I should have realized mending the rift under Atlantis would cause waves beyond the sea floor.
By the time I emerged, wet from salt and divine magic, the sky was already altered. Clouds twirled in serpentine fashion, laden with celestial energy. The air thinned, became more razor sharp electric. I didn't need to see to realize what was on its way.
They were summoning me home.
Not Earth.
Not any world mortal.
But their realm.
A light broke open over the Atlantic, blinding and icy. It wasn't sunlight. It was divine will a calling. And I could sense it drawing upon the heart of me, the piece I'd only just started to grasp.
I did not fight.
When the world blinked into existence, I stood in a place where time didn't pass, and gravity deferred to presence. Floating marble temples suspended in endless twilight. The sky throbbed with auroras that spoke names older than words.
The gods waited.
They stood in a circle of thrones, hewn out of starlight and ancient obsidian. I knew some of them glimmering shards of myth and childhood legend. Others? I felt their being before I actually saw their shape.
A fire wrapped woman. A man with storm filled eyes. A being of silence, whose arrival thundered greater than thunder itself.
And in the center: Her.
My mother.
She had not aged, naturally. Gods did not. But there was a fierce, mournful quality to her eyes.
"You have finally awakened," she said, advancing, her voice gentle but unyielding. "And the heavens shake because of it."
I didn't say anything initially. My pulse pounded like war drums. My heart, human and divine, beat out of sync.
"I was born anew on Earth," I told her. "No memory. No awareness of who I was. or what I was supposed to be."
"That was the cost," she said. "For your safety. For your freedom."
Another god tall, his body streaked with constellations spoke. "You were kept among mortals to keep you safe from the others. The rogue pantheons. The Outer Eyes. Even the Celestials feared what you could become."
"So you erased my memory? Let me mature like a damaged weapon, not knowing I was armed?"
"You were not a weapon," she replied softly. "You were our last hope for peace."
Peace. That word had ever been bittersweet to me.
"You're expecting me to trust you? After all this?"
The storm-eyed god moved forward, hissing with contained power. "You can be angry later. Currently, we must discuss purpose."
"What purpose?"
"You've started to alter things. Shift balances. Create alliances. Even Darkseid pays attention. The multiverse is responding to you."
My mother came up, her hand stroking my shoulder. It seared not hurting, but like truth burning itself into flesh.
"You are the Child of Convergence. An entity not tied to a single realm. Chaos, Order, Magic, Strength all of them reside within you. That power wasn't inherited. It was forged. And now, those who forged it seek to reclaim it."
"Who?" I asked, already knowing.
"The Old Ones," she replied, low voice. "The gods prior to gods. You've seen their portents. Heard their whispers."
I recalled the trench. The rift. The scream beneath Atlantis.
So it wasn't finished. It was just starting.
"You've become strong," my mother said. "But you'll require more. You must rise again. This time. of your own will."
The stars in the sky shook.
I stood in silence, every part of me struggling. The human part of me wished to shout. The divine part of me wished to ascend. And somewhere in between, a voice I hardly knew whispered:
It's time to become what you were born to be.
"Then tell me everything," I said.
Because whatever came next, I wouldn't face it blind again.