He took her hand into his and placed it over his heart so that she could feel its fierce, strong beat beneath her palm. “You will know, and you won’t doubt me. Ever. You’ll see.”
“Then I will wait for you. No other shall ever touch me. You will forever be my only heart.” She turned her hair snow white to match his and to honor him and his noble sacrifice.
For her and their son.
Never again would her hair be any other color, and she would sit in black—to mark her darkness—until his return.
He gave her a sad smile. “You will always be my precious Apollymi.” He kissed her lips. “Now go before they find you. Raise our son and never let him doubt how much his father loves him. One day, I will return for you both. You can count on it.”
Her heart shattered as she nodded and let go of his hand. “I will wait for you! Forever!” She turned and walked away, fearing the future. And knowing what she would do if the gods dared keep them apart.
June 25, 9527 BC
Apollymi the Great Destroyer burst from the depths of her hellish prison to set fire to the entire earth, intending to scorch it back to its primordial ooze.
Her wrath was implacable.
And no one was immune.
Waves crashed over continents and sank them overnight to the bottom of the oceans. Roiling black clouds obliterated the sun. All life upon the human earth was threatened with extinction.
Even the very gods trembled in fear.
Why? Because those gods of old had banded together once more to take from her the one thing she’d loved above all others. Again. The only one she’d allowed them to lock her in prison to save.
Her second born son.
The sole child she’d hidden in the world of man, hoping to spare him from their cruelty and slaughter.
And like his brother before him, he had been persecuted by the gods. No mercy had been shown him.
No kindness.
Instead, her own pantheon had allowed humanity to abuse him and had gone out of their way to stalk him until they’d succeeded in brutally murdering him just after the eve of his twenty-first year.
As with Monakribos before him, he’d been deprived of his father’s love.
Deprived of his mother’s protection.
Now …
She would have her vengeance!
In a furious blood quest for atonement, Apollymi had set upon her own pantheon first, annihilating every god who’d cursed her child.
Until she reached the final two in Katateros.
There, the ancient goddess sent the force of her winds to knock both Symfora and her daughter, Bet’anya, into the bright foyer of the theocropolis where the Atlantean gods had once held their immaculate parties, and their meetings that determined the fates of mankind, along with those of Apollymi’s beloved sons and husband. She stalked them like the predator she was, intending to feast upon their souls for what they’d done.
“You killed him. All of you!”
Symfora—their goddess of death and sorrow, who was as dark in coloring as Apollymi had been before they’d interfered with her first and only love—shook her head. “We didn’t kill your son. He still lives.”
Narrowing her swirling silver eyes as her white hair cascaded around her lithe body, Apollymi curled her lips. “My Apostolos was slaughtered this morning by the Greek godyouinvited intomylands.” A god who had killed her son and then cursed all the Apollite people to die painfully at age twenty-seven.
Symfora’s eyes widened in terror. “Ineverwelcomed Apollo here. That was a decision made by you and Archon.”
“Shut up!” Apollymi blasted her into oblivion for speaking a truth that speared her with guilt. She refused to be blamed for what had happened to her child.
