❃BOOK III OF THE TRANSCENDENCE SERIES ❃
In a world older than time, a portal stirs from its long slumber. From out of its cerulean mists, the warship of the scion of darkness and destroyer of worlds emerges. With its gods long gone, Elati is a worl...
Reading order : The Lost Valor of Love - The Call of Eternity - The Rise of the Goddess
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PROLOGUE
Sethi slammed his way through a glut of warriors, his arms and chest bloody, his double-bladed jihn thrumming, hungry for the essence of the living. He looked up, breathing hard, the burning air searing his lungs.
There. He had her. Istara stood alone and undefended, surrounded by smoke and fire. In the heated updrafts, her star-clad, tangled hair whipped around her face. Her golden eyes raked over the scores of Elati's dead and dying, her healing light pulsing across the battlefield, brilliant haloes of gold. He stood still. Waited until she found him. Caught the parting of her lips. The tremor of her heart. The quiet hope. He smiled at her, cold, the god of war, and tread over the carpet of her fallen warriors, never taking his eyes from her, his soul scorched with hate. No one could stop him now. Not even the one who called himself her protector—
A blade, from behind, delved into his heart, the pain brutal, agonizing. He turned. Urhi-Teshub twisted the weapon, his eyes hard, hatred bleeding from him. With a roar, Sethi yanked himself free and slammed his fist into Urhi-Teshub's skull, once, twice, three times. Istara's protector collapsed, senseless. Sethi staggered, blinded by pain. His left pectoral lay torn open, muscle and bone sundered, his heart riven in two. The jihn slid from his grip. He cursed as his light ignited, slow, unsteady, working to heal him. He sank into a crouch, blackened by fury. By the time he was strong enough to stand, his quarry would have fled.
Hands came to his face and cradled his jaw, tender. He looked up. Istara's golden eyes, bright with tears, met his. She spoke, her words stolen by the thunder of an explosion. Light exploded out of her heart into his, brilliant, a nova, blinding. In its wake, tendrils of her healing light wove around him, a multitude, closing the rent in his heart, making him whole again.
His nemesis—the one who had rallied the armies of men and gods against him—granted him her healing light, the stars limning her hair dimming as she brought him back to his full power: Sethi, god of war, Commander of Elati, second only to Marduk, Lord of All, Giver of Life, Taker of Life.
Rejuvenated, he rose and hefted the jihn, the heat of battle still hot in his veins. In his grip, the jihn's curved blades awakened. Its lethal hunger coursed through him, hardening him. He looked down at his once-consort, filled with abhorrence for her weakness, scorning her gift to him. He would never have done the same for her. She remained on her knees, her eyes on his. A tear slid free and tracked a path through the fine coating of soot dusting her face.
Her lips moved again. He couldn't hear anything over the scream of the ships as they tore across the burning sky, but he read her lips, words enslaved queens had whispered as he rode them, desperate for his favor.
I love you.
He lifted his weapon. The jihn's black blades glinted, blue-white, slavering for her light, her annihilation. She was a fool. Love meant nothing. And soon she would be nothing, her light consumed by the jihn. He smiled, cold, triumphant. At last. Victory.
He thrust the glowing blades toward her heart.
Sethi sat up, abrupt, panting. He touched the back of his neck, the agony of the device Marduk had driven into the base of his skull unforgettable, the shear of its bite hot and sharp as it dug its way through flesh and bone and burrowed deep into his brain. Its malevolent presence had poisoned his thoughts, corrupted his memories—had made him into a weapon.
It hadn't taken long for the device to betray Sethi's awareness of Istara's presence in Elati. Marduk had listened, impassive, then showed Sethi images of Istara with Urhi-Teshub in the Etemen'anki. The once-king of Hatti had taken her, willing, to his bed. Sethi had destroyed everything in the suite. It hadn't been enough.
Blinded by the hateful thing controlling his mind, Sethi dined on his rage, his hunger for revenge. And yet, despite his descent into evil, his god-light remained. Each morning, during the ephemeral heartbeats of dawn, golden tendrils of his light would overcome the device's control. Fragments of his true self would slip from their bond, would force him to face the horror of what he had become, of the crimes he had committed, and of the lie he believed against the one he loved—and his helplessness to stop it.
He carved messages into his flesh: It is a lie. Istara was not unfaithful. Protect her at all costs. But no matter how deep he cut, his warnings would last no more than a few hours, his light erasing every desperate, bloody symbol. He clenched his fists, the dream returning, haunting him. To think he might do it, might drive his blade into the heart of the one he loved beyond all reason—
He caught a glimpse of his bleak reflection in the enormous mirror facing the bed. The tyranny of his acts seared his mind, damned him for his brutality. Everything he had once stood for had become perverted, his power used to oppress those who dared resist Marduk's conquest of Elati.
The air in the room oppressed him. He lunged from the bed and shoved aside the shutters leading to the terrace. The lavender hue of dawn sliced its way along the mountain's ridge to the east. At the edge of the terrace, he eyed the sheer drop into an enormous lake, more than half a short iter distant.
From an outcropping in the mountains, a waterfall thundered into the lake, shrouded in pre-dawn mist. The night before, he had flung a king from this terrace—for entertainment—then dragged the dead king's queen to his bed before throwing her to her death after him. Anguished, he clawed at the back of his head, desperate to dig the vile device out, to end what he had become. How many times had tried to cut it out with his dagger before the device reignited? More than he could count. There was never enough time.
The warmth of the sun's rays slid over him. He glanced at the golden disk as it ascended, fast, recalling a smaller, statelier sun which had risen over the desert sands of an empire that had once been his home. The memories of his mortal life had almost vanished. Soon there would be nothing left of the commander he used to be, or of the princess he loved beyond all reason.
His fingers bloody, he pressed his palm over his heart, sensing his light reawakening his bond with Istara. For a beat, joy. Then, the agony of her grief for his crimes slammed into him, followed by her yearning, her loneliness; her determination to free him from Marduk's grip. Shame engulfed him. Somewhere out there, beyond the mountains, beyond the sea, beyond the desert, she gathered allies—to save him from himself. His goddess. His consort. His everything.
A shear of blue-white light tore through his mind, washed her presence away. He sank to his knees and gripped the edge of the terrace, his muscles straining, resisting the device as it dragged him back, unwilling, to its filth, its lies. Nausea boiled, rancid and bitter. Hate sawed through him, ugly and familiar.
He clung, stubborn, to the last images he had of Istara, of when he had lived with her in another world, his love for her endless, overwhelming. The device's light screamed through the images, scoured his mind, its heat blistering, blinding. He fought its brutal onslaught, vomiting over the edge of the terrace, his heart aching, bitterness saturating him as his memories dissolved and slipped through his fingers, grains of sand. Gone. For eternity.
The god of war fell back on his haunches. He blinked, disoriented, unable to recall when he had come to the terrace from his bed. The images of his dream crept into the corridors of his mind, of the mysterious weapon which could consume a god's light, a weapon which had called to him. With such a powerful artifact, none could stand against him, not even the gods. He would search for this weapon, and once he possessed it . . . he smiled, cold, as he considered his faithless consort and the agonies he would inflict on her for betraying him. Yes. He glared at the sun as it soared into the sky. For what she had done with Urhi-Teshub, he would make her suffer. Forever.
