Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
I swallow the lump in my throat and nod at Timber. I refuse to hug him again or tell him my regrets. I hope my eyes say enough just like his do, and I turn.
I turn toward my destiny.
I’ll save her even if it means destroying myself. One life is never long enough when you don’t know who you are or why you are, and she deserves to know at least that.
I promised.
And when a god makes a promise—that god is bound to it.
I follow Cassius out of the house, and we walk. It’s nothing special. Gravel crunches beneath my feet as I walk behind him into the darkness. His massive form keeps walking without looking back. One might think him a giant if they didn’t know the truth.
An archangel walks before me.
Paves the way for me in the only way he knows how.
Once a sinner, now a saint.
I follow him, head held high, and I look at the stars.
They shine down at me, but their song isn’t the same.
I wanted a celebration.
I’m given a eulogy.
Sadness drips from the heavens with a thickness that becomes fog surrounding us as we continue to walk.
“…god of the skies, god of the skies, the walk it isn’t bright,” they sing. “It’s filled with danger, disaster, and despair, the darkness you cannot bear. God of the skies, fight for your life, fight for your light.”
I ignore their tears even as a light rain starts to fall. And that rain isn’t normal rain; it comes from the stars themselves, their tears, both sweet and bitter because the god of the skies will no longer be with them… at least for now.
“Take care of them?” I ask Cassius.
He stops in the middle of a field and waves his hand over it. The River Euphrates appears in front of me; it’s dried up more than usual and has been since the prophecy of old.
You can almost see the Abyss or the gates to it.
“I shall look to your stars,” Cassius whispers, lifting his gaze to them. “They’re as much a part of me as they are of you, and if all else fails, my father’s aware, and he’s already watching.”
I frown. “Sariel?”
“My father. Yes.”
“I thought he ascended. That he died to give you his powers. To make you an archangel?”
Cassius smiles. “For a god, you know so little. Nothing, really.” He points up at the North star. “He’s there, watching, waiting. Years from now, he’ll be an angel again, but for now, he watches. Was that not his original job, god of the sky? To watch over humanity? He has merely returned to his baser form. He watches. And while he watches. I wait.”
“Patience.” I look out toward the sad amount of flowing water. Really, at this point, it’s maybe four feet deep in places, with patches of sticky mud in others and some places completely bare, the river bottom dry and cracked. But the Euphrates still flows.
And until it stops, there is still hope for humanity.
“Any advice?” I ask.
Cassius waves his hand over the water. It parts, allowing me to walk through toward the gates of the Abyss.
I almost laugh. “That’s some Old Testament voodoo right there.”
Cassius joins in the laughter. “It’s merely the water allowing you to pass. I was thinking more along the lines of Moana.”
“Ah, so you finally watched it.”
He barks out a laugh. “I like the songs.”
“Of course you do.” I laugh again, a little surprised that it feels good. I see my breath in front of my face and stare down the gates. They aren’t what you would typically think gloriously dark gates would look like.
It’s mud.
Mud caked on mud and a small window I’ll have to walk through after surviving the suffocation of the mud as it collapses onto me while I crawl in.
It isn’t heaven.
It isn’t pretty.
This is a prison.
Cassius doesn’t follow me; I can no longer feel the presence of the heavens or the Creator. Everything is cold and dark. It’s the dampness that seeps into the bones… into my soul. My all-seeing eye can no longer see beyond the prison cell of a window I have to crawl through. My eye has always been part of my power; the great eye of Horus is part of the sky just as much as Ra’s eye is part of creation. It’s what helps me see even in this timeline. It’s the one thing nobody can take from me, a power I was created with. Something I can no longer rely on as I descend. I’ve never been without the true power of being a god of the sky.
My steps falter.
It isn’t because I have no bravery in me. It’s because I feel abandoned, and I know this is just the beginning. As a god, I’ve always had the power of the skies, my eyes, I’ve had the heavens. I’ve even owned hell, thanks to my brother.