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"You’re wrong You know nothing of Neferet The Priestess was broken andto my whispers"

"I know that Neferet has caused the Goddess much pain, and that ain "And now you prove beyond any doubt you know nothing about Neferet She has chosen the path of chaos Not even death can dissuade her from it"

"And yet you will dissuade her"

"You fool--a week ago the Vessel Aurox, fully in the ored Neferet and hurled her froht Neferet regained enough of her physical for to reject the Change, and kill an adult huain She is immortal She cannot be killed," Kalona said

"And yet so must be done with her You opened the door to immortal power to her--you will close it"

Kalona shook his head, gathering the cold light of the moon close to him "Who are you to command me? You are my brother, not ht flared, burning so brightly that even Kalona could not help but recognize the divine and borrowed power of Nyx he wielded "When first you Fell from the Otherworld you wreaked havoc upon the humans who attempted to succor you until Nyx heard their cries and answered the prayers of their Wise Wo them to use the Divine Feminine within theenerations"

"I remember hat happened," Kalona snarled "I do not need you, or Nyx, to remind me of that dark time"

"Silence, you fool! I come with an edict from Nyx!" Erebus blazed "I do not remind you of the time I remind you of the reason behind it You rejected your Goddess, and in your attempt to replace her you used and cast aside nized the spark of Nyx within her That is why you were vulnerable to her That is why you loved her"

Kalona looked away from Erebus There had been a tiantly denied his brother’s words and used his own immortal power to cast him from the mortal plane and back to the Otherworld

But Kalona had changed And the truth in what his brother said burned hiht Erebus had inherited froed immortal remained silent, still as a statue, as Erebus’s Goddess-touched words continued to batter him

"But you would not remain imprisoned Even entombed in the earth, wrapped in the arms of she as breathed to life by Nyx, still you yearned for that which your arrogance had caused you to lose So you sent out your cloying whispers, seeking another who had been touched by Nyx--one who ht fill the emptiness within you Since the moment she was Marked, Neferet was special to the Goddess, because of, and not in spite of, the horrors she had survived But she was, indeed, a vulnerable young fledgling That is why Neferet was susceptible to your call That is why, after she coe, you convinced her to free you"

Kalona wanted to flee--to run fro within him bade him stay and hear the edict Nyx had sent Erebus to proclaim

"And because she, too, was only touched by the Goddess and not Nyx incarnate, Neferet failed to fill that emptiness within you Her failure turned to poison Do you deny that you thought you loved her, just as you believed you loved the e nothing Speak your edict and begone Your words weary me"

"Look within yourself It is not my words that weary you The day you can admit the truth about your past and accept full responsibility for all the evil you have loosed in this realer in Erebus’s voice softened, though the power of his Goddess-enhanced visage continued to blaze "Then you , Zoey Redbird, and you were instantly drawn to, and angered by, her connection to Nyx You wanted to seduce and destroy her"

"But I did neither!"

"Only because Zoey’s connection to Nyx is, indeed, strong, and unlike A-ya, she is a woman, fully formed with a will of her own and, unlike Neferet, she is not dah your actions alet you shattered the child’s soul Do not forget you trespassed into the Otherworld, risking Nyx’s wrath Because of that the Goddess herself interceded on her daughter’s behalf"

Kalona looked away again, reain, had been in the presence of Nyx

She had not forgiven hiret

"Neferet trapped my soul and used the power of Darkness to coly trespass"

"Neferet again Your influence created that creature She is your responsibility to stop The Goddess’s edict is thus!" Erebus ht of the sun shi written words burned into the air:

He as once beloved of mine

shall defeat she whose love for me once did shine

With this command I do intercede