Or sanity.
Kalfou was one of them.
As with all those who were young, their blood and Kalfou’s ran hot, and they were too eager for war. A war they wanted when they didn’t fully understand the cost and consequences. Once that genie came out of the bottle, you couldn’t put it back in. For that was the thing about acting in the heat of the moment and letting your emotions lead you astray.
You have to live with the total fallout of your stupidity.
Careful the fires you start in the heat of fervent anger. For once lit, the flames of destruction are just as likely to double back and consume you as they are to engulf the ones you set them upon.
Neither words nor actions could be taken back, and there were a lot of things in life that “sorry” couldn’t fix. While words had the power to destroy, they seldom had the power to heal.
Valynda’s fate was just one of many of his own mistakes he kept on his conscience.
Not wanting to think about it or any harm he’d done the one person he loved most, he poured himself another drink. “Are the petro still going at it?”
She nodded. “They want to join the Malachai and help him in his madness. They think if they side with him, they’ll have a place in his new world.”
Choking on their stupidity, Nibo rolled his eyes. Of course they did. What was it with people ever ready to believe such lies whenever they dripped from the tongues of those they had to know were liars, out for themselves? And to be so willing to hang up their lives for them? It made no sense to him that anyone would so recklessly throw away their own life for such obvious idiocy. “There will be no place for any of us if there are no people left.”
“You know that and I know that. Sadly, they don’t understand the Malachai. In their minds, he’s one of us and therefore he’ll be merciful and won’t killthem.”
Nibo cursed. While it was true that Adarian was a demigod who drew half his powers from the same place they did, the father of the original Malachai had been a Sephiroth. Independent creatures the gods had used as warriors and protectors to fight their wars for them so as not to weaken themselves when they attacked other gods. Insidious, really. Therefore, the Sephirii didn’t draw their powers from humanity or by being worshiped. The source of their powers came from conflict.
Bloodshed.
Just like the Malachai’s. And that was what made the Malachai so destructive and invincible. So very different from them. The more you hated him—the more you fought him—the more powerful he became. It was also why his son was the only one who could destroy him. Because the son was the only one who didn’t hate him fully. No matter what a father did, there was always that core bit of love in a child’s heart for its parent that made the child stupid.
But it was also what made the Malachai lethal, for a father didn’t always feel the same for its offspring. Not the way a mother did, at least when she wasn’t demonic born. The Malachai would kill its son to protect itself, without hesitation. Hence why Adarian was so old. He’d slaughtered any and every son born to him that he’d learned about. Long before that child could grow to an age to pose a threat to his reign.
Meanwhile, the Malachai existed because Apollymi, being a true mother goddess, had sacrificed everything for her child. She’d even given up a portion of her powers to her firstborn to ensure the other gods didn’t renege on their bargain with her. To safeguard him from their capricious wrath. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her child.
The same for her son Acheron. She was imprisoned to this day because the only way she could free herself would be upon his death, and she would rather rot for eternity in Atlantean hell than see her child harmed for her freedom. For all her vicious nature and brutality, her lack of regard for any living thing, she would never harm her own child. It just wasn’t in her.
In fact, she would gut anyone who caused Acheron to shed one single tear. And that had been proven, too.
Like Nibo’s own mother upon his death, Apollymi had mourned Acheron’s premature demise the whole of her life, and it was why he held so much regard for women and for what they went through in their lifetimes. The wretched hand that fate had dealt them all.
There was truly nothing like a mother protecting her young. The sacrifices she would make, or the lengths she would go to. For that was an unbreakable loyalty that nothing else could ever match. The fiercest power ever created. A bonded love that knew no judgment. Asked no sacrifice.
It simply gave because it wanted to.
And because of that, the Malachai had grown more and more powerful with every generation. More so due to the fact they hadn’t just bred with other gods and humans. They’d bred with demons and all manner of preternatural creatures, inheriting the strengths of them all with each subsequent generation until they were an amalgam of the most lethal, unfeeling beings that had ever belly-crawled from the depths of every hell realm. So that now, the Malachai’s power was a source unto itself.
The only thing Nibo knew that could still kill Adarian was either the last Sephiroth who was being held in captivity, or Adarian’s son.
Slim pickings for their side, especially since a curse prevented the last Sephiroth from killing Adarian, and if his son killed him, then he’d rise to replace him, and usually whenever a new Malachai took his father’s place, he was even more psychotic than the last. Worse, he was more powerful, given that he’d not only inherit his father’s powers but would have the addition of whatever his mother had been, and she was seldom human, and never born of anything weaker than a demon.
Usually, the Malachai settled down to hide for awhile after the rest of them united their powers to kick his ass, but that took centuries of senseless battle.
Something Nibo didn’t want to repeat.
Nibo sighed. “How do we get through to them?”
Maman shook her head. “How does one ever get through to obstinate asses who reinforce their own stupidity with blindfolded sycophants? As soon as you speak reason to insanity they shout you down with their concocted lies and misconceptions that they repeat to each other.”
True. They lived in perpetual echo chambers. “Aye. That is the real definition of madness, isn’t it? When you turn your ear from the truth to embrace a lie and willfully close your eyes so that you can continue to do wrong for the sake of pride.” Too many fought against the sense formally known as common.
Damn them for it.
