Gods Save the Princess (Grace of Gods Book 2) (32 page)

He would chastise me for my afternoon indulgence and remind me, yet again, that alcohol not only inhibited Hades but my powers too. I found this statement incorrect. My powers worked just fine when I didn’t have Hades’ sleazy voice in my ear reminding me what I was doing wrong and how he could do better. In fact, I found I did much better magically without my Godly counterpart there to ‘help’.  In actual fact, Hades’ brand of helping was more of a hindrance than some selfless mission to see me succeed.

“Griffin, glad you could make it.” There was an unmistakable tone of contempt in his voice as I walked into the training room. Whether it was for me, my God or for the fact I was helpless like a newborn baby when it came to this power thing, I didn’t know.

I didn’t bother answering him; nothing I wanted to say was particularly nice. Atlas interpreted this and carried on, “alright, from where we left off.”

I circled around him slowly, my legs as woozy as my head, pausing finally to ground myself across from the Titan. I held my hands out concentrating on that coolness that curled through me and slowly channeled it toward Atlas. A gust of black smoke was expelled from my fingers, wrapping through the air toward him. Like a snake it began to coil itself at his ankles first, carefully making its way up his body and finally held tight around his neck. If there was a body beyond the darkness it was shrouded completely and only given away by the mass the smoke had taken on.

“Good, good.” Came a soft, choked reply. But I didn’t want to stop. The coolness began to tingle at my toes, encouraging me to push more and exercise more of my power. This was the point Atlas had warned me about again and again. He worried that the alcohol would dull my sensibility and I would allow the coolness to submerge me completely.

For a moment I considered it as it climbed through my bones, up my ankles and into my knees. I felt steadier than I had ever before. I felt powerful and indestructible. I was a God. I commanded more respect than this Titan had dared ever show me...

Curling my fingers into fists I dropped my hands to my side and held my eyes shut for a moment. Beyond the temporary darkness I could hear the muffled protests of the Titan. Looking up quickly I waved my hand and the smoke dispersed, freeing Atlas from his chains.

“Well done.” His voice was shaken. I felt myself smirk: good, he should fear me. “How was it this time?”

“How was what?” I ran a hand through my hair, musing it into knots and contemplating my sudden longing for a cigarette.

“How was it to relinquish control?” I knew he meant literal control, but there was the whisper of a greater lesson in his tone. He saw these trainings as useful in helping me accept Hades. The iciness of power was his metaphor for Hades’ residency in my soul. He hoped I would understand that I needed to relinquish myself to Hades in order for us to cooperate. He didn’t understand that neither of us would ever be truly comfortable with selling a part of ourselves to each other for this union he craved.

“Difficult, it was orgasmic having so much power.” I said drily, scratching my pant pocket where I wished a pack of smokes lay.

“And why did you give it up?” Was this a therapy session? I wasn’t interested in thinking about my feelings. They were complicated enough without being dissected by a man who made killing him enjoyable.

I shrugged, not bothering to encourage any more psychological exploration. Turning away from Atlas I crossed the room and picked up a medicine ball, balancing it on my fingertips with interest. Savannah would be hard-pressed to call me weak anymore; with Hades’ help I was stronger than ever and in possession of all kinds of supernatural health benefits.

“I asked: why did you give it up?” The relentless Atlas repeated himself as I tossed the medicine ball back in the general direction of its stand before turning to him.

“I heard you.” I said, moving back to my position with a shrug. “I don’t want to be responsible for killing someone who doesn’t deserve it, however annoying he is.”

“Death is your domain Griffin. There will be some deaths you will not feel are compulsory but they are necessary nonetheless. There must always be balance in the universe. You are the guardian of this balance. You need to accept your fate, accept Hades, and this acceptance will help restore equilibrium to the world.”

“Make no mistake, I understand my role.” I shoved my hands into my pockets to hide the fists that allowed my nails to bite into my palms. A terse smile suggested to Atlas he should continue with caution.

“Very well, I’d like to try something different today then.” The Titan moved to the door, the expectation that I should follow hung in the air. Taking a deep breath I followed with reluctance in my muscles. Whatever he had in store for me would be less than enjoyable. Even in the commonest of circumstances Atlas tried my patience.

I knew I should’ve been kinder to him; it was him who had brought me off the streets and probably saved my life. But what life had he given me? I was condemned to share the same steps with a creature that others like him loathed. I was the man toward whom eyes turned at parties not out of awe but out of fascination. It was a cruel fascination that captivated my audience; they wondered how I could stand myself and why I still dared to show my face.

Obstinacy, I am sure is the answer; a dogged desire to survive. It was the very thing that had saved me on the streets, brought me from my childhood home and hit back at those who abused me first.

Atlas brought me into a garden and I could smell a touch of Valentina lingering in the air. Her magic was an intoxicating combination of honey and cayenne: sweet, smoky, and spicy. It was the perfume of a Queen. I closed my eyes to inhale the smell, making it easier to forget only a few hours ago I had locked her in an apartment in the Underworld.

It wasn’t even apart of our kingdom but a flat, which was chiseled from my imagination into the walls of the doomed hallways. It was simple and lacked comforts as Hades insisted the more uncomfortable she was the more she would come around to accepting her Goddess. It would be that, or Hades’ ability to personify the fly that couldn’t be swatted.

“A garden is rife with life. Each seed sown is imbued with a powerful life force that gives it the energy to blossom into beauty. Your power is to absorb this life force. You are the only God who can suck the life force out of an item and bring it to its death. Others who are struck with the ability to wield life forces can only reduce it to an immobile state of nothingness. This is not a curse Griffin. Only you have the ability to relieve the suffering of those no longer strong enough to survive.”

That was a romantic way of looking at death. No one I knew romanticised what would happen to them when their lot in life was up. Death offered only one solution – eternity in the great beyond where they might one day be relieved from their suffering... Because what I did came as no relief.

“You want me to absorb the life force of these flowers.”

“Yes, I need you to practice. You need to understand the heady compulsion life force can be. It is like a siren’s call once you have heard it. It will call for you and you must learn to resist until such a time comes when your powers are needed. Now, focus on this lily here. Close your eyes and just listen.”

I raised my eyebrows, glancing sideways at the Titan before doing as I was told. Nothing happened immediately, I stood in stoic silence waiting for a song or whatever it was I was looking for. Then, at the corner of my mind, I felt something pull and tickle. Something magical was teasing me, touching my brain and flitting away before I could catch it. My brow furrowed in concentration as I reached out telepathically, trying to get it within my grasp.

My hand reached out instinctively in sync with my mind and as my fingers closed around the velvet folds of the lily I could see it in my mind’s eye. It possessed an ethereal glow, gilded against my own stark skin. The longer I held it the more its golden hue was transferred to me. It trickled through the tops of my fingers, flowing up my veins and igniting them like lava rivers under my skin. They coursed toward my heart creating a blinding light from my chest as I absorbed the life force.

As more golden power surged through me the lily in my hand wrinkled and wilted. One by one, each petal broke off and drifted to the ground whereupon contact it shattered into a million tiny specks of dust. Not even the skeletal stem remained when I was done with it. The flower was gone and no one would ever remember it had been here.

Sad as that was, I wanted more.

Brushing past Atlas I stalked through the garden, reaching out blindly for the golden hues. They did call to me; they begged for my touch – they wanted this as much as I did. I learned quickly I didn’t have to touch them to absorb them; I just had to feel for them in my mind like I had the lily. I could see it now, around me was an entire garden of saturated colours and each one ran toward me like a river.

They touched my skin, painting it different colours as each one entered my veins and became apart of me. I felt truly immortal for the first time since learning I was a God. This was the blessing I had been looking for amongst my curse. This was the happiness I craved.

I laughed aloud but the barren, broken noise drew me back to reality. This was wrong, I was killing Valentina’s garden. What if the garden was linked to Valentina’s light?

I looked down at my hands in horror and no longer did the bright colours look beautiful. They were stains of blood on my hands. This was the blood of the flowers and I had massacred them all.

“Agh!” A cry of anguish was torn from my throat as my knees gave out from under me and I fell to the ground in horror.
Open your eyes Griffin
. I commanded myself to do as I was told but my eyelids felt melded to my cheekbones. The hallow garden surrounded me and the ashy carcasses of the wasted flowers towered over my body crying out for me. My hands clamped over my ears, trying desperately to block the voices but they penetrated my skin, echoed in my bones and strummed themselves against my muscles.

Their cries were apart of me and I apart of them now. Their life force gave me my power and I understood. This was the cost of being the God of the Dead.

Now you understand boy...

Hades’ hollow voice boomed over those of the flowers, silencing them.
Now you understand our burden
. I had always understood though. One cannot bear being judge, jury and executioner without a price. I could not be a God without a price. But was the cost worth the product, of that I wasn’t sure.

“Griffin.” Atlas clamped his hand down on my shoulder and I turned in horror. His body was alight with the intoxicating life force. Every inch of him glowed, beckoning me to reach out and take what belonged to me.

I shrunk back from his hand, swatting it away with my own. I wouldn’t be a murderer. I wouldn’t live with the voices that didn’t belong in the Underworld and had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t strong enough for that.

“Griffin.” Atlas grew impatient, grabbing both my shoulders and shaking me. “Open your eyes!” So I complied and the darkness of the room around us horrified me. “You understand now.” He echoed Hades as he stared down me with pity.

“I... understand.” I said softly, turning to take in the damage around me. Valentina’s garden was no more. Every flower and fruit had withered and shrunk. It was like standing in Pompeii after the lava was gone: a graveyard of lost potential.

I swallowed hard as I pulled myself back to my feet, chancing another glance toward Atlas. He looked worried and I could sense his thoughts. He didn’t think I was strong enough to contain my power and he was right.

“I think this is enough for the day.” I nodded in agreement, brushing off my knees. “I don’t want you to practice without me Griffin. Just in case. I know it feels like the life force gives you the power to be the one and only Almighty but the price of so much power will be your own downfall.”

I flexed my fingers, staring down at them in consideration of what they were capable of. If I reaped too many premature souls who had nowhere to go I would carry them with me. How many could I hold before the weight of such a load brought me down?

“Next time we’ll practice collecting souls that are ready. You will find that much easier than this.” He clapped me unexpectedly on the shoulder, the way a father would his son. “Don’t blame yourself for losing control, everyone does the first time. That is why I brought you here where it was safest. The screams will not haunt you like you think they will, as the flowers didn’t scream at all. That was you.”

He let go of me and turned, leaving the room without another word. I blinked in the direction he had gone, thrown by what he had said. Suddenly aware of my circumstance, my throat ached like it was scratched raw. I gently pet my fingers down its length before swallowing again to ease it. I frowned to myself as I realised: perhaps I didn’t understand much at all.

Acknowledgements

It must be hard living with a writer, we’re not the easiest of folk to contend with. We make a habit of locking ourselves away for hours at a time without any desire for socialisation. We talk about our characters like they're real people in our daily lives. Then there’s the fact that when we aren’t talking about our characters the only other thing we want to talk about is our writing. But my other half is amazing, he listens to me, talks through ideas and helps me come up with new ones, he makes sure I get food and water during writing sessions and knows to ask if each night I’ll be watching TV with him or working on my book - lovingly.  He’s my cheerleader when I’m feeling down and even if he isn’t a big reader he still loves all my stories. Thank you for your doubtless faith and unending support, I love you and couldn’t do this without you.