Two (The Godslayer Cycle Book 2) by Ron Glick Page A

had given the swords the power to slay a God, but how could Nathaniel have known what that truly meant?  That simply striking a God with a sword was enough.  It did not need to be a fatal blow, or at least a blow that would have been fatal to a mortal.  It was enough to run the sword through them.  And in doing so, the very essence of a God could be destroyed. 
    It had not been Nathaniel's intent to kill Imery.  Not at that point in time, at least.  He had intended to wound her, to stop her rampage upon Brea.  And yes, to hold the Goddess, if possible, so that she could answer for her crimes.  There had been so much to answer for.
    Mari was dead, slain at the hands of Imery's faithful.  Gregory had been abducted, carried off into the night by those who slew his mother.  Bracken's inn had been razed to the ground, people's livelihood put at jeopardy.  All to strike out at Nathaniel.  All to punish him for being the unwilling pawn of the Old Gods. 
    Since the night of Mari's murder and Gregory's kidnapping, Nathaniel had gone over those events again and again.  The Old Gods insisted that the New Order was blind to his existence, that their magic had masked him.  Yet Imery knew enough to send Brea, and then later to send a raiding party to attempt to kill him.  Only he had not been there – he had been taken away by Airek, the Master and Mistress of Benevolence, in an effort to convince Nathaniel of the evils of the New Order.  Whisked away to a strange part of the world, Nathaniel had not been home when the raiders came.
    But Mari was.  And she had died because the servants of Imery could not find their target.
    The irony was that Nathaniel had been unconvinced by the words of the Gods who were trying to recruit him.  It took seeing the evil of the New Order first hand – as if he had not seen enough from their mortal agents already – before he could be compelled to cooperate with their bequest.  Oh, but the cost had been so high...  So high.
    As Nathaniel looked up into the sky, the leaves seemed to dance to the macabre rhythm that ebbed within his soul, moving faster and faster as the force of the wind increased.  His wife was dead.  His son was gone.  All he had had to drive him was the belief that he could track down Brea and through her, confront Imery – find out where the Goddess had taken his son.  Yet even that had proven fruitless.
    Nathaniel took a deep breath, as if by force of will he could somehow alter the wind by stealing its power into himself.  He may have become powerful enough to slay Gods now, but he still lacked the power to change the course of a storm.  He held the stolen air in his lungs for as long as he was able, but eventually he had to release it.  Yet not even an attempt at mastering the elements could assuage the ache in his chest.
    The others in the camp could be heard in the background.  Everyone else was breaking camp.  Well, they were breaking down Brea's camp.  Their own gear, save their bedrolls, was still tacked to their horses.  Bracken had retrieved them the night before from where Nathaniel and he left them tethered while facing Brea.  And of course, that confrontation ended with a battle with the would-be-God, Avery.
    Nathaniel lowered his head into his hands.  He was so confused, so bewildered over what to do.  Brea and her mercenaries were breaking camp with Bracken's help, but not a one of them had spoken of where they were going, not even which direction they would travel in.  It was as if somehow they would just know when the time came. 
    But Nathaniel did not know.  He had no idea where he would go from here.
    Geoffrey was missing, and Nathaniel knew his priority needed to be finding him.  But Brea had only been another pawn of Imery's, apparently.  And when Nathaniel killed Imery, any hope of learning from the Goddess where her own mercenaries had taken Nathaniel's son evaporated.  So where was Nathaniel supposed to go to look?
    Then