Part I Chapter 22
Without a word, Apollymi held her son in her arms and walked with a calmness she didn't feel toward the dais where her black throne sat beside her husband's gold one. Archon stood up at her approach and moved to the side as if to speak to her.
She ignored him as she placed Apostolos on Archon's throne, where he belonged. Her hands shaking, she sat him up and carefully placed each of his hands on the arms. She lifted his head and brushed the blond hair back from his bluish face until he looked as if he would blink and move at any moment.
Only he would never blink again.
He was dead.
And so were they . . .
Apollymi's heart beat with fury as her powers mounted. A feral wind exploded through the hall, sweeping her hair up as her eyes glowed red. She turned on the gods then and leveled a malevolent glare at each of them as they held a united breath in expectation of her wrath.
Until she came to Archon.
Only then did she speak in a voice that was laced with her hatred. "Look at my son."
He refused.
"Look, damn you!" she snarled. "I want you to see what you've done."
Archon winced before he complied and the relief in his eyes notched her wrath to an even higher level. How could she have ever allowed something so callous and putrid into her bed?
Into her body?
Apollymi growled. "Your bastard daughters deprived my son of his life. Those little whores damned him. And you," she sneered the word, "dared to protect them instead of my child!"
"Apollymi-"
"Don't you ever speak my name again." She sealed his mouth shut with her powers. "You had every right to be afraid. But your bastard bitches were wrong. It won't be my son who destroys this pantheon. It is I. Apollymia Katastrafia Megola. Pantokrataria. Thanatia Atlantia deia oly!"
Apollymi the Great Destroyer. All powerful. Death to the gods of Atlantis.
It was then they scrambled for the doors or to teleport out, but Apollymi would have none of it. Drawing from the darkest part of her soul, she sealed the hall closed. No one was going to leave here until she was appeased.
No one.
If the Chthonians killed her for this, so be it. She felt dead inside anyway. She didn't care about anything except making them all pay for their part in her son's suffering.
Archon fell to his knees, trying to plead for her mercy. But there was nothing left inside her except a hatred so potent and bitter that she could actually taste it.
She kicked him back and blasted him until he was nothing more than a statue remnant of a god.
Basi screamed out as Apollymi turned toward her. "I helped you. I did! I put him where you told me to."
"You didn't do shit, except whine and piss me off." Apollymi blasted her into oblivion.
One by one, she faced the gods she'd once considered family and turned them into stone as her relentless fury demanded appeasement. They tried in vain to subdue her, but once her wrath was unleashed, there was no power in the universe to stop her.
Except for the child they'd stupidly killed. Only Apostolos could have saved them.
The only one she hesitated at was her beloved step-grandson, Dikastis-the god of justice. Unlike the others, he didn't cower or beg. Nor did he fight her. He stood with one hand braced on the back of a chair, calmly meeting her gaze as an equal.
But then he understood justice. He understood her wrath.
Inclining his head respectfully, he didn't move as she blasted him.
And then there was Epithymia. Her half-sister. The goddess of wealth and desire. She was the bitch Apollymi had so foolishly trusted more than the others.
With tears of crystal ice in her eyes, Apollymi confronted her. "How could you?"
Tiny and frail in her angelic appearance, Epithymia stared up at her from where she cowered on the floor. "I did what you asked. I delivered him into the world of man and made sure he was born into a royal family. I even tried to hand him to the queen to suckle him. Why would you destroy me?"
Apollymi wanted to claw her eyes out for what she'd done. "You touched him, you slut! You knew what that would do to him. To be touched by the hand of desire and to have no god powers to countermand it . . . You made it so that every human who saw him was driven mad with their lust to have him. How could you be so careless?"
It was then she saw the truth in her sister's eyes.
"You did it on purpose!"
Epithymia swallowed. "What was I supposed to do? You heard the Fates when they spoke. They proclaimed him to be the death of us all. He would have destroyed us."
"You thought the humans would kill him in their efforts to possess him?"
A tear slid down Epithymia's cheek. "I was only trying to protect us."
"He was your nephew," Apollymi spat.
"I know and I'm sorry."
Not as sorry as she was going to be.
Apollymi curled her lip. "So am I. I'm sorry I ever trusted you with the one thing you knew I loved above all others. You ungrateful bitch. I hope your actions haunt you into eternity." Apollymi blasted her sister.
And yet she was unappeased. Even with all of them dead and gone . . .
The hole inside her was still there and it hurt so much that all she could do was scream. She screamed until her throat was raw. Throwing her arms out, she splintered the hall until there was nothing left but rubble. Nothing left but her memories of her hope for a son now dead.