Blood Of Gods (Book 3) Read Online Free

addressing the bloodstained man but ensuring his voice was loud enough for those gathered to hear. “You, Donnell Frost, have shown wisdom even when facing death, and courage before fear. Your punishment shall be swift, your death painless, your soul made pure for the eternity to follow.”
    Despite his constraints, the man bowed low. “Thank you, High Prophet.”
    The heavily scarred Lord Commander Malcolm was the one to unfasten Donnell’s restraints and lead him to the edge of the construction site, in the shadow of a completed siege tower. As Velixar watched, the doomed man knelt and presented his neck. A young soldier helped Malcolm out of his sling. Malcolm winced as he reached behind his back and slid Darkfall, his giant sword, from its sheath. The Lord Commander held the sword above his head with both hands. “For Karak!” he shouted. A moment later Donnell’s head rolled across the dead grass, his lifeless copper eyes open, staring heavenward.
    After the body was disposed of and the head was carried away to Velixar’s tent, the soldiers went back to work on the engines with renewed, fear-fueled vigor. Troubled, Velixar climbed the low hill on which Karak’s pavilion sat. His eyes kept turning toward Mordeina , its massive walls, and the tree Celestia had brought up from the earth to thwart them. In his mind, he heard Donnell’s words endlessly looping: “With the goddess defending Ashhur, what chance is there of victory?”
    “Have you taught my children a lesson, High Prophet?” Karak asked when Velixar stepped through the flap and entered the pavilion. The god’s back was to him as he sat cross-legged in the middle of the tent’s empty expanse. It was a pose Velixar often found the god in whenever he came calling.
    “I have, my Lord.” He hesitated before adding, “I also learned a lesson myself.”
    That piqued Karak’s interest, and the deity turned about to face him. “Yes?”
    “We seem to have a problem, my Lord. A problem of perception.” Velixar’s heart raced faster with every word he spoke.
    Karak’s glowing eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
    “Some of your children fear the goddess.” He began pacing a circle around the deity, hesitant to look Karak in the eye. “Though Chief Shen and the Quellan try to convince them otherwise, they all witnessed Celestia raise that damn tree to protect Ashhur, as well as crush your second meteor of fire.”
    “They do not believe in the righteousness of my quest?”
    “Your righteousness is not in question. It is that they doubt our army can be victorious if the goddess has sided with Ashhur.”
    “Doubt is fear’s insidious brother, and much harder to defeat,” said Karak, and his suddenly wistful, reflective tone eased Velixar’s nerves. “Once given life, it spreads like a disease, forever growing stronger. We must crush it early and with due haste.”
    “I know this,” Velixar said, and despite his trepidation, he voiced his own fear. “But my Lord . . . are they right? Can we find victory if Celestia fights alongside Ashhur?”
    Karak shook his head. “Once more you disappoint me, High Prophet. If Celestia truly fought alongside my brother, none of us—myself, you, this entire force we have gathered—would be here any longer. She is cosmic, she is eternal. My brother and myself were like that once, when we were whole, but no longer. We shattered ourselves to pieces, thinking that if we walked among humankind our leadership would be more potent, our relationship like a father to a child. Foolish, perhaps, but there is nothing to be done about it now. Until we once again rise to the heavens, we are weaker than she. Celestia could eliminate each and every one of us in a single human heartbeat.”
    “But she defended Ashhur. She protected him.”
    “She did, but not for the reasons you might think,” the deity said with an impatient grunt. “Celestia may love my brother, but she desires balance and carries a deep sense of fairness