The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2
Chapter 191

Part 26

"Every Candidate will be closely examined by me before I make them divine, and I may not choose to do it for some of them. They don't need any special qualities to qualify, but they can't have any bad qualities that I think would make them a problem once they have divine power.

"There are many who deserve to be first, for many reasons, but there was never any doubt in my mind who I would choose.

"Talia my love, come and join me." he smiled as he held his hand out to her.

She Translocated to him, and placed her hands in his.

He smiled a little wider as he picked her up and cuddled her small body in his arms, then he closed his eyes, Linked with her completely, and led her down the path he'd chosen. It was over in a blink, with only a quick flash of bright light.

He released her, and she floated standing in the air with her arms held out to her sides, threw her head back, and laughed in giddy ecstasy.

Visinniria and Heklivmalgiso, until that moment the only elven gods, appeared on either side of her and touched her hands.

"Welcome to the family, Little Sister." Heklivmalgiso pronounced with the biggest and happiest grin that anyone had ever seen him wear, and the two elven gods hugged Talia with great joy.

"Alilia my love, come and join us." Mark invited, and held his hand out to her. She hugged him around his neck as he cast upon her and with her, and a moment later it was done.

"We'll run out of room on the stage soon." Amirgath grinned. "So we'll leave you to it."

As the gods, Talia, and Alilia left the stage, Mark communicated privately.

"Yazadril and Nemia, you're both Candidates to be New Gods.

"Hilsith, you're not. I know the gods said you were a Candidate for Divinity when we first met them, but you're not a candidate for my process. I'm sorry, and you may be in the future, but for now you're not. "Do the three of you want some time to make decisions?"

"No!!!" Hilsith insisted with a big smile. "It matters not that I won't join them in divinity right now, I trust that they'll love me just the same, and I refuse to hold them back! I know they would both refuse it for my sake, and I will not allow it! Especially since I know for certain that Yazadril wants this very very much!"

"Then that is how it shall be." Mark told them as the three joined him on the stage. "Hilsith, I promise that I'll do my best to help you achieve Candidacy, and constantly monitor you for it, and help you Ascend as soon as you reach it.

"Yazadril, Nemia, take my hands and prepare yourselves."

With Hilsith between them and an arm around her each, they reached out to Mark with their other hands. A second after he held them, it was done with a quick, bright flash.

"Thank you." Yazadril told him in a distracted manner, both he and Nemia seemingly struck with awe. "Thank you, a million times thank you. This is by far the most wondrous thing that's ever happened to me." "It's pretty good all right." Nemia laughed. "I wouldn't it's say better than falling in love with you or birthing my daughters. But it's better than anything else.

"And Hilsith, we love you even more."

As they left the stage, Mark privately communicated again.

"Povon, you're a Candidate. Kragorram, you're not a Candidate, but you're very, very close to being one. The work and learning you've done with the rest of us have done you a lot of good. I'm pretty sure that if I help Povon Ascend first, then between the two of us we can bring you to full Candidacy, and then I can make you a god."

"Then by all means, proceed!" Kragorram urged him. "I was not on your last list of Candidates at all, and I very much want to join Povon in this, so I will take any chance to do so that you can give me." "All right. Povon, here we go." Mark told them, and a few seconds later both dragons had Ascended.

Silaran and Equemev were next. Though Silaran had not been one of Mark's Candidates before he went into his people's time-bubble in Xervia for sixteen years, he was now, and Mark was soon done with both of them.

As the unicorns were leaving the stage, every one of Kellaran's old gods jumped a bit like they'd been poked in the ribs by surprise.

"By all the stars above!" Heklivmalgiso exclaimed as he appeared floating above and before Yazadril, Nemia, and Hilsith. "How did you do that?!"

"We did nothing!" Yazadril proclaimed. "She did it all herself, I assure you!"

"Hilsith, you have become a goddess!" Heklivmalgiso declared in amazement. "But you are not one of The New Gods as Mark and your two lovers here are! You have Ascended in the conventional way, and you are exactly the same in nature as Visinniria and myself! How have you done this?!"

"Well, I'm Yazadril and Nemia's Healer, and I love them, so I watch out for them." Hilsith told him in a somewhat distracted manner. "When Mark was giving them the Ascension, I wasn't Linked with them, but I was Reading them as thoroughly as I could. But I wasn't really paying attention to that. I had all my diagnostic spells running on them, and with the improvements I've made in those lately, they act like a complete Reading, only of the body rather than the mind.

"Where anyone else might have been paying attention to the changes in their minds or to the energy that was exchanged and was acting on them, I was mostly paying attention to the physical changes happening in their bodies, in fine detail.

"Then after it was over, part of my attention was on them and what was happening here, but part of my attention started correlating the Reading to the diagnostics, noting what changes were happening in their bodies when changes occurred in their minds and their powers, and vice-versa.

"Then, I somewhat remember that as we got back here and Nemia was kissing me, in the back of my mind I thought something like; 'Well that makes sense, but why not just do it this way...' "And then it just happened. I'm afraid that's really all I can say about it. Then you were here yelling about the stars above."

"And we are overjoyed that you have joined us!" Heklivmalgiso declared as he came down to the floor and hugged her. "Furthermore, I am satisfied with being vindicated in choosing you as a Candidate for Divinity when we first met. As I said then, your Ascension was dependent on Mark's, and on Yazadril and Nemia's."

"Thank you." she told him as she returned his hug.

Then she looked into Yazadril's eyes, then Nemia's, and held her hands out to them. "I still love you both just as much. And that's a great relief, because I am not the same person I was a few minutes ago. Not in personality, not in outlook, not at all."

"Pshaw, all the parts of you that matter to us are still the same." Nemia assured her. "You just feel different, that's all. And it's very beautiful."

"Part of me wants the three of us to just go somewhere private." Yazadril told them. "Somewhere we can just explore the differences in ourselves and in our love, and the differences between the two kinds of gods that we've become.

"But Mark is still conducting the Ascension of Candidates, and given what's happened here so far, I think we would be wise to give it our undivided attention until he's finished. Who knows what else will happen here today?"

"That is serious truth." Heklivmalgiso agreed. "But do try to memorize what you experienced as you Ascended, each of you. The knowledge could be of incalculable value in the future."

"We have done so to the extent that we are capable, and stored the memories securely." Yazadril assured him.

"Excellent." Heklivmalgiso nodded. "We will soon take time to examine the information in detail. Until then..." He turned to the stage, and bowed. "Mark, I apologize for the interruption. Please continue."☐☐☐☐☐☐☐☐

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