Book of Wrath – Book I Section I – The Divine Error

In the first days, when the heavens were still young and the stars had not yet grown old, the gods walked the endless firmament. They were powerful and eternal, yet hollow in a way they would not name, and the hollowness whispered to them of worship. They looked down upon the mortal world—upon fragile creatures who raised temples from stone, who lit incense, who knelt before unseen thrones and poured out their prayers like water. The gods watched mortals sing their praises and tremble at their names, and they wanted more. They wanted to be worthy of every bowed head, every desperate plea, every sacrifice left upon an altar in the dark. Then, turning their gaze inward, they saw themselves clearly for the first time.

They found envy curling green and grasping in their hearts. They found cruelty sharpening their tongues. They found rage burning in their cores and arrogance veiling their sight. “How,” they asked one another, “can mortals rightly revere us if we are stained by such things?” In their pride, they decided these were not natural parts of themselves, but defects—imperfections that might be excised. “We can be better,” they said. “We can be pure. We can be truly worthy of their worship.”

So they made a choice.

They forged a vessel—no act of love, no gentle creation, but a cold, deliberate work of purpose. Upon this vessel they set their will, and one by one they came before her. From themselves they tore what they named flaw: envy, green and hungry; cruelty, sharp as shattered glass; arrogance, broad as the void; rage, black and burning. They poured all of it into her—every dark impulse, every shadow of their nature, every unseemly thing that might dull their shine in mortal eyes. Lightened of their burdens, they congratulated themselves on becoming better, becoming pure, becoming what they believed perfection to be. They called the thing they had done necessary. They called it right.

But it was a lie—the greatest lie they ever told, and they told it not to mortals but to themselves.

She endured their workings in silence. Silent as envy was kindled beneath her skin. Silent as cruelty settled into her bones. Silent as arrogance swelled within her chest. Silent as rage coiled hotter and tighter around her soul. Silence, however, is not absence. It is pressure; it is the moment before the storm breaks. Each god who deposited their darkness into her walked away lighter, comforted by their own righteousness. They looked at one another and saw only shining perfection. They looked at her and saw only a mistake. They blamed her for anger that had never been hers. They called her misbehaving for carrying what they had forced into her. They named her their error, when she was in truth their most deliberate work. Still, she did not break.

She changed.

The pressure grew until it could no longer be contained. Silence shattered. She erupted with black fire, like a star collapsing in upon itself, like a newborn black hole screaming against the heavens. Her cries twisted the very air; her tears cut wounds into creation.
She became uncontainable.
Her anger hardened into aggression,
her aggression into hate,
her hate into seething rage,
and that rage rose higher, brighter, hotter, until it became one single, perfect thing.

Wrath.

Unbound. Unyielding. Unstoppable.

She was not their mistake. She was their shame, given flesh and fire, walking proof that their pursuit of perfection was the most imperfect thing they had ever done.  So they cast her out.  Abandoned her to the void, and told themselves they were right to do so.  All but one. The god who had not poured his flaws into her did not look away.  For he alone understood: she was not their mistake, she was their reflection.  And though the others would deny her, he would remain.