The Scarlet Phoenix and the Prince of Winter

Chapter Sixty One

"Jut to be clear, you are saying that Kentan wanted to kill us so that we could be reborn as humans and gain some new powers?" I asked Volo who immediately nodded. "It sounds so ridiculous. How is that even possible? I can't imagine something outrageous like that to be true unless I saw it with my own eyes!"

"I know that you will react this way," he told me. "But you have to believe me. I found out recently that deities like us don't die the way mortals do. When we die, we have the chance to be reborn as humans."

"And where did you get this information?"

"It's from another deity, who told me that he too was reborn once."

"You met another deity? Are you crazy?" I asked him blatantly. I could not believe that Volo keeps on interacting with other deities after what happened to us with Kentan. He should have learned his lesson by now. Trusting anyone else when after what happened to us at the bay in Plumba is utmost foolery.

"Amato is not like Kentan," he told me. "He is a deity that resides in the skies, so we don't need to be wary about him. He does not like confrontations too."

I was still skeptical at what he was trying to say. "Is that the name of the deity that you talked with? This is the first time that I heard his name."

"That's to be expected," he replied coolly despite my objections and sarcasm. "Amato does not interact with other deities too. He is much like you. He is always on his turf up in the sky. The only reason that I was even able to talk with him was because I happen to fly to up to the skies because I was searching for that dangerous thunderstorm that ravaged the town of Carmel last week. I was investigating it because it did not look like it was just an ordinary thunderstorm.

"Is that so? I have heard that a terrible thunderstorm indeed destroyed a town in Aure, and I bet that it was made by that deity you just mentioned."

Volo nodded. "You are right. Amato did create that thunderstorm, but only to drive away a huge swarm of pest that was coming to our kingdom. However, once the thunderstorm hit Aure he had no longer control over it, as he respects that Aure falls right below our jurisdiction."

I could not help but laugh loudly at Volo's explanation. "That Amato is hilarious. He makes a very dangerous thunderstorm that would hit places where humans love and then would later claim that he won't stop it if it lands on another deity's territory? What is he playing at?"

Volo smiled a little too. "He feels bad about it, but you see, he has to do that. Pests bring famine to the lands and when the land becomes barren, it snowballs. Those pests would have eaten a lot of crops and trees, and when it rains, the barren lands get flooded as there are few plants that help control the flood. Amato knows that worst-case scenario, so he does it from time to time."

"Okay, enough with that lecture. I just want to know what that Amato told you about being reborn as humans since you told me that he was once reborn as one."

"Right. Amato had died before, but he did it to himself. And after he died, his soul traveled and went back to the skies. But the skies did not need a spirit with that power to linger on as it causes disturbances, so Amato's spirit went to the mortals and he was reborn as a human."

"And he became a human and lived like one?"

"Correct. Then after living as a human, he became a deity again. But he has gained new power after that. He now wields the power to create violent storms and thunder strikes."

That sounds amazing, to be honest, but I can't still help but to be skeptical about it. "Okay, let us say that I can kid myself that something like that is really possible," I said impatiently. "But how does that work then? Once we die, do we automatically get born as humans? Is that it?"

"It is not still clear what are the rules to me, but that is the gist of what I heard. It turns out that once we die, our soul, which holds all of our possessed abilities and our sentience, separates from our physical body. Our soul then goes away and search for something that will be able to contain it, most probably a place where we are attached to, while our physical body slowly disintegrates into the mist. And after that happens, we return to nature, as we should be, since theoretically, we deities are nothing but personifications of nature. But as that would cause imbalance to nature, as our powers usually are too much for nature to handle for too long, so to lessen the burden nature turns our spirits into mortals."

"I see... So that's it. That is the theory..."

"I don't think that it is just a theory, Alfiora. Someone has already testified that it actually is a real thing. So I think that it is true."

"Okay, but even if it is true, then why would Kentan wanted us to die like that if that means that we could return as deities again with new powers? How can he be sure that he would still be able to defeat us after we return with new abilities? Is he crazy too?"

"That's the thing. I don't know what Kentan was thinking when he did that to us. But we can't deny now that it was his intention from the very beginning. All that he said back there was just a bluff to trick us."

"But you said that he can steal our abilities. Is that correct?"

"That's what I am thinking. He is known to be a trickster, Alfiora. This was not the first time that he did it. Do you know the powers of the deity that he killed first in that bay before? The reason why he was banished from here in the first place, over a century ago?"

I shook my head. "No, but I think I heard about it from my followers. I think they kept records of histories and tales of the old and they treat it as legends and myths."

"I have researched about it," said Volo, who to me seemed to be a little too much engrossed with these things with Kentan and the other deities. "I don't know who was that deity, but based on what I found, that deity had the power to turn things into gold."

"Oh."

"Suspicious, right?" he said to me, satisfied that I automatically understood what he was trying to say this time. "A deity that can turn anything into gold? That would be a very powerful deity, right? Imagine fighting someone who can make you suddenly weak if that deity fights you with gold in the place where you were born. That would have been traumatic."

"Kentan killed someone like that?" I said, surprised again from this sudden twist to this story. "How did he even do that? Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

"That's what is impressive with him," Volo said and I can't help but glare at him for having admiration for that sick deity. "He was able to defeat a deity that could have smacked him into pieces. My theory is that Kentan used some tricks to defeat that deity because I am pretty sure that there are ways to defeat someone as strong as that deity who can make gold. But Kentan did defeat him, and that is why when he came back here, he came with a golden ship."

I could not believe what I just gathered from all of this information. "So you mean to say, that Kentan was the one who made that golden ship that he used to trick us?"

"That's right. He has now the power to do that, to make things into gold. Another proof of that is that the people that he brought here were from a kingdom in the east called Lam Hon, which was a kingdom that revered to him as their deity. And guess what? That kingdom was overflowing with gold. It has towers and turrets made out of pure gold."

"So you mean that Kentan stole that power to turn things into gold from that deity that he killed?"

"Exactly. That's why he wanted to us to die. He wanted to take our powers, and I guess once we return he was planning to get our new powers again. In short, he was trying to steal our abilities, and not necessarily trying to get rid of us."

Now I understood what Volo was talking about. So Kentan was indeed a pain in the ass, for trying to take our powers from us. And if he succeeded, I could have become a mortal by now. That was a close call, so I guess I should be grateful to those pirates and to my Gypsies as well. They had just prevented Kentan from stealing my powers.

"Now that you know that, we should join our forces together, Alfiora. We could not afford to be defenseless again just like what happened last time. We have to make sure that if someone like Kentan comes again here in Aure, we are already prepared."

I agreed. "You are right. If all of what you said are true, then we might have a big problem in the future. Kentan is a deity too just like us. And since he died in Plumba too, I guess he will be reborn as a human too..."

"And once he comes back to being a deity, he will return much stronger than before."

"That is what we have to be ready for. I am sure that if he comes back he will have his revenge on us."

"We can't let that happen, Alfiora. We have to take the necessary steps so that Kentan would not succeed with whatever he plans to do once he comes back." I had no choice but to go with Volo's plan. Kentan will be a force to reckon with in the future, and I think we will no longer be able to defeat him in a one-on-one battle if heb returns. So we have to something about it. We have to plan our next move for the future.

Which is why the next day, we talked with the council in order for us to take the necessary steps that we have to do. We have informed them of the threat that Kentan would bring in the future once he returns, so the whole kingdom was now in alert of the possibility that Kentan was now a newborn infant somewhere in Aure.

"Could we not just eliminate all of the infants that were born?" one of the council members suggested in one of our meetings. "That way the treacherous deity of the sea would not be able to get back as a deity."

"That's not how it works," I said. "Even if we kill all of the children in the whole Aure, that will not assure us that Kentan would no longer return. It is possible that he was born as a human outside of Aure too. No one said that he will be born here."

"And killing him as a mortal would not make any difference," Volo added. "That would only make things worse than it already is. His spirit will just transfer itself to another human."

"Then what should we do?" asked the young Queen. "Is there a way to determine which child he becomes, now that he is possibly reborn as a human?"

"None that I know of," said the king, but I stood up because I know of something that will help us. "What is it, my dear deity? Do you know something that will help us identify if a human is a reincarnation of a deity?"

"There is," I said to them. "The volcano that I live in is an enchanted place, thanks to me living there for centuries now. The jewels that you will find them are all magical. And one of them, a crystal-clear glass-like jewel, reflects the truth in anything."

Ova, my follower, gasped. "My dear deity, are you referring to the Glass Jewel of Light?"

"That's right. I will go and get it. I will turn it into a mirror which will help us see if a human is indeed a reincarnated deity."