“Glad someone else is footing the bill. Feeding them is like hosting Simi at a barbecue.”
That was true.
Nick clapped Ambrose on the back. “And while we’re eating, you can catch us up on what destroyed the world.”
Ambrose scoffed at that. “Easy answer. Humanity. Humanity destroyed the world.”
* * *
Cyprian Malachai had never beena creature of tolerance. Or one of patience. He’d learned cruelty from his mother’s brutal fists and had never cared for much of anything.
Other than ending his father’s life and assuming his powers. That was all he wanted.
All that mattered.
He had no real reason to destroy the world, other than he couldn’t stand to see so many people happy while he’d never known anything other than hatred and bitterness. Why should they have it better or easier than he did?
It wasn’t right. He couldn’t help how he’d been born. Couldn’t help being the hated Malachai.
Why did they deserve love when he had nothing? When he had no one?
No, it was his job to right the scales. To make the entire world as hate-filled and bitter as he was. To see everyone suffer just as much as he did.
It was only right and fair that they suffered, too. Why should they inherit a world of happiness and safety, given the horrors of his past?
After his mother had tricked his father, he’d been born into a world of conflict and intolerance. That place had fed the beast inside him. Malachais sought out pain. It fed their powers and made them all the stronger.
That alone gave him pleasure. And made him want to make everyone around him endure utmost agony. The more they did, the better he felt. After all, misery loved company, and the larger the Brotherhood of Misery, the better. It was the only way he could have relief from the horrors of his existence.
That was the reason why he wanted to tear the world down and watch it all burn. To end his own pain with it.
There was just one problem …
“Where are they?” he growled.
“Pardon, my lord?”
He ignored his flunky demon. There were so many that he’d never bothered to learn their names, nor bother to pay them any attention.
What was the point? If he killed one, three more popped up, eager for his abuse.
I really need a hobby.
Other than pulling the wings off sentient creatures. But there was something satisfactory about the way they shrieked and begged for a mercy he completely lacked.
I am sick.At least he knew and understood it and willfully admitted he was a monster. But that changed nothing.
Frustrated, he teleported to the dark, dank dungeon where he kept the creature who’d begun this torture. Not with him …
With his ancestors.
Lilit.
She’d been sired when Chaos and Order had spun together for the very first time and joined to make life out of nothing. Or rather, the friction of their energies had formed the egg that birthed her and her siblings.
Legends claimed that the north wind had carried that very egg and set it down gently upon the earth to keep it from shattering, and killing the seven gods inside.
When it landed, light had sprung out through the darkness, cracking the egg in two. The bright blue goddess, Shyamala, known as the Queen of All Shadows, had emerged first. Apollymi, Acheron’s mother, had been born second. Third to step out was Cam, who would later be known as Nick’s Aunt Menyara. Her “birth” was followed by Rezar, Verlyn, and Lilith. Kadar, Cyprian’s maternal grandfather, who was also known as the King of All Darkness, had emerged last from the egg.
