Free The Guardian's Grimoire by Rain Oxford Page A

Tiamat.”
    “Well, that’s… a much cooler story.” I let it soak in
for a few minutes. “How do you know all that if you never met her?”
    “Not even the Guardians know everything about the
gods. This is no more than one of the bedtime stories told to Ronez and me, but
it is far more accurate than the stories told on Earth and Duran. Even sago
know there are only twelve gods. On Duran, twelve is a number of magic, and a
child’s twelfth birthday is special.”
    “So Tiamat was willing to give power to the humans
and side with them over another god. Is it unusual for the gods to turn against
each other like that?”
    “As far as I’ve gathered, very. Sometimes it seems
like she is an innocent, playful, naive child compared to the other gods, and
sometimes it seems like she is much more powerful, lethal, beautiful, and wise
than them.”
    I considered this for a while. “What are the other
gods like?”
    “The only god I’ve ever met was Erono, the god of
Duran.” He turned the pages in my book to the very front and pointed to a name.
It looked Hebrew. “That’s Tiamat’s signature. Each god signs their own book,
but no other god can sign his name in it. The gods don’t need the books to
travel between worlds.”
    We sat in silence for a while. At first, it was a
comfortable silence, but then it slowly came over me just how different my life
would be. I didn’t know the culture, the language, the food… I couldn’t call
Vivian. “Vivian loved the rainforest. She would have loved to see this. She’s
going to be so mad at me when she finds out I’m not coming back.”
    Edward frowned. “I thought she would be upset, not
mad. Did you love her?”
    I leaned my head back against the tree. “I never said
it, but I think so.”
    “You’ll fall in love again someday. The first time
you lose someone to old age, you’ll realize what immortality is.”
    “Time is a great healer, but an even greater thief.
You gain the power and the history, your life becomes rich with the joys of the
world, and your soul becomes empty with the ripping away of everything that
made those joys enjoyable.”
    I couldn’t discern Edward’s frown. “Have you ever
tried seeking a therapist?”
    I laughed. “How do you deal with immortality?”
    “What else would I do? There’s no way around it, so I
have to accept it.” He pointed to a spot deep in the woods, where a creature
resembling a deer-sized cow was grazing. It had the black-and-white pattern and
shape of a cow, but was much smaller and skinnier. “That’s a yorkie. It’s tough
and sweet, but very satisfying.”
    “A yorkie? Mother had a yorkie that tried to eat me.”
I nearly laughed at his startled expression. “A yorkie is a small dog on my
world.” I raised the gun at the animal and imagined it barking at me. I tried
to pull the trigger, but it wouldn’t budge. Edward’s gun went off and the
animal burst off at a run.
    I lowered the gun to examine it, but I couldn’t
understand why it hadn’t gone off. Edward very slowly reached for a little
button behind the trigger and pressed it. “That’s a safety button. You can’t
shoot with it on.”
    “Why do guns even have safety buttons?” I growled,
completely humiliated.
    “It’s safer. Let’s get the yorkie and get home.”
    “Are you certain you got him? I was sure he took
off.”
    He started forward, so agile and light that I felt
even clumsier than I was. “I never miss,” he finally said.
    Sure enough, the animal was only a few feet from
where it’d been shot. It looked more like a deer than it had from a distance.
Its fur was long and white with large black splotches. Luckily, it was actually
dead, because to see the animal suffering on the brink of death would have been
too much.
    “What? Death doesn’t make you sick, does it?” Edward
asked regarding my mien, which must have expressed my pity.
    Of course not; I welcome it with open arms. “No, it’s just that Vivian was a tree