The Scourge of Gods

PROLOGUE

Hecathra limped back towards the temple with the taste of blood in her mouth. Since she couldn't fly at the moment, the dense tangles of vines blanketing the dark courtyard proved a challenge for her feet. 

Oh, her wings...they were a horror of rent flesh and torn cartilage that had protected her from the bullets, and out of the four, three remained. Only a numbing spell kept her from passing out. Nevertheless, the weight of them threatened to drag her to the ground, and every step blurred her vision. But she couldn't stop now. Not yet.

Not when there was one last intruder.

"I will not stand for this desecration," she muttered. 

She didn't know how the last soldier sneaked into the temple. Despite being surrounded, Hecathra had kept watch on the entrance. It made no sense. A sudden fog passed over her vision, and in her blindness, she stumbled over something. Knee on the ground, she laid a steadying hand on one of the obelisks lining the clearing, its ancient surface caked with dirt and blooms of moss. A set of hieroglyphics crumbled away beneath her fingers and she cursed her negligence. These pillars were precious artifacts.

She looked down to see what had tripped her, finding one of the humans she'd killed. The man's armor and silver-threaded cassock sent a biting cold aura across her body. She scrambled to her feet, then doubled over and vomited blood. Damn it all. Bullet wounds peppered her stomach, and her gown with gunpowder, but she had to get away from metal. It burned her skin this close, and though she was powerful, the substance cut through her magic like lightning through rain.

It was a wonder she'd eliminated those holy warriors—Clerics of the Church trained to hunt and exterminate witches such as her—and survived. Why were they even here? How did they find a secluded temple deep in the mountainous jungle of Montec? She shook her head. The 'why' didn't matter now. The mirror of which she was guardian depended upon her life force, and the world would bear the consequences if she fell here.

She couldn't let that happen.

Determination surging, she seeped another numbing spell across her body, wiped the crimson spittle from her lips, and hobbled forward a little bit faster. The rotten wooden doors of the temple were ajar. She couldn't see anything, and her ears buzzed, as if they strained to hear a single stirring leaf, or a cicada's chirp. However, a presence certainly lurked within...and it didn't feel human in nature. She pushed the doors in and entered warily.

The temple's inner sanctum was empty.

Besides the high ceiling still swathed in darkness, moonlight shined through four small orifices on each wall and illuminated every inch of the sparse lower chamber. The only object was the mirror. It sat in the center—nearly twenty feet high—on a raised platform, surrounded by a sea of weeds that had uprooted the tiles long ago. Thick layers of dust and grit encrusted the black glass, but she could still see herself in its reflection.

Hecathra's porcelain, olive skin was marred by small cuts from the humans' thrown daggers, ones she'd narrowly missed, while her white hair had been ruffled into disarray from the battle. Most alarming was the amount of blood soaking her gown and dripping on the tiled floor. She needed to get this over with and enter a healing stasis, otherwise it wouldn't matter if she killed the intruder or not. She'd die anyways.

"Show yourself or..." Hecathra began, but the words died on her lips as she spotted soft-pink petals descending from the blackness above, hypnotic in the way they twisted and danced in the air. She stared for a moment, then realized who they belonged to. Wings bristling, fire filled her palms, one blue, the other yellow, and she merged them together to form a writhing ball of green energy.

Hecathra launched it into the blackness.

The sphere exploded not in a fiery inferno, but in sharp spears of lightning and a violent cloud of electricity that extinguished the darkness. She widened her eyes. There was no one there. An uncontrollable spasm racked Hecathra's body. Blood poured from her mouth, and the numbing spell no longer blocked the full extent of her pain. She fell to her knees.

And something ripped into her chest.

Hecathra looked into Cyra's diamond eyes, at the slight spirit nearly two feet shorter than she, with a mane of blossoms and a wooden body. She then shifted her gaze to the hand deep in her ribs. Hecathra tried manifesting energy into her palms once more, but her trembling hands merely glowed. She no longer had enough strength for another spell. It was over.

"You lured the soldiers here, didn't you?" asked Hecathra.

Cyra nodded. "Dimwitted fools thought they were chasing a mage gone rogue," she said, voice clear and bright like a child's. "They traveled all the way from an imperial outpost in Kaasan. It took me a couple months, but I finally led them to your temple. Those Clerics do not like giving up the chase, now do they?"

"Cowards," hissed Hecathra. "Your master couldn't do the job himself?"

The small spirit considered her for a moment, diamond eyes emotionless, cold. "We learn from our mistakes." She smiled. Even her teeth were wooden. "The Angel of the Gates. Such a fitting appointment for a witch that negates magic. The only ones capable of fighting you are human priests and their metal, so I'm quite surprised you're still alive."

Hecathra ground her teeth, but it hurt. Everything hurt. She took her eyes off of Cyra and stared at the mirror as her own life force dimmed. Her sadness and rage mingling within her also waned, replaced by despair. Eons of guardianship, for nothing, wasted. Unnatural shadows seemed to form behind the glass, though it must have been her imagination. She prayed that it was.

"The demons in the Black Mirror mustn't escape," pleaded Hecathra.

"Die with dignity," said Cyra.

"Why are you doing this?"

"It is necessary for what is to come."

Darkness swept around Hecathra's vision. "You will destroy this land."

"No," said the spirit, shaking her head as she drove her hand deeper, past the witch's ribs, and into her heart. Her voice dropped to a bare whisper. "We will destroy worlds."