Page 56 of An Unexpected Ascension
“Why would I like that, Achaz?” His voice was as cool and calm as the green silk that clothed him. “I do not find them threatening, let them think what they will. Isn’t it our duty to act above them and not below?”
Teeth of the God gritted, grinding so fiercely I’m shocked he didn’t cough up dust. Thick fingers twitched, debating to grab hold of Koa’s robe and smite him right here.
“Does anyone else agree with this blasphemy?”
No one answered.
One blink. I open my eyes again to find myself back in the garden, except it’s not me reaching out to the fruit on the tree, but a man with short dark hair and handsome features. A woman, her red tendrils glisten the same as her eyes as she hangs on his arm, pleading with him.
“Lucifer, please, I beg of you, do not! They will not be merciful when they find out!” She sobs. “Let it be. You don’t need to know.”
“My dear Ada, I do need to know. Where have our children gone?”
As his fingers wrap around the plum fruit, the colors of the world cycle once again, transporting us back to the tower, the Gods draped over their thrones.
Lucifer stands in the center, chin held high, his hand resting atop the woman’s head. He strokes the red strands, attempting to calm her while she sits on her haunches, terrified.
“I know,” Lucifer starts, despite the heaviness of the Gods’ silence. “I know where my children have gone, what you’ve done to them.”
A smirk dons Achaz’s sharp face. “Then now you also know the consequences of questioning your Gods.”
Lucifer’s lover wails beside him, her hazel eyes finally drifting upward to level with a set of celestial ones. She rises to her feet, finding strength in her fury.
“We will never see them again, not ever! And for what? So you can fulfill your selfdom? Wretched, heartless Gods!” she screams.
Lucifer places a hand on her lower back but does not try to quell her madness for he too is consumed.
Acceptance fills him with each breath, and he knows what is coming, he knows the eradication will steal his afterlife, his lover’s eternity, but what’s an immortal existence without the ones they loved? It’s nothing.
Achaz stands. “How dare you stand before a God and accuse him of such vile things? If you knew love, you would worship on your knees instead of wail in pity for yourself!”
Lucifer steps before the woman, his hand entwined with hers.
“We have no love for you or any of the Gods. Not with what you have done. Thousands upon thousands of souls gone. Mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. Children! Because they dare ask a question of something you’ve never let them understand.”
“Understand? You humans could never! Puny little minds. Even now.”
The other Gods remain quiet, too careful to stop the tyrant.
“I will gladly follow those souls that shuddered before your unmerciful ways. Better than to live under a God that has no love for his own people. Just know, I won’t be the only one. There will be a day where you will need your followers, and you will have none.”
A sardonic chortle echoes through the atmosphere. “You are nothing but a pest.”
Achaz looms over the couple, his shadow swallowing them. A snap sounds from his fingers and time slows to a crawling pace, but nothing happens.
He snaps again, his brows knitting together.
As if in answer, rolling at his feet is the core of a fruit, plucked and shared in the nick of time.
The air depletes around them, vacuumed on a furious inhale by the enraged God. His arms lift to the sky, then slam down, dragging with them a bolt of lightning, striking Lucifer dead center in the chest, bringing him to his knees.
Still yet, he does not perish.
Ada curls her arms around him, now crying softly, accepting that there will be a long road ahead where their suffering will know no end.
Achaz’s head veers back in astonishment.
“Garroway,” he snipes.
