Astarte's Wrath (24 page)

T
he sky is fire red.

The seams under the swollen clouds are molten outlines against the ocean’s sunrise sky. I stare into its intensity, unblinking. I wish I could dive into that fiery place just between the ocean and sky and wisp out like a curl of smoke.

Or walk straight into the depths of the harbor.

And not resurface.

“Star?”

It’s Phoenix’s voice again. I can hear the caution in it, the worry. The fear that I’m lost.

But I’m not.

Turning my gaze toward the towering statue of my goddess, I look into her lioness eyes. I admire her strength, her proud posture. Her prowess. And I decide that just as Alexander was likened to a god and Cleopatra was Isis incarnate, Astarte is linked to Sekhmet. They are sisters to me, both Egyptian war goddesses, and
I am
a descendant—my name chosen for me by the gods.

I am Astarte.

I am wrath.

Whirling around, I change my course and march toward the barge.

“Star!”

I can’t answer him. I can’t. If I open my mouth, all the grief and pain and heart sickness will fall out. And I need it. I latch on to those dark emotions and shove them deeper into the pit of my belly, allowing it to fuel my quick gait.

I suppose Phoenix decides that if I’ve lost my mind, it doesn’t matter. He follows me on to the barge. Finally, he’s quiet, and I’m pleased.

The barge drifts toward the palace.

Fury seethes through my soul. Candra took my love. And the Narcos stole my revenge. I can’t even hunt down Candra and inflict my anguish upon her. No. But I
can
punish those who are responsible for everything.

I jump off the side of the barge before it’s fully docked. Storm past the colonnades and sphinx, my hands and arms snapping white-blue currents. They reach toward the limestone, marring the stone with black, smoldering veins.

Bracing my light-pulsing hands against the doors, I blast out my power. They fly open and off their hinges and clatter to the ground. The
boom
sounds through the palace. I hope Fadil hears it. I hope he knows I’m coming.

I want him to quake with fear.

I run, darting through the corridors with my Charge fully open. Phoenix follows close behind, but is wise enough not to try and stop me. When I reach the sorcerer’s chamber, I push down the handle. Locked.
Oh, you foolish little man
. I launch my foot into the door and it splinters open.

My gaze latches on to Fadil.

He turns around to face me, the high window to his back. “Guardian Astarte.” He says my name like he’s surprised I’m here. Like there’s no reason why he
shouldn’t
be. Why he’s unrestrained and wanders freely while all Council and those close to the late ruler are imprisoned.

Words would be wasted on this leach of a man. I raise my hands and send a snaking current of Charge into his stomach. He cries out as the blow takes him to the ground, his white head
cracking
against the window.

“You’re mistaken!” he pleads. “Octavian only allows me to roam free because—”

“Quiet,” I order, low and deep. The bulbous knob in his throat bobs up as he swallows. “You’re more powerful than you’ve lead us to believe. It was
you
who conspired with Octavian to create the Leymak. You who deceived your queen and Egypt. And now, you’re going to hand your power over to me.”

His gray eyebrows pull together. “I will not.” Fear laces his pale eyes, and I smile. It must be a fearful sight, because he backs farther against the window.

I reach down and jerk him up by his robe, then press his back to the glass. It cracks, webbing with the pressure. “Do it. Or die, sorcerer.”

He shakes his head. “Please.” He glances over his shoulder. “I’ll wither and become nothing—”

A scream unleashes from my mouth, and I smash his back into the shards of glass. Blood drips on to his blue robe. I place my palm on the fragmenting glass and help it along, widening the shattered hole. The wind stirs Fadil’s thin hair.

“Yes, guardian.” He nods shakily. “I’ll bestow my power.”

I release him. He drops to the floor with a grunt.

A hand clasps my shoulder and I freeze. “Don’t do this, Star. I won’t lose you to this. I’ll fight you if I—”

He’s silenced as I thrust out my field of Charge. Phoenix groans as he’s thrown into the corner. A twinge of guilt pulls at my stomach, but I shut it down quickly. “Power. Now, Fadil.”

Shakily, he rises to his feet and presses his palms to my temples, his rigid fingers curling around the crown of my head. I keep my gaze hard on him, ready to strike him down if he attempts to harm me. Pressure followed by a stabbing pain builds against my skull. Within minutes his murmured chant fades away, and my body begins to hum—to vibrate in sync with the ache.

I tremble and gasp. My head fills with too much at once—visions and knowledge too great to process—and I collapse to my knees, swaying. It feels as if hours pass before I can open my eyes, scared I’ve left this realm and have entered some dimension of Hades.

Only Fadil’s voice centers me. “One such as you cannot house the ultimate power,” he says, bitter mockery in his tone. “Kill me now if you must. Without my power, I’m already dead.” He looks down at his cracked and flaking hands. Then his pale, colorless eyes meet mine. “But you won’t be long behind me, slave.”

My body bounds up with ease, as if I simply think of standing and float to my feet—weightless yet embodied with the burden of power. I grab his stick of a neck and squeeze. “What have you done?”

Through my grip, he rasps, “What you asked.” I release him and admire the luminescent white blaze of my skin. Unlike the Leymak, this pure—no silver tinge—radiant. Fadil coughs. “I simply merged what was once whole. An ultimate power achieved by the joining of the two races’ power.” And I know what he speaks is truth. He doesn’t have to continue, because I already understand—the power within me whispers it.

It’s why the sorcerers instructed the Council only to place Kythan of the same race together for bonding. The combined power of the earth with the power of the sky—Flame and Charge, is—

“A violation of the magics,” Fadil finishes my thought. “No slave should wield that much power. It’s only intended for the sorcerers.” His lips spread into a crooked sneer.

“And it’s also the way you’ve kept us in binds,” I say, anger rising in my voice. “No one—not the sorcerers or the pharaohs—could command that powerful a race.”

He shrugs. “Regardless, that time is over. Seems the gods have decided the end of the magics is now.” He looks past the shattered glass of the window to the sky. “My power, the last of the ancients, will die with you—a
slave
. The only satisfaction that sad fact brings me is knowing you won’t be able to wield it for long before it claims you.”

“So be it.” I backhand the smug sorcerer and he crashes into the wall. “I don’t need long.”

Before I start toward the door, I glimpse a sleeping Phoenix in the corner. A sliver of shame creeps in. But I force it away as my body pulses with power and the need to destroy.

Octavian’s legions swarm the
streets of Alexandria, fighting the very allies that helped them win the war just days before. The irony of this causes a small smile to curl on my lips, and I consider leaving them to destroy each other.

Only the wrongness of all that has been done demands justice. They deserve worse than a clean death at the end of a sword, or the absolute finality of burning to ash. No. They’ve earned slow and painful torture before they’re allowed to leave this plane.

My eyes sweep the city for any sign of the Leymak, but now that their leader has been destroyed, they’ve fled. Vanished. But if they’re in this world somewhere, I’ll find them.

Just like I’ll find Lunia.

For now, I sharpen my vision, locating each Narcolym below. If not for their treachery, the queen’s army wouldn’t have lost the war, and the Shythe wouldn’t be roaming the deserts like exiles. And Xarion—

I force my eyes closed. The memory of his emerald gaze seeking mine right before Candra took his life cuts into me like a dagger. Clutching my chest with a white-illumed hand, I send a jolt into my heart, pushing the ache deeper—fueling my veins with my sorrow.

Later
. I can mourn him later. At this moment, all others who played a role in the fall of Egypt must pay.

From my perch on Sekhmet’s shoulder, I watch the soldiers scramble like ants, fleeing the Flame of the Narcos. I brace my blood-soiled sandaled feet on her solid stone and stand tall, my back straight, my skin lit with the celestial ultimate power.

Then I call down on the city. “Traitors!” My voice rumbles, like the goddess herself is speaking from the heavens. “You. Are. Dead.”

Leaping off the statue, I descend to the earth and land with a thunderous
boom
, the limestone cracking beneath my feet. The combat ceases: swords held mid-swipe; blood halting mid-fall; Flame pausing mid-flicker.

But time has not stopped. I move faster than time.

My fist meets the side of a Narco’s face and his cheek shatters, his bones splintering under the impact. An arc of white light links the tips of my fingers to five torsos. The Narcos convulse, their skin melting from their bones like candlewax.
Fitting
, I think.

In a flash of blurred movements, I slice through the battle, decimating every Narco along my cut route. I’m not intent on Octavian’s legions, though I feel little pity when their demise is met by my hands. They are dead regardless. This whole city is.

My feet splash through puddles of crimson, and I think back on the Sekhmet feast. Xarion’s arms around me. His warm breath caressing my skin. The chills covering me from his laughter.

I scream.

I unleash my pain on the brawny Narco—the one who slowed my attempt to get to Xarion in the temple.

His bulging arms are lit with his red Flame, the veins beneath his skin thick molten rivers. His eyes widen as I come at him, and he does try to fight. His mass and strength give him false confidence that he may even win.

He should run.

Using the winds to lift me, I meet his flaming eyes straight on, then drive my fist into his chest. The hard muscle gives like papyrus as I tear through his breastbone. His sputtering pleas annoy me, so I rip out his heart to silence him. I toss it to the earth. My foot smashes it into the street before I move toward the next traitor.

The Narcos and soldiers scurry out of my path like cockroaches fleeing the light.
My
light. I glow with the wrath of the goddess, and I punish all. Just like The Eye of Ra, my bloodlust cannot be sated. Not until every guilty soul has paid.

And as I’m about to end another foolish Narco who thinks herself strong enough to defeat a goddess, a whisper comes to me on the ocean breeze. It stills my hand, my breathing, and my thoughts.

“Xarion . . .?”

The blood and battle and pain fades away as my body hovers toward the silky voice calling my name. My mind blanks at the impossibility, but I don’t care. I’ll gladly welcome the madness if it means I can see him once more—even in death.

Near the harbor, a faint form shimmers into existence, and my heart bangs against the wall of my chest. “Xarion!” And I’m running. I’m to him in a blink, my feet having never touched the ground.

He looks the same, as if he was never taken from me, as if he’s only been away at the palace. “Tell me you’re real,” I plead, reaching my hand toward his smooth face.

“I’m waiting for you.” He presses his palm over my hand, and I shudder at his touch. A hot tear burns a trail down my cheek. “But you can’t meet me yet.”

“No,” I whimper, my body wracked with tremors. Then I can see the difference; his
Akh
radiates pure light. “Together, forever, remember? I’ll come to you now. I’ll hurl myself into the ocean and be at the gates of the underworld this minute—”

“You must stop, Star.” His hands go to my nape, his fingers sliding into my hair. I imprint his touch. “You can’t become this.” His eyes flicker over the destruction I’ve caused, and a pang hits my chest. “The anger and hatred and vengeance—release it. It will only destroy you, and I need you.”

I nod, over and over. “I’m coming.”

He shakes his head. “I need you to
live
.” A smile stretches his beautiful lips as his hand moves toward my waist. Then his palm settles on the swell of my belly.

Realization slams my heart, and I press my lips to his—steal this one touch—but he begins to dim. Panic flares as I try to hold on to him. The power demands to take me, and I fade, blackness covering my vision. Xarion’s whispered words of love echo through my mind as I drift away.

Epilogue