Publication Date: May 21, 2018
Language: English
“The book is exquisitely written, with good characterization and a compelling plot… Thoroughly recommended.” —Jennifer’s Reviews
Akasha is a precocious young girl with dreams of motherhood. She lives in a fantastical world where most of the oceans circulate in the aquamarine sky waters.
Before she was born, the Helios, a tribe of angels from the sun, came to Earth to deliver the Surge, the next step in the evolution of an embryonic human race. Instead they spawned a race of hybrids and infected humanity with a hybrid seed.
Horque manifests on Earth with another tribe of angels, the Solarii, to rescue the genetic mix-up and release the Surge.
Akasha embarks on a journey from maiden to mother and from apprentice to priestess then has a premonition that a great flood is imminent. All three races – humans, hybrids and Solarii – face extinction.
With their world in crisis, Akasha and Horque meet, and a sublime love flashes between them. Is this a cause of hope for humanity and the Solarii? Or will the hybrids destroy them both? Will anyone survive the killing waters of the coming apocalypse?
The Anubis embalmers had washed Horque’s body, encased it in natron salt, and mummified it according to all but one of the traditions of the Jackal-headed God - the exception being that they had not removed any of his organs. On his chest, she laid out a scarab pectoral and into his mouth, she placed a length of straw.
Opening Fryme's package, she fingered the dark green leaves. She'd used hyssop many times before and had grown to enjoy its astringent odours. Deftly, she worked the herb into a paste and poured a droplet onto a wafer… She re-read the hieroglyphs on the wall: 'The Spell of the Gods' and beneath that, the warning, 'Use me wisely, lest I turn and rend thee.'
This ritual was the ultimate... life and death. She had to be dedicated and fulsome, lest the warning would apply to her. She replayed every detail of the ritual in her mind before preparing for the trance. The timing was of the essence: according to the proscription of the ritual, it had to be conducted on the night of the round moon and completed by the rise of the sun…
Lying on the bench, she placed the wafer beneath her tongue, relishing the minty bitterness of the hyssop as it suffused her being… Slowly, her ka eased out of her physical body…
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