Reign of the Goddess by Clara Hartley

Author:Clara Hartley [Hartley, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

Eleven

Cara

I sat on the dead grass. The weight of what Apollo had told me crushed me. He hadn’t reacted to my slap. He’d merely brushed at that spot, as if it were the light graze of a leaf. I would have preferred it if he’d gotten mad. He gestured for me to sit after, so he might explain what I was to go through.

“You have to do this,” Apollo said. “There’s no other option.”

“Why?” I asked, feeling like I was about to explode.

“The old gods need another anchor to return. Otherwise, they’ll have to use the powers I’ve injected into this world, disintegrating everything, before they can assume their physical bodies again. You’re the answer.”

“You want me to be the next chiasma.” I swallowed thickly. “How the fuck does that even work?” I gestured to my body. “Look at me.”

“You look glorious, Cara.” He said it with so much conviction that I got chills.

“I mean, yeah,” I said. My new goddess body was awesome. “But that’s not what I’m getting at. I’m not anything like the chiasma. It’s a giant black ball, for fuck’s sakes. And to anchor the world?”

“You won’t be doing it alone.” Apollo grabbed my hand. Was he trying to give me reassurance? It wasn’t working. “I’ll be giving you some of my powers. I wouldn’t be able carry this out with anybody else, but since your body acclimated to the chiasma’s powers for so long, it’s attuned to it. I want to give you more of my energy. It’ll weaken me, but it’ll also keep the worlds alive. In the current states.”

“And then what?”

“We finish the same ritual we used thousands of years ago. The same one they used on me.”

“Sacrifice.”

“Will you do it?” Apollo asked. “You will have to volunteer for this position sincerely.”

“You want me to spend the rest of eternity as a giant-ass orb.” I sucked in a breath. My ears rang. “What’s the alternative?”

“The old gods won’t stand aside and lose their opportunity to return,” Apollo said. “Nyx will destroy the worlds without another option. Everything you’ve ever known would be replaced.”

“Everything,” I said in an almost-whisper.

Apollo bowed his head in a morose fashion.

My vassals.

Danna.

They’d be gone.

“Do you love them?” Apollo asked. I hadn’t mentioned my vassals, but Apollo saw through my thoughts.

The burden weighed heavily in my chest. “Yes.”

“If you truly did,” Apollo said, “you’d give yourself up for them. Like I did for Nyx. I care for my friend. We went through much together. And so, when the time came, I willingly sacrificed my own form to give her another chance. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

I looked at my hands. The wind no longer lessened the punishing heat of Apollo’s sun, but my fingers had gone cold. “I don’t know.” I clenched my jaw. “I really don’t know.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.