Become

by Ali Cross

  BECOME

  A Novel of Desolation

  by Ali Cross

  © 2011 Ali Cross

  Smashwords Edition - License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  ISBN: 978-1466384965

  Published by Ninjas Write Publishing, P.O. Box 871, West Jordan, UT 84084

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA - 2011917866

  Cover Design by Ali Cross

  Cover Art by Fanye L.O.

  Typeset by Heather Justesen

  Author's Blog: http://www.alicross.com

  Dedication

  For my husband, David.

  Thank you for believing in me even before I did.

  For my sons, Charlie & Xander.

  Thank you for being willing to play for hours while I wrote.

  Thank you for being the best cheerleaders ever--you made me feel like a winner even when I was losing.

  For my sister, Heather.

  Saying you're the wind beneath my wings isn't corny when it's true.

  I love you!

  prologue

  The knocking at his door was as sharp and insistent as lightning in a dry sky. Elario had read the leaves and knew the day would come soon. Still, his heart leapt as he pressed the ancient crystal that hung around his neck to his lips. He whispered a prayer of strength and courage before kissing the amulet again and rising to his feet.

  Shuffling to the door, he threw a log onto the fire and tossed a handful of powder into the flame. He hoped they would see. Hoped The Hallowed would come.

  Either way, his life’s mission would finally be fulfilled and he could leave this mortal plane. Perhaps none would make their way from the nearby town to see what had become of him. But if they did, it would please him if they found all to be in order.

  He paused at his door, placing both hands against the rough wood. Yes, yes, he thought. He could feel the woman’s need even before he threw open the door, and caught her as she stumbled into his arms.

  “Help . . .” she breathed, one arm clasped tightly beneath her swollen belly.

  “I am here. I am ready,” Elario said. Her skirts were torn, blood and waters-of-the-womb soiling the lower half and Elario struggled as he moved to support her—there was much work yet to be done.

  He helped her to a mat placed before the fire, then set about readying the supplies. He filled a pot with water before setting it on the hook that hung inside the hearth. He hoped the water would heat before the babe arrived.

  “ . . . found you,” the woman said, but Elario did not stop to question what she might mean. He knew she would find him: the how did not matter.

  Elario scanned her body, assessing her wounds, her needs. For so long he had waited for her, and now that she was here he felt curious as to the nature of this, his greatest task. Curious about the one for whom he would give his life. He wondered if she knew it would cost her hers as well, though from the look of her, he suspected she did.

  The runes on her face and hands clearly named her his. Elario knew her belly would also bear such marks. He scowled in distaste for the creature that had brought her to this moment. Yet he had never shied away from the eternal fight against the Dark One and he would not fail now.

  The Gardian had told him what he must do. The fate of the worlds rested upon this child—the weapon devised by Odin himself when his son Loki called himself Lucifer and overtook Hel’s realm. Where so many had failed, this child must succeed.

  Elario gathered his wits and will about him and set about the task of bringing the child into the world.

  The woman howled in pain and she curled onto her side, clutching her belly with desperate hands. He had hoped she would come with more time to spare, but alas, that was not to be. What good he hoped to affect now seemed slim at best, but he would try, and pray The Hallowed would arrive before the Dark One claimed what was his.

  He caught the woman’s eyes, dark with fear, glassy from the pain—but flecked with the gold of a Gardian. They did not speak, though he tried to convey a measure of comfort to her in his steady gaze and the small smile he was sure to give her.

  Warm and golden, he thought, as he settled to the floor. He hoped the child’s eyes would be like her mother’s—the gold spark an indication of her great lineage—and not the cold blackness of her father. The ground quivered and Elario’s tools of medicine bounced in their bowls, clattering. Sand ran toward the low spots on the floor. Quickly now, he thought. The Dark One will be here soon.

  The woman grimaced as she rolled onto her back, her hands sliding to the top of her belly. Fear passed across her face before it was stamped out by sheer determination. What a miraculous thing that she should escape the clutches of the Dark One when the birth of his child was imminent.

  Elario crouched near her head, and pondered what he might say. How do I comfort a woman who may bear a child bent on fulfilling her father’s evil plans?

  What if The Hallowed are too late?

  Please let them get here, Elario prayed. If The Hallowed claimed this child they may yet deal the Dark One a blow far greater than any since the beginning of man. If they did not . . . Elario couldn’t bring himself to ponder what evil would befall the Earth if they failed in their task.

  The ground rumbled again, this time hard enough that bowls and pestles fell from their shelves in shattering screams.

  As the woman labored, a mighty boom shook the hut and the front door blew off its hinges. Elario placed his hands on the woman’s belly, seeking the babe, seeking to guide it to Earth.

  He closed his eyes and imagined the infant Gardian finding this strange home, the body of a demon, and finding a place within it. No child in the history of mankind would have a more difficult task, not at the inception of life, nor, he imagined, throughout. The nature of man already lent itself to the lowly in life, to the temptations of the earth. What burden will this child bear? Elario wondered. Born of the Father of Lies?

  The babe leapt within the womb, but its journey was not yet over. The woman squeezed her eyes shut as blood trickled from between her clenched lips. Her hands reached out, grasping, but found no purchase.

  It is too late, Elario feared, as the battle for life stretched out far too long. He closed his eyes, the words of the Gardian once again moving his lips. He did not see when the mother lost her own life. It was only when the fervor within the womb ceased that he opened his eyes to see her belly glowing and her face lax in death.

  Still, he smiled. It had been a good death. She has won.

  He set about freeing the child, anxious now to greet the little one he had waited for centuries to meet. Elario trembled as he made the incision and reached inside. The mother’s hands rested at her side, her smooth skin showing no sign of her brutal fight for life. Between her fingers pooled the links of a chain, the pendant shining in the candlelight.

  Elario rocked forward, while his hands sought the babe. So that is how she did it, he thought. The woman possessed a warding charm, a complicated knot from the Old World, in the Old Tongue. She had surely worn it to hid
e herself from the Dark One’s view—and now that it lay puddled on her palm, the Trickster was coming.

  No sooner had the babe slipped into his hands than the ground rumbled once more, this time opening a fissure at his feet large enough that the mat and low table were sucked into the darkness.

  Elario stepped back from the crevice, clutching the mewling infant to his bony chest.

  When the warm and heavy hand fell on his shoulder, he screamed and the child cried with him, her dark eyes flying open in fright.

  Elario whirled to face the Dark One. He had failed. They had all failed. They had not prepared the child for what she must do. There had been no opportunity to teach her who she was—not only who, but what.

  Fresh tears crept down his cheeks as Elario imagined her living in the darkness, blind to her divine mission, knowing nothing of the good she might do.

  He blinked away the tears as his vision slipped—sometimes he saw the Dark One, a shadow of blackest night, his beating wings crashing through the low ceiling. And then as he blinked, as he tried to see the one he had fought against his entire existence, he thought he saw . . . a man.

  Elario fell to his knees, looking to the child now cradled in his arms. She gazed at him, her gold-flecked eyes shining with determination and courage. She smiled.

  “Dios . . . ” But the prayer Elario might have uttered slipped from his lips as the man gently took his daughter and stepped into the abyss.

  chapter one

  If he weren’t Father’s right-hand man, Akaros would be dead. I clenched my fists, felt the nails bite my flesh. Akaros shook with laughter—but instead of retaliating, I pulled ragged, calming breaths through my burning throat.

  “Stop holding yourself back, Desolation.” Akaros’ voice boomed through the featureless, black training room. I pressed my toes onto the smooth floor so I wouldn’t topple over. Every part of my body yearned to fight, and I poured all of my anger into a fiery gaze. I could have unleashed the heat of a thousand suns upon him, but I didn’t—it would have been nothing to him, anyway.

  “Yes, yes,” Akaros soothed, walking around me, sizing me up. “Use that rage, feed me your anger—Become.”

  His command threatened to shake my conviction. My shadow-self strained within me, yearning to break free. And yet, I resisted.

  Years of training, and still I resisted.

  It was the one form of rebellion Father, who commanded all within our cold and fiery realm, despised. He worked tirelessly to break me, to drive me to embrace my darker nature. Akaros, a demon of the First Order and father of the Spartans, had been my personal tutor since I could walk. He inflicted an endless torment of mental and physical conditioning designed to make me burn as bright as my father.

  But my father was the last thing I wanted to become.

  So I stood and let Akaros circle me, every cell of my being focused on gauging his presence, the movement of his body, waiting for the millisecond of warning before he struck.

  And then I felt the fingers of his spirit crawl into the recesses of my mind, curling round and round like a boa constrictor. I shuddered with the effort of keeping his touch at bay.

  I couldn’t let him find my secret or discern my weaknesses. Where our training had barely elevated my heart rate, now beads of sweat shone on my forehead and my hair lay in damp curls against my ears, my fingers slipping on the slick skin of my palms.

  Akaros laughed.

  Without warning he withdrew his presence, and I slipped to the floor, too exhausted to stand. I concentrated on breathing. On just being. I closed my eyes against the anger burning inside me, and when I finally opened them I found myself alone.

  Grabbing my towel, I left the training room and walked the long corridors of the palace toward my rooms. Cold blackness reflected back at me from every surface, every heart. I plowed through the center, forcing the damned to part around me like a river around a boulder.

  It wasn’t the first time I’d imagined myself a rock. Immovable. Cold and unyielding. And yet—and yet there was a hint of warmth curled deep in my heart, and it was that secret place I fought to keep hidden from Akaros and Father. Warmth that had no place inside me and suggested I was something else. Something that didn’t belong in the god-forsaken realm of Hell.

  As I approached the bend in the corridor and the door to my rooms, the hounds that guarded the entrance slipped back into the cold granite wall until I should need them again. No one but Hel herself had been able to tame the hounds save for me. And with Hel gone, they would only ever answer to my call—even Father could not elicit their obedience.

  I trailed my fingers over the carving at the door, its intricate curves and knots in the way of the old magic, my protection from the demons of Hell.

  Inside the relative safety of my rooms, nicknamed the Fortress by my father, I allowed myself to take the first truly deep, cleansing breath since I’d left several hours earlier. Here, there was warmth, softness. Comfort.

  I’d decorated the walls with tapestries from Earth, depictions of forests and wildlife, sunsets and moonrises. My feet sunk in the luxurious depth of the endless rugs I’d scattered everywhere. The suggestion of warmth filled my fortress, a hint at real life—and it was the only place where I came even close to feeling safe.

  After showering, I dressed in my usual black and wrapped a sweater around me—the dead were always surprised to discover the fires of Hell burned ice cold. And it didn’t seem to matter how many tapestries and rugs I surrounded myself with, the chill of Hell seeped into my bones, a constant whisper of freezing pain.

  I wandered out to the balcony and rested my elbows on the polished banister. The palace sat atop a granite mountain, my father’s kingdom spread below. Fire blossomed over the tiers of Helheimer, the reflection of molten lava painting the sky a dusky orange that was beautiful in its own way. I shivered, despite the warm cashmere I’d pulled around me.

  Back in my room, I settled in with a book of poems—written by Charles d’Orleans during his long captivity—and tried to escape the endless boredom of my life, when a whisper worked through me.

  Come, the voice of my father said in my mind. And there was no choice but to obey.

  I took my time, though. Finished the poem I’d been reading, marked my page, and draped my afghan over the wingback chair. Before leaving, I schooled my features into the mask Akaros had taught me—the face that implied I was as cruel and heartless as he. It wouldn’t do to embarrass him by showing the weakness of my mixed birth, the hint of human in my DNA.

  I strode past the rabble crowding every corridor, my heavy combat boots thudding without sound. So much silence created a different kind of burning, the absolute absence of fodder for the senses. There were endless ways to torture the damned—Dante didn’t even know the half of it.

  I marched past the demonic guards at the antechamber, taking no time to be announced and presented as decorum required. Akaros would be disappointed in my lack of manners, but I could only grant him so many concessions. In the end, I was only me, only answerable to myself. And my father’s laughter, rolling like ocean waves over my mind and body, proved his appreciation for my idiosyncrasies, as he called them.

  My frown deepened as I crossed the throne room and approached the dais on which my father sat.

  Or rather, draped.

  Wearing tan linen slacks and a creamy silk shirt, my father, Lucifer, lounged on his throne like a boy on a couch. Several chairs were scattered in a rough semi-circle before the throne, from opulent armchairs to tiny stone stools, depending on their position in Father’s ranks.

  Akaros nodded at me as I came within the circle, a slight frown tugging at the corner of his lips. He was the only one in the room who preferred the form of his spirit—and so he sat on a cushioned bench, granting him room for his onyx wings to spread unhindered behind him. Everyone else, my father included, wore their human forms, which made Akaros appear all the more godlike. In such a scene he was stunning—all chiseled flesh as b
lack as coal and powerful wings towering high above him.

  His bench sat closest to my father, a position of favor he’d held for eons. The usual cronies occupied the rest of the seats, but for one man who stood furthest from the throne.

  “Ah, Desolation.” Father inclined his head in my direction. Bow, he said in my mind.

  I raised my chin.

  And my father laughed.

  “Come, take your place,” he said. I stepped around the audience and clomped up the ten steps to the dais and toward my cushioned throne—carved from the bones of those who had lost favor with Lucifer.

  At each armrest, right where my hands would go if I’d place them there, polished skulls stared out at the room. I clasped my hands in my lap. Empty eye sockets stared from the lifeless skulls that graced the throne on either side of my face. It felt like they were watching me—those soulless eyes. I tried to keep my own focused on my hands or far out into the room, without looking left or right.

  With the crook of a finger and the slightest twist of distaste to his mouth, Father indicated the standing man approach. He came forward, a scowl on his bearded face, and knelt on the bottom step.

  “Your Grace,” he said with a British accent. I nearly laughed out loud—the ungraceful snort that escaped was probably no better. This man, a demon of the First Order, who could assume any appearance he desired, had chosen to clothe himself in the body of a tubby middle-aged Englishman. The absurdity of it had me leaning forward in my chair, curious. The First Order, those who had been cast out of Asgard along with Loki, my father, rarely chose anything less than the most appealing of physical forms—usually one similar to my father, as he was Hell’s dictator of fashion.