Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 1) (26 page)

When Diana reached her, Esha wrapped a slim arm around her waist. She mimicked the gesture until they stood side by side.

“All right, you need to close your eyes and focus on the feeling of my arm. I can’t give you my sight, but I can let you see inside my head.”

Diana squeezed her eyes shut and focused on the warmth of Esha’s arm. She twitched when she felt the cat twine itself between her legs and Esha’s.

“All right, I’m going in. Not my body, but my sight.”

Diana gasped and stumbled back as a black cloud of shadows bombarded her mind.
 

“That’s in front of us?” she whispered.

“Yep. Creepy, huh? Now focus and stop me when you recognize something. I’m going to try to find the source of the energy.”

The black cloud began to dissipate as Esha’s mind went farther into the new world. It was dark and gray with a sluggish black river snaking through marshes while mist crawled through the reeds and along the edge of the field upon which they stood. She couldn’t tell where the dim light that illuminated the dismal scene came from, which made the surroundings extra creepy.
 

They began to move forward and a chill crept up her spine. Shadows of people, almost ghostlike, wandered along the river and through the mist toward a dark forest.
 

Esha led her after them. Diana shivered. All her big talk about taking control of her fate and doing what was necessary seemed a bit ridiculous now that she was actually seeing an ancient hell.

“Where are we exactly?” Diana whispered.

“Erebus. It’s the largest region of Hades. Many of these souls were warriors.”

“We’re getting closer.” Diana shivered. The air crackled with a malevolence that made her skin itch.

“I feel it too.”

They entered the forest. The trees rose tall above the ground, claw-like branches reaching toward a moonless sky. A vague glow emanated from farther ahead, brightening as they drifted toward it.

“We can’t be seen, right?” Diana glanced around, looking for glowing eyes that would suit this Halloween world perfectly.
 

“Should be fine, since it’s just my sight and not our bodies that are here. Been here before and no one noticed.”

At a clearing in the wood, they passed a solemn looking boy of perhaps twelve leaning against a tree. He looked vaguely familiar, but her attention was drawn by the sight of Vivienne. A fist squeezed her heart at the sight of her friend sitting with her back against a tree that was slightly behind the boy’s tree. Her eyes were closed and her wrists bound in front of her. Instinctively, Diana started to pull away from Esha to approach her friend, but Esha tightened her grip on her hand.

“You can’t help her because we aren’t actually here. Don’t break our bond.” Esha’s voice was strained.

Desperate to figure out what was going on and a way out of this, Diana dragged her gaze from Vivienne. Black roots pushed up through the dark soil and dead leaves. The ring of trees surrounding the clearing was nearly circular. A great platform carved from black stone stood in the center. Her gaze landed on a man standing behind the altar with a book in one hand.
 

A man that Diana recognized.
 

Shit.
Her skin grew cold and clammy.

“We will avenge your death, Maximus.” His deep voice vibrated with the intensity of a zealot, committed to telling the world it was about to end.

Diana started. He was speaking to the boy leaning against the tree. The boy merely looked up. His gaze was sullen and doubtful, the look that any teenager might shoot a parent they thought was stupid. It was out of place in this solemn world. So normal that it made her ache for the boy despite her fear.

“Who’s there?” The man’s head snapped up and his black eyes bored into Diana. Her heart. “Someone’s there, I can sense you.”

“Gotta go.” Esha’s voice shook.
 

Diana nodded emphatically despite her desire to stay with Vivienne, who’d now opened her eyes and was blindly searching the clearing. Diana’s stomach soured at the sight of her friend, trapped and bound, but she couldn’t help her if they were caught unawares.

“Come on, Esha,” she whispered. Why weren’t they leaving?

“I—I can’t.” Her voice trembled with strain.

“What can I do?”

“Imagine the chamber. Picture as many details as you can. It could help, since our minds are linked in this.”

Diana struggled to bring the image to mind, but the man was getting closer. Her breath began to saw in and out of her lungs. He couldn’t hurt them. Couldn’t.
 

She squeezed her eyes shut and visualized the chamber. Their bodies still stood there; they just had to return their minds.

“That’s it—it’s working,” Esha said.

When Diana opened her eyes, the scene in front of her began to fizzle out like a dying fog. A moment later, they were standing in the underground chamber.
 

“Hang onto me, I’m getting us out of here.” Esha’s grip tightened, Diana felt a brief tug, and they were back in Esha’s flat. She reached out to steady herself against the couch, swallowing hard against her roiling stomach.

“What was that? Why were we trapped? Could he see us?”

“I—I don’t know. That’s never happened before.” Esha sat on the couch and buried her hands in her hair. “None of this has ever happened before.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“They had better be back here, damn it,” Cadan said as he pounded on the door to Esha’s flat.
 

He stood next to Warren, rage and confusion brewing a bubbling poison in his veins, waiting, hoping, for their knock to be answered. At Warren’s suggestion, they’d tracked Diana and Esha to the underground. They hadn’t seen them there, nor had the guards. Either they hadn’t been there, or Esha had cast a spell to hide them.
 

It had taken them nearly twenty minutes to get from the chamber back to Esha’s tower flat in hopes that they might have returned. They had no other leads. He hated this feeling.

Diana had run off alone.
A sense of helplessness he hadn’t felt in millennia fueled the anger vibrating through him. Ever since losing Boudica the first time, he’d become obsessed with controlling his environment and having a handle on things. Like her.

He’d tried to let go of Diana after she’d left him tied up in his own house. He hadn’t wanted to come after her. But then Warren had arrived, sent by Esha to free him from the Maoin straps. He’d been bloody lucky the goddess Aerten had been in a meeting with Warren when Esha had told him about Cadan. She’d helped Warren get to him so quickly. When faced with a chance to return, Cadan had felt compelled to do so. When he’d stood across from Diana in Esha’s flat earlier today, he’d realized why.

She was his heart.
 

He’d been stupid to ever think, no matter how briefly, that he could stay away from her. Diana drew him toward her like a dying man to his last sight of the sky. But the way she’d looked at him when he’d said that all he’d wanted to do was protect her...

“Gods damn it.” He pounded on the door again. They’d been standing here five minutes and he was starting to wonder if this was hopeless when the door swung open to reveal a scowling Esha.

“Hold your horses, damn it,” she said irritably. “What are you doing here?”

“Are you joking? I’m here for Diana,” Cadan said.

Esha raised a brow. “Any idea how she feels about that?”

“Doona care.” He pushed past her into the room. “Are you all right?” He directed the words at Diana, who stood near the couch.

She glared at him. He’d take that as a yes.
 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, running off?” He was at her side in a moment, running his hands over her, checking for injuries while she struggled to pull away. Relief that she was unhurt washed over him and he released her when she started to struggle.
 

“What I’m supposed to do! Trying to save Vivienne and stop that bastard Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.” The gleam of battle lit her eyes as she squirmed out of his grip.
 

“What?” It had been centuries since he’d heard the name of the Roman general. Millennia, even. And who the hell was Vivienne?

“Who is Gaius Sue Whatever?” Esha asked.

“Gaius Suetonius Paulinus. The man who killed my daughters and destroyed my home. I killed him when I was Boudica.”

Cadan’s fist clenched. He remembered the bastard well. The one who’d taken everything from him. Not only Boudica, but his family too, years earlier when Paulinus had burned his village, Camulodunum.

“And the boy who sat against the tree? Maximus?” Esha asked.

“I killed him, too.” Diana sat hard on the couch, a vacant look in her eyes.

“Oh.” Esha blanched.

“I killed a lot of people.” Her voice was scratchy. “The boy followed his father everywhere. He was being groomed to take over and he was there when Paulinus killed my daughters. He was also on the battlefield when Paulinus came for me. So I killed him when I killed his father. Now, he wants to get out of Erebus.”

“What the hell do you have to do with that?” He didn’t want her anywhere near Paulinus, and it shone in his voice.

Diana’s eyes met his. “What
don’t
I have to do with that? He. Killed. My. Daughters. And I’m the one who sent him to hell. With his son.” She looked ill. “I killed anyone who got in my way after they killed Aela and Calea. I don’t regret most of it.”

“Just the boy,” Esha said.
 

Diana nodded, looked down at her hands.
 

“That’s it, then,” Esha said. “Paulinus could sense you because you killed him. Or your soul, rather, sent his to hell when you killed him as Boudica. Souls are powerful. By killing him, you probably linked the two of you together. At least in a small way. You’re his link to the outside world and I bet that’s why he wants you. It’s why we had a hard time leaving, too. Your soul was attracted to his.”

“I don’t get it,” Diana said. “Why is the portal threatening to open here? Why not in Italy, if it’s the Roman hell?”

“For the same reason that the university is here. Arthur’s Seat has the most magical energy of anywhere in Europe. The boundaries between earth and the afterworlds are weakest here.”
 

Diana buried her head in her hands. “What am I going to do? And why does he have Vivienne?”

“I don’t know about Vivienne,” Esha said. “She could be bait, a mistake, maybe even involved somehow.”

“Vivienne?” Cadan asked.

Diana briefly explained her friend’s abduction to him. “But she’s not involved. She was teaching my classes. Maybe the demon abductors got confused. So you think he’ll try to use me to get out?”

Esha nodded. “There was an altar.”

“An altar?” Cadan asked, dread sinking his stomach.

“Yeah,” Esha said. “Nothing says
blood sacrifice
like an altar.”

Diana swallowed, her eyes stark. “They want to sacrifice me?”
 

“Yeah, sucks,” Esha said.
 

“Eloquent, Esha,” Warren said.

“Shut up, Warren—some dead guy wants to cut open my new friend here on a big black rock in hell.
Sucks
is one of the nicer words to describe it.”
 

Diana nodded. “So, there’s a spell—probably one that involves my death—that is the key to getting Paulinus out of Erebus?”

“Yes,” Esha said. “I think it is supposed to be an equal exchange. One soul imprisoned so that another can escape. And because you’re the one who put him in Erebus in the first place, your soul is the only one that can get him out. If any soul would work, then he’d have escaped long ago. Hell, most folks in there would be out.”

“So what is Diana supposed to do about it? She has no magic, no way to get to Erebus to kill him. All she can do is look in with Esha’s help,” Cadan said.

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here! I’m not helpless. And I’m sick of you deciding for me.” Her cheeks flushed red. “I killed him the first time—I can do it again if I have to. Which apparently I do.”
 

“Nay.” It was all Cadan said, but she jerked as if she’d been slapped, then turned to glare at him. He was getting her out of here, and they were going to talk.
 

“
No
?” She asked, her voice vibrating with rage. “You dare to tell me no? You have no say over what I do! I know better than to trust you after what you’ve done.”
 

“What
I’ve
done?” He was at her side in a second, grasping her arms once again and staring down at her fiercely. She matched his gaze, the dead look in her eyes drowned by rage. “What about you? You’re the one who left!”
 

He could hear Esha and Warren talking, but through the buzzing in his head couldn’t make out their words.

“
Lef—”
Diana started to yell back at him, but before she could finish, Esha and her damned feline were at their side. Without warning, she sucked Cadan and Diana through the aether and within seconds. they were standing in his flat in Edinburgh’s Old Town.