Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 1) (34 page)

She felt Cadan’s hand squeeze her shoulder as if to keep her from trembling.

“Good. Here—” Esha stepped forward with her hand outstretched. “These are invisibility charms.” She dropped a necklace into her hand and another into Cadan’s. Diana closed her fingers around it tightly. “As long as it’s around your neck, you’ll be invisible. The charm will wear off in a few hours, though. I’ve added a little extra something so that you’ll be able to see each other, as long as each of you is wearing yours. If only one is wearing it, you’re screwed.”

“Thanks. You made them?”

Esha nodded. “Took a couple tries, but since I can’t go with you I figured I’d try to use my magic this way. Send a little bit with you.”

“I appreciate it. I can use every bit of help I can get.”

“Then you’ll like this.” Esha pulled a pack off her back, unzipped it, and withdrew a large piece of stiff leather. “It’s an enchanted breastplate. It will help protect you from weapons and some magic.”

Diana’s throat tightened at the effort Esha was putting into keeping her alive. “You charmed this too?”

A rough chuckle escaped Esha. “No. The spell is better than anything I could manage. It’s Andrasta’s. She wanted you to have it for this, so she dropped it at my place last night. She said she hopes it helps.”

“It will.” Diana unfastened the buckles and shrugged into the ancient armor, turning around so that Esha could fasten it. “Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” Esha said.

“Is this the only entrance?” Diana nodded toward the crevice.

“No, but it’s the one closest to the portal that doesn’t go through any heavily trafficked sections of the underground. We don’t want to run into anyone, and since I can’t transport everyone at once, we’ll just walk.” Esha turned, and after shooting Warren a quick glance, headed toward the crevice.

Diana wanted to look up at Cadan, but couldn’t. She teetered on the edge of a breakdown, and even a little bit of sympathy would push her over. She couldn’t afford that. She had a plan. What she didn’t have was another option. Fate might say she was supposed to die, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.

Esha led them through the crevice in the wall. It expanded to let them enter and the air immediately took on the old, stale scent of abandonment. Esha handed out flashlights that she pulled from the bag thrown over her shoulder.

Diana flicked hers on to provide light for Cadan to hand out their weapons now that they were hidden within the underground. He unzipped the case he’d brought and handed her Boudica’s sword, then strapped a quiver of arrows and a small bow to his back. His sword came out last, though she knew he had a dagger in his boot as well.

“Ready?” Cadan asked.

She nodded and the four of them set off down the tunnel, crunching over rubble and animal bones.
 

They arrived at the chamber with the portal and Diana immediately started to breathe more shallowly from the stench. Stale air became dead air and her stomach dropped when Esha gestured toward the far side of the room to where the portal had opened. She still couldn’t see it, but within moments she would be walking through and leaving her body behind.

When her soul tore away from her body, would it hurt? She assumed it had to, and it became harder to drag air into her struggling lungs. The desire to run back out into the sun was nearly overwhelming. She reached blindly behind her for Cadan’s hand. She wasn’t sure if she could do this.
 

He came up behind her and gripped her hand, laid one upon her shoulder and squeezed. “You doona have to do this,” Cadan whispered into her ear.

“Yes—yes, I do.” Her stomach jumped and her extremities trembled, but she had to do this. For all her bravado, she really didn’t have another choice. “I can—”

Her words were cut off as chaos rocked the chamber. Two tall figures hurtled through the portal. Cadan pushed her behind him, but not before her flashlight highlighted a harpy. It shrieked when the light blinded it, and charged.

“Watch out!” Esha screamed, blasting a fireball from her palm at the harpy that charged toward Diana.

No! If they caught her and took her to Paulinus, she would lose the advantage. Her plan would be dead.
 

“Go!” Warren yelled as he clashed with the second demon. “We’ll hold them off.”

Diana and Cadan took off for the portal, dodging around the harpy that had lost an arm to Esha’s fireball. She grabbed Cadan’s hand, and with one last breath, stepped into the area that she thought held the portal.

She gasped when the world suddenly quieted and darkened.
 

Wait. She could breathe?

“Diana.” Cadan’s voice was awed. “You have your body.”

She looked down at her arm. He was right. She was flesh and blood, as he was. He, she had expected. But she stared at her own arm in joy. It didn’t have the pale translucence of the souls she’d seen here before. Those souls maintained the same form they’d had on earth, but were a pale imitation of themselves.

She was just...Diana. But somehow more, as if taking this last step toward courage had allowed the two aspects of her soul to knit properly together. She felt the strength and knowledge of Boudica running through her veins all the more strongly. Even if her plan failed, she would have Boudica’s strength and skill to fall back on.

“You’re a warrior, Diana. The portal was no barrier to you.”

She hadn’t died? If she still had her body, did that mean that Paulinus was meant to kill her here?

“We can do this,” she told Cadan. And herself.

“Aye, always knew you could.”

She nodded gratefully, then slipped the charm over her head as he did the same. His confidence acted as a buoy for her own.
 

She spun to look at their surroundings. It was the same place she’d visited before. Still gloomy and dark, with a foul yellowish mist creeping along the ground, but
she
was actually here this time instead of just her consciousness.
 

The river flowed sluggishly nearby, winding through the marsh that grew on either side. A vast field of wheat stretched before them that led to the forest where Paulinus had created his altar.
 

She swallowed.

“Which way?” Cadan lowered his hand to the sword sheathed at his side. They hadn’t seen anyone else yet, but she gripped her sword tighter as well.
 

“Toward the forest.”

They set off in that direction, stepping cautiously on the boggy ground. It soon hardened beneath their feet as the marsh transitioned to the field. Gray wheat rose up to their thighs, waving lightly in the foul breeze.

“Go first to the boy, and stay with him.”

“Aye, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you as well.”

She tried to smile, but she was filled with nothing but dark purpose now. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the boy. About her daughters. Boudica had sent him here, and though she understood the rage and pain that had caused her to do so, as Diana she couldn’t bear the thought.

The boy hadn’t killed her daughters; he was just a child. She’d do what she could to make amends. As she couldn’t for her daughters.

They reached the forest and began to pick their way around fallen limbs and branches. Black, leafless oaks twisted and reached toward a gray, starless sky of perpetual night.

Diana froze when she heard the crack of a tree limb that neither she nor Cadan had stepped on. Cadan whirled to face the noise, placing himself between her and danger.

“Hey!” she whispered.

“Just protecting you ’til you get to your final task.”

That was understandable, but either way, she stepped up beside him.

Another twig snapped, this time about twenty feet to the left of the first. Cadan slipped a knife out of a sheath strapped to his forearm and whipped it into the distance. There was a soft thud, and then silence.

“Demon.” His voice was short. “I could see it through the trees. I doona know if it could see us, but...”

His vision was much better than hers, so she nodded. They crept onward, stopping long enough to retrieve the knife from the demon’s corpse. They passed within sight of several wandering souls, but none of them displayed interest in their presence. The charm must be working.
Thank God.

Diana clenched her fist around the sword in her hand when she felt the energy in the air change. Maybe it was the thinning trees, but she swore she could feel it.

“We’re nearly there,” she whispered.

“Aye, I can hear them.”

Damn.
His senses were excellent.

They reached the clearing, which still held the terrible altar with Paulinus standing behind it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Cadan’s head swivel to the left. “There’s a demon, over there in the trees, who’ll do fine for your purposes. It’s guarding the clearing like the others.”
 

“They’re harpies. Watch out for the wings. They hide them on earth, but they’ve got them here.” She pointed to the far edge of the clearing, behind Paulinus. “There’s Vivienne and the boy.”
 

They leaned against two trees, Vivienne bound but not the boy. He stared up at the claw-like branches.

“I’m off now. Good luck. I’ll have you in my sights.” He leaned down and swept her toward him. He pressed a kiss to her lips, gave her a fierce look, and then disappeared into the forest after his prey.

Diana watched him go. She was glad he was here. For her plan to work, she’d need him for backup. She turned toward the clearing and crept forward to get a better look, careful to stay behind trees or bushes. Branches that clawed at her clothes and brambles that dragged at her feet went ignored as she slipped silently through the forest. Finally, she caught sight of Paulinus again.

She began to feel Boudica’s rage rise to the surface.
 

Control it
. That was not the tool she would use here. She wanted so much more than to merely kill this man. She wanted to destroy his soul, to outsmart him, to save herself and Vi and the boy.

So she continued to squint through the gloom, attempting to assess his mood and glean anything she could about his intentions. His attention was rapt, his gaze rabid as he scanned the pages of the book.

He wasn’t actually insane, despite his demeanor, but he was immensely obsessed. He was manic with energy as he flipped through the pages and muttered to himself, occasionally shooting glances back at the boy who sat slumped against a tree. The boy hummed to himself and never looked at his father.

She could empathize with Paulinus. Wouldn’t she be obsessed with the same thing if she had to see her daughters in hell every day for two thousand years? At least she had the comfort of knowing her daughters were in Otherworld, a far nicer place than this.

But she was beyond forgiveness. After what he’d done, she didn’t have it in her. And she wasn’t going to allow herself to be led to slaughter like a goat in sacrifice, which is what he intended for her.

Diana took a deep breath and stepped toward the harpy.
 

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Cadan crept through the forest, silent as he kept to the perimeter of the clearing. The air smelled vaguely of dust and mold, with an underlying scent of decay. Erebus was one of the most fucked-up places he’d ever been. Dark, dank, and depressing; who the hell envisioned this place as an afterworld for warriors? The Vikings had it right with Valhalla—partying, fighting, women. This hole, with its endless gloom and misery, seemed like pretty poor recompense for a life of war.

Leaving Diana on the other side had been one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. His bones had ached with the need to grab her and take her back to the portal. But he’d sworn an oath. An oath that—intellectually, at least—he understood the need for.

She had a point—she didn’t want him making her decisions for her—but damn, he wanted to. Stepping back was something that he never would have been able to do the first time around, and even now he fought his instinct to return to her.
 

But he had to have faith in her plan. This was her fight. And she truly was the only one who could kill Paulinus. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t fix this for her.
 

He paused, stopping to watch her as she crept toward the harpy. With her pale skin and shining hair, she was like an angel in this hell. She was dressed simply for battle, in pants and boots, with Andrasta’s breastplate for protection. She moved gracefully despite it, stopping to crouch at the very edge of the clearing behind a bush.

Taking one last look, he began to move again. He’d counted four harpies when they’d neared the clearing, each positioned vaguely at the noon, three, six, and nine points to act as sentries. The first was left alive for Diana, but he would be nearing the second soon. It took him little time to find it, leaning against a boulder, dead asleep.

He didn’t bother to wake the thing—just leaned down, slit its throat, and continued on. He had to reach the boy, but first, he needed to take care of the two other sentries.
 

The ghostly sound of an owl broke the silence of the night. He crept around the perimeter toward the third and fourth sentries, careful to stay quiet but not needing the charm to help him sneak up on them. It was nothing to slit their throats from behind. He laid them gently on the ground so that their crashing bodies wouldn’t alert Paulinus.