Please note, this is Book 2 of the DAUGHTERS OF FATE Trilogy.  To read Book 1, please visit my profile at MathiasCavanaugh

DEDICATION

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And Earoni took forth a beam of light and made from it a spear so that she might smite those who challenged her. She drew the weapon back and struck down the betrayer, then spoke, "See the fate that those who oppose me shall suffer."

Salvations 3:101

Three Hundred Years Before The Modern Era

Amidst the bleached marble and the golden trim of her palace in the heavens, Earoni presided from upon her throne. The robes of the Greater Goddess, white as ivory, wavered in the gentle breezes of ether that would obey her very words if she so ordered. Her hair was as fiery red as the setting sun and her face stoic, a symbol that had not only been worshipped, but feared by so many over the eons.

To most she was a gleaming representation of compassion; a sign of the triumph and of law and virtue over the chaos and darkness.

However, a disturbance now filled the fibers of her being. Feelings and outward signs of anger and remorse replaced the normal sense of her existence. As the weight of the realization of how close the cosmos came to falling into ruin bore down upon her, so too did Earoni bear down her gaze upon the form of the dark-haired angel cowering before the dais on which her divine seat rested.

The angel's wings shuddered, and the deity heard the repeated faint whimpers and cries from the celestial being as she diligently stared to the floor, averting her eyes from the penetrating stare of the Greater Goddess.

With heaviness, Earoni turned to the companion at her side. He was a tall, bald man-like creature standing with a massive scroll tucked under his arm.  His own angelic wings were neatly folded behind him in crisp, clean lines. They were held so tightly to his body that they almost disappeared and appeared as one with his robes. He did not once turn to gaze upon the Greater Goddess, instead continuing to stare straight ahead with a diligent, singular purpose. A soft wave from Earoni's hand signaled it was time for him to begin.

Stepping forward, he unrolled the scroll and spoke in a voice that resonated through the hall and rushed over the black-haired angel. "Noranda," even the echo dug its fangs into her as it crashed back over her. "You stand accused of, and have been found guilty of aiding the Dark Lord, Descist."

Earoni witnessed her once loyal servant wince at the annunciation of every syllable of every word as it was spoken. It was as though each was a knife being stabbed into her soul as punishment.

The bald messenger continued. "Your conspiracy with Descist to remove our Mother from her place in the heavens is without parallel. The evidence is clear. The facts are not in doubt. Your guilt is absolute."

With the pronouncement, and for the first time, the angel before her glanced up through disheveled strands of black hair.  Her eyes were consumed by anguish; her mouth barely able to speak. "Forgive me," she managed to choke out between tears and with words that wavered with grief. "I beg you to please forgive me."

Earoni stood with slow patience that seemed to border on forever. "Forgive you?" The sound of the Greater Goddess's voice was cold and demanding, but measured and forcibly calm. "You sided with my son. You sought to overthrow my rule and upset the cosmos, plunging us into chaos and darkness. I cannot see grounds for forgiveness." Then, in a moment of compassion, wanting nothing more than to find a reason to forgive, any reason, she added, "Explain to me why I should."

Noranda returned her eyes to the ground. Against her chest, she could feel the coldness of the medallion of her goddess; a silver eagle in flight superimposed on an inverted golden triangle. There was no comfort from it; the normal soothing energy from its touch had long since faded. "I — I cannot," she conceded and then fell silent for a moment. "I only ask that you show compassion with your verdict and realize that my actions were not of my own will."

"Not of your own will?" The measured calm of Earoni's voice failed.

"Yes, My Goddess," the angel declared. "Descist deceived me."

Earoni returned heavily to her throne, her robes falling flat. "I find that impossible to comprehend," she disputed. "It is not possible for my son to touch an exalted figure such as an archangel without some desire on her part." Earoni was quiet as she tried to accept this excuse. She wanted to with all her divine soul, but no amount of wanting could make her trust the words now being spoken. "No," she finally declared. "For this reason alone, I must believe that you were all too willing a participant in this plot."

Noranda's eyes raised up and focused on the goddess with a final hardened, desperate stare. "I beseech you! Please! Give me a second chance!" she cried out. "I know that your son tests the boundaries of the nothingness in which you have placed him. He is growing stronger as more souls join him. He has learned to shape them into weapons against you. As the hearts of mortals drift towards him and his false promises, you will not be able to contain him. I sense that even now you struggle against his efforts. He found a crack and exploited it once. He will do so again."

Earoni frowned at the suggestion of her weakness. Despite the truth that much more of her effort and power had been delegated to maintain her son in check, the Greater Goddess was not pleased to have an accusation made against her strength and resolve. "My son will never free himself," she announced. "He must be contained for the sake of us all." Then she sighed. "The punishment for any act of betrayal is banishment from the sanctity of heaven, and I sentence you to live out your days as one of the mortals you so fear will empower my son. I must adhere to the laws as they have been set."

"No!" Noranda choked as terror swelled within her. "Please reconsider! I beg you to reconsider!"

Earoni sighed again, this time heavier. "Only once caught does one express sorrow over the coming retribution for their crimes. Only then do we realize the pain we cause; the wrongness of our actions." With those words, the Mother Goddess stood from her place on the dais.

As a thunderous snap emanated from her divine fingers, Noranda sensed as the clasp of the medallion about her neck came undone by the power the Greater Goddess had commanded. As the precious emblem fell away, the angel half tried to snatch it up, but the searing heat of a holy fire erupted from the symbol. She retreated from what had once brought her comfort as the flame burned her hand, causing her skin to blister and boil.

A sharp pain followed, shooting up through her spine, biting her with the force of a thousand stings. She wrenched up, but she fought back the need to scream as her feathered wings of white slowly scorched to charred gray, then black. Her mouth could only gape open without a sound coming forth, and her eyes clamped so tightly shut that they hurt.

The remains of her wings broke off with a sickening crack as her vision became obscured by a dim haze, but she hardly noticed through the pain. Under her hands, the floor beneath her turned to dust; the ether change to a driving wind. As the light faded, weakness overcame her, and she slumped to the hard and unforgiving dirt. Too feeble and wracked with anguish to even move, her white robes soiled first to brown as the grime soiled them and then to crimson as the wounds from where her wing once were bled. Noranda closed her tear-filled eyes and hoped to drift off into a peaceful oblivion.

In her confusion and fear, Noranda's hand caressed something hot, and she focused her foggy vision on the object. As she brushed aside hair and tears, the fallen angel beheld the dark red medallion etched in the form of the serpent. It was the unholy sign of Earoni's son; the mark of the Dark Lord himself.

Noranda shied away, wanting nothing to do with him. He had already caused her too much pain and taken too much from her.

A disembodied voice called to her. "Unlike some," it spoke. "I do not abandon those that serve me faithfully."

Still Noranda ignored it, trying to purge the haunting words from her mind.

"Come my dear," it continued to urge. "Together we can bring our mother to her knees. Think of it. Revenge. Revenge for casting you out. You know you want that. I can give it to you."

Despite anything she ever imagined desiring, Noranda focused her eyes on the medallion. There was a passion in them, a vengeful fire.  Descist had brought it out of her as he had before when he came to her in the garden of the Greater Goddess.

"Yes," the Dark Lord gloated. "Together we forge a new future for this cosmos."

Noranda reached out and clutched the symbol of the god she would now serve, its unholy strength coursing into her, renewing her. She stood on uneasy, no longer divine legs and beheld the surrounding landscape. The lands were scorched as far as her eyes could see, the earth sundered in a wide crack that gaped before her and smoked and hissed with putrid fumes.

"What must I do," Noranda inquired into the medallion.

"Pledge yourself to me," Descist's voice replied to her. "Speak that you are mine, and I shall grant you the power to have your revenge."

"Revenge?" Noranda's mind stumbled at the word. But then her resolve hardened. "Yes. I will have my revenge. I pledge myself to you, Descist, Son of Earoni."

He answered one last time, "And so, it shall be."