Chapter 27 A Doorway To Redemption
A Doorway To Redemption
Idan’s entire frame shuddered with a lethal, incandescent rage as he raced toward Sulfiqar.
The image of Sheba under the lobby’s pillars and wreckage acted as a fuse, propelling him faster and higher.
He tore through the thinning atmosphere, a streak of gold-laced fury hunting the deificus rot that was his father.
Sulfiqar hovered high above the city’s power hub thermal vents, fingers splayed as he siphoned the electrical grid to forge a final, terminal upsurge intended to flatten the metropolis.
Before the God-King could dump his stolen energy into yet another tsunamic inundation, Idan slammed into Sulfiqar, hands locking onto the tyrant’s throat.
Idan drove his knee into Sulfiqar’s solar plexus, snapping the celestial ribs like cheap glass, and pivoted mid-air.
With a roar that rattled the planet’s atmospheric cage, he hurled the tyrant away from the city, launching him toward the scorched, dead expanse of the Eden Maria.
You’re done threatening my friends, my family, and my woman!
Idan’s mental voice scraped across the neural bands like a serrated blade as he sped after his patriarch.
He dropped from the sky, landing beside Sulfiqar’s shattered body, and unleashed The Sun-Eater.
The weapon hissed as it carved through the air, the dark steel drinking the ambient light.
He drove the edge into his father’s shoulder, the soul-breaking metal intended to end the fight.
But Sulfiqar was a cockroach of divinity; even with his essence leaking in surges of gold motes, the God-King clawed at the dirt, his eyes burning with a stubborn, frantic desperation.
Just then, Idan’s neural node at his temple pulsed with Mirage’s incoming signal.
Idan, Molan, I’m deploying a nanite shroud over the dome to fill the ruptures. You can focus now on getting that rotten deific sack of shit off our planet.
Idan’s Ssignakht sensed a silver veil of microscopic machines flooding the sky far behind him, stitching the fractured canopy of Eden II back together.
The reinforcements allowed Molan to release his psionic hold on the structural beams.
He dropped from the clouds, streaking over towards Idan and Sulfiqar.
He landed in the regolith dust beside his brother with a heavy thud.
Snapping the Chains of the Old King Saitoni free from his belt, he whipped them over the writhing deity.
The sacred links unfurled and hissed as they stretched, glowing with a punishing, white-hot heat.
Idan lashed the metal around Sulfiqar’s hands, while Molan worked on the feet and torso.
The ancient, heavy iron bit into divine flesh, anchoring the former Supreme Sovereign to the desert floor.
‘The hex, Idan,’ Molan grunted. ‘While the chains have him pinned.’
The brothers began the chant, and as their voices reached into the fabric of the cosmos, shrouded ley lines ripped open, revealing a void-rift.
Thunder roared from within it as the vertical tear of undiluted gloaming enlarged.
It was a doorway to the Nadir-Grave, the most desolate pit in the multiverse; a prison where no light had ever pierced.
Flinging the shackled God-King toward the hungry maw, the brothers retreated, soaring into the sky and wrapping themselves in Sacran shields of moted potency.
Below, Sulfiqar shrieked, his excoriating features melting into a mask of pure, pathetic terror.
Although limited in movement, he kicked at the sand, fingernails clawing at the vacuum as the rift’s gravity began to claim him.
‘Why?’ he screamed at his heirs.
Idan indulged him with a snarl. ‘This is for my mother, Aeryn-Thall, the Weaver of New Life, may she rest in eternal peace. This is also for Sayonna, the courtesan, Molan’s matriarch, and for all the innocent souls you’ve stripped of life and destroyed in your quest for glory. Enjoy your immortal hell!’
From the shadows of the abyss, murky creatures crawled out; translucent, bitter streaks of pure dark energy.
They swarmed the God-King, their elongated, skeletal fingers sinking into his glowing chest to drain his divinity.
Idan and Molan eased even further back as the wraiths emptied Sulfiqar’s soul, the once-radiant king shriveling into a brittle, dried-out husk within seconds.
The last sound from the former God-Emperor was a dry, rattling whimper before the rift collapsed in a violent storm of violet lightning and black energy.
The brothers hovered for a moment, the silence of the wasteland settling over them. Molan let out a long, ragged exhale, his shoulders dropping.
They slowly descended to the ground, touching down, their faces wreathed in disbelief that their nightmare was finally over.
‘He’s gone, Idan. Real fokkin’ history this time.’
Idan nodded, his tense muscles easing, the golden fire in his eyes dimming to a steady glow. ‘Fokk yeah, and good riddance, too.’
The brothers fell into a hug, only pulling apart when Zane’s pinnace banked overhead, landing a few yards away.
He stepped onto the sand just as the final sparks of the dark energy vanished.
His face was brooding and gloomy, his eyes glowing azure with the residue of the psychic echoes lingering in the atmosphere.
‘I caught their frequency,’ Zane growled. ‘Those monsters are called the Illuminari. They’ve been waiting eons for a feast like him.’
‘And what a banquet it shall be,’ Idan muttered. ‘The evil and incarnate malice within Sulfiqar will fill their bellies for epochs to come.’
He stared at the empty patch of desert where his father had been deleted, then turned his head back toward the city and Sheba.
‘Fokk me, I’m done fighting galactic-level battles with narcissistic, malicious gods,’ he muttered, the word a heavy, exhausted punctuation mark on the end of a dynasty. ‘I’m over this. All I want is a quiet life now with my woman. On a farm. With a few sheep and goats for company.’
‘Preach,’ Molan rasped. ‘Add a tot of whiskey, and five days to sleep this shit off.’
The three men stood together in the regolith, their shadows long against the cooling sand as the first real peace in years took root in Idan’s soul.
Idan stalked through the ruined square in front of the Joint Pegasi Hospital Administration Complex.
Air ambulances rose to the sky around him, airlifting patients to the nearest hospitals, while temporary triage tents sat in the center of One Seven One Liberty Avenue.
The street crawled with paramedics, Eden guards, and traffic controllers.
He navigated a labyrinth of pulverized marble and twisted rebar, his internal compass locked onto the singular, vibrant frequency of Sheba’s essence.
He found her in one of the emergency shelters.
Her silhouette was illuminated by the irregular light of the twin suns as she helped bandage a broken femur bone on a middle-aged man.
As he drew closer, he caught the shimmering, gold-etched lattice of the Ssignakht sight radiating from her pupils.
He sensed her reach into the man’s panicked mind and soothe the edges of his pain and terror.
Idan slowed his roll, his chest expanding with pride.
She was the epitome of true goddess energy; radiating kindness, compassion, and a celestial fire of fierce care.
His eyes lingered on her face, her beauty, her smile, even on her nape where he loved to nuzzle in, longing to stroke skin, run his hands through her dark curls.
Fokk, she was beautiful.
As if sensing him, she glanced up and their gazes locked.
He jolted again inside with wild passion for her, tilting his head as they both read each other’s minds.
I love you more, Sheba murmured into his mind.
Never, he growled, closing the distance and pulling her into his arms. I love you to the highest of the heavens and back again.
He pressed his temple against hers, their shared breath drowning out the cacophony of activity and sirens around them.
‘I’m assuming Sulfiqar is old news.’
‘He is.’
‘You and Molan fought with such courage. Sante for saving the city.’
‘The deity-level trash who called himself my father took longer to take out than I anticipated,’ he replied, his grip tightening on her waist. ‘I’ve got to hand it to him, he scrapped like a bawbag-eyed mangy cur.’
Sheba tilted her head. ‘Was it hard to destroy your own father?’
Idan huffed. ‘He was no father to me, my love; he was my tormentor, under whom I suffered for many years. He was also the rot of Sacra made flesh who killed my mother, so nada, I have zero feelings or guilt for him.’
Sheba closed her eyes for a moment. He sensed her use of her new divine sight to search the cosmos, then his spirit, and he let her.
‘I see vestiges of his spirit, the motes of his soul, roiling in agony within the everlasting hell that is the Nadir-Grave. I also sense you’ve found a measure of peace and healing.’
She opened her eyes, and they glowed, his brow arching as a revelation struck him.
He stepped back, his gaze narrowing as they raked her face. ‘Sheba, your Ssignakht potency is expanding.’
Idan placed both hands on her temples, his fingers brushing her hairline.
He closed his eyes, sensing the atoms of Sacran god energy multiplying inside her, rewriting her biological limits.
A smile curved his mouth. ‘You’re evolving. You’ll soon be capable of what Issa, Zane, I, and Molan can do to some extent. You’re also likely going to live a very long life as a result.’
Sheba’s breath hitched, her eyes blinking with a mix of awe and burgeoning realization. ‘A long life? With you? What time frame, honey?’
‘Eons, if you’ll have me,’ he whispered, capturing her lips once more.
It took everything they had to break the contact, but with the ruins and victims around them screaming for attention, they pulled apart after one last, deep kiss.
The couple dove straight into the chaos, joining in the grit of the rescue op.
The Riders also stepped up for Eden II, which was their home and life, rolling up their sleeves to help save the city they all cherished.
Zane worked with Mirage from a tent, helping the hospitals manage patient intakes as the city’s systems were still down.
Zane muttered into the Sable neural network they were all patched into.
Ki’Remi and Issa just touched down at the spaceport. They’re bringing with them a surgical team from their ship to take the pressure off the trauma wards.
Selene, Illanna, and Katya worked with paramedics.
Kainan, Xion, Idan, and Molan joined the Eden Guards to comb through the destruction for survivors.
Kage and Harlow flew in from J’Urg Mihor, cutting their vacation short the second the emergency pings hit their comms.
High above, thousands of industrial bots swarmed the skyline, their lasers stitching the city’s dome back together.
Hours later, when the rescue mission ended, the last of the debris got lifted away, and the streets were clear, the Riders all stumbled back to Kainan’s Sable Tower penthouse.
Mirage piled the dining table with enough food to feed a small village: brisket with a heavy pepper crust, garlic-miso crusty bread rolls, bowls of spicy noodles, and roasted vegetables with hot honey.
They ate like they hadn’t seen chow in days, exhausted and famished, still covered in soot and sweat.
The only sound was the scrape of forks and knives and whispers asking for a bowl or plate to pass until Kainan stood up.
He scanned the table, his eyes stopping on Idan.
‘We’ve been a tight, closed group for a long time,’ the Riders’ bosskhan stated, in a weary growl. ‘But today, this circle got bigger. Our new Sacran brother defended this city and our people without flinching. You’re not an outsider anymore. You’re family.’
Kainan lifted a glass of amber nectar. ‘Simi’Ren Idan Caliostheles, consider yourself one of us, a Rider.’
Idan blinked, glancing at Kainan, perplexed, trying to figure out if Kainan was joking.
‘I mean it,’ the Sable leader growled. ‘Let’s fokkin’ toast to it.’
Everyone stood up at once, the sound of chairs dragging over the floor as they raised their glasses in a fierce salute.
‘To Idan,’ Kainan murmured.
‘To Idan,’ they said, the words echoing to the ceiling as they slugged back their drinks.
At Sheba’s touch on his shoulder, and emboldened by her smile, Idan took an inhale, slowly rising from his seat.
He fought back tears as he too drank from his glass.
He gasped in surprise when Molan pulled him into a bear hug.
‘Best brother ever,’ Mo rumbled.
Idan huffed. ‘Only one you have, might I add, unless Sulfiqar had other bastards we don’t know about.’
For a moment, the two men stared at each other, then growled in disbelieving sync. ‘Nada!’
The room burst into laughter as Idan got swept into more of the Riders’ embraces.
He reached for Sheba’s hand and held on firmly, grateful to be anchored to a real, fokkin’ tight, loyal clan.
Once lost, now found, he was no longer a lone sigma god-warrior seeking redemption; he was a new man, surrounded by love.
Accepted, and appreciated, just as he was, with a tribe to call his own.