THE FURY OF GODS

Chapter 10: Garden of Bones

OLIVIA

There was a strange ambience in Meccai. A day after being in Uzia I convinced Uncle Jacopo to let me into the Hub. The Uzia was remarkably beautiful but I missed the scent of the forgery, the sea breeze from the port and the cobblestone paths. For all my plans to leave Meccai and flee from my problems, I knew I would miss this place.

I ignored the pain in my bones and behind my eyes to focus. My feet felt uncoordinated and I convinced myself that I just needed a few days to become more acquainted with the strange changes of my biology. Just this morning, I'd wake up from a strange dream of fire and blood.

I pulled the hood of my cloak lower to shield my face. Halfway into the Hub I noticed people were moving in tandem toward the city's gates, some more impatient than others.

"What's going on?"

Nadia grabbed my wrists and propelled us in the opposite direction.

"Look!" she hissed. "It's a Scifan!"

I followed her gaze to see a small figure being shoved on the wall-walk by two brutish Iron Guards.

A man slammed into my side, sending me teetering across the path. "Eager for Àjé death, are you!" I spat.

He paused and turned. From the pretentious posture and his richly waxed robes I could tell he was likely some wealthy merchant. When our eyes collided his eyes flashed with realization and his mouth turned into a sneering grin as he placed a proud hand on the hilt of his sword. A sword he most likely had never used.

"It's you," he said. "The bitch that murders men in Ifran's arena.

"May the gods curse you the next time you fight."

My lips parted to offer a rebuttal but he was gone, swallowed by the moving crows. He was just the type of man I would enjoy running into in a back alley. I closed my eyes and whispered a prayer to the gods to cool my temper.

When I opened my eyes the landscape had changed, morphed into a battlefield strewn with blood and mutilated bodies of men and women. And I stood right in the center of the unending bloodletting.

"Oh, god, not this again," I whispered as panic clawed into me.

In the distance, a woman clad in a blood-splattered white dress wielding a sword against her pale-skinned armored enemies with the strength of a god under the declining glow of the evening's sun. From behind me, the horrid sound of hoofs beat grew louder. When I turned a large black stallion was charging toward him at a speed that could see me run rover and trampled. In its saddle was a fully armored demon in gleaming black and silver. His suit was spluttered in blood as if he had bathed in it. Distraught, I stepped aside just in time as the horseman blazed by in a cloud of black dust and the stench of blood. When I glanced at the woman, the soldier now lay dead at her feet and her eyes were boring into mine beneath her battle helm. They were a pale, yet piercing silver.

She can see me.

Ice replaced the heat in my veins. Of all the places I could have been taken, a bloody battlefield similar to the one in my reoccurring dreams was where the gods decided to take me. A place with all the trappings of death. Could I even die in this state? There were stories passed down through generations by griots about unfortunate people who were transported to their own dreamscape and died in their subconscious minds.

Someone screamed my name, a distant voice echoing with distress, carrying across the battlefield in the wind.

From my periphery I saw another in black and silver armor, coming at me with his sword at the ready. With a scream, I shielded my face and steeled my body for death.