A Priestess for the Blind God (Legends of Rahasia Book 1)

BONUS How I Met Your Mother

"Can gods have children?"

Kane freezes up in front of me, nearly choking on a pomegranate he'd been picking at out of boredom.

I laugh and clap him on the back sympathetically, "I was wondering for future reference. As in, far future reference. Nowhere near to now."

"It only caught me off guard." Kane looks back at me with a grin, kissing me with lips that still taste like pomegranate. "I wouldn't worry no matter what you wanted, Ode. You're the General in all things, remember?"

I wink at him.

"Well," he sits back into my arms. I'm sitting beneath a skeletal tree, bare arms reaching towards the forever of the Before. The tree's roots are silver, its fruit pure gold that tastes like nectar to bite into. Kane pillows his silver hair in my hands, blinking up at me with his restored silver eyes that he'd stolen from Cato, his traitorous brother. "Tell me how your parents started your family."

"That tale wouldn't interest a god. Wasn't your father the trickster god while your mother was the goddess of honesty?" I pick up the fallen pomegranate and bite into the red seeds, juice sticky sweet. "Grand tales for grand gods."

"Yes, yes. And then they tried to strangle my brothers and I in our sleep, but we grew up and took back the Before. We imprisoned them here and leech off their power for eternity blah blah blah..." he waves this bit of information away. "I want to hear the Tale of Ode Ngayoh, Ode the Cursed. The First Woman General. The Champion of Rahasia, the—!"

I laugh, clapping my pomegranate-covered hands over his mouth. "Alright, alright, I'll tell you. Just, please, stop crowing about all my titles. That was a different life. A sadder one." I lean into the silver tree behind me, feeling the twin powers of life and death at work in it. I can feel the tree, like humans, living and dying all at once. "Where do I begin?"

***

Two Years Before Ode's Birth

"General Serkan," the new recruit came in, all polished armor and as eager as a newborn puppy. It made Serkan laugh. When he was dragged into the army, he had chains on his wrists and whipmarks on his feet from where they'd had to tear him from his simple farming village.

Lucky bastard, all full of optimism.

Newbie saluted again. "The Emperor has a message of the utmost importance."

Serkan waved him on. "Get on with it today, son."

The newbie attempted to look tough, but beside Serkan, he looked weak. There had been stories, horrible stories, of the things this General had done in war. The Northern Kingdom, upon violating trade treaties, had been raiding Rahasian caravans that got too close to the mountain range. To strike fear into the Northerner hearts, and all their sympathizers, General Serkan had been sent as a youth of only nineteen to terrify them.

He did that alright.

***
Nine Years Before Ode's Birth

At night, the Northerners had struck the encampment, leaving only Serkan and a squad of maybe a dozen alive out of fifty. In front of his eyes, they beheaded every single one of his friends. The young people who'd also been forced into serving the Empire alongside him, sons of shepherds and poor tradesmen, sliced into a thousand pieces. Some even, the ones who fought hardest, skinned alive.

Serkan was struck by madness.

And madness turned to rage.