Page 30 of Rise of the Gods: Vardor’s Destiny (Time for Monsters)

N o man or god had ever lived who had been happier than me. As a man, I had been a warrior and not given a wife and children any thought, but as a god, I had many thousands of years to think and wonder what it would have been like to have a son or daughter—the one thing Vaelora could never give me.

She had seen how I sometimes looked at mortal children, had known I yearned for them. Several times, she had offered to bring me a fertile mortal to plant my seeds in her womb, but I had declined. The very thought of lying with someone else besides her had made me nauseous. And now, she’d given me the greatest gift she could have ever thought of. She must have truly forgiven me then...

I'll never forgive you, Vardor, but I will give you one more chance to prove yourself. One more! And if you fail, this entire world will pay the price for your failure .

Her words came back to me, haunted me. No, she hadn't forgiven me, and she never would. A goddess's wrath was for eternity. Why then was she granting me my greatest desire?

Think, Vardor, think like the commander you are . I wasn't at war with Vaelora, but she might be at war with me, I pondered. I needed to strategically think this through. As much as I didn't want to consider it, my son's very life might depend on it.

I didn't want to think like this. I loved Vaelora. For thousands of years, she had been my consort, my love, my all. She was the goddess of balance. Without emotions , I reminded myself. She is a good goddess because she does what needs to be done without emotional attachment. She knows I would burn this world down for her, but she can't do the same for me, because she can't feel .

Unbidden, her words echoed in my mind. I'll never forgive you, Vardor, but I will give you one more chance to prove yourself. One more! And if you fail, this entire world will pay the price for your failure .

Was she ready to set the world aflame for me?

My mind was a jumble of chaos.

"I love you," I said as I lay in bed with her after we had just satiated each other. She was playing with my now flaccid cock, working her magic to revive it. The goddess was insatiable. One of the reasons I loved her so much.

"Don't," she said, looking up from her pastime.

"Don't what?" I pretended I didn't know. We'd had this conversation a million times, but this time felt different. Seriousness surrounded her like never before.

"You know what I mean. Don't say things to me that I cannot reciprocate," She explained.

"You could lie," I lifted my head from its bed between my folded arms.

"What's the sense in it if we both know I'm lying? I can't love."

It was the deep sadness in her eyes that made me sit up. "Vaelora?"

"It wrecks me some days, Vardor. It truly does. I know you love me. I can see it, feel it. But I can't reciprocate," she looked as close to tears as a goddess could get.

"Forgive me, Vaelora, I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, it's me. I'm the one who needs to ask your forgiveness. I never asked you if you wanted any of this. I just took you. Made you into a god. And I'm sorry for it."

It was my turn to protest. "Don't. You know how much you mean to me. I wouldn't want anything else but you. Given a choice, I would always say yes, even if I had to walk through the depths of hell."

"You've given up so much for me, Vardor, and the one thing you ask of me ? —"

"Stop." I shook my head. "There is only one thing, and that's you. Always and forever."

That afternoon was seared into my memory. In part because it was only a week later that Maezharr attacked and our life changed irrevocably, but also because for the first time in our thousands of years together, she had shown me her vulnerable side. One she had kept well-hidden until then.

My love for her still burned with a frightening intensity inside me, but so did my love for Roweena as she stood next to me on deck of the ship as it entered Cairo via the Nile River, tugged along by smaller boats.

Cairo stretched ahead of us, sprawling and golden, a vast city beyond anything I had ever imagined.

I gripped Roweena's hand, the only familiar thing in a world that had changed beyond recognition. This land had once been mine, a place of rivers and life, a kingdom of green where the sands had not yet claimed dominion.

What I saw was not the land I remembered.

"This is Cairo," Roweena said softly beside me, her voice filled with the same reverence I had only ever heard when she spoke of this place. "The city that has stood the test of time."

Time.

I had been gone for so long that the world had reshaped itself without me. What had once been an oasis, filled with trees, palms, and Vaelora's great palace, had been swallowed by stone and dust.

Roweena leaned into me, her eyes bright with something I didn't understand. Veneration. Wonder. Love. I had seen her look at me that way before. She had always longed to come here, had spoken of it as if it were her destiny. And yet, as I stared down at the impossibly large city, my mind could not reconcile what I saw with what I had once known.

"You've been here before," she murmured, watching me.

I nodded, my jaw tightening. "Not here. Not... like this."

Her brow furrowed, but I wasn't sure how to explain it. How did I tell her that this was not the land I remembered? That once, the earth had been lush and alive, ruled by a goddess whose palace had stood where those strange, pointed structures now loomed?

I had never seen anything like them—vast, triangular monuments of smooth stone, standing defiant against time, the desert, and the elements. They dominated the plateau, casting their long, unnatural shadows over the desert as if they had always been there.

They had not.

Vaelora's palace had stood there once. A great temple of white marble, columns stretching toward the heavens, surrounded by groves of fruit-laden trees and pools of water so clear they reflected the sky itself.

Now, there was nothing but these towering stone shapes and the dry breath of the desert.

"What are those?" I asked at last, unable to tear my gaze from them.

Roweena's lips parted slightly in pure, unadulterated veneration. "The Great Pyramids of Giza."

"Pyramids," I repeated, tasting the word, unfamiliar and foreign.

She turned to me, something between excitement and curiosity lightened her expression. "This wasn't here when you were here?"

I started to shake my head, but then I remembered. Vaelora had spoken of erecting a city beyond compare, a place of greatness that would stand long after mortal empires had crumbled. But when I had walked this land, her vision had been only whispers and half-formed dreams.

And now...

Now it stood.

I exhaled slowly. "She said she would build a city that would never fall. I never thought she meant this."

Roweena smiled, as if she had expected that. "She did more than build a city, Vardor. She shaped history."

I said nothing, but my gaze returned to the pyramids—her pyramids. The world had changed in ways I could not yet grasp, and for the first time, I felt something I had not expected. Humility.

The land I had once called home had outgrown me, had been built into something greater than I ever could have imagined. Vaelora's name might have been long forgotten, faded into the sands. But her creation hadn’t.

The ship dipped lower, sweeping over the Nile's winding body, and my attention shifted. The river had survived. Even when the palace turned to dust and the trees disappeared, the Nile remained, cutting through the desert like a lifeline. I could almost hear the past murmuring beneath the water's surface, whispering the names of kings, of warlords, of gods.

Cairo was alive with movement, heat, and voices. What Rowena called minarets and golden domes gleamed in the sun, streets teemed with people, and the air was thick with the scents of spice, incense, and life.

I turned to Roweena, whose eyes were still locked on the city.

"You've always wanted to come here," I said. It wasn't a question.

She nodded, and her fingers tightened around mine. "I used to dream about it. About walking these streets, standing before the pyramids, touching history with my own hands."

I studied her for a long moment, and something in me softened.

"Then let's do it," I murmured.

When she looked at me, for a moment there was no Vaelora, no destiny, no coming war. Only us. The ship descended, carrying us closer to the city Vaelora had dreamed into existence. It wouldn't be long now until we reached our destination. Vaelora's hidden temple. The gods only knew what would happen next. The very least I could give Roweena was Cairo and the pyramids she had always wanted to see.

I owed her that much.

If not more.