Page 7 of Rise of the Gods: Vardor’s Destiny (Time for Monsters)

S he was there. I felt her powerful presence all around me, inside me. She was breathing life back into me, just like her blood had given life to my shriveled flesh. I still couldn't move. My body was bound too tightly, and I didn't have the strength yet to break free of it. I still couldn't see, but I knew now my face was covered. The smell of millennia cloaked my nostrils. I tasted it in the back of my throat, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered. I was alive. And she was here.

I forced my body to relax. She had woken me. Now it would take time for my body to restore itself. I had everything I needed and the memories of her to sustain me… as I once again allowed myself to drift…

Centuries of peace had gone by. Centuries of bliss in Vaelora's arms. Together we ruled the lands of Orasis. She kept the balance of right and wrong while I kept our enemies at bay and increased our lands by conquering our neighbors. My soldiers, just like their ancestors and their ancestors before them, stotod loyal by my side; we fought shoulder to shoulder and bled together like brothers. Not that any mortal could harm me, but I made a point after each battle to cut my arm or thigh, to prove to them that I would bleed for them.

Vaelora disliked my new scars, but I wore them with pride, each a witness to one of my victories.

"I just don't understand why you have to maim yourself," she argued for the hundredth time while sewing my flesh for me.

"It's nothing you would ever understand as a woman or a goddess," I tried to explain again.

"Try me," she challenged.

We had been here before, but I loved her enough to humor her. Again and again if I needed to. "You weren't born from flesh and blood, Vaelora, you just became ."

She nodded. She was the one who told me her story—how one day she just was —just as she was now—perfect in every way but emotions. I liked to think that over the centuries, I had been able to teach her some, but as much as she struggled and was willing to learn, she remained majestic and distant.

Her lack of emotions made her perfect for her role as leader. She would just as soon cut my head off as that of a murderer if I overstepped one of her laws. She would always do what needed to be done, it was one of the reasons I loved her so much, but there were days when I yearned for her to feel the same for me.

"You never had to struggle for anything—" I stopped because she lifted her hand.

"I struggled." Her clear blue eyes penetrated mine with her usual intensity. In them I could see her straining to understand. "When the people of Orasis forsook me, I struggled. When my brothers' greed grew and the people suffered, I struggled. I fought with them. I argued, I pleaded. I still don't understand how they couldn't see the wrong they were doing."

"That's where we differ."

I drew in a deep breath, forcing myself to find the right words. I was a warlord, not a philosopher. My battles were fought with steel, not conversation. Of all the men in the world, I was the least suited to explain emotions—but for her, I had to try.

"You struggled because something was wrong. You can't stand injustice," I said, watching the way her expression flickered—she really couldn’t. It drove her mad. "It’s in your nature to seek balance, to correct what is broken. But you don’t feel those wrongs, not the way mortals do."

I studied her, knowing this truth would be difficult for her to hear. "You have some compassion, I know you do," I continued. "But you can walk past a beaten slave without blinking because, in your mind, they deserved it. The balance demanded it, and that’s enough for you."

She blinked, not understanding, and I laughed because of the way she chose her next words, "What's wrong with that?"

"A slave has to obey, that's the natural order of things." That was the truth. "But if the slave had been a servant, the servant could have refused whatever order was given without being beaten."

"But they would have lost their job." She argued.

"Yes. But they would not have been beaten," I reiterated.

"I don't understand," she pleaded with me. "You're making my head hurt."

I laughed, "You are a goddess, you know no pain."

She tilted her head, "I would feel pain if I lost you."

That was the closest she would ever come to saying I love you .

"You would miss me," I corrected. "That's not the same as feeling pain."

"Oh, you humans!" She threw her hands up in the air.

A grin spread across my face—she hadn’t called me human in a long time. Some days, even the memory of my own mortality felt distant, as if it belonged to another life. Once, I had been mortal. A man of flesh and blood. Now, I was immortal, yet unlike the other gods, emotion still ran through me.

I still felt.

Loss still lingered, a quiet ache that never fully faded. My mother, my sisters—they had been gone for a long, long time, but I still missed them.

Some days, I saw their descendants, so very different from them. As much as I tried, I couldn't see family in them, even when one or another did something that reminded me of one of my sisters or my mother. A gesture, a word.

I wondered where they were now and if I would ever see them again. Gods don't die , Vaelora's words came back to me. They might wither, but they never die . She would know because she had withered. When the people had forsaken her, she had become barely a shadow of her former self. I resigned myself a long time ago to never seeing my family again, but that was alright with me, because I had gained so much more than I had lost.

"So are you saying having slaves is wrong?" Vaelora returned to our conversation.

I shrugged. "I'm not saying that." Still, there was a part of me that had been growing over time that wondered. Slaves were an unavoidable byproduct of war; what else would one do with conquered people? Putting them all to death would be barbaric. Allowing them to live would be a death sentence in its own right, since they didn't have any place to go. So, no, having slaves wasn't wrong.

"But maybe we should consider their rights a little bit more," I heard myself say out loud.

"Well, look at you, becoming as wise as a god," Vaelora mocked.

I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. "Well, at least one of us is learning from the other."

She boxed the wound she had just sewn, making me wince. The only person in the world other than myself who could hurt me was her, or another god.

"I beg your forgiveness, my lord and my lady," Asharat, my latest second in command, entered. He rarely did that unannounced or uninvited, but he was one of the few who had a right to.

"What is it, Asharat?" I pulled myself from Vaelora's arms. She didn't look alarmed or worried. Asharat's business was always with me as the lord of the army.

"My lord, we received news that a large army is marching our way."

"An army?" Anticipation heated my body. It had been a long time since we had fought a worthy foe. How long had it been? Three years? Four? Too long, and my hands itched to hold my sword, to be in the midst of a battle—my skin pebbled just thinking about it. My latest scar, the one Vaelora had just stitched, came from a city we had sacked a few days’ ride from here. It hadn't even been worth cutting myself over, but the soldiers expected it.

"How large?"

"The scouts estimate six thousand warriors strong," Asharat filled me in with the same glee in his eyes that thrummed through my body.

"Where are they coming from?" Vaelora injected herself into the conversation, something she never did when it came to matters of war.

"From the east, my lady," Asharat bowed.

"What lands?"

"The lands of the Annunaki, my lady."

Vaelora's face turned cold. Her next words froze my body, "Maezharr, he is back."

I had no idea how she knew, but she did, and I didn't doubt her for a moment. "Get the soldiers ready," I barked at Asharat, "and start recruiting. We're going to war."

It was the hardest war I had ever fought. Vaelora once told me: A god is only as strong as the people who believe in them . And she was right. Maezharr had had centuries to find new lands where he could rule and make strong enough for him to return to Orasis to claim his lost kingdom.

He fought dirty, too. Sneak attacks on outlying cities came first, weakening us because I couldn't split my main army to be everywhere at the same time. I had scouts scouring the lands, trying to find his armies, trying to guess where he would strike next. Some days we were successful, others not. Little by little, he carved out pieces of our land as if it were a cake he was about to devour.

Vaelora was withering right in front of me. I too felt the weakening of power as people turned from us to pray to Maezharr, praying for his protection instead of ours. Vaelora had warned me that people's minds could be fickle, but I had never believed it until then. I roared in anger and frustration with every missive that came in announcing the loss of yet another city. Maezharr didn't simply conquer the cities. He killed every single one of its inhabitants, razed and burned it to the ground, and salted the earth he left behind, turning it into a desert.

Finally, after months of frustrating chases, Asharat came to me and announced he had found Maezharr's main camp. It wasn't far from our army, and I readied us for battle.

"I need you to go to Ilanthope, where ships will be waiting for you to take you to safety," I told Vaelora.

"I won't leave you. I won't leave Orasis," she protested, predictably.

"You must." I took her beloved face into my hands. "Please. This battle will be hard, the hardest ever, and I need to know you are safe."

Stubbornly, she shook her head, "My place is here. You will be victorious. I know you will."

My army had dwindled to four thousand, while Maezharr's had grown to eight. I wished I could be as confident as Vaelora in my success, but the odds were stacked against us. "Maezharr will kill you if he gets ahold of you," I warned her.

"Let him try," she pushed her chin out defiantly. "I must do what I must do; you of all people should understand this."

I did. I truly did. But that didn't change the fact that she wasn't just my goddess, she was my life. She was my mate. My heart and my soul. I would gladly die, but I needed to know that she was safe.

"Forgive me," I pulled her into my arms and lifted her off the ground.

"Forgive you for what?"

"Asharat," I yelled, and he immediately came in, followed by several warriors pushing a large crate.

"Vardor, what are you doing? Let me down!" Vaelora demanded.

The hatch was already open, and I carried Vaelora inside as she kicked and screamed at me. The priests had assured me it would keep her safe. They placed spells on it she couldn't escape. "I'm sorry."

I closed the door and sealed it, certain she was yelling and screaming inside, but no sound came through the thick walls.

"Take her to the ships," I placed my hand on Asharat's shoulder. Like his predecessor from long ago, Tavrek, I trusted him implicitly. "If you don't hear from me in two days, take off to the lands of the Lemurians. Don't let her out until you reach it."

Asharat nodded solemnly. We both knew that Vaelora would kill him the minute she was out. It was a lot to ask of him, but Asharat was as devout to her as he was to me. "It will be done just as you ordered, my lord."

"It has been an honor," our eyes met, and he placed his hand on my shoulder.

"My only regret is that I won't be fighting at your side tomorrow," he said.

"Your fight will be a hundred times harder." I tried to smile, but my lips didn't budge.

Just as Asharat had forfeited his life with his promise, I knew I had done the same with mine. Vaelora would never forgive me for my betrayal, no matter that it was to keep her safe.