Two Hundred Years in Slavery is all the people of Xathania have known. Toiling and dying for a kingdom that has only snarled at them. Not until hope surfaces as a story in the wind and the flames of a spirit long forgotten resurfaces to face the g...
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Dawn came quickly and Samael hated it for that. They were the only ones in the ship they were to sail with. The children had told Callahan that they (the gods) would handle everything. So this was why Unai and Acai were now stirring the boat towards Saath. He took a head count of every being that stepped onto the boat.
His mother, Zuris, Unai, Acai, Teria, Sibylla, Reso, Remos, Hero, Veri, Rercius, Yenai, Daisie, his wife, Callahan, Eleonor, Clair, Eric, Abbel, Zain, grand prince of Saath, Colin, King of Aderhan, Derrick,the Lord of Xir, Nolan, the Emperor of Khorat, Ainara, Freya, Reid and Grey.
Wallace had thrown a tantrum and gone off somewhere. Ainara did not care to follow him. She only said he would be fine. Freya didn't bother herself with the details of what made him upset while her consorts conveniently looked like the wanted to push Derrick off the boat.
No one seemed kin to stop them. Some bumped into him and once he looked down at who it was Cora's golden eyes were swirling back at him.
'What are you brooding about?' She asked.
'My mother didn't let me tie you and the girls to a tree,' he confessed.
'Do the girls include your sisters and in-laws,' she raised a brow.
'Reso was like my second choice after you but the last time Unai was apart from her, a continent spilt in half and Opir was no longer part of Havern,' Samael added.
'By the mother's tits,' Cora swore.
'Cora!' his mother reprimanded almost immediately.
'Sorry,' Cora grimaced and looked at him again.
'Drasel is trapped,' Samael offered. His wife nodded and he went on. 'How are you a god in his order?'
'Something asked me to pick an order and I picked Drasel's.'
It was the first thing that Cora had told him about her ordeal. Freya had been the same. She had only hugged him and cried for a while before she said something about wanting Reid and Grey and she left. Only to return with a wedding band. Derrick had been warned to stay clear of her and the children. Both by him and his King.
Cora had not acknowledged the Lord as a living breathing thing neither had Eleonor. He was comfortable with that for the time being. It was still bright. He was worried about what it would bring.
He ran his fingers through his wife's hair and nearly, fell back to the grief of feeling her die. Of seeing her body. Of hearing Callahan scream. Of seeing the Warden cry for the daughter he had just met. It had been hard for him to let her go but she promised to return alive.
The gods had gone unnoticed by everyone except the noble family. The heir to Opir had asked his Mother to bless his son. His mother saw it as cheating but did anyway. Then the heir's wife held her captive for two hours before Ainara kidnapped her to complain that no one would let her throw Derrick out of a window. His mother took her flying to cool off.
'Long ago,' he said over the crashing of the sea. 'Zuris persuaded me to follow his to Midres for a task. I refused him but he threatened to tell Reso that I trampled her garden and angering Reso is equivalent to angering Unai. I did not want to be haunted for a century so I obliged and followed the bastard. We flew to Xathania and instantly I knew that something was wrong.'
'The Fall?' Cora asked.
He nods and goes on, allowing his hands to settle on her waist, 'We took Alora's son and left her on her own. It was unfair because Gerald had Zebel at his back. I should have fought for her and I didn't. Dyana killed her and her brothers were slain. They looked for her son and never found him. Soon, Xathanian slaves began to file into Welkamia and he married one of them as discreetly as possible. They had seven children and I kept protecting them as much as I was allowed to keep my grief at bay because every time you were born on Midres. You were Xathanian and I had a hunch that you would come back as a descendant of Alora.'
'You hated me.' Cora accused.
'I watched you sleep. Every night and once you noticed that I never slept, I had to fake it.'
Cora gave him a skeptical look. 'You ate?'
'To stay alive. I never needed to sleep but I did sometimes when my power felt like it was wavering.'
'All that just to be here with every single god of Fatos,' Cora mocked.
'Zebel showed his hand and we can't allow his conquest to live on.'
Cora looked at Freya, 'No, she won't allow his conquest live on.'
