16. Goddesses and Queens
16
Goddesses and Queens
Ki’REMI
K i’Remi sensed Sheba’s gaze settle on him as the Riders carried on their banter with Issa.
She hadn’t spoken much since the introductions, but as Issa continued conversing with the Riders’, she slid into the booth beside him.
Wistfulness flitted in her dark, knowing eyes as she studied Ki’Remi. ‘You like her.’
Ki’Remi turned his head, gaze locked on the woman across from him.
Issa, radiant, laughing at something Riv said, her curls tumbling over one shoulder, her fingers toying with the stem of her glass.
He forced himself to look back at Sheba. ‘I do. Does it bother you, given our history?’
She huffed a quiet laugh. ‘ Nada . Not at all.’
Sheba leaned in, voice softer now. ‘We would have been good together once, but our time passed.’
He exhaled, tilting his tumbler, watching the amber liquid shift. ‘Indeed.’
‘We were never meant to last.’ She smiled, nostalgic, affectionate. ‘You and me, we’re better as friends, Ki’Remi. We always were.’
Emotion in his chest uncoiled, not in relief or sadness, but just an acceptance and gratitude that his former friend-with-benefits wasn’t holding on to what had never existed between them.
Sheba smirked, nudging his arm. ‘Means you’ve got a stunning girlfriend in your life now.’
‘Not sure I’m even close to that status quite yet.’
‘You will be.’
Before he could respond, she slid out of the booth, smoothing her sleek dress. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said with a teasing lift of her brow. ‘I’ve got friends waiting. Enjoy your night, Commander.’
With a wave to the group and a kind glance to Issa, Sheba left, gliding toward the upper levels of the lounge.
Almost as if on cue, Kainan, who perched on the edge of the banquette, now stretched, cracking his knuckles.
‘Alright, let’s allow Remi to court this stunning woman before he broods a hole into the floor.’
Riv snorted. ‘Let’s also feed Kage before his stomach growls transform into all-out roars.’
Kage flipped off the silver-haired Rider as the rest of the Riders chuckled.
Ki’Remi stood, clasping each of them on the shoulder, an unspoken bond that was unbreakable and unquestioned.
Kainan leaned to drawl in Ki’Remi’s ear. ‘She’s a good one. You’d be a fool to let her slip through your fingers.’
Ki’Remi chose silence, his gaze on the Riders as they filed out, heading for The BirdKage, the restaurant Kage owned on the upper level.
He swiveled his head to lock eyes with Issa’s, jolting with a now familiar lurch of desire.
He wanted this woman.
More than he should. Fokk , he yearned for her.
A line of ancient poetry glimmered in his mind, and he murmured it under his breath. ‘It is not a subject for indignation that Trojans and well-grieved Greeks endure hardships for a long time on account of such a woman. In countenance, she is wondrous. She moves a goddess and looks a queen.’
‘What did you say?’
Issa’s husky intonation cut through his craving and he took a deep inhale.
‘ Nada ,’ he rasped, eyes still on her countenance, heart, soul, and body throbbing for her.
However, he had to trust her before exploring the idea of an entanglement with her.
Ki’Remi leaned back in the plush booth, studying Issa like a man dissecting a puzzle with too many missing pieces.
His fingers tapped against his glass, slow and deliberate.
‘Before we proceed, Issa, I have to know everything you’re not telling me.’
His voice was timbred, unwavering, a command laced with intent.
She got it.
He perceived it in how she inhaled, and her pulse ticked at the fragile column of her throat. She freakin’ understood what he was saying.
Trust.
If we’re going anywhere, we need to start with trust.
They stared at each other for long, charged seconds, the air between them crackling with tension.
In time, she nodded in quiet surrender.
Ki’Remi lifted a hand, sending a neural node directive to his implant.
A metanoid-powered shield dropped over them.
The room beyond faded from view.
Sound dimmed. The background noise of the bustling lounge disappeared like a tide retreating into the abyss.
Issa arched a brow. ‘Privacy, Commander?’
‘ Naam . So you’ve no option but to tell me the facts. All of it. No one outside this booth will hear us now.’
She sighed, swirling the remnants of her cocktail, eyes on the liquid catching the light as she set the glass down with precise care.
The brightness in her astral eyes faded, replaced with clouded darkness. ‘You want the truth?’ she murmured.
She lifted her wrist and tapped the chrono strapped to her pulse. The numbers glowed, counting down.
‘I sense my chances to dodge you are limited, like the time of this ticking timepiece.’
He frowned at the device. ‘True. You don’t have the luxury of keeping secrets anymore.’
Silence fell for a beat before she parted her lips and announced, ‘I was once a Ssigis.’
Ki’Remi’s brow furrowed. ‘A what now?’
She exhaled, gaze locking onto his. ‘A Sedevan warrior and celestial defender in the Sacran Immortal Army. I was not just a soldier but also a trained medic and surgeon.’
His gut clenched.
Immortals? Celestial defenders? What in the everlovinfokk?
She must have seen the bewilderment in his eyes and pursed her lips.
‘For years immortal, Sacra has been the home of a race of Descended demi-gods, the Savatti, who live in the city of New Savartin on the planet’s surface. Above them are a series of divine abodes inhabited by pure supernals, the Sedevans. The Heavenly Realms are invisible to mortal eyes and exist on a plane just beyond the physical world. You can only travel to them via a Celestial Pathway, a dimensional hyperspace conduit unknown to mortals. We Sedevans, the Ascended, are beings of immense power and intellect, and we once ruled over Sacra until war drove us into the heavens. Now, Sarvāstivāda sustains itself and its inhabitants through the resources, spiritual energy, rare minerals, and unique materials harvested by the Descended. Those who live in the cities on the planet’s surface.’
‘Is that right?’ Ki’Remi rasped his cold, logical mind, unable to grasp what she was sharing.
‘Tis. However, our leaders exist in a dominion higher than Sarvāstivāda, in the uppermost reaches of the Seventh Heaven, in the fortress city of Sivania. Where only the most ancient of gods exist, so old that no one knows their ages. From here, the Sura High Council governs the Ascended, which comprises various deities of different capabilities. Still, the Divine Immortal ruler is Sulfiqar, the Sacran God-Emperor and deity above us all. For millennia, I was one of his Saatifa, his guards, acting in a medical capacity given my healing and energy powers, the Ssignakht.’
Ki’Remi rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Issa, you’re blowing my mind.’
‘I’ve only just begun,’ she quipped, but he grasped the sadness and grief in her eyes.
‘Go on,’ he rasped, stretching his sinewed arms on either side of the banquette’s rim, eyes narrowing as he sensed the following juncture of her story was harrowing.
She took a shaky inhale. ‘In recent years, Sulfiqar, who has lived an eternity, got afflicted with some unknown disease that is wearing down his immortality. He concluded the remedy was to siphon the pure essence of other high-octane, redoubtable beings. He began to hunt down the most powerful immortals and consume their souls.’
‘How is this possible?’
Issa shrugged. ‘They are gods and can make up shit as they go. In the past, when a soul arrived in the afterlife, it was weighed against the scarlet feather of Sa’at, the pinion of truth. This tradition was nullified by Sulfiqar, who now controls the outcome. If the soul is found pure and imbued with life force, he ingests it to strengthen himself. However, if it is too heavy from evil deeds, it is fed to a monster, Sammit, controller of the Sullied, who exists in the bowels of Sacra’s hell. Sulfiqar’s desperation has led Sacra and the High Heavens into an age of utter ruthlessness on the brink of war. Now he mows down good and bad souls alike to feed his insatiable greed to remain immortal.’
She lifted her chin. ‘My father, a formidable Ssigis General, was asked to surrender his soul to extend Sulfiqar’s immortality. He refused.’
Ki’Remi pursed his lips. ‘What happened?’
A bitter laugh escaped her mouth. ‘Sulfiqar cursed him. Bound his spirit to a talisman that siphons his essence away, sliver by sliver.’
His jaw tightened. ‘The fokk ?’
She nodded. ‘The Sirr Sanctum stone delivers a slow execution. One that can’t be reversed unless, of course, by Sulfiqar himself.’
This was beyond ludicrous.
‘The Most High was not done,’ she continued, voice quieter now. ‘He cast father, my family, and I from the heavens onto the surface of Sacra and turned us into daemons.’
His breath stilled. ‘Daemons?’
Issa lifted her chin, and for the first time, she looked away. ‘Also called the Sullied. With wings of jagged black. Silver-burning eyes. Our souls transformed into twisted spirits. Our forms became warped. They threw us into the slums of New Savartin like waste where we burrowed under the ground to hide from the blinding light.’
A pulse of fury shot through Ki’Remi’s chest.
He imagined her, this strong and defiant woman, brought to her knees, crawling in the filth of a world not meant to hold her.
She swallowed. ‘I used my innate Ssignakht healing power, which I still retained, to stave off some of the Sullied effects in me and also on my family, unable to watch them suffer. I took it a step further to get rid of the curse.’
Ki’Remi’s eyes narrowed when her voice trailed off. ‘What did you do, Elaris?’
She met his gaze again, unflinching. ‘I stole.’
Silence.
His heart thudded once. Twice.
She continued.
‘Given I’d previously lived in the upper realm City as a medic guardian, I was well acquainted with the secret doorways and paths to Sivania. I climbed a secret tether from New Savartin to Sivania and broke into the Repository of Souls in the Divine Immortal City. I filched a most significant sanopic clay jar filled with the universe’s supreme transcendent, ancient souls.’
Ki’Remi inhaled. ‘You snatched a vessel of freakin’ spirits?’
She lifted a shoulder. ‘Twas the price of salvation.’
His mind reeled. ‘You used them?’
‘A dozen of them,’ she admitted. ‘To heal myself and my family. To restore us to our former humaniforms. I ingested four archaic souls, amplifying my Ssignakht energy transference power. I did it to try and save my father, to free him of the talisman. However, I was unable to restore him. The Sirr Sanctum stone won’t let him go.’
Ki’Remi sensed something cold settle in his stomach. ‘So what did you do?’
She exhaled. ‘I attempted to barter the remaining souls in the jar for his freedom.’
‘Sulfiqar refused,’ Ki’Remi concluded.
She released an acute breath, something like grief flickering across her face. ‘Indeed. He sent a messenger instead.’
‘To negotiate?’
‘To punish me.’
Ki’Remi’s body went still.
She lifted a hand, pressing two fingers to her pulse point. ‘I had turned my Ssignakht potency into good, healing patients at a clinic in New Savartin. He came disguised as a patient. When I leaned in to heal him, he used Sacran sorcery on me that delivered a new malediction.’
Ki’Remi’s gut clenched. ‘The everlovin?’
Issa’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘A divination that reacts with my innate Ssignakht power. I’m able to propel, blast, and generate explosions with the ability also to empower anything touched or used. I’m a pure weapon of energy. I can create and project photon pillars, spikes, vortexes, beams, and lasers that obliterate matter at a subatomic level. I was and still am one of the most potent warriors in the Ssigis war machinery. My father was even more formidable than I. This curse, however, ratcheted up my powers, and now, if I can’t drain the power build, it’ll kill me within 73 hours.’
She tapped the chrono again.
The numbers kept counting down.
‘If I don’t use the healing aspect of my Ssignakht life force every seventy-three hours,’ she said, voice razor-thin, ‘I implode.’
The words sent a cold shock through him.
‘A cruel execution,’ he murmured, realization hitting hard.
She nodded. ‘It’s one way to compel me to hand over what they want: the jar of souls. However, I refuse to surrender to them without my father’s full release from the freakish soul stone. That’s why I fled to Eden II and took a Pegasi medical certification, which I aced given my experience. I then worked at a local clinic before applying as a surgeon on the Perseus Prime. By moving around a lot, the Ssigis hunters can’t find me while I buy my father time and work on navigating this nightmare.’
Ki’Remi inhaled a deep, measured breath as he processed the impossible.
She was a fallen celestial being who defied the gods.
She stole what was never meant to be taken.
Yet she wasn’t done fighting.
‘You’ve been playing a dangerous game, Elaris,’ he rasped, edged with a dark sentiment.
She exhaled with a humorless laugh. ‘Oh, trust me. I’m well aware.’
His eyes locked onto hers. ‘You think you can keep this up forever?’
Her fingers curled against the table. ‘I have no other choice. I have to force them to stop the agony the stone is inflicting on my father. I will prevail.’
He huffed. ‘By the sounds of it, your Divine Immortal Ruler is a sadist who probably enjoys what he’s doing to your father.’
His voice was quiet, but the truth of his words was crushing.
Her throat tightened. ‘He does, but if I stop now, baba dies.’
Ki’Remi’s jaw ticked. ‘If you keep going, you’ll die.’
She held his gaze, her expression unyielding.
‘I know.’
He didn’t know what else to say for the first time since he met her.
Ki’Remi stared at her, his whole body tense with the savagery of what she shared.
Disbelief warred against logic and everything upon which he built his intellect.
Souls in a jar? A celestial city in the skies? Higher Gods who punished their own? Her life in a vice?
His absolute life was grounded in science, irrefutable fact, and rationality.
Yet, Issa Elaris sat before him, living proof of the impossible.
His jaw clenched.
There was no denying what he witnessed: her glowing hands, the sheer power radiating from her, and how she obliterated their enemies and pounded them into oblivion.
He searched for a rational bulwark in the chaos she shared, intellect and cold reasoning to anchor himself.
All he found was her.
She was watching him now, waiting, not with hope but with resignation.
She didn’t expect him to believe her or support her.
For some reason, that infuriated him.
‘Seventy-three hours,’ he rasped, voice quiet and measured. ‘And then you implode?’
She nodded.
He exhaled through his nose, rolling his shoulders, trying to shake off the edginess her account roused in him.
He had seen suffering before.
In war zones, in famine-ridden planets, in the depths of space where death was a whisper away.
This was engineered torment.
Cold. Calculated. A punishment woven into every hour of her existence.
A part of him wanted to dismiss it, to throw up the barriers of logic and reason. To call this what it sounded like delusion, myth, a fever dream wrapped in superstition.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to cast her off because, despite all the impossibilities, her pain was real.
He perceived it in the tightness of her shoulders.
The way her fingers trembled before she curled them into fists.
She held herself together as if she had carried this burden for so long that even living with it became second nature.
With a sudden lurch, he hated her enemies.
He loathed the thought of this woman walking through life with no one to bear this misfortune alongside her.
The realization struck him harder than it should have.
This wasn’t his battle. Nor his problem to fix.
Yet here he was, wanting to pull her into his orbit and protection without knowing what it meant for him.
Ki’Remi exhaled and slid around the booth, shifting closer to her.
Issa stiffened as his presence neared, the glow of the table light illuminating her golden skin.
He didn’t speak, didn’t demand a thing from her.
He didn’t even attempt to comfort her with superficial banalities.
He just reached for her.
A hesitation flickered across her face.
Slowly, with tentative care, she eased into his silent grasp.
The heat of her on him sent a shudder through his chest, followed by an unexpected tightening.
She felt slight in comparison to his bulk but not fragile.
Nada.
Issa Elaris was anything but vulnerable.
He didn’t provide empty platitudes and promises or say it’d be okay.
Instead, he gripped her as she sighed and sagged onto him.
Allowing herself to be embraced for what he suspected was the first time in a long time.