In the Shadow of the Goddess (Book 1 of The Fallen Gods Trilogy)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

She is running through the forest.

Trees reach to enviable heights to sweep at the heavens. The sky is a clear, vibrant blue. The sun winks like a jewel through the canopy of green. These things all long for her to play with them, yet she does not have the time to stop.

At her hip hangs a dagger born when the fabric of chaos was woven into ordered reality. That had been her birth as well and the dagger a present to herself. With its golden hilt and silver blade, it is a beautiful thing. To slay a god, she will need its power.

Behind her come the others. A man. A woman. Each have followed their own murky trails until the two merge into hers. She turns to them.

"Are you coming?"

"To the Father?" asks the young man. He is very handsome and looks so young. Appearances are deceptive things however and something of the life he lives is reflected in his green eyes. He has created nations only to see them fall at his feet. He has both given hope and destroyed it. "Yes, I will come."

She turns to the woman. "And you?"

The young woman's long dark hair is wild and full of flowers: pink and blue and mauve. She, who weaves chaos into every pattern and holds the fate of so many in her fickle palm, does not look pleased. Still, she nods.

They run heedless of the trees and bushes that tear their clothing. Breathing grows labored as they race up a hill that ascends into forever. Then she spies him ahead: naked, beautiful, powerful.

The prey is tired and can no longer outrun them. His blood flows from more wounds than she can count. It runs in rivulets to the ground, mingling with the dirt and killing all it touches. He stumbles, slipping to his knees.

They fall on him. They kiss him yet rend the limbs from his body, both loving and killing him for the sake of the world. He allows it as tears of blood streak from his eyes. He forgives them for what they must do and be, because the god must die in order for the world to rise again.

Coric is covered slickly in his father's blood and Kachine tramples the god's body into the dying ground. But it is she alone who kisses her lover's lips as she unsheathes the dagger to cut open his chest. Tearing aside flesh and bone, she plucks out his heart with her bare hands because he has declared her its keeper. His Sahen'chi. His.

Then, as Kydel, the lord of dreams dies, the full moon rises in the western sky, bathing them in pale, eerie light. For now, it is over. Soon, the god will rise again in the sacred grove of the goddess and with his rebirth, the world will be made new.

Flames suddenly, catching them all unaware. They run blindly, leaving Kydel alone in his suffering. She flees to Pydia as deadly flames lick at her heels. Coric and Kachine are lost to her. How will she ever find any of them again? And Pydia...

Pydia runs red with blood. It saturates the ground, killing the Forest. Bodies are hacked to pieces and the remains are crushed and heaped into piles of moldering flesh. Flames consume everything left behind. Fanatical laughter echoes through the dead town. Remnants of screams linger. The smell of death is heavy in the air and can never be forgotten or appeased because there is no way to shut out the memory or to make it stop or...

"The Sahen'chi are dead! The Keepers are dead and the Forest is destroyed!"

It took Jill a long time to realize the screams were hers, that she had been asleep, or more specifically, that she'd been dreaming. Though the rational part of her brain knew the images were a dream, but she couldn't stop the screams. Aden had said Shey dreams were prophecies. This dream was that, and more.