Black Blood (Series of Blood Book 4) by Emma Hamm (reading women .txt) 📗

“Thank you for your mercy.”

As she disintegrated into ash, Lydia shook her head. “I did not grant you any mercy. You will be alone for the rest of your life, knowing only one of your family exists.” She pointed to Pitch. “And it is one you forsake time and time again. The darker half of your family is not evil. Nor is light always good.”

“Please, no,” Aether cried out. “No wait, this is not what I wanted!”

She burst into ash. A cold breeze swirled through her remains and carried her away from her siblings.

Gaia screamed. Nurin struggled against his bounds until Lydia clapped a hand down upon his shoulder. “Stop.”

They both froze.

“The two of you have been weighed by judgment. Your plans to destroy not only this world but its inhabitants as well has not come to fruition, therefore your punishment is less. Your souls will be carried to your homeland on the winds of ruin and disgrace.”

In one last push, Gaia freed herself from the cage Lydia had placed around her mouth. “No! You bitch! We did nothing wrong!”

“You have been found wanting. Divinity is not given lightly.” She leaned down and pressed her lips against Gaia’s ear. “And you were never a Goddess.”

Lydia trailed her hands along their shoulders. Their forms locked, and they turned to gray stone. Cracks formed across their hands and clothing, expressions frozen in a state of anger and shock.

“Be gone from my sight.” Lydia’s voice rumbled with the weight of time and justice.

The great force of her power crushed down upon Gaia and Nurin’s bodies. The stone crumbled.

She allowed for silence. They deserved as much. Though they were careless with their gifts and heartless in their treatment of the creatures they created, the Five were Gods and Goddesses. A moment of silence after their death was fitting.

Memories bombarded her. Sil had killed more Gods than she wished to count. The woman had been judge and justice, murderer and peace keeper. Those memories had been buried so deep within Sil’s unconscious that she had never shared them.

A sigh expelled all the guilt and anger from her body. Lydia turned to meet the gazes of her chosen ones.

Understandably, they all looked as though they might vomit.

“Now, it’s time for us to talk.”

“What?” Wolfgang stammered. “You want to talk? Now? You just killed three Gods in front of us without any show of force, and you want to talk?”

“Killing is hardly the word for it. Gods cannot be killed. Their essence will be recycled, and they will join to create a new life. Someday, hopefully after their memories have been destroyed.”

“What are you?”

She summoned comfortable seats for all of them. Worn leather couches, similar to the seating arrangements at Jasper’s home, scooted up behind them. A flick of her wrist knocked everyone down.

“I am a Goddess. Like them, although much older. We took on the name Gods and Goddesses but really, we are creators. An amplified version of yourselves.” She sank into her own loveseat, leaning into Pitch. “You can create Juice, spells, Fairy dust. I can create life.”

She watched their expressions shifting from emotion to emotion. It was a lot for them to process, even more for them to accept. And they would have to accept it. She wouldn’t let them do anything else.

Wren was the first to lean forward, her eyes white as snow. “What does this have to do with us?”

“You know I chose all of you for a reason? That you weren’t random drawings from a hat to fulfill a prophecy I made up?”

They nodded in response.

Lydia reached out and took Pitch’s hand. She needed him to help hide her shaking. “You were all chosen because I viewed your futures, your personalities, your choices for hundreds of years. I walked the webs of Time and changed every aspect of your life I could, to see whether or not you would ever break or turn to evil. No matter how dark I made your lives, no matter how difficult or dangerous your path became, you all remained good, strong people.”

Lyra chuckled. “I don’t know about that, Starshine. I’ve made plenty of bad decisions in my life.”

“You make small selfish decisions, but everything you do is to keep your family and friends happy.”

The Siren did not argue with her.

Trailing her eyes over them once more, Lydia took a deep steadying breath. There were so many things to say, and millions of ways for her to say it. But this was not about her. It was about them.

“I chose you as representatives for your world. I think it’s painfully obvious my kind has been making the decisions for too long. It all boils down to two threads you can follow. Two different lives, different worlds.”

Pitch squeezed her hand. He didn’t know what she was going to say, nor did he know she had already seen the future.

“There are two very different futures you may decide upon. The first is that Gods will disappear from this world. Pitch and I are the last remaining, and we will willingly walk to another dimension. You and your people will be left alone.”

She paused, letting the question sink in. Pitch stiffened beside her, and she could hear the questions running through his head.

“Is this really a good idea? No Gods? You know what that will do, Lydia.”

“I do,” she said in his mind. “But it’s not our decision anymore. This is their world, we are the invaders, and we have destroyed so much. It’s time for them to take control over their lives and the lives of their people.”

Wren cocked her head to the side. “What will happen if there are no Gods?”

She had known the Legion would ask the right question. “Magical creatures require something to guide them. A divine force if you want to call it that. Without some kind of figure like that, they will fade. It will take a mere hundred to two hundred years before magic disappears from your world again.