Chapter 1: Sing Muse, of Hades and Light
IN THE KINGDOM OF REZZIA, inside the highest chamber of the grand minaret, ten-year-old Lucia looked out to see her father, King Vieri, on the balcony. He lifted her newborn brother high above his head, and the masses, hundreds of feet below, roared with devotion.
Father, what are you doing! she thought. Be more careful with our savior.
Lucia glanced down at her mother resting in the birthing pool. The queen’s black hair clung to her neck, all of it soaked by the holy waters.
“You did it, Mother!”
Kindness brightened her mother’s face. “Thank the gods, dear. You have a brother now. A very special brother. Go, join your father and wave to the crowd.”
“You stay here and rest. I’ll wave to them on your behalf.”
Her mother laughed. “Thank you, Lucia. That sounds perfect.”
Lucia crept toward the archway leading to the balcony, which wrapped around the circular chamber. She squinted, fighting the midday sun. Tears soaked her father’s cheeks as he presented the pink baby to the faithful. Nature had tattooed thorny red and black vines on little Caio’s hands and forearms: the holy markings of the Haizzem.
As she gazed at Caio, a spiritual energy filled her body with peace and warmth. Her spirit soared. The teachings are coming true! A Haizzem had come again, to rescue all the world. Her brother would conquer Rezzia’s foes and bring the gods’ light to everyone.
Lucia skipped forward to participate in the royal scene. She looked down at tens of thousands of pilgrims in their cream robes and felt dizzy. The clay-white acropolis of the holy city sprawled across the desert plateau: massive domed structures, spiraling minarets, and temples of the ten gods supported by grand columns.
She clutched her father’s ceremonial cremos robe to steady herself. The fabric was bloodied; he had obeyed the scriptural commandment for Rezzia’s king to oversee the birth of his own Haizzem son. She felt so lucky, knowing every Rezzian alive would love to be in her place, touching the king’s garments and the words of divine power stitched into them.
Her father pressed the baby against his chest, and pushed Lucia backward with his free hand. He raised up baby Caio and beamed his joy again.
The rejection shattered Lucia’s bliss.
Her father’s face, with his heavy brown eyes and his perfectly trimmed beard, always showed his serious nature. But as he admired the baby—so high above the masses—he transformed, positively euphoric. He looked at Caio with such true love, a look Lucia had never, ever seen before.
Lucia’s vision darted from her father to her brother and back again. Your love for me is a lie. She dropped her head and long vermilion hair fell around her face. She wouldn’t cry. Not then. Not in front of him.
The crowd’s chanting grew louder and louder. They cried out in the old tongue, we love and adore him!
“Havah ilz avah Haizzem!”
“Havah ilz avah Haizzem!”
“Havah ilz avah Haizzem!”
Hearing their hypnotic praying, her pummeled heart found direction and clarity. The truth struck her as she watched the red-faced babe glowing against the sky: Her brother was divine. According to the warpriests’ teachings, it had been hundreds of years since a Haizzem graced the kingdom with his holy presence. They said Caio would possess spiritual gifts beyond compare, including the ultimate proof of his godliness: He would be able to resurrect one person from death during his lifetime.
I don’t matter anymore. Her royal duty would be pure devotion to him. As his only sibling, she would always be there to provide whatever he needed. All of her divinely given powers from the goddess Ysa would serve him alone.
A deep voice rumbled from inside the chamber, startling her: “My dearest Lucia.”
The man’s tone upset her stomach. “Sweet Lucia, come see your mother.”
She turned, tugged on her father’s robe and pointed into the sacred chamber. “There’s a man in there!”
The chanting of the crowd grew louder. Her father pushed her away, harder this time.
“There’s a man in there!” Lucia stomped one foot and swung her fists through the air.
Her father ignored her again. She crept closer and peeked inside. A colossal man stood behind the now much bloodier waters of the birthing pool, looming above her mother. The black of his bald head and muscular arms was as dark as the leather he wore from his shoulders to his thighs. A single orange teardrop decorated the skin beneath his left eye. She recognized the face from scriptural stories: The Black One, the god Lord Danato.
“Your mother is going away forever.” Danato crossed one arm over his chest and put his other hand to his jutting chin. “Come, be with her while you can.”
Lucia breathed heavily with her mouth open. Her mother’s face had looked peaceful before—now it was tortured.
“Father, come quickly!”
King Vieri continued to hold Caio in the air, but turned his head to look at his daughter. “Everything is fine, Lucia.”
“No! There’s a man in here. Muh—Muh—Mother needs you!”
He lowered the newborn to his chest and waved to the crowd.
“Father, listen to me!”
As her father strolled into the chamber, all joy drained from his face. He ran straight to Lucia’s mother, never looking at the black god. The queen’s blood was reddening the holy pool.
“Don’t you see him?” Lucia asked.
Her father laid the baby on the stone floor.
Her mother opened her pained, bloodshot eyes.
Lord Danato sauntered toward the stairs that led to the attendants below.
With his hands on his wife’s sweating brow, her father prayed to his god.
“Lord Danato did this to her!” she screamed.
“Get help, Lucia!” Her father wouldn’t take his eyes off his queen’s face.
Danato stood in the archway between Lucia and the stairs, gazing at her with stony eyes.
“Lord Danato is there! Don’t you see him?”
“Stop your nonsense. Get help!”
Her mother screamed, a harrowing sound Lucia knew she’d never forget.
The baby cried.
Her father kept yelling at her.
Lucia froze. She watched her mother, feeling helpless and mute.
Danato’s voice boomed, “I am sorry, Lucia. There is a reason for all things.”
She looked down to avoid the god’s stare and squeezed her eyelids shut. She found the courage to look up again.
The Black One was gone.
Vieri pulled the queen’s lifeless body from the pool and squeezed it against his trembling chest. His wailing drowned the holy chamber in woe.
Lucia’s dreams of an idyllic life flew away from her, sucked into the black god’s tempest of dust.
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Forgive Me, Alex by Lane Diamond
A dark, emotional, riveting psychological thriller.
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Excerpt:
I push the point further. "Dare I ask what brings you t
o sleepy little Algonquin?"
Both her expression and her voice are pure deadpan. "I'm on vacation."
"You're on vacation in Algonquin, Illinois? Let me guess: Newark was closed for repairs, and you couldn’t get a room in Toledo."
She shrugs, drains her glass and motions to the bartender for another. Unspoken warnings buzz in my brain even as silence lays over this, our third encounter.
The first occurred seventeen years ago, when I was a young man of eighteen desperate to make sense of the ungodly times. Linda was fresh out of the FBI academy with her Ph.D. in criminal psychology, assigned to a team from their Behavioral Science unit at Quantico, where she now runs a team of her own. The second time was in California—the pursuit of Stegman.
And now? That's simple enough. She's here to stop me from killing Mitchell Norton.
Eulogy Page 55