33. Eternal Adoration
33
Eternal Adoration
Ki’REMI
T he Rider stepped through the farmhouse’s threshold.
The moment he entered the intimate space of Issa’s kin, he understood why she fought so hard, bled, and burned for all these years.
For family and this sanctuary.
It was like he was walking into a hallowed temple.
The house exuded warmth, a living, breathing entity shaped by the hands of those who called it home.
Thick wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, and rays danced along the walls as the diluted morning sun filtered through latticed windows.
The scent of spices, cardamom, cumin, and roasted cloves mingled with slow-cooked meats, stewed grains, and the unmistakable aroma of fresh bread.
It curled around him, embedding itself in his senses and wrapping him in an unfamiliar yet soothing welcome.
Soft footsteps padded forward from the dim hallway, the hush of sleep still clinging to the emerging figure.
Twas a tall, broad-shouldered young man with tousled dark hair who rubbed at his eyes.
Traces of grogginess softened his hawkish features, but the instant his celestial-hued gaze focused on Issa, his limbs locked.
‘Issy?’ The raw utterance was disbelieving, yearning.
Seconds later, it morphed into a full-throated yell.
‘Issy!’
The next second, he barreled into her, lifting her off the floor into a crushing bear hug.
His arms hugged her in an unyielding hold.
Issa’s breath gasped out in surprise, laughing and clutching at her younger sibling, a Sacran almost as tall as Ki’Remi himself.
‘Iyanda!’ Issa choked out between laughter and tears, ‘ Fokk , let me breathe—’
Before her brother could release her, another figure shot out from an inner bedroom, a streak of untamed, springy curls and golden-brown skin.
A screech of her name, high-pitched and filled with raw, unchecked joy, as the blur launched at her.
‘Issaaaaa!’
‘Safiyya!’ Issa called.
Issa’s youngest sister was a storm of movement.
Her eyes flashed with the molten brilliance of a wild galaxy, and her slender frame vibrated with boundless energy.
Unlike Iyanda’s petite yet muscled warrior physique, Safiyya was all nimbleness and grace, slim and willowy like a dancer.
Her presence was light and air, and her laughter rang through the space like a chime caught in the wind.
She clutched at Issa’s waist as if she feared she might disappear again, pressing her face into her sister’s nape with a muffled sob.
Ki’Remi stood alongside Issa’s parents, arms in his jumpsuit pocket, gazing on with a soft smile.
Issa’s golden curls tangled with Safiyya’s tighter coils. Iyanda’s strong frame encircled them both, manifesting a love that endured time and exile.
His chest ached at the sight of it.
He had no siblings. No blood family left.
The concept of kin was foreign to him.
Still, he had the Riders, his ride-or-die. Twas where he had created his familial bonds, turning them into an unshaken and unbreakable force.
However, he’d often wondered what it’d be like to be surrounded by others who resembled you and carried your DNA, past and future.
After what felt like an eternity, Iyanda pulled back, stroking his jaw, staring at his sister, still half in disbelief. ‘You came home.’
Issa inhaled, then whispered, ‘I returned to you.’
Safiyya wiped her cheeks on her sleeve before glancing up at Ki’Remi, her gaze shifting from joy to brazen curiosity.
‘And who,’ she said, teasing, her lips curling in a knowing smirk, ‘is this?’
Issa chuckled, turning toward her man. ‘This,’ she said, grinning as she reached for his hand, ‘is Ki’Remi Sable.’
Iyanda’s brows arched, his star assessing, but twas Safiyya spoke first.
‘Ohhhh, you’re the Ki’Remi?’ She tilted her head, examining him unabashedly. ‘The one who walked through the fire for my sister?’
Ki’Remi gave her a chin jerk. ‘I go where she does.’
Seconds later, his woman’s siblings enveloped him in a whirl of hugs, welcome, and acceptance, which seared a burn in his soul.
The kitchen became a whirlwind of joy, spices, and sizzling oils as Raquel and Iyanda took charge of breakfast.
Ki’Remi was ensconced in a chair, a mug of kahawa in his hand.
Eyes on Issa and Safiyya as the pair bickered over ingredients and played with recipes.
They were soon dusted in flour, their laughter sparking through the air.
In front of his incredulous gaze, the table filled with a feast.
Golden balls of fried dough, pillowy and warm, coated in powdered sugar and cinnamon.
Soft buttery chapati, stacked high, served alongside spiced beans cooked with tomatoes, garlic, and coriander.
Fried sweet plantains, caramelized to perfection, their edges crispy, and their centers molten.
Pomegranate seeds glistening like rubies under the morning light were scattered over fresh mango and pawpaw fruit bowls.
At the center stood a pot of kahawa , brewed dark and bitter, its scent curling through the air in a rich, heady embrace.
Laughter spilled across the table, filling every space between bites of food.
As they ate, stories of Sivania unfolded, each tale more absurd than the last.
‘The gods,’ Iyanda drawled, ‘are, how do I say this, still annoying as fokk .’
‘Oh, please,’ Safiyya added with a waggle of her brows. ‘They are the epitome of exhausting.’
Ki’Remi smirked, intrigued. ‘Apart from the obvious and what we went through, why is that?’
Iyanda leaned forward, her voice dropping into a whisper. ‘Imagine a neighbor who never sleeps, always meddles in your affairs, and throws celestial tantrums that disrupt your city because they misplaced their favorite sandals.’
Ki’Remi’s eyebrows lifted. ‘You’re saying gods start wars over footwear?’
‘Among other ridiculous things,’ Issa muttered, shaking her head.
‘I once witnessed a god disband a planetwide festival because the offerings given weren’t in perfect symmetry,’ Safiyya added, giving in a severe eye roll.
Ki’Remi huffed out a laugh, amused despite himself. ‘ Fokkin ’ hell. Will you ever return?’
The family stared at each other, then in one loud and resounding call, ‘ Nada !’
‘Not when we have a new life on a planet we love and peace of mind,’ stated Zephyr.
‘Not when I have this man at my side,’ Issa confessed in a husky breath.
She turned toward Ki’Remi and, without warning, kissed his lips.
Raquel chuckled, shaking her head. ‘How did this begin? How did you both meet?’ she asked, amusement dancing in her eyes.
Issa grinned, settling against Ki’Remi’s side. ‘With a behemoth Iccythrian giant who escaped surgery and was laying it into Remi, who needed rescuing by me.’
‘ Nada kidaya ,’ the Sableman groused with a quirk to his mouth. ‘I did not need you to save my ass.’
‘I did it anyway.’
She ignored him, her tale unfolding to booming laughter and chuckles.
Ki’Remi smirked as her story took on a dramatic crescendo.
He gazed around the table at the joy, taking in the unbreakable ties and the kinship Issa had long battled to return to.
The scene was intimate and devastatingly raw.
He’d fought alongside Issa, freakin’ witnessed her bleed and burn and rise like a phoenix from the ashes.
Twas bittersweet witnessing her victory and homecoming.
His admiration grew with every passing second for this family, the strength they carried, the burdens they bore without breaking, and the gift of his woman.
Even more mind-blowing was that her peace and joy were now also his.
The talk eased into a more earnest note as Issa’s face sobered. ‘One thing I want to know is how you endured when I wasn’t here?’
Zephyr leaned back in his chair, the morning light casting a golden hue over his weathered features.
His deep-set eyes, once dulled by years of suffering under the Sirr Sanctum stone, now burned with a clarity that unsettled Issa.
He stared through the window at Dunia’s verdant fields and then up into the celestial expanse he had been cast from.
‘I was laid up most times in bed, but your mother, bless her soul, ran the farm and the house with Iyanda and Safiyya. The acreage is humble but thriving, the earth rich and fertile. Tis a place that sustained us in hiding. The gold I managed to take from Sacra bought this land,’ Zephyr explained, tracing his calloused fingers over the oak table. ‘It also kept us fed when the harvests failed. In short, we thrived despite the circumstances.’
Issa exhaled. ‘I wish you never had to hide.’
Zephyr paused, turning to her. ‘My love, I would have waited in a thousand more shadows if it meant having us together once more.’
Theirs was a singular bond between a firstborn daughter and her father.
Issa took a deep inhale. ‘I hated being away from you all and seeing baba suffer -.’
Her whisper fell away, and her father reached for her, folding her into his grasp.
His eyes misted as he exhaled, gradual and measured, as if releasing the agony of recent memories. ‘The stone was a curse. That much is true. A slow, excruciating siphon of my essence, pulling the life from my marrow, robbing me of time, of strength, of all the things that made me a man.’
His fingers flexed as if remembering the sensation of his soul being unraveled thread by thread. ‘But the gods are cruel in ways that often contradict themselves. While it bound me to immense suffering, it also tethered me to the High Heavens.’
Issa stilled.
Across the table, Ki’Remi, ever silent and watchful, tilted his head.
‘What do you mean?’ she murmured.
Zephyr’s lips pressed into a thin line, his dark hands tightening over the arms of his chair. ‘I bore witness to everything Sulfiqar said and did, child. My body was trapped in agony, wasting away here in Dunia, but my soul was shackled to Sivania’s throne room. I viewed horrors no mortal should have to see. Terrors no sane mind ought to experience.’
A shadow passed through his gaze, an echo of torment and revelation.
‘Somayeh,’ he continued, his voice dropping lower, as if the mere name of the goddess carried power even here. ‘She cast out her husband, the god of war, Ssisigan, The Forsaken Warlord, Death’s Right Hand, and The Blood-Tide of Battle, banishing him from the celestial courts. In an act of treachery that shook the pillars of the heavens. Her lover, Zavei, stood at her side when she did it.’
Issa inhaled with a bitter twist to her mouth. ‘We’re aware, baba ,’ she said, anger flaring in her chest. ‘Zenas told us how they played both sides.’
Zephyr gave a slow nod. ‘They did not just play us all, Issa. They helped orchestrate Ssigard’s fall and those of the generals who supported him. Somayeh plans to sink her blade in the backs of those loyal to Ssigard.’
Issa’s eyes dilated. ‘Like who?’
‘Silaha, Sa’Kiel, Suyin and Soledad, among others. The rest of the battle gods and commanders are divided, and their blades are primed against one another in a power struggle that will not stay contained within Sivania.’
Ki’Remi’s expression remained unreadable, his mind spinning through calculations, weighing the ramifications of celestial conflict spilling into Pegasi’s mortal realm.
His digits tapped idly the edge of his chair, betraying his unease.
Zephyr continued, his voice grim. ‘While none of them claims the mantle of war, Serekai the Blooded still holds the favor of the elder gods, and he does not forgive betrayal. Sahladun, the Silent Blade, only bears allegiance to no one but himself. Do not forget Saveen, the Scarlet Wolf, whose hunger for destruction is unmatched, even among his kind. ‘None of them are good at sharing power well. Sivania trembles beneath their struggle, and when deities tremble, mortals bleed. It’ll soon spill to this dimension; wait and see.’
Issa cursed under her breath, the implications reeling in her mind. ‘ Hell , we thought we escaped them,’ she muttered, a weary sigh escaping her lips. ‘We thought we left all of that behind.’
Zephyr’s eyes darkened with something old and inevitable. ‘We can never escape the gods, daughter.’
His voice was barely above a whisper but carried the tonnage of absolute truth. ‘We can only prepare and brace ourselves for their onslaught.’
The words settled like a prophecy over the table.
The future was shifting, reshaping itself in the violent hands of celestial egos, and Ki’Remi sensed he and the Riders could ill afford to ignore what was coming.
‘Is Sulfiqar appeased?’ Zephyr asked his daughter.
‘He is fallen too,’ Issa replied, giving him an in-depth report.
‘His greed eventually caught up to him,’ Zephyr sighed.
His lips curled into something between amusement and unease. ‘You should worry less about his wrath and more about his showmanship. The Divine Immortal does not slink in shadows or exact revenge quietly. When he rises again, and he shall, he will do so in a spectacle grander than anything Pegasi has ever witnessed. He will proclaim his return with trumpets, thunder, fire, and pageantry.’
The older man’s eyes flickered as he scoffed. ‘The end of all things always starts with a farcical display.’
Ki’Remi shook his head. ‘I don’t mean to offend, but Sivania is an existence with one too many deities and a severe ego problem.’
Zephyr’s mouth twitched. ‘Tis past self-conceit. Tis incomprehensible, irrefutable.When crossed, they become a tempest far more furious than anything you’ve seen, an eradication-level storm. Be warned, immortal arrogance and vanity are forces of nature, and you do not fight them. You endure them, and if lucky, you outwit them.’
Issa exhaled, rubbing a hand down her face. ‘So we’re caught in the middle of war divinities vying for power and a dethroned Divine Immortal waiting for his instance to make a grand return?’
Zephyr nodded. ‘Tis the fate we stand upon.’
For a long moment, no one spoke.
The radiance from the windows shifted, painting the wooden floors in honey-colored hues.
The warmth of Dunia’s sunrise starkly contrasted with the cold inevitability hanging between them.
Issa sighed. ‘I feel bad for those we left behind. For Zenas and our extended family. The gods have begun their battles, and I pray he prevails lest we demigods and mortals pay the ultimate price.’
The golden light of Dunia’s twin suns stretched over the fields, washing the horizon in dusky amber as Ki’Remi walked beside Zephyr through the swaying vines.
The scent of ripening fruit clung to the air, as did sun-warmed citrus, the earthiness of harvested soil, and grapes swinging from their vines.
The land was quiet, save for the distant carried words shared between Issa and Iyanda as they wandered the far end of the farm.
Her brother enthusiastically explained their small enterprise, hands gesturing as he spoke.
On the terrace, Raquel and Safiyya sat in the fading light, glasses of iced tea in hand, their conversation carrying through the atmosphere, lilting and unhurried, sprinkled in with bursts of laughter.
Ki’Remi respected the substance of Zephyr’s presence beside him, the measured steps of a man whose soul had been held hostage and then returned.
He admired how the Sedevan man bore no bitterness.
Zephyr was a quiet man but not a weak one. He walked with the demeanor of a legend who had once commanded legions through the strength of his will.
For long moments, they moved in companionable silence.
Zephyr cleared his throat as they skirted a cluster of verdant nut trees.
Ki’Remi twisted his head, sensing a shift.
‘What plans do you have for my daughter, Sableman?’
The older man’s voice was hushed, but a father’s tempered steel lay beneath it.
Ki’Remi’s steps faltered for only a breath before he stopped and turned toward Zephyr, facing him under the vast, open sky.
He’d answered to admirals, to kings, to gods themselves.
However, the gravity of this moment outclassed them all.
His neck worked, tightening. ‘I intend for her to be my wife if she so wishes.’
The words left him raw, stripped bare.
Zephyr studied him, waiting for more intentional meaning.
Ki’Remi exhaled through his nose, dragging a hand through his locs. Then, he spoke again, quieter this time but no less resolute.
‘I want a life with her. I want her beside me as long as I breathe. I want everything.’
The Rider’s voice gritted with emotion. ‘A home. A family. Children who know peace.’
The confession hung between them, naked and irrevocable.
For a considerable time, Zephyr said nothing.
He only studied the Edenite, his eyes raking deep and searching as if seeing through him into the marrow of his soul.
After a time, he nodded. ‘I see a great warrior in you,’ he murmured, stepping closer. ‘But also a healer.’
His celestial gaze held an ancient perception. ‘A man who wields life and death in equal measure.’
Ki’Remi’s chest ached, not from doubt but from the truth of it. The fact was that Zephyr profoundly understood him.
Without warning, the air around them shifted.
A pull came from deep inside him, a ripple in existence itself.
Ki’Remi’s breath hitched as three silhouettes shimmered into view.
The towering figures, their bodies half-shadow, part-wraith, clad in the ancestral warpaint of the Ameru, stared down at the pair, eyes burning from beyond time.
Zephyr did not startle nor step back.
Instead, he turned to them with calm reverence, lifting a hand in quiet acknowledgment before placing it over his heart.
‘You long have guarded over him,’ Zephyr murmured, his voice as steady as the land beneath their feet. ‘And I have long seen you through the tether of Sulfiqar.’
Ki’Remi stiffened, his eyes snapping to Zephyr. ‘How?’
The older man gave a slow, knowing smile. ‘Like I said before, when you are bound to the gods, even in suffering, you see more than you should. Somehow, your spirit was linked to all this turbulence, like you were the key to the release of my soul and the joy of my Issa. When I perceived your essence, I also got acquainted with those of your Witchmen and their deeds through time.’
His gaze flickered toward the three floating silhouettes, motionless mid-air, eyes on the pair with unreadable expressions. ‘I observed you all. Each battle. Every rise and fall.’
All Ki’Remi could do was murmur. ‘Fascinating.’
He turned to his spectral ancestors, and though they did not speak, they moved, inclining their heads, a rare gesture of respect.
Zephyr lifted a hand to his chest in return.
For an extended moment, the three ancient warriors and a demi-god war general who had once been fettered to the Divine Immortal acknowledged each other.
Seconds later, the Witchmen dissipated into the dusk, their presence lingering only in the whisper of the wind.
Ki’Remi exhaled as a monumental peace settled into his bones.
Zephyr placed a heavy hand on Ki’Remi’s shoulder. ‘You have my blessing, Sableman,’ he said.
The words struck deep, sending a ripple through the Rider.
Then Zephyr’s mouth curled into something both wry and amused. ‘We Sacrans mate for eternity, mind. So with this declaration, tis no way of turning back.’
Ki’Remi stilled, the magnitude of the occasion settling over him.
Then, in the distance, he caught sight of Issa, her laughter carrying on the wind, her gilded curls catching the last rays of day.
Ki’Remi inhaled, his voice gritted but fierce as he answered, ‘Tis why I’ve waited this long, all my life, for her.’
Zephyr’s gaze held his for another moment before, with a satisfied nod, he turned toward the setting suns, the golden light washing over the farm.