The Phoinix: Age of Demigods (5 page)

Hades caught the ball before it struck
Elpis. “An energy ball, Hera? I would have thought Queen of Olympus
could do better than that.”

Elpis, still choking Zeus, pointed her
other finger at Hera, forcing her back into her chair,
immobilized.

Elpis turned back to Osiris with eyes
of fury. “What are their names? Where can I find them?”

“Their names are Týreneas and Arelia,”
said Anath.

“They live on the island of Delos,”
added Apollo, “the birthplace of Artemis and myself. Our mother,
Leto, protects them.”

Elpis stood violently,
knocking over her chair as she released Zeus and Hera.
“
Braight Nathair!
” she shouted.

A giant snake of fire erupted in the
middle of the table. The intensity of the flames evaporated the
watery image of Elpis’ parents. Elpis’ eagle soared above her head
and let out a screech as it embraced its patron’s anger.

The snake hissed and spit fire at the
gods. Many gods vanished from the room while others drew their
weapons to slay the fire serpent. The violet silk between the
columns caught on fire, creating a ring of flames around the
room.

Elpis watched the room go up in blaze
with a triumphant smile as the eagle perched itself on her
shoulder. She snapped her fingers and disappeared from
Olympus.

Below on the island of Delos, Elpis
cautiously approached a small two-story clay house nestled by the
seashore. She held her stomach as her nerves made her nauseous. She
shielded herself with an invisibility cloak that Hades gave her for
defeating Ares in a sparring match when she was twelve. She came to
a gate where her father worked in the garden and her mother played
with an infant boy.

Elpis’ hand shook from her internal
war of jealousy and grief as she watched her family move about
happily without her. She walked through the open gate in the
courtyard and up to her father. Still invisible, she gently placed
a hand on the side of his face.

Tyreneas paused, unable to feel her
hand. A knot twisted in his stomach: a familiar knot that tortured
him every time he remembered the loss of his baby girl.

When Elpis touched her father’s face,
images of the night Anath and Ares took her away played in her
head. Her empathy powers felt every emotion her parents did as she
replayed their mourning.

Elpis let go and backed away crying,
hurt at her robbed childhood. As each tear fell on the ground, a
black rose grew in its place.

Tyreneas called to Arelia as they
watched in shock as rows of black roses sprung from the dirt.
Elpis, overwhelmed by grief, fell on all fours.

Her cloak slid off revealing her
shaking body to her parents. Tyreneas jumped back at the shock of
tears turning into black roses. He placed his body in between his
family and the intruder.

Being demigods, Arelia and Tyreneas
could sense divine power from Elpis. However, they never felt such
a vast amount of power in any god they met before.

Despite how much power Tyreneas
sensed, he was not afraid to yell at her. “I will not have any more
dealings with gods! Why must you torture us?”

Arelia placed a hand on Tyreneas’
shoulder, “Calm down, Tyreneas, look at the poor girl. Does she
look like she means us harm?”

Elpis turned to her parents,
blood-shot eyes stinging as she blinked away tears. Her stomach
sank and her lips trembled from the fear in her father’s eyes.
Arelia walked over and wiped Elpis’ wet cheek with the hem of her
dress. She helped Elpis up and sweetly smiled.

Elpis looked at her mother and saw a
peaceful kindness. A peace she was desperate for after the past
eleven years of her life, dealing with nothing but death and
destruction.

Elpis spun around, ashamed of who she
was, and ran to the gate. Before she could escape, Arelia called
out to her, “At least tell us your name.”

Elpis stopped and looked
over her shoulder
.
“My name is Elpis, Queen of All.”

At the sound of her name, Arelia and
Tyreneas recalled the night Anath took their daughter. They both
ran after her, but it was too late…Elpis had vanished.

Before she left, a single tear
splashed against the dry dirt and a rose bush full of black roses
burst into bloom.

* * *

Meanwhile, on Mount Olympus, the gods
finally extinguished the fire.

“We have made her too powerful!”
shouted Arawn, wiping off soot from his robe.

“Our mistake was using the bloodline
of a war god!” shouted Freyja as she picked up pieces of a broken
bust.

“Enough. We all created The Power and
we are all responsible for her actions. Not a single god here can
say we did not deserve this. We tore the child from her parents’
arms and gave her powers of mass destruction,” Athena added in
Elpis’ defense.

“How do we end this? Her task is
complete and is no longer required. I say we remove her powers and
let her suffer a mortal life,” called out Don, Celtic Goddess of
the elements.

“We made her more powerful than all of
us combined,” Hera reminded the assembly.

“Love created her, why not let love
destroy her?” Aphrodite interjected with a contemplative
look.

“What are you proposing, Sister?”
asked Zeus.

“Create a man she cannot help but fall
in love with,” Aphrodite responded as if the answer was
obvious.

Immediately upon Zeus’ agreement,
Hephaestus set to work on constructing a handsome man fit for a
queen. He assembled the body out of limestone, a porous stone that
could absorb anything and withstand fire, seemingly a necessity
with Elpis. Freyja casted spells over the stone to give the man
extraordinary magical powers. The Egyptian god, Thoth, armed him
with an enchanted dagger. The black onyx handle of the dagger
buzzed with power in his hand, the metal hilt tingling against the
top of his fingers.

Pluto placed one hand on his shoulder
and the body sprang to life.

“You have one duty until we tell you
otherwise. You will win the heart of Elpis and stay by her side as
long as she lives. From this day forward, you are known as
Eversor,” Pluto instructed the newly formed man.

When Apollo located Elpis hiding on a
Greek island, he carried Eversor down in his chariot to meet her.
Cupid accompanied Apollo and Eversor as they carefully snuck up
behind Elpis. Eversor exited the chariot and noticed Cupid and
Apollo disguised themselves as servants, hoping Elpis would not see
through their camouflage.

Eversor walked up to Elpis and fell in
love instantly. Meanwhile, Elpis noticed he was attractive but
thought nothing of him until Cupid shot her with several arrows,
sending her into complete devotion.

Together, Elpis and Eversor were
invincible. Their powers were unmatched as they marched over
smaller kingdoms to form their own massive empire. Elpis was a fair
and tolerant queen. Despite her capabilities in war, her kingdom
experienced twenty years of peace under her rule.

One night, in 1153 B.C., Thoth came
down from Mount Olympus to whisper in Eversor’s ear as he
slept.

Eversor rose from the bed and reached
for the dagger on the table. The smooth, jet handle of the dagger
vibrated in his hand. His movements were slow and eyes glazed over;
the dagger seemed to possess him. He had no control over his
actions. Eversor gently caressed Elpis’ hair as he knelt over his
beautiful wife, bending down to give her a kiss.

Elpis woke with a smile until she saw
her husband’s hazy eyes. Worried, she sat up. Before she could
speak, Eversor plunged the dagger into her heart.

From outside, a thousand golden eagles
painfully screeched as their patron lay dying.

Eversor snapped out of his trance,
horrified by his actions and blood soaked hands. He cradled his
wife’s head against his chest and sobbed, “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,
my love.”

Elpis coughed, splattering
blood against her lower lip
and her
husband’s chest.
She cupped the side of
his face and whispered, “I forgive you.”
She gently kissed his cheek, leaving a bloody imprint of her
lips on his cheek.

She gasped, and then clutched at
Eversor’s arm until the pain faded and her hand fell limp to the
bed.

As Eversor pulled the dagger from his
wife’s still heart, the blade emerged with a string of white light
wound around it. Eversor eased himself off the bed, ready to take
his own life as Thoth had ordered.

Elpis’ body then burst into flames,
quickly turning to gold ash. A warm wind rustled through the
windows and scattered the gold ashes into the night.

Tears streamed down
Eversor’s face as he held the dagger over his heart. “I’m so
sorry,” he wept as he watched his wife’s ashes
soar
away.

Astonished by what
happened
, the gods panicked
above
.

“He withdrew The Power! Stop him
before he absorbs it!” Zeus shouted.

Thoth jumped down from
Olympus and crashed into the room to stop Eversor.
After knocking the blade out of Eversor’s hand,
Thoth slashed at him with his sword. However, Eversor was quick. He
dodged the blade and reached for his own sword to defend
himself.
It was a dance of spins and jabs
but no fatal blows.

While the men fought,
Athena
glided into
the room holding a wooden box. She quickly grabbed the dagger
and tried to force the blade inside.

The dagger burned her palm, forcing
Athena to drop it. When the goddess grabbed the dagger a second
time the light unwrapped itself from the blade and soared out the
window in the same direction as the ashes. The Power was faster
than Athena could follow.

Thump!

Thoth’s body crumbled to the ground,
blood trickling from the side of his head. After Eversor
incapacitated Thoth, he grabbed Elpis’ cloak of invisibility off
the bedside table. Throwing the cloak over his shoulders, he snuck
up on Athena as she stared out the window in shock. He slammed his
shoulder into her side and snatched the dagger out of her
hand.

With a scream of outrage, Athena flew
back to Mount Olympus carrying Thoth’s unconscious body. Witnessing
the events, Zeus ordered the sky gods to search for Eversor and The
Power, but their attempts were fruitless. The Power was strong
enough to hide itself with its own magic and Eversor dared not
remove the invisibility cloak.

* * *

A year after Eversor and The Power
disappeared, 1152 B.C., the Celtic goddess of dark magic, The
Morrigan, found Eversor. Out of spite for being denied access to
the War Council, The Morrigan taught Eversor her dark magic. She
brought him to her island, Ériu, and hid him from the other gods so
he could remove his cloak.

Soon enough, he mastered her lessons
and began teaching others. His group of followers formed an order
known as the Druids. One man stood out in particular to Eversor, a
man named Brian o’Conaill. Brian quickly became his favorite
student and Eversor taught him everything he knew, including powers
of foreseeing the future.

The Morrigan never gave up the search
for The Power. After centuries of searching, in the year 832 B.C.,
she located The Power hiding in the pre-Roman kingdom of Alba
Longa, hovering over a ten-foot stone slab.

The Morrigan landed next to the rock,
carefully observing the ball of white light. Several minutes passed
before either The Morrigan or the ball moved, both at a standoff.
Without warning, the light crashed into the rock emerging on the
opposite side. Instead of one large ball of white light, there were
two smaller balls of red light. Before The Morrigan could catch
one, they flew off into the sky in separate directions.

The rock then erupted into a fire of
green flames. The flames were so intense that The Morrigan shielded
her eyes with her hands. The heat burned her palms. Once the fire
subsided, what used to be a smooth stone was now a stone with
writing etched into its face.

* * *

“
What is it, Morrigan?”
Arawn asked irritated when she called the War Council
together.

“I thought the council would be
interested in what I found in Alba Longa,” The Morrigan smiled
smugly as she threw water from the sacred well onto the table. She
dipped her finger into the water and an image of the stone slab
came into focus.

Hermes floated above the table and
read aloud the words engraved on the stone. “Two halves of the
whole will reinstall as Regina to all. The death of one will burn
into another.”

“What does this mean?” asked the
Celtic war god Camulus.

“It means, brother, the collective
power you created has written its own prophecy and solidified it in
stone. Nothing can prevent this prophecy from transpiring,”
explained The Morrigan.

“It hints at a phoinix. They have long
been dead,” Athena said concerned.