She took her seat and spotted Anubis on the opposite side of the room. Her son seemed oddly subdued and she wondered what had transpired. SET entered in his preferred gaseous state and then solidified into a man. Bare-chested, well-defined pectorals and abs surprised her. Muscles bunched his arms and legs. His coal black eyes blazed in a startlingly handsome face. His hostile gaze swept over her, causing an annoying flush to steal over her skin. He smiled. Her stomach rolled.
What game does he play? she wondered as his lips curled into a sneer that doused her body’s traitorous response. She returned his sneer with equal fervor.
Whispers circled furiously in the room. She caught a few words from those who couldn’t contain their emotions. Younger Gods who didn’t participate in the last retrieval. Fear mixed equally with their excitement. Fools.
Aten entered. Dressed in pure white robes and a golden cap on his bald head, he coveted his role as Rais, Ra’s representative on Earth. He took his elevated seat under the All Seeing Eye and pounded the crystal staff against the marble. Silence blanketed the room.
Patiently, he studied each of them, meeting their gazes with a determination she rarely saw in the titular leader. Once again, he assumed the mantle of leadership none truly wanted him to have, except in times like these.
“Nu has returned!” His booming voice encompassed the room. “Who shall see to her retrieval?”
Several of the younger, bolder gods rose to their feet, eager to prove themselves and be free of the constraints of the Pantheon. Aten ignored the young fools and pointedly turned to the strongest of them: Denwen, the fiery Scorpion God, Mafdet, the Panther Goddess, and Resheph, once a Syrian war god.
All eyes shifted to them. Long ago, upon Nu’s first disappearance, the three captured the goddess and together the Pantheon bound her vis’Ras to Chemmis. They spiritually chained her to the island and believed she couldn’t leave. How wrong they all were. The three stood. By their hesitant gazes and shifting eyes, Nephythys recognized their unspoken fear.
“By deception, we captured her once,” Denwen spoke.
“She chose to release her spirit rather than be bound to the Pantheon and Chemmis,” Mafdet added.
“We all heard her wail and felt the force of her despair through the joining link,” Resheph said.
“Without her presence Chemmis withers beneath our feet,” Aten said.
“To capture her now—” Resheph started angrily.
“—will be the death of you all.”
A voice Nephythys had not heard in centuries halted the discussion. Startled gasps swept around the room because Hathor, Goddess of Love entered the chamber. A hiss burned the back of Nephythys’s throat as she watched the woman who had joined her to SET, her unbeloved husband.
“You dare to return!” Aten thundered, his face twisted. His staff struck the marble floor again and sparks flew. “For your insolence, disobedience, and betrayal, you, Hathor are condemned to servitude for ten millennia.”
Golden thread of light whipped from the staff, leaped across the distance separating Aten and Hathor. The strands caged her body and dragged her to her knees. Nephythys smiled, praying her name would be first on the list of masters for Hathor.
The light restraining Hathor melded together. Armor replaced the strands straining across her chest and abdomen, snaked around her pelvis and down her legs. The bands on her arms transformed into a liquid metal. When the light dulled, every part of her was covered, leaving only her head exposed. Stunned, no one moved to thwart her when she raised her hand and the staff flew to her palm.
Hathor slammed the speared tip into the floor. The building rocked and the foundation fractured. She climbed smoothly to her feet. Slowly her head rose and the goddess standing in the arena, facing all of them, was no longer Hathor. The Goddess of Love had vanished. Nephythys leaned forward and watched Hathor’s features morphed into another deity.
Dear Ra. It’s Nu!
Nu turned in a slow circle. She met each of their startled gazes. “Now. Let us begin this conversation again.”
***
Hard and cold. So cold Roman didn’t think he would ever be warm again. Yet his gut burned. The fires of hell roasted him from the inside out. He clutched the place where Reign’s blade had split his flesh, sure that if he moved an increment his intestines would spill.
Reign. Thinking his name caused more agony in Roman’s soul than his body. How could he be so wrong—again? No. he wasn’t wrong. His first suspicions proved true. Reign had betrayed him, like Daniel, only Reign’s betrayal pierced deeper. Memories of a time long past, of bonds which no longer existed, caused him to waver. To believe in something that had died long ago and to offer Reign a place in his home, and by his side.
His twin—beloved, trusted brother—had stabbed him. Cut into his flesh. Ripped through his insides. As Roman clutched the braided handle, the blade had turned neon and melted him from within. His last thought was of Stella. His last sight was of his own face staring back at him as Reign brought him closer. He whispered something, but the words were lost in the agony of death and the roar of rage.
With every heartbeat, Roman’s fury had escalated, joining the burning in his gut and the throbbing in his head. Lying on the stone floor, his breath wheezed, cutting off a budding bellow.
His brother had killed him.
Roman opened his eyes. Blackened rock surrounded him, caged him. A torch flickered in the corner of the room, casting an orange glow in the dim chamber.
He wasn’t dead.
Curled in the fetal position, he checked the hand pressed to his abdomen. No blood leaked between his fingers. He shifted his palm and braced for the gush of fluid.
Smooth skin.
Stunned, he circled his hand over his flesh and found nothing.
Still, the burn remained millimeters beneath his unmarred flesh. And instead of fading, it was growing as if a blade were still cutting a bloody path to his spine. He pushed himself up, muscles protesting each movement and stood. He swayed and crashed into the nearest wall. Rough, hot stones cut through his clothing, into his skin. He shook his head to clear the fuzziness and blinked to clear his blurred vision. A sudden weakness drained all the energy from him. He dropped like a stone to the hard ground. His head snapped back to slam into the rock wall behind him.
Sparks ignited in his brain. Revenge. That was the word Reign uttered before his insides incinerated. Or was that what he screamed with his dying breath.
REVENGE.
Just thinking the word caused his body to jerk and strength to sputter in his limbs.
“Revenge.” Though whispered, the word rebounded on the walls and gained resonance before trailing away. Strength—more than he’d ever known—hummed through him. He surged to his feet. His muscles clenched, straining beneath his skin. He looked down at his fisted hands. Light peeked through his balled fingers. Unafraid, he unfurled his fingers. A faint glow illuminated his palms.
The question his soul always asked, but his mind refused to address, floated to the surface, bloated like a beached whale roasting in the hot sun.
What am I?
Roman pushed the thought away. Self-reflection could wait. Now was the time to scour the earth and wreak vengeance on his enemies. Smoky, iridescent glass barred the exit and hieroglyphics lined the doorway. He approached and the glyphs came alive. They matched the aura radiating from his palms and shifted positions. The glass barrier collapsed back into its natural element, sand. He stepped over the threshold into the corridor. Seven cells lined the wall. Two were empty excluding the one he had exited. The others were occupied, but their barriers prevented him from viewing the residents.
At the end of the corridor waited a cell. Twice as large as the others, the thick glass allowed no light to filter. But there was something there. A presence reached out and brushed across his senses. Male, immensely strong, and it urged him closer. Light bled through the skin of his palms. His hands glowed as if a fire burned within. No lon
ger startled by the display, he ignored his changing anatomy and accepted his evolution.
He focused on the barrier ahead. The thick, opaque structure prevented a glimpse into the interior, yet something studied him, inspected him as he would study an insect under a microscope. The center of the structure weakened and protruded outward. The weaves moved, gave a little. He stopped a yard away and watched as an item appeared. First, a silver handle layered with hieroglyphics, and then a blade composed of light.
Roman caught the sword before it fell. He’d held many blades and owned an extensive collection of swords. None had ever fit in his hand like an intimate embrace. He considered the barrier again and touched the smooth surface. The presence he felt had retreated, yet the proof of its existence was clutched in his hand.
A hum vibrated through him. An echo of anger that wasn’t his reverberated through him. Reign was near. Like a drop of blood trapped in a centrifuge, Roman’s cells separated down to the atomic level and sped across the distance separating him and his bastard brother.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Reign raced through the graveyard to the cathedral. The door swung open at his approach, welcoming him inside. He slowed. Anything could be waiting for him. Through the doorway he eased, sword ready. No army. No Alamut or Daniel. Nothing waited but an obsidian altar at the opposite end of an enormous room. A single, sputtering candle bleeding wax over the table and a Scrying bowl, rested on top.
In the silence, the gurgle of flowing water caught his attention as he walked across the threshold. Part way inside, rows of candles lining the walls, flamed. They beat back the gloom and illuminated the wall behind the altar.
He wished they had remained extinguished or that he could look away. Glass walls retained a sea of bodies fermenting in a bloody stew.
Appalled, yet fascinated in a macabre way, he drew closer to the nearest wall. Skeletal heads turned. From every angle sightless eyes leveled on him. Captured by the strange display, Reign couldn’t look away. Bits of tattered clothing clung to their decomposing bodies. Emblems and insignia decorated a few. That’s when he noticed these weren’t just any corpses. A wail rose behind him. Reign spun and faced his constant nightmare.
No longer ghostly, the Vanquished gathered behind him, weapons ready and pointing at him. Together they charged.
In an instant, he relived each battle, grieved each senseless and justified death, mourned the loss of comrades he vowed to protect and failed. The memories tore through him, nearly bringing him to his knees. He couldn’t let them take him down.
His eyes opened. Back pressed against the wall, Reign had no idea what his next move would be. Or theirs.
Alexis, they screamed. Her beautiful face appeared in his mind. The freckles sprinkled across her cheeks. The twinkle in her coppery eyes as she gazed at him. Her lush, kissable lips. He concentrated on her and counted on the anguish in his heart to bring him to her side. He dug into his core and the power waiting. His body unraveled and his atoms scattered.
Intense heat blasted him to his knees. A barrier appeared over his skin, saving him from roasting. Please God, tell me she didn’t place her here. Not here.
His eyelids refused to blink as he took in the smoldering landscape he’d once inhabited. The damned—condemned here by Nephythys—were chained to one of the vertical volcanic tubules and hung over vents spewing lava. His flesh crawled from the memories of the eons he spent chained, cooked until charred and resurrected. No respite before the cycle repeated. He thought he deserved the everlasting anguish. Thought, his failure as a warrior, had brought him to this fate.
He endured, expecting nothing else for the rest of eternity. Until Nephythys appeared as a saint and his savior. He took her hand, accepted the slavery she offered and allowed her to lead him out of this hell—where his will was tested and his flesh was stripped—into purgatory, where the Goddess of the Dead dined on his heart and called it love.
A garbled cry echoed in the vast chamber. A backwash of pain knifed him. He collapsed onto the sulfuric ash littering the floor. Alexis! They were still tethered, psychically instead of physically. Her pain became his. It reverberated, magnified in his skull until he threw back his head, and bellowed. The shield coating him buckled, thinned precipitously. At the last moment, he quelled his agony, shuffled it to a section of his brain, and slammed the door shut.
Reign lurched to his feet as the echo faded. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and ignored the wave of exhaustion threatening to drag him under. He had to find her. NOW.
He stretched his senses again, to no avail. Other than the shield protecting him, this place voided his powers. He couldn’t pinpoint her location, but his gut guided him to the left through the fields of lava and the damned.
“Alexis!” Desperation chipped away at his control. His speed increased at each turn until he ran, past the pitiful residents. The wails for mercy, the pleas for death, one of the damned touched him. He stopped and looked at the scorched being that reached out to him. No recognition jarred him. Reign turned away. He hadn’t come for them.
A weak murmur stopped him. His head tilted. Fifty feet up, dangling over the opening of a vent, Alexis hung from a chain. Her dress had melted into her, leaving blistered, red and black skin, and nearly unrecognizable. Except for her eyes. They remained the same coppery gems he fell in love with.
The ground rumbled. Steam rushed from the vent, followed by a geyser of lava. Her cry was lost in the roar of the eruption; still, he heard it, felt it in his core. When the geyser receded, all of her was aflame.
And so was he. Crimson flames leaped from his core as his vis’Ra shattered the weaves caging it and rippled from his skin. He reached for her, tried to flash, and sweep her into his arms.
Nothing.
His vis’Ra bubbled through his veins, verifying Mrs. Kelly’s words. He had the power to save her. Yet he could not. The Goddess of the Dead ruled here.
The flames died and her head slumped against her bound arms. Vacant eyes stared, but did they see him? Know he was here for her?
Alexis. His soul reached for her.
Tears dropped from her eyes, hissed, and steamed when they met her charred skin.
She didn’t know he was there. Didn’t know he had failed her again. He gritted his teeth and sucked a harsh sulfur-filled breath. On his life, she would not remain here.
Only one could rescue her from this hell. The one who put her here.
His atoms scattered to plead with or to kill his blue-haired demon.
***
Nu had forgotten how light the armor was on her petite frame. Molded to her body, the Armor of Ra did more than protect. Impenetrable in sunlight, it also gave the wearer additional strength and agility.
She studied the startled glances of those gathered. Not often can one stun a group of gods. Appearing in Chemmis cloaked in Hathor’s body was a brilliant strategy, but one that wouldn’t last. Two gods stuffed into one form created impossible tension. Even though Hathor had submerged her consciousness, every few seconds her subconscious sparked with queries.
Ember was much more a convenient host. The mousy child submitted to her will without complaint. Again, Hathor’s mind probed her with questions. Nu battled to ignore the prattle and focus on the enormous tasks ahead.
Defeat the Pantheon. Save all her children from ripping each other apart. Whether birthed from her body or fashioned by Ra, they were all hers, descendants of Ra. None of their deaths would be tolerated. As she stared at her offspring and their equally stubborn progeny, the tasks she had set before her appeared insurmountable. Nu had to find a way.
“You have kept my chair warm long enough, Aten. Step down.” She focused her attention on him, their leader. If he fell in line, the others would follow.
“Being a fugitive has agreed with you and Hathor,” Aten answered from his perch above her.
Nu ground her teeth. It gave him pleasure to look down at her, from the chair she vacated eons ago. “Being free of Chemmis
has agreed with both of us.”
From her peripheral vision, Denwen, Madfet, and Resheph encroached. With a single thought, she could kill the trio who’d once captured her.
She’d cursed Ra when he abandoned the pantheon. Now, she envied his wise decision. Where once they worshiped, now they seek to conquer. He would’ve had no qualms decimating every member of the Pantheon and starting anew. As a goddess of creation, her vis’Ra could create and destroy, yet she couldn’t bring herself to that deadly point. No matter the circumstances, they were all her children, though some she would prefer not to claim.
Nu lifted the staff again. Sunlight struck the cosmic dust and the particles of a dying star encased in the center. She slammed it into the marble. Rainbow sparks flew before she extended the tip and drew a wide circle around her. This added layer of protection guaranteed none would gainsay her intentions.
An unexpected light brightened the room behind her.
“Nephythys! Where are you?”
Nu spun. Reign stalked into the room. His sword glowed in his hand and sang an ominous tune. And he glowed! A vibrant crimson! His vis’Ra was no longer buried behind the protective barricade she wove at his birth. From his incandescent eyes to his shimmering skin, and the fury leaping off him in waves, Reign looked like a god. All that she had done to hide him was undone.
The Pantheon would shred him. Though her power flowed through his veins, he was a demi-god and no match for one god, never mind all of them. She hadn’t risked all to have his insides coat the walls of the chamber.
“Reign, no!” Nu cried.
He spared her a glance, but there was no flare of recognition in his eyes. No warmth. No love for the one who had risked so much for him to exist.
“Whose Get is this!” Aten shouted above the raised voices of the pantheon.
Reign’s gaze shifted around the room, searching until he settled on the one he sought. “Where is Nephythys?” he snarled.
Everlasting (Descendants of Ra: Book 2) Page 33
