PROLOGUE

 Once, men did not know that gods exist. They were blind to the signs, and deaf to the call of the gods. Until a man at sea first heard the winds and saw no smoke where fire burned.

 The gods would go on to communicate with him, direct him, order his dealings.

He would go on to make his Clan acknowledge the gods and then conquer other clans and make them acknowledge the gods too.

The gods were pleased and so Touched him with gifts.

 The gods now walked amongst men, and every now and then, when they sought to bless man, they gave their Touch to those whom they found worthy.

 The goddess of the winds gave power of emotions, and the goddess of sea the power of healing, the god of the earth sometimes Touched with strength, the god of fire with dreamwalking.

 Centuries later, the mingling of the gods in the affairs of men would tell on them. Kingdoms would rise and fall. The gods would bless with terrible gifts those to pleased them, those who passed their tests.

There was war amongst the gods too; some were for leaving the affairs of men to men, others would rather mingle in the affairs of man.

Battles and wars were fought, and the gods would dole out gifts as they pleased.

The god of death and war thrived, and when other gods would bestow powers a fraction of what they could do, he bestowed on a man a part of himself, he created a demigod.

The demigod would go on to wreak havoc on the world, the power of death lived within him and the world was on the precipice of destruction.

The goddess of life was amongst those who sought for the gods to part with man's affairs.

She too gave a part of herself to a woman, who would temper destruction with justice.

More centuries would go by and stories of the gods would be told. Touched passed down from generation to generation but the gifts of death and life only surface once in decades, it was such dangerous thing for these gifts to be found easily in man. The world could so easily be upended again.

 Take the power of death for instance, a touch, just a touch, and another soul would fade into oblivion.