30. Hades’ Destiny
30
Hades’ Destiny
ISSA
H alf lying on the throne, Sulfiqar was healing, his once-withered form rebuilding, his divine power crackling back into existence.
However, Ki’Remi was breaking.
Flames consumed him.
His frame convulsed beneath the raw energy, his veins glowing like molten silver, his skin splitting apart as if his essence had unraveled.
The Witchmen, his ancestors, his bloodline bound in ancient potent spell working, shuddered within him.
Their spectral forms flickering, caught in the devastating potency of the ritual tearing them asunder.
Issa didn’t think.
She flung herself over her man, slamming her palms to his chest.
A golden blaze erupted from her hands, licking over his flesh.
Wrapping around his bucking frame, resisting the destruction coursing through him.
She got a flash of warning on what it would cost her.
She didn’t care.
Her flames engulfed them both, a blazing inferno of celestial and mortal energies colliding, a bonfire so bright that it seared the air.
Ki’Remi’s metanoids flared, fighting against the force pouring into him, but she didn’t let go.
The Witchmen howled, their forms writhing, as her power lashed through them, not to destroy but to restore.
The burn was unbearable as she pushed her Ssignakht potency beyond its limits, gritting her teeth at the agony.
Shoving everything she had into him.
She gave it all. Fire, light, and the vitality that made her what she was.
Without warning, she jolted as the energy she lent her man began coursing back into her.
With even more vigor.
‘ Sante, kidaya .’
She heard Ki’Remi’s voice in her head as she now was impossibly flooded with the power of the Witchmen.
She gasped and flung her head back as a force more ancient than the Sacrans coursed into her.
Her lover was giving it back and ratcheting her Ssignakht to levels she’d never more experienced.
Elevating her into a new epoch of existence.
She shuddered as the flames flared out, vanishing into the air like an exhaled breath.
Issa panted, swaying, her limbs heavy, her vision blurred with exhaustion.
Ever the caregiver, she ran her palms over Ki’Remi beneath her, checking for anomalies.
With relief, she noted that his broad chest rose and fell in deep, with steady pulls; his muscles were no longer convulsing, and his body was no longer fraying apart.
He was whole, alive, and freakin’ breathing.
His eyes fluttered open, lucid and aureate as they shone out.
She sucked in a ragged inhale.
Without warning, he moved.
One muscled arm snaked around her neck and pulled her to him as he knifed up to meet her.
His hands gripped her waist, and his lips melded to hers in a raw, desperate, consuming kiss. One that expressed all neither of them could utter at that moment: the terror, the relief, the sheer gravity of what they had just survived.
Her fingers twisted in his locs, her body sinking into his, lost in all of her passion for him.
Above them, a rumbling laughter echoed through the chamber.
Sulfiqar.
The couple tore apart to find the Divine Immortal deity, now restored, gazing upon them with amusement and an emotion close to indulgence.
‘Perhaps,’ he mused, in a deep, resonant timbre, ‘this destiny was all about your love.’
‘What of my father’s fate?’ Issa whispered. ‘Now that you are well?’
‘About that, child of dusk -.’
Sulfiqar waved a lazy hand.
A holo screen flared to life before them, shifting celestial mist solidifying into a vision of a gloomy room, the atmosphere thick with the haze of incense and old magic.
In a bed lay her a familiar figure, shuddering under a thin blanket, body wasting away, sunken eyes closed.
‘ Baba .’
A vibration rippled through the air, the walls of the divine palace thrumming in response.
A gem of luminous hue, inset in his upper chest, began to glow without warning.
‘Tis the Sirr Sanctum .’
Issa grabbed Ki’Remi’s hand, holding it tight and hard.
First, it flared a deep crimson, then a dazzling gold, its surface splitting like cracked glass as its power unraveled and imploded into nothingness.
Issa’s breath caught in her throat.
The man lying prostrate stirred, and then he slowly sat up.
Once weighed down by the slow, relentless pull of the soul stone curse, he now moved at will.
His broad shoulders squared, his spine straightened, and he inhaled in a ragged heave as if breathing free for the first time in an eternity.
Issa clutched Ki’Remi, a tattered sound escaping her lips. Her father was free.
‘Your turn,’ the deity on the throne murmured.
The holo vision snapped away, and she turned to Sulfiqar.
The flicker of amusement in the Highest’s eyes was infuriating.
It was clear he cared little about what her father had undergone.
She swallowed her rage, her body vibrating with the energy required to keep from combusting.
Rising to her feet, Issa reached up, her fingertips lifting off the delicate jar-shaped earrings that hung from her ears.
She held the mesmerizing glass-like orbs, staring down as they swirled with luminous red, pink, and gold atoms, their celestial radiance shifting with her every movement.
The jewelry glowed, the swirling spheroids melting together, fusing into a single entity.
The air trembled, and a whisper of sacred energy encircled her as the two halves became one, the Sanopic Jar, whole once more.
She clutched it in her hands, its incandescent glow casting light across her face.
She’d fought to keep this out of the god’s voracious grasp for years.
She’d bled and burned to protect it.
Now, with a suck of her teeth, she extended it toward the Divine Immortal.
Sulfiqar’s golden eyes gleamed as he reached for it, his expression unreadable.
As his fingers closed around the ancient vessel, the sacred essence within it pulsed one last time against her palms as if reluctant to leave her.
Then, twas ripped from her grip, and so was her fate.
The chamber convulsed as a new storm erupted.
A violent shockwave hit, hurling luminous embers of ethereal combustion across the crystalline floor.
Thunder cracked overhead, splitting the heavens open with raw celestial rage.
A tempest of violet lightning streaked through the gilded ceiling, illuminating the space in flashes of white-hot brilliance.
The walls trembled, and the atmosphere shifted to a primordial, ancient, and wrathful ambiance.
The towering doors slammed apart, the force rattling the marble pillars.
Gilded dust cascaded from the high arches as Somayeh, the Goddess of War, stepped through the storm.
Her arrival was not gentle nor subtle.
It was a declaration. A conquest. A reckoning.
She marched forward, her strides unyielding, unrelenting, unstoppable.
Her obsidian armor shone like a polished celestial blade, etched in silver glyphs that pulsed with the light of a thousand battlefields. Over her chest, an imperial crest of ancient warlords blazed with the intensity of an eternal flame.
Two blackened scimitars sat strapped to her side, each honed edge flickering with whispers of the wars they won.
At her hip, a curved dagger gleamed like a beast’s fang. Twas chiseled from the tooth of a primordial Leviathan, its edges pulsating with the force of multitudinous past battles.
Across her back, a massive shield rested, inscribed with forgotten battle hymns.
In her right hand was the war spear of living lightning, its shaft carved from the spine of a fallen titan, its blade a flickering tempest.
The energy around it sizzled and crackled with the promise of destruction.
She was not alone.
Behind her, a contingent of her generals flanked her sides, their celestial presence warping the fabric of the heavens with every step they took.
Beside her was Soledad, the Warlock and General of Divine Justice. She was pure magnificence, cloaked in starlit silver robes, and a floating halo of pure cosmic flame hovered just above her head.
Her aura exuded a quiet but absolute authority, her ethereal blade hovering at her side without her even needing to touch it.
At Somayeh’s left strode Silaha, The Warlord of Shattered Realms, Keeper of the Forbidden Tomes, Weaver of the Ten Thousand Curses.
His skin was a deep shade of obsidian, and runes of fluctuating gold and sapphire light rippled across his chest like drifting constellations.
His majestic spikes curled over his head, their duality denoting he was neither good nor evil, only the executor of divine order.
Then came Sa’Kiel, the Warliege of the Void.
His features were a canvas of blurring motion, never quite settling into one form.
What appeared like shifting sands flowed around him, whispering through the chamber like the winds of forgotten ages. He, too, sported a set of magnificent horns.
At the rear followed Suyin, the Warlass of the Heavens.
Her glowing white eyes were devoid of pupils, her movements soundless, epitomizing the beauty of youth and the wisdom of age.
They advanced as one, unstoppable, their power undeniable.
‘Ki’Remi, brow arched, leaned into his woman and whispered. ‘Who the fokk are these, and why are some of them horned?’
‘They are the generals of war who fought with Ssigard. Those without the curled antennae are pure deities; those with glorious appendages are demigods. Their promontories symbolize the dualistic union of the divine and the mortal, war and peace, light and dark, night and day, and summer and winter. Some call them the horns of a dilemma.’
The Sableman shook his head. ‘Ye Sacrans are chaotic.’
‘You don’t say,’ his woman whispered as the menacing contingent bore down on the throne. ‘I served with them in past wars, and while diabolic, they are also the most prudent of the high immortals as they are exposed to the meaninglessness of conflict and strife, which gives them sagacity.’
‘What is this?’ the Divine Immortal bristled, his golden eyes narrowing, his mouth curled in disdain.
Without hesitation, Somayeh approached Sulfiqar and reached forward, plucking the Sanopic Jar from his hands.
‘Tis what it looks like. A coup, a takeover,’ she snarled
The War Goddess turned, passing the ancient relic to a waiting faceless Celestial Keeper.
‘Return it to the Repository of Souls,’ Somayeh commanded, her voice ringing through the chamber like a death knell.
Her attendant bowed and disappeared into the corridor beyond.
Sulfiqar’s jaw tightened, flexing his chest. His imposing figure returned, and his power surged once more with every breath.
In the shadows, Zavei floated, still caught in the Witchmen’s lock, the tension in his body coiling like a predator about to strike.
‘Zavei,’ Sulfiqar rasped, his gaze seeking his most trusted general. ‘You will defend my honor, will you not?’
For a moment, there was only silence.
With a wave, the Divine Immortal released his Saatifa Commander from Ki’Remi’s hold. ‘Stop them, all of them, lest I whisper, and this plane of reality ceases to exist.’
Zavei stumbled toward the throne, glanced first at Sulfiqar, then at Somayeh, and finally back at his King.
‘ Nada ,’ Zavei said.
Time slowed as disbelief rippled through Sulfiqar’s frame.
Somayeh tossed her lover a gold baton-like device.
Zavei whirled it, and a chain of gilded supernatural fetters burst into existence.
Issa’s eyes widened, recognizing the Vyri’el Shackles.
The same golden manacles forged from the core of a collapsed star and etched with ancient binding sigils that had caged her and her family.
Once latched on, the celestial cuffs and chains cursed one into bondage. While siphoning their sacrosanct essence with every heartbeat, rendering even the mightiest immortal powerless and imprisoned within their stillness.
Their final insult was turning their captor into a Sullied daemon.
She took a ragged inhale as they flew through the air and snapped tight around Sulfiqar’s wrists, dragging him to his knees before the assembly.
Sulfiqar let out a bitter laugh, falling in front of Somayeh and Zavei.
‘You betray me?’
Zavei’s jaw clenched, his expression unyielding. ‘I uphold the celestial order. You hunted pure souls, the essence of what is sacred and forbidden among us, and now you will face judgment.’
Sulfiqar sneered, but his power had already begun to drain away, his innate perpetuity unraveling like threads of frayed silk.
Somayeh’s rang with cosmic finality. ‘Now, you will face the only punishment fitting for such arrogance. You will live.’
The Divine Immortal’s smirk faltered.
Somayeh stepped closer, her emerald gaze gleaming with quiet satisfaction.
‘Only as a mortal,’ she murmured. ‘So while your health is restored, eternity is now denied.’
A gasp rippled through the assembly.
Sulfiqar’s laughter returned, dark, edged with something almost amused.
‘The fokk ? You condemn me to centuries instead of immortality?’
‘ Naam , we do, or rather, your foolish choice to hunt pure souls doomed you.’
Sulfiqar’s face darkened, and the rushing of an angry wind sounded until he lifted his shackled fists, a maniacal grin stretching over his regal face. ‘Not the worst punishment for a deity, wouldn’t you say?’
‘Without your perpetuity, you will no longer be a god,’ Somayeh clipped with an edge of finality in her tone.
The smirk vanished.
‘You will be banished to New Savartin,’ she continued, her eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. ‘A mortal life in a gilded cage. No throne. No power. No influence.’
The gods in the chamber shuddered, not at the sentence, but at the thought of living among mortals.
Sulfiqar’s lips curled.
‘Well played,’ he murmured.
His golden eyes drifted to Issa and Ki’Remi, and he shook his head with a chuckle.
‘Ah, but what an end to my reign,’ he rasped, dripping with satisfaction. ‘A divine war. A prophecy fulfilled and, above all, an enduring love story.’
His gaze flickered to Issa, to Ki’Remi.
‘How epic was it?’
Issa’s stomach twisted.
She didn’t answer.
She just stared at the condemned deity on his knees, then at Zavei and Somayeh, the architects of this reviled demise, her expression carved from stone, her disdain a fire burning in her chest.
Behind her, Ki’Remi rumbled in her ear.
‘Like I said,’ he growled. ‘We are just playthings to them. Don’t give them the gratification of seeing they almost broke us.’
He pulled her to him, and she let him, afraid that if she didn’t rest against his bulk, she’d fly off her handle and burn the entire chamber down.
Somayeh lifted a hand, silencing the murmurs around her. ‘You will live, Sulfiqar,’ she repeated, her tone unwavering. ‘Perhaps for hundreds, even thousands of years. But you will not rule.’
Sulfiqar exhaled, stretching his arms out as if testing his mortality.
‘Fine,’ he murmured. ‘It was a good run.’
The shackles on his wrists extended, enveloping him in a gold cage.
Which at Somayeh’s gesture rose in a spell-woven defiance of the laws of physics.
It hovered in the air for a beat, then whipped out through the expansive windows.
Where it hovered, suspended, for a beat.
Then, with a whip of wind, the gilded enclosure fell.
Rapidly towards the clouds and the planet below.
‘ Fokk me,’ Ki’Remi breathed.
Issa found his hand as Zavei tilted his head, studying the couple with wrath.
‘Now, what to do with you both? I believe tis your turn to visit Hades. Tis your destiny. We also can’t let you leave this room and share what you’ve seen.’
Zavei lunged.
Twas a mistake.
Ki’Remi moved first.
Before Zavei’s blade could pierce Issa, the Rider met him mid-air.
The pair slammed together with the force of crashing worlds.
They clashed like titans.
Zavei, the god slayer and sentinel of the Immortals, was a weapon of precision, speed, and lethal elegance.
Ki’Remi fought with the potency of Witchmen roiling in and around him.
Like a storm wrapped in muscle, metal, and sheer, unrelenting power.
Blow for blow, strike for strike.
The chamber cracked under the might of their battle, pillars splintering, the cosmos wailing as divine steel collided with Witchmen-forged brutality.
Then Ki’Remi found his opening.
A feint, a pivot, a move he’d put to use in the forests of Alloria.
He found the weak point and meted a fatal thrust straight through Zavei’s mighty chest.
The god’s golden mote blood exploded across the obsidian floors.
Zavei fell to the floor, where he choked, his hands trembling as he gazed down at the blade buried in his heart.
His lips parted, disbelief and shock dilating his eyeballs.
Followed by a slump of his body as he slid to the ground, eyes sightless as he stared into oblivion before his celestial form shimmered and imploded into gold dust.
Somayeh’s scream almost fractured the cosmos.
She descended upon Ki’Remi, her power unleashing in a fury of astral wrath, her form glowing with celestial vengeance.
Before she could strike, Issa intercepted her.
With a single, soaring leap, she fell on Somayeh, her presence eclipsing even the heavens, her hands wreathed in white-hot divinity.
Somayeh’s fury warped into fear.
Issa’s voice cut through infinity itself.
‘You are the reason my father suffered. You and your machination led to the shattering of my family. We were cursed and cast from the heavens because of you.’
Her palms blazed.
Somayeh attempted to retreat.
Issa did not let her, flicking a coil of pure white energy around the goddess of war.
‘Just like you shackled and humiliated my family, I do the same for you. Now, Somayeh, you will suffer eternity in Hades.’
Issa released a final, searing pulse of raw celestial judgment, with Ki’Remi’s witchmen potency and love powering her, as did all her rage from the past years of suffering.
Somayeh screamed a sound that would never be forgotten, not even by the gods.
Then, she was gone, imploding into auriferous particles that rained onto the exquisite tiles and glimmered into non-existence.
Silence fell over the throne room.
The remaining war generals observed in stunned horror.
In a rush of wrath, they raced toward Issa, weapons drawn, attempting to overwhelm her.
Her face was calm and cold as ice.
Issa lifted a hand, and they all dropped.
Weapons clattered to the obsidian floor. Divine bodies convulsed, then stilled.
Not dead but unconscious, drained of their strength, shackled by her relentless force.
Ki’Remi turned to Issa.
She stood bathed in power, glowing with such brightness that Ki’Remi narrowed his eyes and shifted his meta-vision to account for her brilliance.
She had never appeared more terrifying, yet more magnificent.
A silence trembled through the chamber.
Ki’Remi snorted at the folly of the madness he’d just witnessed. ‘Seems destiny just fokked itself,’ he muttered.
With that, he reached out for his woman’s hand.
It was scorching, and he raised a brow at the searing connection.
Their eyes met, and he quirked his mouth. ‘You are on fire. Kainan ain’t got nothing on you, and hell, woman, it drives me wild.’
‘You’d better believe it,’ she shot back, still quivering from her heightened state.
He raked his eyes over her, narrowing them in concern. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’
He squeezed her palm and then marched them towards the exit.
A phalanx of Saatifa warriors and Celestial Keepers in the thronal room stepped aside, giving them passage as their gawking eyes tracked the couple with awe.
‘What happens now, Issandra?’ one of them called out. ‘Are you our new immortal queen?’
Issa paused her roll for a beat, laughed, and kept tracking.
‘I am not, and what comes now on Sivania, I don’t give a freakin’ care. Zenas will guide you.’
Ki’Remi and Issa kept powering toward the massive vaulted doors.
The ancient carvings shimmered as they moved under the entry’s massive archway, their intricate depictions of celestial battles and divine triumphs seeming to shift, whispering a final farewell.
The portal to the Highest deity’s throne room was sealed behind them, cutting them off from the gods of Sacra and their bizarre, chaotic reality.