Page 77 of Harbinger

She shook her head and tried to focus on their conversation. It was important, for reasons she could not fathom yet.

“I don’t know why you lost control of the Sword of Wind!” the woman snarled. Her distracted gaze darted from the weapon in his hand to the prisoner being tortured a short distance away. “I saw Ivmir die, so you should be able to wield it!”

The being before her fell silent.

“I did, for a moment,” he confessed. “Could it be that Ivmir…still lives?”

Something in his voice made the Goddess’s skin prickle. It took her a moment to recognize the emotion he’d just revealed.

It was fear.

The fog clouding her brain lifted for an instant as whatever control he wielded over her faded at this sign of weakness. Her eyes rounded.

My name is…Tenebra!

A gasp sounded on her left.

The woman chained to the stone beside her was staring wide-eyed at the figure opposite her. “Alecto!”

Gold blazed in the eyes of the woman she’d addressed. “Megaera!”

Horror drenched Tenebra in a cold sweat. She finally recognized them.

“Sisters?!” she mumbled.

The dam of darkness that had kept her memories suppressed for centuries finally burst open. Tears sprang to Tenebra’s eyes as she recalled all that had come to pass. Their attempts at escaping Purgatory when the Nether tore. Elios and his army of war demons and Nephilim capturing her and her sisters. The ones who’d chosen to sacrifice themselves so that a few of them could get away. The evil deeds Elios had had his prisoners commit on his behalf. Her attack on Earth. What Alecto and Megaera had been forced to do to Ivmir.

Wrath stormed her soul with her next breath.

“You dare speak in my presence?!”

Tenebra choked. The fury rattling her bones scattered to nothingness under the wave of corrupt pressure saturating the sulfur-laden air.

Elios was glowering at them, the shadows around him bubbling with malevolence. He raised a hand and clenched his fist.

Pain squeezed Tenebra’s chest. She wheezed, cold fire spreading through her heart and flooding her veins with ice. Her consciousness wavered as the black core he’d engraved within her won the battle to bend her mind and will.

No!Numbness swamped her senses once more.I…must…remember…

The Goddess slumped as she fell under the spell. The light faded from the eyes of the women whose identities she had briefly recalled, their faces growing slack.

Who…are they again?

The God of Darkness sneered. “Good. You should know your place, sisters.”

He turned to the figure he’d been talking to, only to freeze. Brightness flared in the woman’s pupils. She was staring unseeingly at the sky.

“What?!” the God of Darkness snapped.

A fierce expression distorted the prisoner’s face. “Icarus!”

The name she uttered was a prayer full of hope.

The God of Darkness visibly startled. He followed her unblinking gaze and swore. The Goddess looked up, her skull creaking heavily upon her neck.

A point of light was growing in the amber clouds. They parted a moment later, revealing the portal being ripped open in the crimson sky.

The chains binding the Goddess clattered upon stone. She was dimly aware of the other two women being released from their shackles.

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