Then Apollymi looked down at the tiny infant in her hands and started to discard it as they’d done her son.
To toss him into the sea like he was garbage. Without a second thought so that he could die.
But because he was the son of Styxx, it was as if she held her own son in her arms. He looked like her Apostolos.
Identical, in fact. Every last part of him was the same. His tiny little fingers and toes.
His lips that had never had a chance to call her mother …
Tears filled her eyes as she remembered that day, twenty-one years ago, when Apostolos had been ripped from her womb and taken from her. So small and fragile.
Just an innocent babe in need of love …
And she remembered when Monakribos had been so tiny and sweet. When all he’d done was beg for his father’s love after they’d stolen his father from both of them and left them lost in their grief. Powerless to keep the world from crushing them with its unkindness.
“Just like you,” she whispered to the baby. “They were helpless, too.”
No one had taken pity on them.
For her sons, alone, she’d allowed her powers to be bound. Had allowed the gods to lock her into a dark, hollow prison until she’d lost what little sanity she’d had.
Her tears formed crystals on her cheeks as they fell silently and her grief shredded a heart she’d never wanted to begin with.
Damn you, Kissare, for making me feel love.
Because of him, the goddess of destruction was not without feelings. Her heart was shattered and she was devastated. And no matter how much she hated Styxx of Didymos, she couldn’t bring herself to kill this baby who looked so much like the creature that had fathered him.
A baby who looked so much like her precious Apostolos who wasn’t supposed to die so very young.
So very brutally.
More tears blinded her as she struggled to breathe past the pain that lacerated her heart.
I will protect you, little one. You will grow to be a strong, fine man.
“Out of darkness comes the light. From the loins of this Stygian hell, you are born and you will be called Urian—the flame of our new people. And one day, you will be my blade. My vengeance upon them all. They took my son from me, and I will take theirs from them. Together, my precious Flame, we will destroy the human race, and all the gods of this earth.”
But first, he would have to be reborn in the land of the mortals and from the belly of a mother who would have no idea of who or what she carried …
What this child’s destiny would become.
And Apollymi knew just who his new temporary mother would be. What father would be the best to mentor him to manhood.
Aye, the world of man would tremble before them all.
June 26, 9527 BC
Dawn
Strykerius Apoulos cringed in horror as he heard the screams of a thousand Apollites dying in utter agony. Why hadn’t they listened to him when he’d told them to take cover, and heed the warnings of the priests and priestesses?
Because no one wanted to believe their creator had turned against them over something they’d taken no part in. Something they’d been innocent of.
They continued to believe in a god who hated them. One who had not only turned his back on them but cursed them in his callousness.
Throwing his head back, Stryker roared with the injustice of it all. How could the entire Apollite race be damned over the actions committed by a mere handful?
Yet that was what they were facing.
