Pantheon of life, p.1
Pantheon of Life, page 1
Pantheon of Life © 2024 Jade Andrews
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed in Australia
Cover and internal design by Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd
First printing: March 2024
Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd
www.shawlinepublishing.com.au
Paperback ISBN 978-1-9231-0137-1
eBook ISBN 978-1-9231-0138-8
Hardback ISBN 978-1-9231-0181-4
Distributed by Shawline Distribution and Lightning Source Global
Shawline Publishing Group acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and pays respects to the Elders, past, present and future.
Thank You
My sister – I cannot put into words all you did for this book and the role you played in bringing it to life. You are the one other person who has loved Azraelle as if she were your own. I am eternally grateful.
My love – for the brainstorming sessions that helped me see this book through and all the ways you endlessly support and love me.
My found family – I would not have been able to write this without your help growing into the person I am today and all the love as I grew.
Brad and Jodie – for bringing me into the fold and allowing me to live a life surrounded by stories.
Jess Chaplin @jesschaplincreative – for a cover that is more gorgeous than I could have imagined.
Katrina Burge – for the edits and the final words of positivity that allowed my bravery to surface one more time, just long enough to put this into the world.
To all whose mind serves as its own cage.
For just a brief moment of freedom.
Sensitivity/Trigger Warnings
This book contains:
- explicit sexual content
- swearing
- depictions of torture
- death
- scenes of battle and gore.
While fantasy is a place we all love to use to explore themes and ideas that may be at times difficult to confront in real life, I am intent on the creation of a safe reading experience for all intended audiences.
Prologue
Azraelle
The mortals had thousands of sayings over the millennia, all of which Azraelle had heard some variation of once or twice. She couldn’t remember the origins, or even the times when the sayings held their popularity, but one in particular had been on repeat in her mind from that fateful moment: The dice of Zeus always fall luckily. She’d thought it untrue, thought that all the warnings her mater had broken into her would never come to pass. Not that they couldn’t, just that they wouldn’t. Azraelle would not let them, would not be so stupid as to get caught.
It’s a child, Edda had said, kneeling on the sun-soaked pavement of the central courtyard of Eviria. Edda would not stand until Azraelle gave her the command, a command Azraelle offered quickly enough. Edda would never shirk away from her duty, would never have outright asked Azraelle to take the duty and assign it to someone else. But Azraelle knew – without the conversation ever occurring – that Edda was still recovering from the last child. Azraelle also knew that Edda was so new, so untried. It was better not to push her too fast so early on in the immortal task as Death’s deliverer.
I haven’t ferried a soul for a while. I’d like to see this one through, Azraelle had deemed. Edda’s eyes showed nothing but relief as she dipped her eyeline down, dropping her head as a sign of respect and acceptance of Azraelle’s offer.
As you wish, Primus, Edda responded.
Azraelle should have known, should have investigated it further. Yet from the briefing it looked as any of their jobs had previously looked: a dead mortal, in need of passage between the mortal realm and their next life. It was no different to anything she or any of the other Ravens had been doing for thousands of years and Az had not looked any closer. Perhaps, since it was Azraelle’s fuckup, she deserved the consequences of her stupidity.
Travelling from Eviria to the mortal realm was a trip Azraelle had made countless times before. With Hades’ permission branded on the back of her left hand as it was every one of the Ravens, there was no issue exiting through the Gate of the Underworld and into the wilds of the mortal realm, following the thread of the soul that beckoned to her. Once she had locked in on that golden thread of her target, there was nothing that would keep her from finding them; like a hound with a scent, she could follow it across the realms. Following that child’s soul was no different.
Finding the boy had not been the difficult part; it was making sense of his tangled threads enough to understand why Azraelle was there in the first place. There was no reason to indicate that it was the child’s time – the thread of his destiny still weaved through the world bright and clear. It was too early. Yet, here was this boy, not even ten years old, who lay dead in front of her. Azraelle had every right to ferry him to his next life, to lay her hands on him and beckon his soul gently to follow. But Azraelle honoured Destiny, obeyed its command as much as she obeyed Death’s, and Destiny was not done with this boy.
Azraelle did what she’d only had to do a handful of times before. It wasn’t often that Destiny malfunctioned and took one before it was their time, but she still knew how to place her hands gently across the boy’s chest to find the tethers of his life. Once she found them, it took mere moments to bring him back from the sleep of death, the boy’s mouth at once gasping for air. With her hands still pressed on the boy, she’d felt the burning of his lungs as he gulped desperately, had felt the panic as he shot upright and his eyes darted around the empty alleyway.
It had been too easy; she knew that now that she’d had time to reflect on it. The boy wasn’t supposed to have died but he was a pawn in a game much bigger than him. Much more significant than even Azraelle.
Azraelle had barely begun her journey back to the Gates of the Underworld when she felt herself unable to move, her wings unable to carry her further. An electric current coursed through her, locking her muscles into jolting paralysis. Pain lanced from her thigh and, straining to peer down, Azraelle noted what was trapping her – a single arrow straight through the thickest part of her upper thigh. Not a regular arrow, of course, but one of Artemis’, imbued with her paralysing power. Azraelle was trapped and nothing could be done, not as she lost consciousness, blackness swarming her senses.
How long she was kept imprisoned in Zeus’ infamous cells, Azraelle had no idea. Time as a concept lost its significance when you existed for eons. In mortal time, she was sure years had passed, decades maybe even. Az never saw the marbled walls and floors of Olympus from the first moment she was thrown into the cell, but it felt as if all the Olympians had their turn inflicting pain. Through the glimpses Azraelle could get from her door creaking open and shut, she saw the guards standing watch outside, their uniform glistening in their whiteness compared to the bloodied walls and floor of her cell.
Zeus was always going to make it painful for her, a fact Az had prepared herself for the moment she’d seen Artemis’ arrow sticking from her thigh. He held such a disdain for her mater that Azraelle had made it a point to stay far away from Zeus’ reach out of fear of how he would take that out on her. She’d suffer the pain for her mater, the woman who’d created her, raised her and trained her to do so, and as the time passed Azraelle tried her best to reconcile with the fact that her mater would not pull her from her misery – that she could not pull Az from it.
Olympian’s faces were her only company during her imprisonment. Zeus of course came to see her daily, but oh, those faces, and their cruel hands, and the tools they wielded against her, she saw those often enough as well. There were recurring visitors, some who took more pleasure than others, but a day was not let to pass without a visitor of some kind coming to her own personal cell.
It didn’t shock Azraelle what people subjected her to. Even people who’d known her previously, who had visited her at a time in the Underworld or had once considered themselves close with any one of her numerous siblings. They were at war, and Azraelle was merely a casualty. Loyalty and friendship meant nothing when she was the enemy.
The lower Olympians, those who had once been mortal but now fought in the army of Olympus, were savage and power-crazed in their attempts to torture her, but Azraelle understood them better than they could have ever imagined. As they became more comfortable knowing the bindings that held Azraelle’s wings framed behind her would keep her limbs and magic contained no matter what, the Olympians gave in to their depraved thoughts and torturous musings. They were fuelled by the sight of her bound form before them. For many of the Olympians who took their time with her, it was a fulfilment of their desire for power, specifically power over something they never should have been given the chance to touch. She was Death’s deliverer, her magic could have crushed them from the inside out, but the toxins dripping down those barbed bindings, bleeding into her sliced wings and muscles, kept her magic weak
Barbed chains reached from the back two corners of the room, twisting around and through parts of Azraelle’s black wings. The memory of Zeus himself jamming the spikes through the most sensitive of parts played through her mind every day she saw his face, keeping the memory fresh of having the barbs wrapped around and around until her wings were drawn to their fullest length behind her, arcing up to the top corners of the room. The way he’d smiled at her, his dark lips pulling back to reveal glistening, white teeth as he smiled and the laughter lines splashed across the perfectly composed face, betraying a man who spent much of his time smiling. The contrast so at odds with the bloodied cell around them.
Nothing could alleviate the pain. The acid that dripped down the chains at all points of the day kept her wings from sealing around the chains, kept the wounds fresh and Azraelle’s agony unbearable. So intense was the pain of the acid on her wings that by the time it reached the open lashes across Azraelle’s back it almost felt like a relief, before acid was dripped anew.
Through all the manners that they poked and prodded, still Azraelle did nothing – could do nothing. The physical lashings and tortures were painful but not insurmountable. As the time passed, she found it easier and easier to leave the constraints of feeling her physical body. She had prepared for this, trained to endure torture for thousands of years, and the limited creativity of the once mortal men would not be the thing that broke her. Whatever they thought to do with her body, to her skin, she would withstand it.
It was the gods that Azraelle had to really focus for, those who had been trained in breaking through the mental shields she had trained extensively to put in place. Azraelle supposed she also had her mater’s upbringing to thank for how well her mental defences held up beneath those assaults.
Time passed this way until Zeus finally deigned to bring her from that cell. Apollo granted her what was basically a sack to conceal her body as they walked the halls, an act of privacy that had not been granted to her since she’d been thrown in the cell. The only item they had not been able to strip from her that first day was her pendant necklace, the Ravens symbol, its chain a simple silver that burned all who would attempt to touch it besides Azraelle herself. They knew enough to not even attempt its removal.
Az did not grant them the satisfaction of a reaction as they pulled the barbs from her wings, though internally she was so broken by the pain she wanted nothing more than to drop to her knees and sob. She would never have given in to the torture, would never have told Zeus anything he desired to know, but if Azraelle had only been able to move her arms she would have already ended it all, magic or no, whether she had to claw her own throat out to do so.
Finally outside the thick barred door, Az was escorted through the brightly lit halls of the top levels of Mount Olympus. Apollo himself stood to her right; his beautiful face twisted into a contorted grin. Artemis stood on Az’s other side, on her face merely a blank expression. The twins were so similar in appearance – black hair each as long as the others, golden accessories glimmering over their dark skin, and lithe limbs designed for their respective fighting styles. The major difference came only on their expressions; Apollo had an arrogant smirk constantly affixed on his lips, while Azraelle had rarely seen any emotion cross Artemis’ face.
This is not exactly how I imagined being pinned between the two of you, Azraelle had taunted as Artemis and Apollo led her through the marbled halls. Artemis didn’t react and Az wasn’t surprised, but Apollo gave a crooked grin, his fingers brushing beneath Azraelle’s breast against her ribs. She did her best not to retch at his touch.
If only there was more time. Apollo’s lips were so close to her ear as he whispered that Az felt them brushing against her. She knew then, it was to be the end. Finally.
When they reached their destination, the gathered crowd was significant but small. The room around them one of the grandest Azraelle had ever set foot in. Columns lined the outer ring of the room, every surface visible made from white marble. The dais at the head of the room was raised a full metre from the ground with marble steps leading up. An empty throne sat atop the dais with two occupied chaises either side. Despite the eons Azraelle’s life had spanned for, she had never seen the inside of Mount Olympus, let alone the decorated hall she had been led into. She’d begged extensively over the years to her mater to be allowed to visit but had been endlessly denied. Every time it had been a different reason why not.
Artemis closed the giant marble doors behind their entrance, the sound echoing across every surface in the room. The endless white marble provided such a contrast to the dark halls of the House of Hades, and the mountains of Eviria.
Zeus stood in front of the empty throne dressed in his full battle regalia – a sign of the formality of the occasion. To his left, his first wife Demeter, mother to Artemis and Apollo, lounged on one of the chaises atop the platform. Her cruel beauty was unmatched by no one else in the room save for Apollo himself. And yet, that beautiful, sharply angled face of hers was also twisted into a wicked grin, her eyes shining with joy at Azraelle’s dishevelled and scarred appearance.
Hera, Zeus’ second wife, sat on the chaise to Zeus’ right, never lifting her gaze to acknowledge Azraelle’s presence in the room. Her hands remained clasped in front of her, her eyes downcast through the entire procession. As well as Artemis and Apollo, a few more of Zeus’ sons were scattered through the room, but Azraelle barely noticed them when her gaze landed on one of the last people that she ever thought she’d see again. The breath caught in Az’s throat at the sight of the Moirai. What were the Fates of Destiny – Az’s very own sister – doing in Zeus’ throne room?
Her sister’s spirit was complex to comprehend, even for others who had lived for eons as Azraelle had. She was one person, but many forms. After all, the task of weaving Destiny required more than one set of hands. At times, the Moirai appeared in a single form; other times, when more was needed, they took the form of the three Fates. Today, there was simply the one. Her sister’s raven black hair was pinned ornately around her face, filled with lavish gems and golds that Azraelle had never known her sister to like. Even the dress that covered the Moirai’s body was decadent and full, so opposed to anything Az had ever seen her wear before.
Azraelle flashed back to the one question they had asked her every day someone entered her cell. Had the Moirai simply given them the answer? Was that why Azraelle’s torment had ended? Had Zeus found out that Erebus was gone, and that Az’s mater was vulnerable?
Azraelle, daughter of Night and Darkness, came Zeus’ echoing voice, you have been charged with the crime of altering the course of Destiny by bringing a mortal boy back to life. Your own sister stands witness against you. What say you?
Of all the charges Zeus may have lain against her, she never expected that one. That boy’s destiny had not been designed to end at that time and the Moirai should have known it. The Moirai stood in front of the dais that Zeus and his wives occupied, straight ahead of where Azraelle stood firmly in Apollo and Artemis’ grasp. No emotion crossed the Moirai’s face, no hint that she believed Azraelle was innocent.
Innocent, Azraelle said anyway, her voice more confident than she felt on the inside. I would never dare to take Destiny into my own hands.
And yet you have, the Moirai said, beginning her move forward to where Azraelle stood. And I will see your confession.
Azraelle braced herself as the Moirai finally came to a stop in front of her and placed her hands on either side of Azraelle’s temple. She braced for the pain that came when one of the Moirai peered into a psyche to glean the untold truths of one’s mind. There were few entities in the realms who had the power to step straight past mental defences, and the Moirai was one of them – kept only in line by her own promise to Destiny to not abuse the power. No pain came. Instead, Az heard her sister’s voice, not harsh as it was when she had spoken a moment ago but loving and tender. Was that sorrow Az detected?
Please sister, came the Moirai’s voice. It needs to be this way. Forgive me.
Why are you doing this? Azraelle was unable to prevent the burn in the back of her throat as she pushed back tears.
