Free War of the Magi: Azrael's Wrath (Book 2) by Joseph Robert Lewis Page A

roll off onto the grass to luxuriate in the cool breeze and the sight of the deep blue sky above the leaves.
    As his skin and blood cooled, his thoughts swam back into focus and then promptly swam away again. He didn’t want to think. Thinking was too real, too dull. He wanted to sleep, content in that moment to believe that the world was a glorious place and that he had just fulfilled his entire life’s purpose.
    But that feeling also passed.
    Petra dressed quickly and quietly, standing up and walking a little ways away as she did so. Watching her, he became aware of his own nakedness and slowly pulled his trousers and robes and shoes on as well.
    “Your first time?” She turned around.
    He nodded. Almost on instinct he started to ask, “Was it…?”
    She smiled. “You did fine.”
    He smiled back, but all too briefly. The moment, in all its heat and wonder and hunger and revelation, was already fading with nothing but an impression in the grass to prove it had even happened. And now he was once again standing alone by the river with thoughts of death and regret pawing at the edges of his mind.
    To keep them at bay, he asked, “Do you think you might conceive?”
    “Not this time, I don’t think. As I said, djinn quicken like a flame. I think I would know by now.”
    “After only a few minutes?” He managed to hide his surprise. “Well, I have to say that with all the madness in the world, with all the people who treat life so cheaply, it’s nice to meet someone who wants to create life so much. I hope you do become a mother one day.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “A mother? Me? I guess those seer eyes of yours aren’t as sharp as I’d heard.”
    “What?”
    “I don’t care about being a mother. What do you think I am, some pathetic little girl desperate for the unconditional love of a mewling half-breed?”
    Iyasu felt an icy splinter of fear and disgust slide down into his belly. “What? But, why?”
    “I want to create something that no one in all the world, in all of history, has ever created. Not even God himself has ever made a child of both clay and fire. I will be the first, because my vision is grander and bolder than his. I will reach farther and bring forth a new race upon the earth, a master race with the strength and ambition of humanity and the intelligence and longevity of the djinn.”
    “A master race? Is that really… is that really why we just…?” He looked at the ground where the grass was already starting to spring up again.
    “Of course. Why else?” she asked innocently. “Not that it wasn’t a pleasant diversion. As I said, just sitting here is boring.”
    Iyasu turned away from her. His stomach lurched and the faint scent of bile wafted out through his nostrils.
    …to defy God? To spite God? And I was helping her to…
    As his eyes wandered up the riverbank he caught sight of the alchemist Bashir still sitting just a long stone’s throw away, staring out from the shadows at the rippling waves.
    He heard us. He saw. He knows.
    Iyasu sank down to his knees at the water’s edge and spat a trace of vomit from the back of his throat. The lingering wetness between his legs felt like a stain, melting into his flesh, branding him as a fool, a thing to be used, a pile of filth more concerned with his own momentary pleasure than the needs of the world, or of the divine.
    “We found it!”
    Iyasu turned his head woodenly to watch Zerai and Veneka dragging a log out of the forest. Samira walked beside them with her hand on the teak tree, and on the underside of the freshly felled timber Iyasu could see how the djinn cleric made the wood ripple and roll to help the humans haul its weight down to the river.
    The teak tree, with most of its branches still attached, broke free of the confines of the forest and tumbled down into the water. Samira caught it by a small twig and took a long breath.
    The beautiful tree melted into a long sweeping arc of pale gleaming wood, transforming swiftly