters would retreat immediately. That all she had to do was withstand the initial crash, and that then she would have saved Newford.

  Ciria stared down in horror as the o started to rise. And it rose quickly too.

  Ciria’s crete climbed higher as it kept pace with the o. She had used all the power she could mao hold onto, and she could only build one wall to proteewford. Here, she had only mao roll a boulder into the river. All it did was slightly stall the water as they raced around them.

  In the grand scheme of things, when it came to the entire east coast of the UNN, Ciria’s wall was merely a single piece of tape across the hole in the sinking ship. She had saved how many millions? The people who had stayed behind when they got hat a Divine was ing to help had freed up the roads for those who decided to leave anyway. Her interventio that every pne in the try could be diverted to another city, more pressing.

  One million? Two?

  Let’s say even five million.

  A drop in the bucket.

  The worst part was, it was an unneeded loss. Ciria had met Kassandora and had met Essa. She had told them both to stop. She had tried to vihey had merely ridiculed her like a child. Yet the only point where Ciria had been wrong was in the scale; even she did not think any of them were capable of this. Ciria’s crete walls climbed higher as Halkus raised his hands and forced the engines of the ships to turn on. Anchors dropped, and the huge vessels just about barely stopped from crashing into Ciria’s floodwall.

  They had treated her and Halkus like children, and now her and Halkus were ing up their mess. Who was the real child now? Ciria bit her tongue in rage. She rarely got angry, and usually she tried to quell those fmes of anger within herself. Not today. Today, those fires were righteous. She khey were.

  The lot of them should have been killed then and there. Instead, Waeh had died. Instead Epa had goo war. Instead, two tis were burning with war, and half of the world was flood. The lot of them were terrible. Essa, Kassandora, Maisara and Arascus. Alsaria too. The woman had always said that everything would work out. Ciria’s crete walls grew half way to the size of skyscrapers as they started to thi. The buildings behiarted to expand and reinforce the floodwall, else it would colpse from its own sheer scale. All of them. Alsaria and Zerus and Sceo. All of them! And what was Fortia?

  Fortia? Goddess of Peace? What a joke. Fortia would be satisfied with a world under oyrant simply because it meant that there was a ck of war. What a child. Kassandora? Why was she even respected? Because the woman had a total orality? Because her vis were ones of utter immorality? Was that it? And Essa?

  Ciria could not believe she had ever once respected the woman.

  Once, she had even thought Essa to be the most intelligent and knowledgeable of them all. The Archivist of Arda, even if the woman died now, she would leave a perma mark on history simply through the sheer number of historical records she had made first-hand. And now? No. Essa was not stupid, that, Ciria could not believe. She wished she could though. That would offer an easier expnation thaernative.

  Because if the person who cracked a ti was not stupid, then what were they?

  ti Crag fatalities within the UNN on the first day: 36,800,000.

  The number would rise to 55,500,000 over the course of the week. Disease and starvation would lead to aimated 5 million dead over the hree months. The UNN itself tracks deaths at 62,832,933.

  The War College of Arcadia, within the month, would release a statement officially saned by Essa, Goddess of Magic, listihs at only 43, this is the sorcerers who burheir lives out during Starfall.