“Because she is first loyal to the Gods and the Gods owe their continuation of power to the Fates.” Okay so this made sense but I was still unconvinced and she could see it written all over my face. I knew though she couldn’t blame me, not considering how far my level of trust had been pushed in the past.
“You have to remember that even the Gods are vulnerable and can die just like anything else in this world...for nothing is truly immortal if it can be killed by something.”
“Then what can kill a God?” I asked leaning forward, resting my forearms on my knees and looking sideways up at her.
“Gods only hold power through belief and when that ends, then so do they. We may owe the birth of our souls to the Gods that created us but they in turn owe their continued existence to us.” This made sense and the more I thought about it and remembering back to what I saw on that dock as I awaited my ship to Hell, then I had to wonder, if the Gods couldn’t survive without our belief…
“Then what of Heaven and Hell?” I asked on a whisper, fearful of what I think I already knew. She took in a deep breath before releasing it on a sigh.
“If the end came and the Titans arose to Earth, the Gods would be helpless to intervene, having no power here. Even if all their combined soldiers of Angels and Demons were to band together and fight, in the end it wouldn’t matter because they would only be fighting a battle lost long before it even began.”
“But why? Surely with Draven and the others…” I argued sitting bolt upright but when she started shaking her head I knew there was more.
“It would still not be enough. Fighting the Titans in Hell or in Heaven then there they wouldn’t have a chance and Cronus knows this. But if Earth were to fall then there would be no one left to stop him… Not God, Angel, Demon or…human would be left. The Gods would quickly perish as the belief in them died at the first sight of the apocalypse.”
“You’re saying people would simply stop believing?”
“Think about it Keira, people stop believing in God after simply losing a loved one and as horrific an experience that is, they were never taken by the Will of the Gods. You cannot give people free will on earth and then govern it when you like. It doesn’t work like that otherwise chaos among the Gods both in Heaven and Hell would have descended long ago, as even the holiest of Gods understand the concept of greed.” I remembered Draven explaining it to me like this back on the balcony when I first learned who he really was.
“Then how do we stop it?” I asked, my body shaking as tears of frustration blurred my vision. It sounded so hopeless that it was hard to see any other outcome.
“We bring our own God to Earth to fight them, but one that never needed any man’s faith or belief to empower them. One that gets reborn and created by love not hate. That is the only way and it is all the Fates have been trying to do since the beginning of days.” I had so many questions to this but found myself asking about the last thing she said.
“But if the Fates knew then about what would happen with the Titans why not destroy them just to be sure.”
“Because you cannot destroy a Titan as he is the only God not made through man’s image. He is the first and the God of Gods. The only thing that can stop that is the power of Septimus.”
“Septimus?”
“I am afraid I cannot guide you to Septimus as it is your journey to find out for yourself, as that too is part of the prophecy.” Figures, I thought bitterly as I should have known she would eventually get tight lipped about something important. Heck, I felt like I was pushing my luck already.
“And this Prophecy is something Draven knows about?”
“He does.”
“And?” I prompted her when she went no further. She stood up and looked down at her feet as if the answers lay all around her, fragmented in the earth.
“I didn’t know what else to do, not with him looking for me. For I knew if he found me before I could speak to you then our only chance at stopping this would be lost. But he won’t listen. He refuses to accept what I tell him but Keira if he doesn’t take the last step then there will be no more steps for any of us to take.” I too stood up at this and asked her,
“What do you mean?”
“I mean only the truth… one he is hiding from you. He has lost his faith in the Fates because they went too far in taking you from him. And now one part cannot be fulfilled without the other. So now you see the true destiny of both your past and his and its grave importance for our future. Now though, the Fates fear for that future will never come as our King refuses to see the last piece.”
“What piece, you keep saying…” She interrupted me when she started speaking more forcefully,
“I told you, puzzle pieces until the end when suddenly the picture becomes clear…”
“But I don’t understand!” I told her, my frustration growing.
“Only you can find the last piece Keira and it isn’t here anymore.”
“Then where? Where is it, what is it?” I asked speaking with my hands and motioning around us.
“It’s something he refuses to give you in this time, so you must steal it from another.”
“It’s not making sense Pythia, please just tell me! I don’t…”
“Listen to me. He lied to you. I told him long ago of the prophecy he and his Chosen would bring to the world. The rebirth of a God among people. As I said before, not Demon, not Angel but a God among men Keira…an unstoppable God, one with enough power to change the world.” As she spoke she took steps closer to me, her face intent on getting me to listen and understand what she was saying. There were no more riddles, no more hinted clues, there was only words spoken with clear intent and I was dumbfounded.
“You can’t mean what I think you mean…can you?” Her eyes softened and she spoke the only words I was now desperate to hear.
“Your child, Keira.”
Chapter 12
Fated
For once I didn’t know what to do. I felt lost in a way I had never felt lost before. This is what I had waited all this time for and now I knew the truth, I was left like Draven, not wanting to believe it. But unlike Draven I knew I had no choice. She couldn’t lie and this was what was waiting for us all if I didn’t believe it.
Pythia hadn’t needed to say it but I knew now exactly why Draven had turned his back on the Fates, no doubt believing there was another way. He probably believed he could take the Titans on like he once did in Hell and still win. I couldn’t fault him in that as it was all part of the man I fell in love with. But I also knew that it would mean nothing if one of us didn’t act as the Fates believed we should.
“So you’re telling me that…that…”
“That your child will save us all…yes, that is what I am saying.” I expelled a gush of air as I deflated back down to the fallen tree.
“And Draven knows this?” I asked, simply needing it clarifying again. As if hearing it spoken aloud would help in understanding it.
“He has known this from the beginning but until piecing everything together, he too didn’t fully understand it, the same as I.” And this was when it finally dawned on me. The full extent of Draven’s reluctance slammed into my heart as no doubt it had done to him.
“He thinks that by having his child I will be…be… sacrificed…that I will…” I swallowed hard before being able to speak, so Pythia did it for me,
“Die.” I bit hard on my lip and looked up to what little of the sky I could see through the canopy of trees. It was an odd feeling, knowing the fate of the world rested solely in your hands but to know that by saving it, first you had to die. It was the ultimate sacrifice, give the world its future back by destroying all hopes of your own.
“So that’s why he won’t listen?” She lowered her head in sorrow and nodded. For long moments neither of us said anything because for once in the Oracle’s presence, there was nothing left to say. This was the reason Pythia had been running from him. He wanted to save me the choice by making it for m
e.
It was like he said,
‘Because I know you’
Then I thought back to what he also said to me on the clearing after I found RJ. I had thought he would have been angry with me for leaving without him to go and find her. But he expected it, telling me how I was always putting others first, as it was my gift and what made me special…
‘I am not quite arrogant enough to believe or to expect that the person you put first on every occasion is going to be me.’
And he was right. He knew what I would do and how I couldn’t possibly put the rest of the world and the fate of humanity, even the Gods themselves, all aside just for Draven. And the most heartbreaking, gut wrenching and utterly excruciating part of it all, was…that…that…Oh god!
“He would!” I shouted!
No, I screamed it! I screamed out to the Heavens above and the sound of birds taking flight was my only reply…that and the sound of an Oracle weeping beside me. I didn’t realise it but I had fallen to my knees and was praying with my palms held together. I wanted them to take the pain and feel my suffering. I wanted them to know how deep love really went and how it now cut through my soul like a knife about to take my heart.
I didn’t want to face this truth! I didn’t want to carry it with me as it was crushing everything inside me I held dear. I closed my eyes against the agony and when I opened them again I was somewhere else…
I was back inside a dream I knew, only this time I wasn’t just scared of what I might find, I was terrified of what I knew I would find.
There at the end of a long dark corridor was a door I knew. It wasn’t real but somehow I understood this. I turned back around and saw the Oracle as she is now and as she was back then. Robes were covering her head and she didn’t speak, she simply raised her hand and pointed back at the door.
Then, as if using her as a vessel, voices I couldn’t understand emerged from deep within her, casting out a beam of light. Her body arched and tensed as though she was in someone else’s hold and could barely breathe because of it. She was floating in the air, with the tips of her toes barely brushing the ground. A blinding white light pulsated from her heart and bloomed, opening up like a flower, getting brighter as it reached out to touch me. The second the tingling glow illuminated my skin the hood hiding her face evaporated like dust and her face began to change.
It was as though her essence was being drained away, leaving the empty vessel of her flesh behind. Almost as if the image of her had become a living exposed negative, with eyes empty of soul or void of feeling anything. It was only then that…
I finally heard it for myself.
It wasn’t all around me in a booming voice like you’d expect but eerier than that, it was spoken inside my mind. The only way to describe it was as if death itself was speaking to me, through me and making it impossible for me not to listen.
“Now… you… shall...see.” Still pointing at the door I knew I had no choice but to face what the Fates wanted me to see. I couldn’t even speak as this wasn’t the time for my words to be heard, only theirs.
So I opened that door and all I saw was death just like before. I saw giant beings born from what must have been the womb of a volcano as they were beating the mountains and setting alight to the seas.
I had seen them before, back when a single tear had been all I needed to stop them. I was forced to watch as those I loved fell one by one in the unstoppable fight against them. I had to ask myself why this wasn’t stopped before it even had chance to begin. To go back to the beginning and kill Aurora, Celina and anyone else that had the power to set the clock ticking against us all.
However, this question found its way to them and my answer came swiftly before anymore thoughts of ‘what if’ could seep in.
“One tree may fall but give it time and another will grow in its place but kill the roots and no roots will follow, kill the land and in time it will only heal.”
“You mean this would happen no matter what?!” This time I was allowed to voice my question aloud but I received no answer. I guess with the Titans always there then so was the threat and looking back at them now, it was unmistakably one that would only happen once as there would be nothing left to conquer even for Cronus.
“Then why? Why would he bother if it was going to destroy everything he wanted in the end…I don’t understand what he would gain?!”
“Rebirth of land and time”
“No! No it couldn’t be…By…by the Gods…he wishes to start over! He wants a new beginning! To destroy the earth and recreate one he can rule over in its place… He plans to rewrite history so the fall of the Titans could never happen again.” I fell back against the blackened charred rock that made up the raw and jagged cliff face the door opened up to.
I held on, cutting my palm against the serrated edge so that I didn’t crumble to the never-ending abyss below me, one that looked to travel deep into the belly of the Earth’s core. I looked to my hand to see the blood dripping down and pooling in the crevices cut into the rock. I narrowed my eyes trying to determine if what I was seeing was right. The stone was melting as if my blood were made from acid. It bubbled up, boiling over the sides and dripping down, eating away at whatever it touched.
“Blood of the first can only fall, as the blood of the last drains away.”
“I don’t understand?” I told them but all I received was,
“You will.”
Then the thundering sound of a demonic trumpet filled the black skies and I looked back down at the abyss. Legions of demon soldiers were pouring out of it only to get knocked back into Hell again or crushed by the giant Titans they were trying in vain to defeat. Mounted generals upon the backs of monsters tried to lead their armies into a battle already lost. There wasn’t much of the land left as most of it was being consumed and erupting from the unstable Earth’s crust. Lava spewed up like bubbling oil and the waves of fire crashed high up against the mountains.
The fight was nearly over, with nothing left for the Titans to destroy other than dead crumbling earth.
But there amongst the chaos and destruction was nothing left but a tiny glimmer of hope for the last eyes to see. There in the middle of it all…
Was the last man standing.
The King of Kings, fighting Cronus to save the woman he loved or to knowingly die trying along with everyone else. But I had a choice, I could step in there and fight with him when the devastation of our world came, both of us, side by side until our dying breath. Or I could easily shut the door, lock it and make sure there was no chance of it ever opening up again. So I did the only thing I could do to save everything I loved.
I put out the eternal flame of damnation and…
I closed the door.
“Keira!” I heard Pythia shout my name as I had fallen forward, bracing my hands in the damp earth and breathing deep the smell of the world I was fighting for.
“I…will…do…it.” I panted out and from the sharp intake of air next to me I knew Pythia had heard me. She helped me to my feet and sat me back down on the broken tree which at the moment was like a symbol of how I felt.
“They spoke to you didn’t they?” She asked me and I looked up through a curtain of hair to see the tears still falling down her cheeks.
“Yes.”
“Then it truly has begun. The journey starts here.” I sat up, pushed my hair back and asked the most important question,
“What must I do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Uh…come again?” I said almost positive I hadn’t heard that right. Pythia gave me a sheepish look and then shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know,” she repeated and I could not believe that at a time like this she didn’t know what I was supposed to do to save the damn planet!
“You have to be joking…as in like cosmic size fucking joking!” I said getting angry at the possibility that even at a time like this the Fates had given us nothing but what would happen, not even how to stop i
t from happening!
“I wish I was. But all I know I have told you. If the King refuses to give you a child, then I don’t know how else…” She paused as if something was coming to her and I could only bloody hope it was a billboard sized ‘How To’ guide on what to do next!
“What? What is it Pythia?”
“I think I might know a way.” She stood up and started pacing up and down, the whole time muttering to herself in another language.
“Bloody Hell just tell me!” I shouted trying to rein it in but my nerves were shot and I just wanted this over with so I could crawl into my own hole of misery and cry for what I knew I would soon lose.
“I told you something before about time…do you remember? I was repeating what the Fates had told me…”
“I’m don’t know.”
“Think!” she shouted and seeing how important this was to her I let my mind go back to before my vision.
“It was about time, it was about…”
“I have it!” I shouted back interrupting her and getting on my feet.
“You said ‘Something he refuses to give you in this time, so you must steal it from another.’…but what does that mean?” Her eyes widened and she turned away from me saying to herself,
“Of course…it all makes sense now.”
“What does?”
“I know what you must do,” she said spinning back round to face me and placing her hands on my shoulders.
“What?”
“If he won’t give you a child in this time, then we will trick him into doing so in another.” I frowned at her, not really liking the word ‘trick’ and ‘child’ in the same sentence and liking it even less when combining it with the name Draven. But still I asked,
Sacrifice of the Septimus: Part 1 (Afterlife saga Book 7) Page 13