God of Storms |The Anak Series| [COMPLETED!]

Thirteen

Storms rose unrestrained, not bound by mortal or immortal restraints. Storms never change. Storms only exist untethered. Bound, they fall.

Immortality promised much, but it always takes so much away. There's a beauty to mortality. You grow. You live. Then, inevitably, you die. Mortals are forced to grow. Demigods have to grow, just to survive. You live, but with a purpose. And mortality promises growth, growth as an individual.

Gods. Children. All of them. Petulant, temperamental, and as self-centered as a child. They never changed because they never had a reason to grow. All of them . . .

The Arena brought the truth to light. Yes, and Tartarus made it clear. Storms never change.

The Storm broke against the Arena time and time again, roaring, screaming, and biting. It was a mass of writhing power, howling purple and gold and black.

The Storm couldn't die. It was alive, trapped, suffocating in the infinite that is Tartarus. The Storm remained bound, choking in the waste of its soul.

And then it was called, gently at first, but then harder. A tug at the throat, and then another at his heart, playing the strings like a song.

Oh, what a song, hoarse, tired, spilling dreams forgotten and hurts forever remembered, lost, spinning and swirling away from the truth. Broken lies resembled the truth.

It called again, clawing at his eyes. It spoke.

"Wake, wake, wake." Oh, what a song.

"WAKE."

Perseus did.

He opened his eyes, but he did not see.

"W-What," he gasped. He stood or maybe he fell. "I can't see." His hands groped at the darkness, lost. He couldn't see, but his senses were overflowing. The taste of black and night and the scent of power and ...

"Quiet."

Perseus stopped. He could hear his own blood pulsing, the roar of chaos in his head. He was shaking, trembling.

"Listen, Perseus."

Then, he knew.

"Nyx," he whispered, raising himself to the sound of her voice. He could imagine her standing in her glory, emanating the very promise of night. It always came, bringing everything that came in the night. "My lady," he added, crumbling to a knee.

"Good. You remember."

He did remember. Everything, all the hate, the pain, and the blood on his hands. "I was the Storm." It was no question. Perseus had three forms. He was the Winged Lion, now dead, the body, now broken, and of course he was the Storm.

"You won, Perseus. You defeated the Three and you lived."

I did. "My eyes are gone."

"Yes."

"The Winged Lion is dead."

"Yes."

Perseus exhaled. "You gathered the essence of the Storm to my body."

"Yes."

Perseus stood. "The Arena still demands three more trials for me."

Nyx chuckled. "You razed the Arena to the ground, its very foundations are uprooted and strewn across Tartarus."

"There are three more trials."

Nyx stepped forward. Perseus heard her sigh and the breath of her fingers as she traced them along his cheek. "You know what must happen. Tartarus calls. I have no choice but to answer. You are my champion and you also bear the scars of Typhon. By all laws, you must rise with us. Destroy the Olympians, raze their cities, and kill their children."