Chapter 37 Chapter Seventeen Part Two - Orenda
As if the universe is trying to emphasise Ayawamat’s words, a burst of pressure hits me in the torso, knocking the wind from my lungs and making me clutch the kitchen counter to keep myself in place.
“Orenda?” Ayawamat frets, grasping my shoulders, his brows raised with worry.
I blink in confusion, placing my hand over my chest as I collect my bearings, trying to figure out what the hell I just felt when I suddenly feel deep and overwhelming rage rising up like a violent tempest inside me.
“Azadou…” I whisper.
“Now what’s the fucker done?” Ayawamat seethes through gritted teeth.
“I don’t know,” I murmur in confusion as I stand up. “Something is wrong…I can feel so much rage,” I quaver, rubbing my chest as if to soothe the emotions intensifying from within me despite our bond not being completed.
“Isn’t that him on a normal day?” Ayawamat quips mildly.
I shake my head in disagreement, “Not like this. I have to find him,” I declare, marching towards the front door.
“Orenda, wait!” Ayawamat calls out, chasing after me. “You don’t know how to find him or what you’d be walking into if you do. If he’s already hurt you on a good day, what might he do to you when he’s enraged?” he worries as we step out onto the front deck.
“I don’t know, Aya!” I exclaim, throwing my arms up in defeated frustration as I step down onto the grass and turn to face him. “The only thing I’m certain of these days is that I am fucking clueless. Thirty-thousands years of living and I’m no wiser than most people born yesterday. If what you say is true, then one way or another I have to confront him and make it clear that I’m not playing his game anymore.”
Ayawamat studies my face carefully, his brows dipping in concern. “Just be careful,” he urges.
“I’ll try,” I promise.
I pull on the power inside me, feeling it electrify my body as I take my bird-form. I stretch my wings out as wide as I can, letting the electricity surge through every feather as I shoot off into the sky. I pierce through the air like a torpedo, my eyes cast on the open sky, but my mind focuses on the disturbing emotions haunting the back of my mind. We may not be fully bonded, but we are connected. If I can just focus on that, hopefully, it’ll lead me to him. I focus on the tether that ties our essrams together as best I can and while I’m not sure if it’s working or not, I do know I’m feeling a strong pull northeast.
I increase my speed, the sky transitioning from day to night as I follow the pull to Azadou, when soon a wave of frigid, cold emptiness rolls through me, ruffling my feathers. I dive beneath the clouds, my eyes trained on the land below. At first, I see nothing out of the ordinary, but as I continue forward, following my bond to Azadou, I start to feel the energy of the eyti somewhere nearby, begin to magnify. I scan the Earth more intently and that’s when I see it; patches of darkness appearing sporadically, consuming all light around them and increasing in size. I’ve seen this before, but never on this scale.
When an eyti/eytes stumble upon a highly populated area, they become like a virus infecting everything in sight. Over the centuries, entire cities and towns have fallen to the eyti. Many such cases have been forgotten or ignored by history, others have become legends or urban myths, like the colony of Roanoke in the late 1500s. They didn’t die or travel to seek out better vegetation, they were under siege by a few eyti. By the time my brother and I arrived, the damage had been done and not a single person was spared.
As I fly lower towards civilisation, the sounds of panicked, fearful screams floating on the wind reach me, and as I follow them, I catch something else on the wind, a scent more powerful and potent than any other. The cold smell of ash hits my heightened senses and though my essram feels somewhat soothed by it, my heart and mind are no longer in agreement. The allure his scent once had, now only brings apprehension and even that fact fractures my heart into pieces.
I know I’m getting close when I feel the cold magnetic pull of Azadou’s energy. Suddenly the skies darken and a purple, electric storm fills the sky like a malevolent curse, but when I see the innocent people scattering below like their very lives depend on it, I feel a switch flip inside me. Thousands of years as a protector of mankind has the warrior within me surging forward. Thoughts and feelings of Azadou as my animai are pushed to the back of my mind as I’m filled with the single determination to stop the threat against these people, and that threat is him.
I descend quickly, then use my wings to slow myself down as I reach the ground. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I pull my power back into myself, my body once again becoming electrified as I take to my human form. I look around in horror as humans run for their lives as eyti swarm after them, corrupting and infecting all they come into contact with. As I watch the scene unfold, I lock with familiar glowing purple eyes that watch me from a mask of indifference that has me fighting back the urge to recoil.
“Azadou…what have you done?” I question in a horrified whisper.
“Putting my talents to good use,” he responds, a dark smirk on his face that does not reach his eyes.
“Talent?” I sputter. “You’re hurting innocent people!” I cry, gesturing to the people around us.
“Innocent,” he scoffs. “No one is innocent. Every pathetic, putrid-smelling human on this God’s forsaken planet is dripping with malice,” he sneers.
“And that gives you the right to destroy their lives?” I bite back. “I have spent my entire life trying to contain the chaos you created but this…this is diabolical beyond comprehension,” I rasp, shaking my head in disbelief.
At my words, his mask slips and instead of indifference I now see rage and hatred as clear on his face as it is through our bond.
“You blame me for the chaos in the world, but chaos reigned long before me and will continue to exist long after me. Chaos is the very nature of humanity. I didn’t create it, I’m merely pulling back the curtain on it,” he declares, stretching his arms out wide, grandstanding at the terror around him.
Tears of anger well in my eyes as disgust burns in my stomach. “From the moment you came into this world, malice has filled your every being and here you are spreading it like a virus and boasting about it as if it were a badge of honour to be worn proudly,” I condemn sorrowfully.
In an instant, Azadou is towering over me, his eyes ablaze with fury. “I DIDN’T ASK TO BE CREATED! I was born of your creator’s darkness and hatred because he was too weak and cowardly to face it. You look at me with disgust for being what I was made to be by the very God you call Father,” he spits venomously.
I stare up at him wide-eyed, the vitriol cascading off him and filling me with unease.
“Do you think I asked to be created?” I ask back, my tone calm and even as I stare back at him with defiance. Azadou blinks, taken aback by my words. “We were made by the same God. I was created to clean up the mess Jartre’s actions created, but I still had a choice. I chose to live this life, protect those who couldn’t protect themselves and give my life meaning. I chose to live. But you? You either absolve yourself of responsibility, placing it all at Jartre’s feet or personify every stereotype about you. You were finally given the chance to live and make your own choices and this,” I say, gesturing around us. “This is what you chose. Jartre is to blame for the actions from the past, but right now, the only person to be blamed for this pain and suffering is you,” I denounce, my voice quivering in detestation.
Azadou stares at me, nostrils flared, fists clenched and his body trembling with anger but his eyes…his eyes look so hollow and lost, as if my words broke something in him.
His hand strikes out, clasping my upper arm firmly and making me yelp in pain despite the pleasant burning of his touch as his grip threatens to crush the bone.
“You want to see me make a choice?” he fumes, his eyes frantically searching my face for something.
“Let go! You’re hurting me!” I lash out, my eyes burning intensely as I prepare myself to shift. At least if I can shift, I stand a chance at defending myself.
“I’ll show you hurt,” he growls, his expression turning unhinged like a man whose mind has broken from reality.
I feel his hand disappear from around my arm, bringing instant throbbing and the feeling of pins and needles spreading through my arm as blood flow returns to the limb. As I try to rub feeling back into my arm, the deafening sound of wind rages against my ears accompanied by the rhythmic lapping of waves, bringing with them the unmistakable scent of the sea. I suddenly realise he’s transported us somewhere else. I look around in confusion, my hair whipping at my face as the icy winds pierce my skin. I see Azadou step down some jagged rocks, getting closer to the water as he stares into the distance.
I follow his eyeline and the first thing that grabs my attention is a grand bridge stretching across the sea in front of us. The bridge is illuminated by strings of neon, rainbow lights, their familiar glow filling me with immediate recognition. That’s Akashi Kaikyo Bridge…why the hell has he brought me to Japan?
Azadou looks back at me, and a wave of dread rolls through my body. His vibrant purple eyes burn with electricity yet look as hollow and vacant as the eyes of the very eyti he creates.
“You want to blame me for the chaos of this world…Then I’ll give you chaos,” he curses, his voice as cold as the expression on his face.
“What are you–”
My words are cut short, when – with his eyes trained on me – Azadou raises his hand in the direction of the bridge. As he slowly clenches his fist, the air is filled with the distant sounds of protesting metal. My eyes blow wide in horror and I feel the blood drain from my face as with a single motion of his hand, Azadou brings the entire bridge and all those on it, crashing into the sea.
I watch on, my blood now turning to ice in my veins as the 12,000-foot bridge crumbles into the waters below, dragging the innocent people on it to a cold, watery grave. My knees give out and I collapse onto the ground, my breathing turning shallow as shock paralyses my body down to the bone.
“Is that enough for you?” he taunts icily.
I look up at him, my nails clawing at the rocks beneath me andd my eyes narrowing in rage and disgust. “Jartre never turned you into a monster, Azadou. You did that to yourself.” My words trail off into a whisper filled with violent fury.
His jaw clenches, but before he has a chance to respond with another heinous comment he can’t take back, I accept what I must do.
“I, Orenda, against the will of Goddess Zarseti, reject you, Azadou as my animai,” I declare with all the force I can muster.
An unendurable emptiness grows in my chest bringing a well of tears to my eyes as I watch Azadou fall to his knees, clutching his chest as an agonised roar of pain escapes him. I shut my eyes tight, unable to look on as the tears spill over my cheeks.
“I…Azadou, against the will of Goddess Zarseti…accept your rejection,” he grits out, spitting the words out like poison on his tongue.
Screams tear through my throat as a wave of all-consuming agony pierces through my heart and rips its way through my body as though I’m being torn apart from the inside out. Amidst my screams I can hear the sound of a powerful howl that shakes the Earth beneath my feet while thunder rumbles through the sky. A burst of energy the colour of vantablack erupts from Azadou’s chest at the same time a burst of radiant, prismatic energy explodes from my own body. I collapse onto the jagged rocks, the only sound now filling my ears is the sound of my own screams as I feel my very essram tear into pieces.
I lay on the cold, uneven ground, the tears trickling down my face as I feel the life drain from my body. I feel my mind being pulled under, like being dragged under the cold, black water around me, and as my eyes drift shut, the last thing I see is Azadou disappearing from my sight.