How had the chiasma inside me broken Hera’s charm before?
“Let me go, you twat!” I struggled, attempting to get out of the grip of whoever held me.
“Calm down. It’s just me,” Apollo said, loosening his grip.
“Is it you, though?” I asked. I let my body relax. Turning around, I raked my eyes over his tanned features. He soared through the air, not needing wings. His body was warm, like a heated pavement on a sunny day. “Or are you another one of your clones?”
An arrow made of light zipped through the air and flew through this Apollo. He misted into nothing, just like his similarly weak counterparts did. And he let go of me midair.
I couldn’t control my wings.
Fuck.
Hera needed to let me go. Her magic coiled around me, not giving me control of my own abilities. It felt like I was suffocating from the pressure. I strained and strained, but no amount of mental pushing worked.
I plummeted toward the ground. I reached my fingers out, attempting to grasp at something. Could I die from a fall?
I flipped myself around.
Bad idea.
I came face to face with the ground. It was scarier when I knew what I was going to hit. My wings were dead weight, their heaviness making me fall even faster. I winced, bracing myself for impact.
I was going to hit the ground.
My bones would break.
My insides shattered.
I glared at the ground, not knowing what was going to become of me, bracing for numbing pain.
A bunch of Apollos piled themselves over each other, and instead of smacking against the ground, I hit the mass of cloned bodies. I ground my teeth together, flinching at the impact. They poof-ed out of existence as soon as I hit them. I bounced off them.
And it still hurt like a bitch. I thought I heard my bones cracking, and the ache that followed that sound was unbearably painful. I wasn’t broken, but that didn’t mean that the fall didn’t hurt. I sucked in sharply to cope with the pain. Why the fuck did Apollo need to have such hard abs? He was a specimen of a man, but he’d be a lot comfier to crash into if he packed a few extra pounds around his waist.
Around me, dead bodies lay on the ground. The sounds of battle continued, and the smells of ash and fire and blood wafted toward my nostrils. I blinked myself out of my confusion and flipped myself around. Groaning, I got to my feet.
As soon as I gathered myself, I spotted Clotho.
Clotho, the white-haired goddess, used to be my companion. She’d helped me when I tried to save Danna in the past, but there was no longer any of that friendliness. She rushed toward me like a whirlwind. I shuddered. Clotho was too powerful, and when such a force stared at me with malicious intent, I thought I was going to die.
She threw many arrows made of light at me. They were impossible to dodge. I shut my eyes, ready to be turned into mincemeat. Nobody could survive that.
Nobody could save me from her attack.
For a second, I prayed, hoping there was another god that could save me.
I felt the first arrow hitting me.
The rest followed.
They pierced my body. One by one, pinning me against the ground.
Unbearable, slicing pain shot through me.
And with that, I was taken out.
Fourteen
Devon
The movements around Devon slowed, time stilling to a halt as he saw the arrows hit Cara. Clotho’s magic swallowed her in an instant, the force so strong that it snapped her backward as the arrows punctured her skin.
How was it possible that Cara survived that?
One of Apollo’s clones lunged at Devon, recognizing him as an enemy. Devon thrust his dagger forward and through his opponent. When he did, his attention remained transfixed on Cara.
No, no, no!
He dodged left, avoided the slashing of another opponent. After taking care of his assailant, he ran toward Cara’s limp body. It lay lifelessly on the ground.
Was she dead? Could she survive that?
The goddesses had tried many methods but failed. They couldn’t kill Cara completely because of the chiasma’s power in her. Panic took over Devon as he realized that the chiasma was no longer in Cara but had taken the form of Apollo. Cara was just like any other goddess. She could die from attacks like that.
No!
He halted in front of her, his insides turning as he looked down at the remains of what was Cara. “This isn’t you,” he said, barely recognizing the figure before him. The mangled mess had cuts and abrasions over her skin, her face a ridged, bloody picture of gore. Shaking, he kneeled and took Cara’s hand. It, too, was covered with slick red. “Hey, Cara,” he said, as if calling her name would make a difference. “Cara, can you hear me?”
But, of course, she couldn’t.
She looked dead.
Lifeless.
She didn’t even have a mouth to move.
Devon heard footsteps at his side, heavy like his heart. A warm hand clasped his shoulder, attempting to calm the storm that thrashed in his chest. It didn’t work.
“It’s all right,” Liam said. “She’s… she’s all right.”
But Cara didn’t look all right. Liam was lying to himself, just as Devon wanted to. It was difficult to ignore the truth when it stared Devon straight in the face.
Cara had been missing for a week. During that time, Devon had believed that she was alive, out there and needing them. This, however…
This was unbearable.
Her deformed corpse was a testament to his failure. He’d tried to protect her by summoning the goddesses to their aid. He’d told them of Apollo. Of the truth of why Cara carried out those massacres and why the world was dying. The goddesses pretended to believe him and allied themselves with his cause. Devon had placed hope in the wrong place. He’d thought that maybe if they captured Apollo, they’d be able to stop him from taking Cara away.
But Clotho had betrayed him. She’d promised that she’d focus her offense on Apollo.
He should have known that goddesses made weak promises. He himself had warned Cara of that before. His desperation had blinded him to that, making him eager to find any means he could to save her. The fact that he played a large part of Cara’s death exacerbated the wound in his chest. The war around him might rage, but his heartache made him feel nothing but numbness. An eerie sensation came over him.
“She’s alive,” all the Apollos said in unison. “I can still use her.”
Use. Devon emotions turned cold as ice.
Devon met the gaze of the old god. The Apollo clone in front of Devon seemed different from the others, carrying himself with unparalleled confidence and grace. He seemed more alive than his counterparts. It didn’t take long for Devon to realize that the Apollo in front of him wasn’t a clone at all.
This was the real Apollo.
The power hummed beneath the man’s skin, threatening to explode.
Apollo bent before Cara. Devon shook his head to himself, still not believing that she deserved such a death.
“Her body isn’t suitable for living in,” Apollo said. “At least not in human form.”
Devon’s pulse quickened.
“How do we save her?” Liam asked.
“You can’t,” Apollo replied. “But I will. And the rest of Haven, too.”
Devon sat helplessly as Apollo scooped Cara up in his arms.
“Where will you take her?” Devon asked.
“To see the rest of the old gods.”
“Please, don’t.” He helplessly gazed up at the sun god. Apollo, despite being one man, was winning against the goddesses’ army. Apollo had single-handedly supported the life force of both Haven and Earth for thousands of years. Compared to him, Devon and the goddesses probably looked like children running about.
The sun god stood, taking the love of the Devon’s life away.
Devon’s shoulders slumped as his entire body struggled to keep upright. The weight of his
crimes was too heavy for him to bear.
It’s all my fault.
That was all he could think as he watched Apollo carry Cara away.
The sun glowed brighter than ever today, but all Devon could see was darkness.
Fifteen
Cara
It felt like my consciousness had parted from my body.
Lifting…
…and lifting.
The sensation of floating swirled through my head. My entire body tingled. I thought I heard a muffled male voice in the distance, but that sound could be anything. I thought my body hurt, but I’d gone past the point of pain and into having no feeling at all.
“Hansel?” I called. I was unconscious, but even so, I searched for my vassals, needing their company. I was scared.
Terrified.
What was happening to me? I recalled Clotho’s arrows surging toward me—pain, then nothing.
The pain.
That had been overwhelming. It snapped through me with excruciating force, singeing my veins. I thought I heard Devon talking to me after that, but I couldn’t be sure.
Lifting…
My consciousness ebbed and flowed, drifting in a meandering pattern. I was awake one second, dead the next. I held on to it. I thought that if I didn’t, I might slip completely, disappearing into the chasm of death and never returning. I wondered how long I might be surrounded by this dark blackness, and then—
“Wake up.”
My eyes shot open. Apollo perched over me, studying me with his cold, supernatural gaze. He seemed so tall from this angle. I realized I was sitting, and I had to crane my neck up to look at his chin. Apollo’s presence glowed, as imposing as the sun.
The pain took a while to catch up to my waking. It hit me full force.
“I’m sorry you have to be awake in this state,” Apollo said. “It won’t last long, I promise.”
I inspected myself.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I was cut up everywhere. I couldn’t move any of my limbs. Wounds covered me head to toe. The bottom of my chest was exposed, but there wasn’t even any of it to show, because that had been torn up, too. I thought I saw a bone peeking out from where the flesh of my knee was supposed to be, but my eyes didn’t linger there long enough for me to properly take note. I didn’t want to stare at my own injuries enough to process them.
But I felt them.
Everywhere.
I narrowed my eyes at Apollo, using his presence to distract me from the pain. He wasn’t alone. Gods, as ravishing and compelling as him, stood in a circle, surrounded by pillars. I was on a slab of some sort, laid out like a sacrifice—a toy for the gods to play with.
Where were my vassals? I needed them.
“It’s only temporary,” Apollo said. He wore a headdress. A thin crown with the swirling symbol of the sun in the center of it. His peers wore headdresses too, each adorned with a symbol that indicated what kind of god they were. At least seven of them gathered around Apollo, all of them exuding rich amounts of energy. Energy that was too powerful for the likes of me.
I saw Mother Nyx standing behind Apollo. She was in her human form this time, her hair a beautiful jet black. Her skin was a deep ebony, dark like the night. There was glitter on her skin, reminding me of a galaxy of stars. Her eyes were just like Apollo’s—hauntingly moon-like. She stood out despite the resplendence of the other gods, her appearance enticingly exotic. She wore a gorgeous gown that didn’t seem to have physical form. The fluid robe draped down her breasts. It curved down her waist, around her hips. It dripped toward her legs and misted around her ankles.
But this was no time to be admiring beautiful things.
Fuck this pain.
It grew to unimaginable levels. I arched my back and cried out, unable to bear it. I felt my wings fanning out, but they’d been injured from the torrent of arrows, too, and trying to move merely exacerbated the agony.
“M-make it stop,” I begged.
Apollo trailed his attention on me. “I know it hurts, Cara.”
“N-no fucking k-kidding!” He might as well be reciting the alphabet to me. When suffering this much, my patience ran thin. The pain chained me down like a leash on a rabid dog. I couldn’t move properly.
Apollo’s pupils matched the moons hovering above us. “I can make it better, but you won’t be in this body anymore.”
It dawned on me then what was truly happening. Why the gods and goddesses were all gathered.
They were going to turn me into the chiasma.
This was it.
I had run out of time and was going to be subjected to the ritual.
“Now?” I hadn’t prepared myself.
Apollo nodded and took my injured hand. The spiking agony that came after made me want to shrink back, but I was too weak to do so. “But you have to be willing, or we won’t be able to carry this out successfully. Tell me that you want to be the chiasma, Cara. The alternative is death. Not just for you, but the worlds, too.”
Why did I have to decide in this state?
I inhaled sharply, my body struggling to keep up with even that simple action. “I…” Did I want to be the chiasma? Before I agreed, my interactions with my vassals, Hansel especially, shot through my thoughts. They were against this idea. They revolted against it so much that Devon had gone to fetch the goddesses. I tried to cry, but my body was so wrecked that even my tear glands failed to work.
Would I never be able to hold, hug, kiss them again? If I’d known that this was to be my fate, then I never would have allowed myself to fall in love.
I kept flipping through the two options.
Death?
Or the ability to give life to everything?
The gravity of the world around me grew increasingly heavy.
“Cara,” Apollo said, his tone hardening. “You have to want this.”
I didn’t want any of it.
“O-okay,” I choked out. “Okay.” I tried to nod, uncertain whether I’d been successful in that action. “I’m willing.”
“Good. Let us begin, then.” I thought I saw a smile curve Apollo’s lips, but if he did smile, it didn’t last long. He returned to his gods and goddesses after my consent.
Nyx eyed Apollo warily. “I’m only allowing this because of your sacrifice, old friend. We’ve deliberated over this choice, and although it is a silly decision, we understand that you have put much of yourself into these two worlds while we slumbered. We respect you, and so we understand the importance of being fair.”
“And I’m grateful for that,” Apollo replied.
Another man, tall and burly, with the symbol of lightning on his headdress, said, “How can we be sure that this girl can hold both realms together? She looks like a mere babe.”
“Trust me, Zeus,” Apollo said. “Part of me lived inside her when she was growing up. It changed the structure of her body. She has the potential to carry us, just like an old god does.”
“But does she have the will of one?” another god asked. His hair was made from fire, and his headdress was decorated with a skull. “She needs that for her to survive the transition, and she didn’t go through thousands of years of life, not like we did.”
Apollo glanced over his shoulder. His attention paused on me. I saw him hesitate.
“Perhaps not, but I have means to ensure that she has the best chance of succeeding.”
“What means do you refer to, old friend?” Nyx asked.
“I will aid her throughout the process. I’ve been a chiasma before. My assistance will be of use.”
The gods fell into silence. Even though they’d agreed on making me the chiasma, they still appeared reluctant.
Apollo edged them on. “Shall we begin?”
Internally, I was shaking my head. I wasn’t ready.
I hadn’t yet said goodbye to my vassals. Wasn’t I supposed to be allowed last words? The decision came too abruptly. Then again, whenever sweet memories came to an end, time
always felt short.
“Very well,” Nyx replied.
And they all turned toward me. Eight pairs of sharp eyes, damning me to an eternity of sacrifice.
They gathered around me like vultures. The eight gods placed their palms on me. Harsh words I didn’t recognize poured from their lips in a low, ominous chant. I tried to decipher the sounds, but they swirled past me in a blur, disorienting me more.
I shut my eyes. I likened this to a surgery—a supernatural one of sorts—and it was better to be unaware. When I woke up, I would wake as the chiasma. I’d stop being Cara, and maybe this pain would end.
I heard my heart beating in my eardrums.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Blackness surrounded me. I became lost in emptiness. I couldn’t even feel gravity and couldn’t differentiate up from down. Soon came the sounds of thunder and burning and the crashing of the waves.
Boom.
Then the sounds were no more, replaced by a buzzing. I tried calling Apollo’s name, but my lips wouldn’t move. The buzzing noise turned into a trickling drip. The gentler tunes of nature took over the inner workings of my mind, and the pain was no more. Instead, dread took over.
It was one of the worst things I’d ever felt. Worse than the dread Deimos, my brother, had given me. It was a heavy, bleak sensation. One of utter loneliness.
I realized that as the chiasma, I wouldn’t be able to talk, touch, interact with anyone ever again. I’d be part of everything and yet nothing at all.
Was it too late to go back?
So, so afraid.
Maybe Hansel was right. It would be better to see the world destroyed. I’d be bestowed a wealth of power, but did that matter when I had to live in an existence of utter solitude?
“I want to go back.”
I was surprised to hear my own voice.
Right after, I sensed Apollo’s presence, intruding on my mind.
“You’re in the middle of the process,” Apollo said. “It’s quite dark, isn’t it?”
Reign of the Goddess Page 10
