None of that mattered to him right now. Not when he knew that his mother was being assaulted and he, a full-grown warrior, couldn’t help her. It wasn’t right or fair.
Damn them all!
What good was training if he couldn’t defend what he loved? Why were they even bothering? What was it for?
Why!
For the first time in his life, he felt completely helpless and he hated it.
He hated himself. Damn the gods! Damn his father!
Damn his own soul!
“Shh,” Apollymi whispered as he wept against her shoulder. She held him with a tenderness he would have never attributed to such a violent goddess.
But she wasn’t his mother. She could never be the gentle, sweet woman who’d nursed him when he was a child. The one who’d sung him lullabies and had made his entire world right with nothing more than a warm hug and tender smile. No one would ever be able to make him feel that loved again.
And she was being torn apart by brutal hands in a harsh world he hated.
“I failed her.”
“Nay, pido. You live. That’s what she wanted for you. All she ever wanted. Your life and your happiness. So long as you have those two things, you have never failed her. Trust me, I know.”
Yet he wanted more than that.
He wanted his mother alive and well. Happy.
Most of all, Urian wanted blood from those who’d desecrated the most sacred lady to ever walk this earth.
And come the sunset, he would have it in spades. May the gods have mercy on them, because Urian would not.
Not now.
Not ever.
*
It wasn’t often that as an ancient, primal goddess, Apollymi feared anything. But as she watched the sons of Strykerius gather together, dressed in their armor to lead their first strike against humanity, she feared this.
For she couldn’t get the words of her brother out of her head from aeons ago.
Beware the hellhounds of war. Once unleashed they are as quick to eat their master as they are to feast on the throats of their enemies. At the time, she’d thought Jaden was a coward for his sentiment. A pathetic fool.
Now …
A deep sense of foreboding went through her. Urian was a chimera unlike any ever conceived. Worse, he’d been lied to from the moment of his birth.
Cursed by the very gods whose blood he shared.
His true father, Styxx, had been a volatile creature, both as a Greek prince and as the Atlantean hero he’d been a lifetime before—Aricles of Didymos. A man who’d been betrayed and slaughtered just as her own husband had been. The gods should have never allowed the great war hero Aricles to be reincarnated as Styxx.
That one warrior had been dangerous enough, but Aricles had held a childlike innocence that Styxx had lacked. And after being betrayed and murdered by Apollo, Aricles had been reborn into a ruthless and cunning prince unlike any other. In the incarnation of Styxx, he had been invincible as he sought to protect what he loved. As if Styxx somehow knew all that Aricles had been through and understood innately the cruelty of this world and the bitter necessity of striking the first killing blow to quell all enemies before they rose up against him.
He’d passed that passion and drive to his only son so that Urian also held an unbelievable skill and birthright. When coupled with the powers of the goddess Bathymaas, who’d been reborn as Bethany …
What have I done?
She’d infused the blood of two of the deadliest creatures ever born with Apollo’s DNA, and given Urian who knew what additional powers when she’d saved his life as an infant and placed him into the belly of Hellen and allowed his powers to merge with Stryker’s.
Well, you wanted to destroy the world, Braith. With this child, you may very well have created the perfect vessel for it.
The only problem was, she wasn’t sure she had control of Urian.
As her brother Jaden had noted all those centuries ago with his dire prediction, Urian was just as likely to cut her throat once her hellhound learned of her part in his birth as he was to embrace her for the gift of his powers.
That was what had her scared.
She’d set things in motion that she couldn’t see or direct.
And as she watched him and his brothers teleport to his mother’s cottage through the dark waters of her mirrored pool, her blood ran colder than ice.
Surrounded by his brothers, he held himself together with a rigid composure that would have done Styxx and Bethany proud. Indeed, Urian was the very image of the Stygian commander as he found his adoptive mother’s body and tried to bring her back to life with the powers he’d inherited from his true goddess mother, Bethany.
But Hellen had been dead for too long. There was no hope for her now. And that horror caused Urian to let out a visceral cry that rang through the fabric of time and space. It was the anguished cry of utter agony. A soul-deep misery that shook the walls around her and resonated deep in the halls of the gods.
Apollymi had tried to warn him of what he’d find. Not all dead could be saved. For many reasons. Telamon had returned to life because he hadn’t been ready to leave his wife or children. Hellen was another matter. As a human, she’d been tired. Her reasons had nothing to do with Urian or his powers.
And though it was possible to bring the dead back against their will, that was never a good idea.
Her son, Apostolos, was a prime example of what happened when one interfered with the will of another.
As was the Malachai.
Never let your pain make your decisions, my love. For it is in our darkest hours that we make our darkest hells. Kissare had been right. Everyone was the architect of their doom. To this day, she hated him for that.
Apollymi watched in her mirror as Urian realized it, too. In that one instant, the light inside his eyes went out. It was a sight she knew all too well—like one of Hephaestus’s automatons that could pass for a living creature at first glance.
Until one realized their eyes were soulless and cold.
The only hint of humanity was when Urian cradled his mother’s body briefly in his arms and kissed her cheek. He removed his bright red chalmys and wrapped it around his mother’s ravaged body.
Then he’d lifted her in his arms and carried her outside to the pyre that he quickly built with his powers and placed coins upon her eyes.
One by one, his brothers each placed a black mavyllo rose onto their mother’s body. Roses Apollymi had plucked from her own garden and sent with Urian as the ultimate sign of respect from the Destroyer. A final mark of honor that she paid to the woman who’d unknowingly carried Bethany’s son in her womb and birthed him for Apollymi’s vengeance.
“I have made so many mistakes,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes.
Some she regretted.
Some she did not. But she did feel terrible for the boy she’d helped to raise. No one deserved the pain Urian felt tonight. To feel so victimized and helpless.
It was a misery that lived inside her heart as a constant companion. No one should feel powerless in their own life.
Ever.
Stryker’s sons said a prayer, then lit the funeral fire. And as the pyre burned, Urian looked up and somehow, he met Apollymi’s gaze through the mists of the waters where she gazed. How he knew where her vantage point was …
It sent another chill over her. His powers were astounding.
But then, he was the Stygian heir.
*
The fire lit the sky and burned bright as Urian used his powers to conjure the identities of the men who’d killed his mother and her servants. Pyromancy wasn’t his favorite choice, but the flames licking his mother’s body were craving vengeance as much as he was.
Together, they gave him everything he needed to vindicate them both.
The humans had come to her farm for Daimons because of whispered rumors they’d heard. And they’d taken it upon themselves to punish her for harboring Apollites.
Time the humans actually met some.
Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.