God of Destruction (2 page)

Kierlan Cole stood, disregarding their
expectant glances, and strode toward the entrance. The hostess
didn’t look up from her book and he didn’t offer any pleasant
sentiments. The door swung noisily shut behind him.

Natalia smiled after the vanished thief and
sank into the seat he’d vacated. “What a waste,” she murmured,
taking a swig from Kierlan’s untouched drink. “He does not know, I
presume?”

Vilmore shrugged. “How could he? It’s
impossible.”

The assassin chuckled. “I have seen plenty in
my line of work to know that nothing is impossible, Vilmore.
Despite my personal belief.” She playfully pulled a gold cross
necklace from her cleavage, letting it swing and glitter in the
meager light.

Vilmore threw his head back, erupting in a
loud, deep laugh. “Petrov! You’re not religious!” he reminded her,
wrapping his arm around himself.

Her lip twitched, but never became a smile.
“It’s never too late to start.”

Chapter Two

629 B.C.

Lady Ziba of the Temple of Tehran donned the
sacrificial white robes with a heavy heart. The cold, stone walls
around her burned through the many layers of silk she wore as she
waited patiently for dawn to rise over the miles of desert sand
laid out before her. Outside her cell’s window, sand blew in the
warm breeze and kissed her lightly on the cheek, the only warmth of
comfort she had felt in days. It didn’t linger, just like all the
other fleeting joys in her life. Her mass of alien blonde curls
cascaded down her back, organized for the occasion with priceless
gem pins and gold combs, despite the dank dungeon she had spent the
last three days in. She had prayed to her patron goddess, Kurshid
of the sun, for the entirety of her stay in the prison, pleading
desperately for help, but it never came. Now, the only option she
still possessed was to wait.

They came to retrieve her when the faintest
hint of pink began to paint the horizon. Fatigue had washed all
color from Ziba’s alabaster skin and her blue eyes were rimmed with
red but she held her head high as she strode toward the stairs
between two of her sister’s priests. She felt the burn of the
scratchy twine against the delicate flesh of her wrists, but she
didn’t let them see any crack in her disciplined face.
Nevertheless, it brought on a new flush of shame; in her life, she
would never have imagined that she would ever be in this
position.

Her head fell of its own accord, her body
having abruptly lost all the strength it had mustered to stand.
This was the third morning now that she had gone without food while
she fasted for the ceremony, per her sister’s demand.

“
My lady,” a quiet voice murmured beside
her, catching the remnants of her focus. Those words were so
agonizingly familiar that it ached in her heart to realize that it
was not in the context or the deep timber that she so desperately
desired. Her love and lordship had not come to see her. Her love
and lordship would not come to see her. As she came to this
comprehension, again, a hand, much smaller than the one she wanted
to see, reached out to hold a bronze goblet before her face. She
took it obediently, not caring to survey the contents before she
put her lips to the shimmering cup. She drank the water under the
scrutinizing gaze of the priests, but, in truth, her most recent
revelation had taken away the entirety of her appetite.

“
Thank you, Lord Hosrael,” Ziba replied
graciously, emptying the goblet and returning it to the priest. He
nodded in answer and the group ascended the stairs, each priest
grasping the tops of Ziba’s arms so she couldn’t run. Their display
of blatant distrust in her depressed Ziba, as she had been a
priestess in the temple for eight years now, since her seventh
birthday; everyone trusted her, and with good reason, as she was as
guileless as the innocent child she appeared to be. She couldn’t
exactly say, however, that she was surprised by this show of
loyalty to her older sister. As the high priestess, Shireen was
trusted above anyone else in the temple.

The girl abruptly collapsed into the arms of
the priests, as they expected, on the way to the altar. The
sedative they had slipped into her drink on the way to recover her
was tasteless, and the darkness had shrouded the green powder
floating in the water. Hosrael lifted the girl easily into his
arms, his companion chasing at his heels, and strode toward the
sanctuary. Ziba, asleep for the first time since her love’s
untimely death, remained blissfully unaware of just how close to
her impending doom she really was.

Lady Shireen swept through the marble temple
toward the altar like the wrath of God, her blood red robes
billowing out and around her. Her face was sallow from many
sleepless nights, but it was still one of the most beautiful in all
of Persia. Long, black hair was piled around a shimmering, gold
headdress atop her head, making her seem all the more tall and
ominous than her less than intimidating, elfin stature. The green
of her eyes was cold, staring straight ahead and giving away no
emotion, but all could tell how she felt. Anger radiated off her
very skin. She felt no guilt or regret, only the deepest disgust,
and all patrons and priests within the temple hid from the burning
rage, praying that it would never, one day, be directed at
them.

Inwardly, though, Shireen’s mind was in
turmoil. By Sraosa, the god of the afterlife, she’d taken solace in
the knowledge that her sister would be protected, but, as anyone in
her situation would feel, her faith had been shaken. All those to
be brought back from the dead with the Book of Eternity had, so
far, failed, and she feared her powers were too weak to preserve
her sister’s soul. Regardless of the confidence she lacked, she
didn’t have a choice. Her dominant hand twitched with
anticipation.

The room was large and completely silent;
the various priests scattered across the marble didn’t even dare to
breathe. Each man was bedecked in gold robes to stand behind
Shireen for the ritual, but it was evident that they were
reluctant. Use of the Book of Eternity for this purpose had angered
the Gods before and they knew this sacrifice could, and would,
bring the wrath of the God of Darkness and personification of evil
itself, Angra Mainyu, down upon them. Lady Shireen had warned them
all earlier that this was inevitable. Fortunately, the priests were
devoted enough to her that they had agreed to help despite the
risk.

At the far end of the room, a stone table
was organized in the center of a plethora of offerings to the Gods,
from flowers to the preserved organs of rams. The table was grey,
but stained with the remnants of blood from past offerings, all of
which was unseen beneath the long, white silk of Ziba’s robes. The
younger girl’s hair, as fair as the glorious desert sunshine,
cascaded over the edges of the table in long ringlets, brushing
silently against the floor. Her chest rose and fell evenly with
each of her breaths and her long eyelashes painted black half moons
against her porcelain cheeks. Coal symbols marked her forehead and
cheekbones for the ceremony.

The priests in gold advanced toward the
altar ahead of the High Priestess, beginning to chant the spell in
Old Persian, “Spenta Mainyu who breathes life, now releases you.
May our holy sister, Ziba, be held in the safe, merciful arms of
the Gods, and be returned to the land of the living anew. Deliver
her from the lust of Angra Mainyu. Protect her, your holiest
servant. Spenta Mainyu who breathes life…”

Shireen picked up the chanting as she
approached the altar and lifted the long dagger on the altar into
her hand. She stared down at the petite form with an expression
that could freeze the sea, and brought the dagger up into position
over her sister’s body. Shireen’s free hand pushed passed page
after page of the Book of Eternity beside Ziba’s body until she
found the spell to bring a soul back from the dead.

As she flipped through the pages, the body
on the stone began to stir and a light voice murmured,
“Shireen?”

Ziba’s unusually blue eyes stared up at the
High Priestess and filled with tears. Her sister bit the inside of
her mouth to keep her own emotions behind closed doors and
continued to read. With the words of the blessings on her lips,
Shireen lifted the ceremonial dagger above her head while Ziba
looked on without any other option. The other men and women
standing around the altar inconspicuously closed their eyes and
didn’t look again until the screaming had subsided.

It seemed to Lady Shireen that the stain of
blood sprung forth from Ziba’s white robes before the damage had
even been done. The dagger came down swiftly into Ziba’s chest,
bringing forth an ear-splitting screech that would haunt Shireen
until the day she died as she watched the life leave her sister’s
hypnotic eyes.

But, she knew it was for the best.

Even as she waited, though, she never felt
another sting of doubt over her powers until the last moment. She
had hoped for a small sign or hint that the ceremony had been
successful, but there was nothing. She had expected the white vapor
of her sister’s spirit to float into the jar they had set forth for
that exact purpose, but it never happened. Instead, the cork tied
to the bottle’s neck closed the opening on its own, closing off any
sanctuary to Ziba’s soul. The entire building began to shake like
an earthquake beneath their feet, and the sound of a man’s cry of
pain reverberated through the tense air. All at once, they knew
that Angra Mainyu, the immortal lover of the newly deceased Ziba,
had found out what they had done to the young priestess.

All at once, they knew they would suffer for
it.

Claire Strong bolted upright in bed, skin
slick with a sheen of sweat, heart racing. The back of her throat
burned with the memory of a scream, a feeling she’d become grossly
familiar with in the previous few months, and, just like all those
other nights she’d been plagued with this nightmare, she reached
blindly through the dark for the glass of water on her nightstand.
She downed the entire glass, coughing when she sucked in an
accidental breath. The teenager threw her legs off the side of the
bed, doubling over to expel the liquid in her lungs. She squinted
away the burning tears in her eyes when the light suddenly
flickered on.

It was every night, now, that her dreams
turned her waking world into a hell. With each passing day, she was
becoming more and more exhausted, physically as well as mentally,
and she’d been late to school so much that her first hour teacher
just taught her after school instead. The administrators didn’t
bother with detention, anymore, since her father always called to
get her out of it, anyway. She’d been sent to the guidance office
so many times, she had a weekly rotation.

They told her it was stress that brought the
dreams on. That she dreamt of her best friends in period character
because she was dealing with their impending separation in a
‘different’ way. Their graduation would be upon them in a few,
short months. They’d have the summer, then, they’d be going to
college. Claire would be attending County College. Her best friends
would be leaving New Jersey for Columbia in the fall, and she’d be
alone until Thanksgiving. She would’ve loved going with them, but
her lone parental figure had assured her that it just
wasn’t in
the budget
.

Though it was a concern that weighed on her
when she woke, she knew it wasn’t what caused her nightly
concern.

“Claire!” the unmistakable voice of her
father called above the slam of her door against the wall. She
jumped and her coughing fit continued with a new fervor, but she
stayed seated on the bed, waiting for him to take a seat beside
her. His hand rubbed soothingly up and down her back while he held
her inhaler before her eyes. Frantically, she grasped for it,
breathing slowly in and out. Her head spun, but, slowly, she
regained her grasp on the real world.

“Baby, we can’t keep doing this,” Pierce
Strong sighed, watching his daughter breathe unsteadily without her
rescue inhaler.

He was a tall man, around forty years old
with thin, grayish hair. His blue eyes were filled with concern and
rimmed with dark bags, having spent many nights awake with her. He
wore a full pajama set; he’d made the switch from underwear when
she’d started having night terrors in anticipation of sleepless
nights with her.

Claire burned with humiliation, wishing she
could go a week without waking him in a panic. She knew as long as
they were living together, though, that it would never happen.
Worrying her friends and family was what she did best, ever since
she was born.

She’d always been sickly, it ran in the
family, and it terrified her father, especially since her mother’s
death. Her mother had died in childbirth, bringing a four pound,
two-ounce baby with asthma, congenital heart defects, and an
inferiority complex into the world.

“I…I know,” she stuttered, the shakiness in
her voice a product of her speech impediment rather than her
struggle for breath.

“I think,” he took a long breath,
“
maybe
, we should look into a psychiatrist.”

“No!” she cried, back suddenly turning erect.
“No! I’m n…not crazy!”

He tried, unsuccessfully, to comfort her.
“Shh, shh, I know. I know. You’re not crazy.”

She fervently shook her head breathing
another puff from her inhaler. “I don’t n…need a doctor!”

He tucked her head under his chin, gently
rocking her. “Shh, I know. Shh. It’s not that. You’re not crazy.
But, sweetheart, it’s every night now. Maybe a doctor can shine
some light on—”

“I don’t need a d…doctor!”