A World Reborn: Children of Heroes

By Krista Gossett

Beginning the World Trilogy of the Heroes, World, Universe Chronicles, Eden, the daughter of Rienna, is anxious to discover where her mother and uncle have disappeared to. With her uncle Seije, she is forced to leave her childhood home and insists they travel North. They didn't find answers to her mysterious powers the first time, but she is sure that the timing just wasn't right. Eden is not as alone as she thinks when other 'children' discover their own powers awakening and often in devastating ways.

The first book in the World Trilogy; this trilogy can standalone or following the Heroes Trilogy. An adult epic fantasy containing strong themes of sex, violence and morality.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Krista Gossett
• Release date: Jul 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463147269

Krista Gossett

Krista Gossett is a professional graphic artist/illustrator as well as an author. Her first love was comic book art and video gaming which helped her develop an interest in creating her own worlds. Krista has two degrees in graphic design and would love to teach someday. Artists never retire. She also raises her two awesome nephews and hopes to always be a role model that encourages them to follow their own dreams as well.

Book preview

To my African Cichlids,

For your unblinking judgment and productive distraction

Stay beautiful.

There are nine of these books and I oddly have an idea of who I want to put in the dedications in some order that only makes sense to me.

This one had no plans.

To Erika and Debbie, my first fans and great friends besides.

To the rest of you,

You’ll get yours…

Chapter 1: A Garden of Eden

Chapter 2: Center of the Sun

Chapter 3: Flights of Fancy

Chapter 4: Pandora’s Box

Chapter 5: The Stars Will Lead Us

Chapter 6: Cold Company

Chapter 7: Son of the Sun

Chapter 8: Words with Wings

Chapter 9: Dark Before the Dawn

Chapter 10: Northern Lights

Chapter 11: Chill and Serve

Chapter 12: Hotter than Hell

Chapter 13: Birds of a Feather

Chapter 14: Kiss of Shadows

Chapter 15: Spark

Chapter 16: Avalanche

Chapter 17: Burn the World

Chapter 1: A Garden of Eden

Eden frowned at the water bubbling from under the tangled roots of her mother’s favorite tree. Her mother had spun a great many unbelievable tales throughout her childhood, but the one she thought of now spoke of a cavern beneath the roots of this tree where a shallow pool of water hid a precious cache. This was where her mother had received the armor Sea Star had left her and the dress, tiara and necklace that Eden’s mother had left behind with her now. Her mother had been gone for a few months by this time, chasing after Uncle Melchior when he had disappeared before that. He was the brother of the father she never met and also the man her mother loved, although it had once been the opposite. She had met him in the Queen’s jail when she was only four years old and had instantly liked him; he was a warm, humorous man that doted on her and her mother and she never missed out on having a father with him around.

She rose up from her curious crouch, still frowning at the pooling water. She told herself she was being foolish; did she really believe much of anything her mother had told her when she was a child? What tales she did tell seemed incomplete, never more so than when her mother would drift off right in the middle and change topic altogether. Eden had been fairly sheltered growing up, even though they had traveled all over Vieres in her early childhood. She was 15 now and she had been able to verify much of the history her mother had told, but no one ever seemed to know where the elementals or the old gods had disappeared to. She wasn’t allowed to tell anyone she could use magic either, because magic supposedly left the world with them. All the same, even being privy to a magical secret, there were some things that just seemed fantastical to her now. Uncle Melchior had always been the better storyteller but certainly not more credible. Like most fantastical tales, the details were never ever spun the same. The bards were even worse with the exaggerated weave of incredible lies. As much as she loved Mama and her uncle, she always felt adrift of who they really were.

Eden’s magic had been a boon to her as a child, a source of practical jokes and pranks and delight, but the disadvantages added up over time. She knew that she had killed once, but it wasn’t a memory she cared to revisit. Those men were bad and it was quick and necessary as far as she was concerned. It was because of that incident that they had gone to the north where the Children of the Old Gods had lived (where Queen Lyria was from but later moved to the Kingdom of Abundance where she lived with her husband and King, Pierait—both friends of Mama’s and Melchior’s). Because Eden’s powers resembled theirs, they had hoped to find answers but only left with more questions. They had seemed anxious even then and even sort of relieved when they departed. Her powers, while controllable in the beginning, became wilder as she grew older. She could not touch anything without freezing it, just as Lyria’s powers had affected her ability to touch others. Like Lyria, she could avoid it by wearing gloves, but it still meant she could not kiss boys like normal teenage girls could. Not that there were any boys to be found around the cottage she grew up in. For some reason, her powers caused feelings of guilt in her mother and though she tried to assure Eden that the blame was not hers, the strain on her mother hurt her heart. She was a practical girl so she was able to get along fine without touching people, as Lyria had done, and she met her mother’s pity with annoyance as she grew. Eden had no use for pity. She had no use for boys either.

Lost in her thoughts, she barely registered that she had wandered over to her mother’s favorite blue roses, ignoring the pool around the tree for now. She removed her glove and caressed the bloom, feeling the life and warmth of the beautiful flower mere moments before the cold stole its life. It was still beautiful, encased in the crystalline ice, but once melted, the petals would bruise and slough off in wet brown hunks of decay. Her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to believe it was for the flower that she had loved to death, but in truth, as strong as she pretended to be, she dearly missed her mother. She missed ‘Scruffy Guy’ too (the nickname she teased Uncle Melchior with), but it was her mother’s absence that made her loneliest.

Eden’s mother Rienna had been a strong young girl before becoming a hero and a mother, always so sure that she wanted to be a warrior as her father was. Eden had inherited her soft grey eyes from her mother and they had little else in common but stubbornness and quick reflexes. It had not disappointed Rienna that her daughter was more feminine, that Eden liked pretty gowns and jewelry and preferred dancing to swordplay. Her mother had always been supportive, but nonetheless insisted that her daughter at least know how to fence and wield a knife, lest men are ever foolish enough to mistake kindness (or femininity) for weakness. She held her tongue that her skin was plenty deterrent enough. Melchior had been a good teacher as well when her mother had other things to attend to. They were an odd pair when sparring; he the scarred fiery giant and she the icy petite child, but he was surprisingly quick and strong. His deadliest weapon was his distracting ability to make her laugh.

Melchior had been summoned to New Myceum by the new Council there. No friends of theirs were in power there (unless you counted Sylvas who started Myceum’s Council from his own position on the Queen’s Council), but when Lyria got word of their situation, she had referred them to him. It did not matter that how he came by the knowledge of Myceum was painful, Melchior was one of the few left alive that knew the lay of the city top to bottom. He had been summoned and enslaved there once when a man named Viper had tried to destroy the world. Unfortunately, gruesome events from years before had left the city’s sewer systems clogging still with the foul organic sludge of human remains and even now, there were robots that would spring into action and murder unsuspecting visitors. Eden had teased him about being a plumber but he had taken it good-naturedly as he always had. Eden had no way of knowing what horrors truly happened there and was mortified that she had been so careless about her comment once Seije had explained it to her. For all that Eden had heard of his famous temper, he never once turned it on her or Rienna. She may have called him Uncle, but he was a father to her and worshipped her mother. They were embarrassingly mushy sometimes, but she supposed that was love.

When he had left and took far too long to come back, her mother did not hesitate to go look for him. She was already impatient, not wanting to let him go without her, but Eden had been sick and Melchior would not hear of trying to take a sick girl with them or letting her be without her mother. Eden once again felt wretched that she was the underlying reason, so before her mother could even argue, she commanded her mother to go after him—that she would be all right with Uncle Seije, Arden and Lily. She knew what it cost her mother to be apart from Melchior; they had been inseparable for as long as she could remember and she would not be so childish as to cling now.

Uncle Seije wasn’t her true uncle, but he was the brother of her mother’s dearest friend (Krose) and for her first few years of life, he was the only other constant in her life other than her mother. Arden and Lily had been around too, but Seije was a sort of foundation, the rock that held them all in place. She suspected that Arden and her mother had had a thing once, but they had an easy friendship that didn’t make whatever past they had awkward. Lily would always braid Eden’s hair (carefully, for even her scalp could chill Lily’s fingers if she were careless) and fawn over how white it was. The snow white of her hair had come from her father Ashe and his mother, both of whom she never got to meet.

It was confusing explaining what fragmented things she knew to others, but to her, it was the only life she knew. Rienna had told her daughter that some of the stories were protected due to a vow they made when they stopped the old ones from destroying what they made. In every other way, her mother seemed sane but when she started talking about the past, her mother was suddenly a stranger to her. Maybe that was true enough. She had made the mistake of finding one of her mother’s journals once and had blushed at her mother’s love life. She cringed at the sexual aspect but when it mentioned her father, she couldn’t bring herself to stop looking for more. Her father had been a brave warrior, like his brother, but he had also been kind. As much as ice were a part of her though, there was something missing about the past that chilled and disturbed her to the core. She was looking for a romance and stumbled into a nightmare. Only a taste because her mother had been careful never to reveal too much.

Eden’s attention snapped back to the pool of water when she heard a nauseating gurgle as the pool seemed to vomit something onto its surface. Eden hesitantly edged closer, pulling up the dragging hem of her sky-blue gown as her curiosity urged her to get a better look. In the water laid a braided plait of hair woven with mother of pearl strands, to the letter of the one her mother claimed to leave there over a decade and a half ago. The one she could not bear to keep because it reminded her too strongly of the tainted memory of her first love, the boy she only called Belias. He had been Uncle Melchior’s friend and one of the reasons she never met her father. Although her mother hadn’t been certain he were Shade or man, it was his face that became tainted with the memory. Belias could have been her father, if a mad man hadn’t changed the fate of the world. It still made her head spin. Through all of their struggles, it was one man’s twisted tale of ennui and love that tipped the scales.

Eden did not realize her hand had gone to her stomach and her skin was losing its color in her fear. She stepped back, dropping the dress she held up and let her magic swirl around her, freezing the pool. She thought that would be the end of it, but another sick lurch cracked the ice and the fetid water pulsed from the fissure like an infected wound, great belching bubbles of sludge pulsing through. Being halted seemed to anger the water and the pool grew more quickly. Eden screamed when she felt a hand on her arm and turned to see Seije, his face more serious than usual, as he took her by the wrist and pulled her away.

Uncle Seije, what about the house? Eden cried out in a panic, but Seije shook his head.

We’ll have to let it go, Eden; whatever protection your mother and Melchior gave to this place, it has been revoked. Do not worry, child. I will not let you come to harm, Seije told her in the softest way the man could manage. Seije was hard-edged to a fault, but where Rienna and Eden were concerned, he did try. Eden panicked inwardly—did that mean something had happened to her mother? To Melchior? What was this place being protected from?

Despite all of the years of travel (after going north, they had gone to visit their friends quite often), Eden and her odd family had kept their base here in the past five years and when Eden cried out again, it was due to her sense of loss. Her heart dropped seeing the swelling pool ravage the edge of the pretty cottage and swallow the garden her mother and Lily had spent so much of their time on. She barely registered Seije placing her on his horse as she watched her mother’s practice dummy bobbing lazily before disappearing into the intrusive swampy water.

It seemed like the foul swamp was gaining on them and Eden shrieked when they suddenly lurched forward, a sickening crack signaling the horse’s front legs had snapped as they plunged for the ground. Seije wrapped himself around her but the impact still jarred her as the edges of his armor bit into her. The ground was sinking into fetid bubbling pools all around them and he pulled her to her feet and it took her a moment to realize he was screaming at her to move her feet as he tugged on her hand. She worked her legs mechanically, not daring to look back at the horse that they could not help. Seije pitched forward and she smacked into his back. His foot was stuck in a sudden sinkhole and Eden pushed her hands forward to freeze the ground. He was able to shatter the frozen mud and they ran on.

Good thinking, Eden, but we’re not out of this yet! Seije praised, urgency in his voice warning her to stay vigilant.

She wasn’t sure how much longer they ran—blackness swallowed her as her lungs struggled to bursting.

Eden hadn’t been able to talk for hours after the waters came. Seije had carried her to the south towards Neibelung but Seije seemed indecisive about where to go. Most of their friends were close to there; Finn and Verity were just northwest of the southernmost port city of Xanias and Krose, Alys, Dinsch and Seles were still running the headquarters of their famous chain of inn/restaurants in Neibelung, the electric city. They all had children, some around Eden’s age, but Seije seemed hesitant to find them just yet. None of them knew Eden’s secret and she struggled to keep it one even as isolated as they had been. They might be the best people to trust, but in Seije’s experience, it was much easier to trust no one first and then add to that number as needed.

For the time being, Seije decided to head to a place where his brother Krose had been before and where Eden’s own father had lived for years after surviving another of Erised’s attempts to kill him: the town of Guileford. Seije had been stationed there a few times, enough that he had procured a small farmhouse in a private location. He wouldn’t keep Eden there longer than necessary but the girl was nervous and they needed a place to stay while they planned where to go next.

Now that Eden had found her voice and her feet (it had been awkward to wake in her uncle’s arms), the girl was rapid-firing questions: how would her mother and Melchior find her again? What about Arden and Lily; they hadn’t said goodbye either? Seije didn’t know the answers but he wouldn’t come right out and say so—she needed to be placated so he told the girl that he was going to take care of that and please don’t get worked up; he didn’t want to end up a human popsicle. He had meant it to be a joke but Eden looked sad when he said it.

I’m sorry, Eden, I didn’t mean anything by that, Seije somberly interjected.

Eden shot him a smile and patted his hand.

I know, Uncle Seije—I’m just… scared. I thought I could be brave, but I’m not as strong as my mother, Eden told him sadly.

That’s not true, child; what you did when I got stuck back there, that was not something most girls would do, reacting so quickly like that. You may be a different brand of strong. There are stories your mother could never tell you, but she had not thought of herself as strong then either. Never would have admitted it though, stubborn as she is, Seije told her in that tone of finality she had learned not to argue with. Was it true? Eden’s life always felt fragmented; was that a price her mother paid as well?

Seije wanted to keep Eden company when they arrived at the farmhouse, but he knew he had to work fast to figure out what steps they had to take next. He felt guilty but patted her hands again and nodded his head towards the house.

Eden, will you be okay seeing to yourself and exploring on your own for a bit? he asked her, searching her face. When she nodded quickly, he smiled and touched her cheek with a gloved hand. Atta girl… Don’t go too far.

Eden sighed heavily. She hated when Seije still talked to her like she was a small child. Fifteen-year-old girls could get married these days. She felt forlorn again, but it was also true that marriage probably wasn’t in the cards for her either. Lyria had thought so too, but when Pierait had taken on the Wellspring, she had been able to touch him. Later, her powers had dissolved altogether and she was able to let down her guard. But their story was rarer than even once in a lifetime—that was once in the history of forever. Eden didn’t believe she’d ever stumble on such a slim chance, told herself it wasn’t even something she wanted. Once she had heard her mother lament that she would never forgive herself if Eden’s curse was the price she paid for her mistakes. Eden was tired of hurting her mother, angry with both herself and Mama for not being a normal child. But what did her mother believe exacted such a price on her own progeny? With her mother, there were always more questions than answers.

Eden walked around, touching things around the farmhouse only through the fabric of the gloves that protected them from the cold magic in her hands. She could make them freeze still if she wanted to, but without the fabric, they would whether she wanted them to or not. She wished she had had time to grab some of her clothes from the cottage and would love a shower (baths were, of course, another thing she could never enjoy, unless being broken out of a block of ice was her idea of relaxing). She could run boiling hot water over her skin and it neither had time to burn her nor freeze on her skin. That much was a comfort at least.

She tired of wandering around after a while; some part of her hoped there would be a sort of adventure here, but she resigned herself to her boring, unfortunate life. Be careful what you wish for, her mother would say, a life of adventure is overrated. Some part of her yearned for the adventure her mother had tasted. She never would have said as much to her mother, a woman that was both haunted and starry eyed in her revelry when she thought no one was looking. Those extreme ups and downs were what made a life, but her mother always seemed so deadset on achieving balance. Eden had always been so careful, she had needed to be, but what would it be like to take on life with all its risks and uncertainties? She was anxious still, knowing from Seije’s stony face that something was amiss. Maybe she spoke too soon. Uncertainties were not foreign to her. No, for Eden it was the inability to find her answers that agonized her. The sun was leaving the sky so she decided it was time to go find Seije and see if he had decided what to do next.

When she found him, he was poring over a book, flipping through the pages hungrily, managing to look both shocked and unhappy. It was some sort of leather-bound book and when he saw her come closer, he slammed it shut and tucked it away, trying to smile past his disturbed expression.

Your mother and Melchior are okay at least, but it may be some time until we see them again. For now, I think we might need to visit the Diviners again. Not right away, mind you, but if we don’t find answers here, it seems as good a choice as any. You remember the Diviners? Seije asked her now and she nodded.

The Children of the Old Gods, where Queen Lyria is from, Eden recited obediently. Don’t rush ahead—how do you know they’re okay and why are we going the opposite direction? Mama and Melchior are south of here…

Even though she argued, she knew somehow that he was right. When she had been musing on her own, she kept feeling the strange urge to go north. It went against logic and it bothered her.

Seije struggled to find the answer, knowing he could not come clean with her just yet. Even he was not meant to know, but he couldn’t exactly ‘unknow’ it now.

Because someone else we need to find thinks there might be an answer there. Also some answers move with the people that have them, Seije told her cryptically.

Eden frowned and pouted stubbornly. She never looked more like Rienna than when she did that and it tugged a smile from Seije’s hard mouth.

And is there actually an answer? I’m so done with more questions. You know, those things you avoid when you want to treat me like a child? Eden retorted. She hated that she did sounds like a child just then, but she held her icy stare with defiance.

Seije laughed and shook his head.

No, but that’s not why we’re going. Eventually. If I treat you like a child, it’s because you are one. Don’t be in such a hurry to grow up, Seije told her, shrugging as if that were all he could say.

Eden narrowed her eyes, tired of the games. She knew she was being foolish to instigate when he was right, but she was her mother’s daughter and she didn’t like losing.

You wouldn’t by chance have clothes to change into and a hot shower here? she finally asked, giving up on the hope of learning more. Although, it might be a little weird that he has clothes in her size here…

If you don’t mind some of your mother’s old clothes, then I can accommodate. I’ve let her use this house on some of her trips before and she always left things behind. It’s a bit of a waypoint for a few old friends as a matter of fact. Lucky for you, I only seem to have two water temperatures here: ice cold and lava, Seije offered.

She managed to find a deep blue suede fitted top and pants with laces that could be adjusted to fit her better and she was all too happy to accept ‘lava’ as her temperature of choice. She knew it was too much to hope her mother might leave a gown, but the ensemble was flattering. It was cut to a woman’s curve but moved without inhibiting her in the least. Her mother was a warrior first and then a woman. She was surprised to see that she looked more like a woman than she would have thought possible, which was, of course, no comfort to overprotective Uncle Seije, judging by his barely-veiled look of dismay. If you know anything about teenagers though, they know they’re heading