Bethany gasped as an unexpected, unmitigated pain racked her.
"Bet? Is it the baby?"
She shook her head at her mother. "No. It feels more like my heart's been snatched out of my body and crushed. Something's wrong. I can feel it. I have to get to my husband.... He needs me."
Something had happened to Styxx. She knew it with every part of her being. Her heart was destroyed. She could feel it.
Her mother rubbed her back. "Breathe. Just breathe, daughter. There's nothing wrong. You're pregnant. It does strange things with our powers. I once sneezed while I carried you and set fire to your grandfather."
She laughed at the thought. "Did you really?"
"I did." Her mother kissed her brow. "But I also know nothing will calm you down until you visit your mortal and make sure he's all right. So let us go say good-bye to the family and then I'll send you on your way."
"I love you, Matera."
"And I love you, too."
Apollymi staggered on the rocks of the sea where Apostolos's broken body rested. Her precious son had been dumped here as if he were nothing but garbage. After all the bastard Greeks had done to him, they couldn't even provide a decent funeral.
Weak from her unshed tears, she made her way to him. His body was as cold as her heart. His beautiful silver eyes that matched hers were open and glazed, yet for all the horror of his death, his features were serene.
He looked so beautiful and perfectly formed. So tall and strong ...
Choking on a sob, she ran her hand over the long gash in his chest to seal it closed. And then her tears broke. This was the first time she'd held him since the moment she'd cut him from her womb.
Agony ripped her apart as she cradled his head to her breasts and screamed out so loud that the sound was carried on the wind all the way to the halls of Atlantis. "Damn you, Archon! Damn you!"
She buried her face in her son's wet blond hair and cried until her sobs were spent. How could her precious Apostolos be dead? How?
Why?
But she knew those answers and they cut her all the way to her soul. They'd both been betrayed by the very ones who were supposed to love and honor them.
Their worthless family.
Now there would be Kalosis to pay.
Heartbroken, Apollymi clothed her son in the black formesta robes of his godhood. As the son of the Destroyer, his symbol was that of the golden sun that represented her, pierced by the three silver lightning bolts of his power.
Picking him up from the surf, she took them both home to Katateros.
This was the home of the Atlantean gods. She had claimed this area aeons ago and had allowed her family to settle here with her. Similar to Atlantis, it was an island surrounded by islands. The tallest of them belonged to her personally. One of them housed the paradise lands where the souls of their Atlantean people went to rest until reincarnation. Another had been held by the Charonte before her banishment, and one had been intended as the home of her son.
But this one where she currently stood, the second-largest and tallest of the islands, was the main one where the hall that ruled and united all of the islands stood.
Archon's.
Music from the hall drifted out to her. Oblivious to what had come to pass, they were having a party.
A party!
She could feel the presence of every Atlantean god inside. All of them.
And her precious son was dead.
Holding him close, she ascended the stairs and slung the doors wide with her powers. The white marble foyer was circular with statues of the gods taking up station every four feet against the pristine walls.
She walked through the center of the foyer where her emblem of the sun had been etched into the floor. And as she crossed over it, she changed it to that of Apostolos's.
The colors, now red and black, represented her grief and his spilled blood.
Without hesitating, she walked straight for the set of gold doors that led to Archon's throne room. To the room where the gods made merry while her son lay dead from their treachery.
She opened those doors with the full force of her fury. A resounding crash resonated as the heavy doors snapped against the marble walls.
The music stopped instantly.
Every god in the hall turned to look at her and one by one, their faces blanched white. As well they should.
Without a word to her betrayers, Apollymi cradled her son in her arms and walked with a calmness she didn't feel toward the dais where her throne was set beside her husband's. Archon stood up at her approach and moved to the side as if to speak to her.
But it was too late for that. There were no words that could save any of them from her wrath. Not after every degradation and abuse her son had suffered in his human lifetime.
Apollymi ignored Archon as she placed Apostolos in Archon's throne where he belonged. Her hands shaking, she sat him up and carefully placed each of his arms on the railings. She lifted his head and brushed the blond hair back from his bluish face until he looked as if he would blink and move at any moment.
Only he would never blink again.
And it was all their fault.
Her heart beat with fury as her powers mounted. A feral wind exploded through the hall, sweeping her hair up and out as her eyes glowed red. She turned on the gods then and leveled a malevolent glare at each one in turn as they held a united breath in expectation of her wrath.
One that was going to be fierce indeed.
She didn't pause until she came to Archon. Only then did she speak in a voice that was deceptively calm. "Your bastard daughters deprived my son of his life. Those little whores damned him. And you," she snarled the word, "dared to protect them instead of my son."
"Apollymi-"
"Don't you ever speak my name again." She sealed his mouth shut with her powers. "You had every right to be afraid. But your bastard bitches were wrong. It won't be my son who destroys this pantheon. It is I. Apollymia Katastrafia Megola. Pantokrataria. Thanatia Atlantia deia oly!" Apollymi the Great Destroyer. All powerful. Death to the gods of Atlantis.
It was then they scrambled for the doors or tried to teleport out, but Apollymi would have none of it. Drawing from the darkest part of her soul, she sealed the hall closed. No one was going to leave here until she was appeased.
Archon fell to his knees, trying to plead for her mercy. But there was nothing left inside of her except a hatred so potent and bitter that she could actually taste it. She kicked him back and blasted him until he was nothing more than a statue remnant of a god.
Basi screamed out as Apollymi turned toward her. "I helped you."
"You didn't do shit, except whine and piss me off." Apollymi blasted her into oblivion.
One by one, she went to the gods she'd once considered family and turned them into stone as her relentless fury demanded appeasement. The only one she hesitated at was her beloved step-grandson, Dikastis-the god of justice. Unlike the others, he didn't cower or beg. He stood with one hand braced on the back of a chair, meeting her gaze as an equal.
But then he understood justice. He understood her wrath had been earned by all of them.
Inclining his head respectfully, he didn't move as she blasted him.
And then there was Epithymia. Her half sister. The goddess of desire. She was the bitch Apollymi had trusted more than the others.
With tears of crystal ice in her eyes, Apollymi confronted her. "How could you?"
Tiny and frail in her ethereal appearance, Epithymia stared up at her from where she cowered on the floor. "I did what you asked. I made sure he was born into a royal family. Why would you destroy me?"
Apollymi wanted to claw out her eyes for what she'd done. "You touched him, you slut! You knew what that would do to him. To be touched by the hand of desire and to have no god powers to countermand it ... You made it so that every human who saw him was driven mad with their lust to have him. How could you be so careless?"
And it was then she saw the truth in her sister's eyes.
"You did it on purpose!"
Epithymia swallowed. "What was I supposed to do? You heard the girls when they spoke. They proclaimed him to be the death of us all."
"And you thought the humans would kill him in their efforts to possess him?"
A tear slid down Epithymia's cheek. "I was only trying to protect all of us."
"He was your nephew," Apollymi spat.
"I know and I'm sorry."
Not as sorry as she was going to be.
Apollymi curled her lip. "So am I. I'm sorry I ever trusted you with the one thing you knew I loved above all others. You ungrateful bitch. I hope your actions haunt you into eternity."
She blasted her sister.
"What have you done?"
Apollymi turned at the sound of Symfora's question. She sent the force of her winds to knock both Symfora and her daughter back into the foyer. She flashed herself outside to stalk them like the predator she was. "What did you do? You hunted my son! And you killed him. All of you!"
"We didn't kill him. He still lives."
Apollymi shook her head. "He was slaughtered this morning by the Greek god you invited into my lands."
Symfora's eyes widened in terror. "I never welcomed Apollo here. That was a decision made by you and Archon."
"Shut up!" Apollymi blasted her for speaking a truth that speared her with guilt.
Bethany pulled every bit of power she could from her mother and from her Egyptian blood as she faced the older, primal goddess.
Apollymi hesitated as she realized Bethany was pregnant.
"I did not incarcerate you or hunt your son, Apollymi. You know this. The one time I thought I'd stumbled upon him, I came to you with that information and not the others. I never breathed a word to them against either of you." Tears choked her. "You know it's true. I came here today to leave this pantheon forever so that I could have my own baby in peace. Please, do not do to me what I did not do to you."
Apollymi hesitated. No matter how much she wanted Bet'anya's blood, she couldn't kill another innocent baby. Not when she understood how much it hurt to lose one. "Who among the gods is the father?"
"The father's mortal. Human."
Human. There was something Apollymi would have never suspected from a goddess she knew hated humans even more than Apollymi did. "His name?"
"Styxx of Didymos."
Uncontrolled fury consumed her. Of all the mortals, that was not the name to give her. Not after she'd seen through her son's own eyes the life he'd lived and what had been done to him because of Styxx.
Bethany held her breath as she saw Apollymi's eyes turn from silver to red. "Please, Apollymi ... don't hurt me. My baby's innocent."
"So. Was. Mine!" The goddess lunged at her then and ripped Bethany's son out of her.
Bethany staggered back as unmitigated pain tore through her. Gasping, she stared at her unmoving son in Apollymi's cruel hand. The very image of his father, he was so tiny and defenseless ...
And far too young to survive on his own.
Blinded by tears, she reached to touch him. Just once.
The older goddess blasted her back then everything went completely dark.
Styxx stood on the human side of the River Acheron in the Underworld, watching as Charon took Ryssa and Apollodorus across to their final resting place in the Elysian Fields. Unable to speak as shades, he'd tried his best to get her attention. But she'd refused him even in death.
She wouldn't even look at him.
Alone now, he wandered along the banks, hoping that his father would soon place an obolos coin in the mouth of his corpse so that he could pay to cross, too. Otherwise, he'd be damned to wander the banks here as a dismal shade, trapped between this world and the human one.
And as long as he was on this side, he wouldn't be able to drink from the Lethe and forget the pain of having lost Bethany and his son. He wouldn't be able to take his place with Galen and all the others who'd fought under his banner and died for Didymos.
He glanced back as Charon's skiff holding Ryssa and Apollodorus vanished into the mists. His father had given them coins. Was it possible that his father had intentionally withheld his as a final punishment?
Surely not even his father would be so cold.
Who are you kidding? Of course he would. It'd been Styxx's fault that his sister and nephew had died. Like Acheron, he'd been too drunk and high to help them.
This is the best I deserve. But what hurt most was the knowledge that Bethany would never join him here. She would go to Anubis when she died. Most likely his son would, too.
So here he would stay, alone, unable to forget them, with the knowledge that even in the end, his father hadn't cared enough to tend his corpse.
Styxx was so cold his hands shook, but there was no way to warm himself. So he sat down to wait and to hope. But as more time passed and more and more people were ferried across, he had no choice except to accept the fact that he would never cross over.
And he would never forget.
June 25, 9527 BC
Mount Olympus
Thin and small in stature with dark hair and eyes, Hermes flew through the hall of the gods until he stood before his father, Zeus. Hermes wasn't sure what was going on here, but most of the gods were gathered and lounging about as if the world was not about to end.
They ignored Hermes until he spoke. "You know the saying, don't kill the messenger? Hold that thought, really, really close to your hearts."
Zeus scowled at him as he stood up from the chair where he'd been playing chess with Poseidon. Dressed in a flowing white stola and chlamys, Zeus had short blond hair and vividly blue eyes. "What's going on?"
Hermes gestured toward the wall of windows that looked down onto the human realm. "Have any of you taken a look out at Greece in the last, say, hour or so?"
Sitting at a banquet table with Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis, Apollo rolled his eyes and waved his hand dismissively at Hermes's panic. "What? Are they reacting to the fact I cursed the Apollites for murdering my mistress and son? It's none of their business."
Hermes shook his head in a gesture of sarcastic denial. "I don't think that bothers them nearly as much as the fact that the island of Atlantis is now gone and the Atlantean goddess Apollymi is cutting a swathe through our country, laying waste to everyone and everything that she comes into contact with."
The messenger god turned a smug look to Apollo. "And in case you're curious, she's headed straight for us, screaming your name. I could be really wrong here, but I'm guessing the goddess of destruction is extremely pissed ... at you."
Apollo gaped at that disclosure. Why should Apollymi be gunning for him?
Zeus turned on Apollo. "What have you done?"
Sputtering, Apollo blanched. "I cursed my people, not hers. I didn't do anything to the Atlanteans, Papa. Unless their blood was mixed with my Apollites, they were unharmed by my curse. This is not my fault."
Suddenly, he had a bad feeling as he faced his twin sister who sat across from him.
Artemis covered her mouth as she realized what pantheon Acheron must have belonged to. While she'd known he'd received god powers on his twenty-first birthday, she'd had no idea where they'd come from.
Terrified of what she and Apollo had unknowingly set into motion, she left the hall while the gods prepared for war, and went to her temple so that she could think through this without their angry shouts in her ears.
"What can I do?" She had absolutely no idea.
Just as Artemis was about to summon her koris to her, the three Fates appeared in her room. As triplets in the height of youthful beauty, their faces were perfect duplicates of each other. But that was the only thing they shared. The eldest, Atropos, had red hair, while Clotho was blond and the youngest, Lachesis, had dark hair. Daughters of the goddess of justice, no one was sure who their father was, but many suspected Zeus.
Not that their father mattered. The one thing every god on Olympus knew was that these three girls were the most powerful of their entire pantheon. Even Zeus didn't try to circumvent them.
Since the moment of their arrival a decade ago when they'd moved in with their mother, everyone had given them a wide berth. When the three of them held hands and made a statement, it became the law of the universe and no one was immune to it.
No one.
Artemis couldn't imagine why they'd be here in her temple. They certainly weren't friends or even friendly. "If you don't mind, I'm a little busy right now."
Lachesis grabbed her arm. "Artemis, you must listen to us. We've done something terrible."
That was why the gods lived in fear of them. They were always doing something terrible to someone. "Whatever it is, it'll wait."
"No," Atropos said grimly, "it won't. Apollymi is coming here to kill us. We're the ones she's after."
Stunned by that proclamation, Artemis scowled at them. "What?"
Atropos stepped forward. "You must never breathe a word to anyone what we're about to tell you. Do you understand? Our mother made us swear to keep it a secret."
"Keep what secret?"
"Swear to us, Artemis," Clotho demanded.
"I swear. Now tell me what's going on." And most importantly, why it involved her.
Atropos swallowed before she spoke in a hushed whisper as if terrified someone outside of the temple might overhear her. "Our father is Archon-the king of the Atlantean gods. He had an affair with our mother, Themis, and we were born of it. As soon as we were born, our mother sent us to Atlantis to live and our father took us in. Apollymi is our stepmother and we unknowingly cursed our half brother when we learned of his coming birth."
"It was an accident," Clotho blurted out. "We didn't mean to curse him."
Lachesis nodded. "We were just children and didn't understand our powers yet. We never meant to hurt our brother. We didn't, we swear!"
Artemis went cold inside. "Acheron? Acheron is your brother?"
Clotho nodded. "Apollymi barely tolerated us while we lived with them. We were a reminder of our father's infidelity and she hated us for it."
That didn't make sense, any more than their fear did. Artemis tried to sort through what they were telling her. "But everyone knows that Archon has never been unfaithful to his wife."
Lachesis snorted. "That's a lie the Atlantean gods keep so that Apollymi won't harm them. You don't understand just how powerful she is. She can kill us without even blinking. All the gods fear her power. Even Archon, and he's as faithless as most men, and so here we are."
"She wants us dead," Clotho interjected.
Still, Artemis was trying to make sense of it all. However, she was missing some vital pieces. "How exactly did you curse Acheron?"
"We were so stupid," Atropos said. "When Apollymi began to show her pregnancy, we spoke out of turn and gave Apostolos the power of final fate. We said he'd be the death of us all, and it seems today we are about to see our demise met."
Artemis was even more confused. "But he's not the one threatening us. It's his mother."
Clotho nodded. "And she will kill all of us for our part in his curse. Including you."
Artemis gaped at them. "Why? I did nothing!"
Atropos scoffed as the young women encircled her. "We know what you've done, Artemis. We see everything. You hurt Acheron even more than we did. You turned your back on him while Apollo gutted him on the floor and Apollymi knows it. She saw it with her own eyes."
Fear tore through her. If what they said was correct, there would be no mercy from Apollymi. Truthfully, she didn't deserve any, but on the other hand, Artemis really didn't want to die, and definitely not by the means Apollymi would use on her. "What can we do? How do we defeat her?"
Atropos sighed heavily. "We can't. She's all-powerful. The only one who could check her powers is her son."
Who was dead.
Great. They were screwed. Couldn't someone have told her this before she'd left Acheron to Apollo? This information was just a little late in coming, and would have been much more beneficial earlier in the day.
"We're dead," Artemis breathed as images of herself being gutted by Acheron's mother went through her head. Apollymi was going to make what Apollo did to Acheron seem kind.
"No." Clotho shook her arm to get her full attention. "You can bring him back from the dead."
Artemis scowled at the woman. "Are you insane? I can't bring him back. I don't have those powers. Only Hades does, and since Acheron's not Greek, that won't help us at all."
Lachesis grabbed her other arm. "Yes, you can, Artemis. You're the only one who has the power."
"No, I don't."
Atropos growled at her. "You drank of Acheron's blood. You absorbed his powers when you did that."
Clotho nodded. "He can resurrect the dead, which means you can, too."
Artemis scowled at them. "Are you sure?"
They nodded in unison.
Even so, Artemis was uncertain. Granted, she'd tasted Acheron's powers when she drank from him, but that particular one was reserved for only a very select group of gods, and if they failed to bring him back ...
It would only get worse from her having tried.
Atropos pushed her sisters aside. "The Atlantean gods used their powers to bind Apollymi with one condition. So long as Apostolos is alive in the human realm, she's locked in Kalosis."
"That's our loophole," Lachesis said. "We bring him back to the mortal realm, and she's interred again. Forever."
"We'll be safe," Clotho added. "All of us."
"You will be the savior of the pantheon," they said in unison, holding hands.
Did she really have a choice? Drawing in a deep breath for courage, Artemis nodded. "What do I have to do?"
"You will have to get him to drink your blood," Atropos said, as if it would be the easiest thing in the world to accomplish.
"And just how do I do that? In case you didn't notice, I let him die. I don't really think he's going to be happy to see me."
"With our help, you can do it."
Alone, Acheron lay on a cold stone floor in calm serenity, finally numb to everything from his past and present. He was at peace in a way he'd never been before. The walls of his cave shielded him from the voices of others. Not even the gods were in his head now.
For the first time in his life, he had total silence. And it was wonderful. There was no aching in his body, no grief. Nothing. And he loved this feeling of blissful tranquility.
"Acheron?"
He tensed at Artemis's voice. Of course the bitch was going to disturb his haven. She could never leave him in peace.
Damn her.
He tried to tell her to go away, but nothing other than a hoarse croak left his lips. Coughing, he tried to clear his throat to speak.
Still no words would come. What was going on? What had taken his voice?
Artemis gave him a tender, concerned look. "We need to talk."
He shoved her back, but she refused to go.
"Please," she begged with a look that would have weakened his resolve only a few days ago. But that concern for her was now long gone. He would never forgive her for turning her back on him and letting her brother gut him on the floor. "Just a few words and I'll leave you. Forever if you wish."
How could they talk when he couldn't speak?
She held a cup out to him. "Drink this and I'll be able to talk to you."
Furious with her, he grabbed the cup and downed the contents without tasting them. "Go to Tartarus and rot," he snarled at her, grateful that this time she could hear the venom in his voice.
And then something happened. Pain and fire ripped through his body as if something was setting his internal organs aflame. Panting, he looked up at Artemis. "What have you done to me now?"
There was no mercy or remorse in her gaze. "What I had to."
One moment he was in the quiet darkness of Hades's domain and in the next, he was standing on the banks of Didymos, not far from the palace.
Or rather what was left of it.
Confused, he looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened to him, and to the land. Before he could figure it out a searing pain tore through him with such ferocity that it drove him to his knees in the surf.
Acheron cried out, wanting it to stop.
Suddenly, Artemis was there before him. Gathering him into her arms, she held him close as the waves crashed against them. "I had to bring you back."
He shoved her away from him as he looked around at the smoldering remains of Didymos. "What have you done?"
"I didn't do this. Your mother did. She's destroyed everything and everyone who ever went near you. And she was coming to kill us on Olympus. It's why I had to bring you back. She would have killed us all had I not."
He glared so hard at her, he was sure his eyes were red. "You think I give a fuck about that?" He started away from her, only to be frozen in place by the pain tearing at his stomach. The agony of it caused him to double over as he struggled to breathe.
Artemis approached him slowly. She stood above him, looking down. "I'm the one in control here, Acheron. I've bound you to me with my blood. I own you."
Those three words set fire to his wrath. He felt the familiar heat ripple over him as his human appearance gave way to that of his god form. Rising against the pain, he held his hand out and brought Artemis into his grasp. "You seriously underestimate my powers, bitch."
She clutched at his hand, trying to loosen his feral grip. "Kill me and you'll become the worst sort of monster imaginable. You need my blood to maintain any sort of sanity. Without it, you will become a mindless killer, seeking only to destroy any and everyone you come into contact with ... just like your mother."
Acheron roared with frustration. The bitch had thought of everything. Even as a god, he was still a slave. "I hate you."
"I know."
He shoved her away from him and turned his back on her.
"Acheron, did you not hear what I said? You will have to feed from me."
He ignored her as he made the long trek from the beach to the hill where the royal palace had once stood. There was nothing left but smoldering ashes and busted stones. There were hundreds and hundreds of bodies of servants, citizens, and merchants everywhere. Innocent victims of his mother's wrath.
Tears filled his eyes as he ran through the debris, seeking a sign of Ryssa or Apollodorus.
Aching and broken, he used his powers to move stone and marble until he uncovered the room that had been hers.
There in the wreckage he found three of the diaries she'd so meticulously kept. They were a little scarred by fire, but miraculously, they'd somehow survived intact. He opened the first one and stared at her childish writing as she described the very day he'd been born and the joy she'd felt at having twin brothers. Wiping his tears, he closed it and held it to his heart as he heard her voice in her words.
Styxx had been right. His precious sister was gone and it was all his fault. Devastated from the truth of it, he saw one of the silver hair combs he'd given her on her last birthday, just days ago.
He crawled over to it and placed it against his lips. "I'm so sorry, Ryssa. I'm so sorry."
And in that moment it hit him how pathetic it was that all he had to show for a life so vibrant was such minuscule things. Three diaries and a broken hair comb. Leaning his head back, he sobbed from the agony of her loss.
"Apostolos ... please don't cry."
He felt his mother's presence. "What have you done, Matera?"
"I wanted them to pay for hurting you."
Did it even matter? What they'd done to him was nothing compared to what had been done this day because of his mother's actions. "And now Artemis owns me."
His mother's scream mirrored his own. "How?"
"To stop you, she's bound me to her with her blood."
He could feel his anger mirrored through his mother's voice. "Come to me, Apostolos. Free me and I will destroy that bitch and those bastards who cursed you."
Acheron shook his head. He should do it. He should. They all deserved nothing better, and yet he couldn't bring himself to destroy the world.
To kill innocent people ...
He looked around at the bodies and winced. No. In spite of it all, he couldn't do this to the world.
His mother appeared before him as a translucent shade. Acheron sucked his breath in sharply as he saw her for the very first time. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Hair as white as new-fallen snow fell from a crown that shimmered with diamonds. Her pale, silver eyes swirled just as his did. Her black dress flowed over her body as she held one hand out to him.
He tried to touch her, but his hand passed through hers.
"You are my son, Apostolos. The only thing in my life that I've ever truly loved. I would give my life for yours. Come to me, child. I want to hold you."
He treasured every word she spoke. "I can't, Matera. Not if that means sacrificing the world. I refuse to be so selfish."
"Why would you protect a world that turned its back on you and abused you?"
"Because I know what it's like to be punished for things not my fault. I know what it's like to have things forced on me that were wrong and against my will. Why would I ever serve that to someone else?"
"Because it would be justice!"
He glanced around at the scattered bodies of those who hadn't deserved to die like this and rot out in the open. "No. It would only be cruel. Justice to the humans has been more than served."
Her eyes flashed angrily. "What of Apollo and Artemis?"
He ground his teeth at the mere mention of their names. "They hold the power of the sun and the moon. I can't destroy them."
"I can."
And thus she'd destroy the entire earth and all who lived here. It was why he couldn't free her. "I'm not worth the end of the world, Matera."
Her eyes burned him with her sincerity. "To me you are."
In that moment, he would have sold his soul to be able to hold her. "I love you, Mama."
"Nowhere near as much as I love you, m'gios."
M'gios. My son. He'd waited his entire life for someone to claim him. But as much as he wanted his mother, he wouldn't end the world for it.
Suddenly a cold wind whipped around him, tearing at his clothes and hair, yet not hurting him. The world around him faded as he found himself on unfamiliar ground. His mother's image flickered by his side. "This is Katateros. Your birthright."
He frowned at the pile of rubble. "It's in ruins."
She cast a sheepish look toward him. "I was a little upset when I came here."
A little?
"Close your eyes, Apostolos."
Trusting her completely, he did.
"Breathe in."
He took a deep breath and then he felt his mother inside him. Her powers merged with his and in the blink of an eye, the ruins reunited to form a beautiful palace of gold and black marble. His mother's presence pulled out of him.
"Welcome home, palatimos." Precious one.
The doors opened and as Acheron passed through them, his clothing changed. His hair grew long and black and a flowing robe fanned out behind him as he walked over the white marble floor. He paused at the sign of the sun that was pierced by three bolts of lightning.
His mother slowed as she noted him studying it. "The sun is my symbol and it represents the day. The silver of the lightning bolts is for the night. The bolt to the left is for me and the past, and the one on the right is your father and the future. Yours is the bolt in the middle that unites and binds the three of us together and stands for the present. That is the sign of the Talimosin and represents your dominion of the past, the present, and the future."
He frowned at the Atlantean word. "The Harbinger?"
She nodded. "You, Apostolos. You are the Talimosin. The final Fate of all. Your words are law and your wrath absolute. Be careful as you speak, for whatever you will, even in carelessness, will determine the fate of the person you're speaking to. It's a burden I would never have wished upon you. And it's one I hate those bitches for. But I can't undo what they've given you. No one can."
"What exactly are my powers?"
"I don't know. I took them from you and never looked at them for fear of exposing you to the others. I only know what Archon's daughters cursed you to. But you will learn them all in time. I only wish you'd come to me so that I could help you until you grow stronger."
"Matera-"
"I know." She held her hand up. "I respect you for being the man you are and I'm proud of you. However, should you get your fill of this world and change your mind, you know where I am."
He smiled at her.
"In the meantime, this is all yours now."
Acheron looked around at the statues and somehow he knew who each and every one of them were. As he approached the set of gold doors, he saw the image of his mother to the left and Archon to the right.
The doors opened and there he saw the remains of the gods where his mother had attacked them. They were frozen in the horror of their last moments.
