Prologue

A little sneak, to bring the readers up to speed.

“I will not marry him!” the young goddess announced in her temple, loud enough to be heard by all in the vicinity, including the “him” to which she was referring.

“You have no choice,” her mother stated simply. The goddess was beautiful. In truth, one could hardly tell there were thousands of years difference in their ages. In actuality, the older goddess only looked a few years older. There was compassion in her voice, a lightness. She was the Goddess of Order and Virtue. Light and compelling, she hated to be forceful with her daughter, but currently, it was needed.

“Of course I have a choice! I am a goddess,” she said smugly. “I answer to no one.”

The older goddess shook her head. “You are young; you have not ascended your thrown. The only way to do that is to marry Nykosas.”

“But why? Why can I not choose who I am to marry?”

“Because it was decided at your birth. You were promised to Nykosas. You belong to him. Once you marry him, then you may take your place at court. Until then, you are merely immortal. Not divine.”

“I want my divinity. Not him.”

“That is not your decision, my love. There is more at stake here than just your whim.” Her mother did not tell her that all of their lives rested on her daughter’s shoulders. “You are special, my darling. With your father ruling the Dark Realm, and my lightness, you have so much good and so much dark in you. So much power. But you are not ready for it. Nykosas can teach you what you need to know.”

 “I do not care!” she thundered, walls vibrating with her voice. “This is my life, my fate, my eternity. How could you demand of me what you loathe about your own life?”

“My ties to your father have nothing to do with your union.”

“Don’t they? Aren’t those ties the exact reason Nykosas wants me?”

“This is not about me. Stop being petulant.”

“I’m not being petulant, Mother. I am refusing.”

“You refuse, and you are damned to earth until you come to your senses!”

“I would rather leave here, spending eternity on earth, than marry that b*****d!”

“This is not your decision to make. It has been decided already, before you were born. Blame the Fates, if you must. But it is done.”

“And I refuse.”

“Then suffer the consequences.”

 

Her bones were broken. The only reason she was even conscious now was sheer will. She wanted to remember this. She wanted them all to remember this.

Stoned to death was her execution, for a false crime. Women of her tribe were forbidden to have intercourse before marriage. Women were also prohibited from denying the chieftain, or his family, of anything they so desired.She had been raped against her will by the chieftain’s son after refusing his

advances.

And here she was. This should not be. It was more than unjust. Even if they repented, she would die of her injuries. She could feel it. No more, she thought.

As they continued to add the weight on top of her, she let out a cry. By Cynthonian law, a truly unjust death could warrant a last cry of revenge. With what little strength she had left, she let out a war cry, calling to the God of Revenge to hear her, to answer her. She deserved this one last thing. She demanded it.

 

The God stood looking at the scene before him. It ate at him to see a wrongful death. This was even more than that. This was a torturous persecution for a crime she did not commit. Worse, it was for an action that was not a crime.

She was beautiful, desirable, and taken, like chattel, then left for punishment. He hated this backwards society. He wished he could have prevented it. But this was how The Fates had decreed it. And he knew better than most to never interfere with any plan of the Fates’.

“You are dead, nijha. I stand before you, willing to accept your request for vengeance.”

“Back away, Merrykos. This is not yours. She is mine.”

The god looked away from the woman he was talking to, and into the crimson eyes of pure, calculating evil.

“Lilith. What are you doing here?”

“Simple,” she said as she stalked towards him, hips swaying provocatively wit h each step. She stood tall, every bit of six feet, with air that looked like waves of bloody tresses hanging down passed her flaring hips. Her skin made alabaster seem vulgar, it was so white and translucent. Her body was lithe and lean, with nary an ounce of excess flesh. But she was supple where it counted. Beautiful. Lethal. To say she was poisonous put it mildly.

“What’s going on?” the young woman demanded.

“I, my dear, am the Mother of Darkness. And I want to make you a part of my world,” the pale woman answered.

“And I am here answering your cry of vengeance, nijha.”

Lilith sauntered up to the woman, trailing a hand along her cheek, lingering down the slender whiteness of the young woman’s neck. “I can grant you an afterlife, my dear. A world that is yours to live and rule. Answer to no man.”

She tilted the young lady’s neck and whispered in her ear seductively. “Imagine the ability to live forever. Only taking what you want. Who you want. And your vengeance. This god cannot grant you that. Only I can.”

The young woman looked back at the god. “And what of your offer?”

He shook his head. “It is not my place to grant you immortality.”

“But you’re a god.”

“A god who knows my place. Now choose. And remember, with everything, there is a price. Nothing comes for free.”

The young woman looked between the two of them. Immortality sounded nice. To live like royalty. To never have a man use or abuse her again. With death, there came the possibility of reincarnation, and she refused to run the risk of the same fate twice. They were cruel b*****s, The Fates.

“I choose immortality.”

The god shook his head. “Then suffer the consequences.”

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

I've noticed that this has not yet garnered a review so I decided to jump in and see why. Perhaps it is the humor that pervades this piece. Raw and irreverent...or perhaps it has just been eclipsed by the glut of emoetry clogging the bandwidth. In any case, the story line is intriguing. Well done.