The Chosen Soul (8 page)

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The Chosen Soul

Raven crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her gaze. Her brother watched

her for a moment and then sighed. He shrugged and ran a hand through his fine hair.

“Fine. What do you want me to say, Raven? I know who your father is? What do you

want me to admit to you? That I know he’s truly evil – a
devil
, in fact – one of the most powerful in Abaddon?” He realized that his voice had been rising, and he paused, took a

deep breath and turned away from her. He moved to a nearby tree and leaned against it,

his gaze once more on the ground. When he spoke again, his tone was still troubled, but

controlled.

“Do you know his name, Raven?”

Raven stared at him. She knew her father’s name. She’d known it since she’d frozen

the bars in her cell. And she’d been filled with dread, because upon the realization, she

had also recalled that he was the very devil that Haledon hated. She swallowed and

blinked, not wanting to answer him.

There were nine circles of Hell, or Abaddon. Each was guarded and ruled by a devil

overlord, an arch fiend of vast age, wealth and power. The Eighth Circle of Abaddon was

known as Caina, an everlasting realm of ice and death. Caina was as cold as Nisse, the

Ninth Circle, was hot. And its king was her father.

Her brother waited patiently.

“Yes. I know his name.” She would not speak it, however. It was not good to speak a

devil’s name. There was much power in a name. “I’ve known since that night in the

guardhouse. I didn’t take the keys from the guard as you’d planned. He never came.” She

fell silent for a moment and took a shaky breath. “I had to freeze the bars to get out.

That’s how I knew…”

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Heather Killough-Walden

Loki watched her for a long quiet moment. And then, finally, he nodded in silence.

“Then you know that he is the Lord of Ice, the Ruler of Caina, the Bringer of Winter. He

presides over the Eighth Circle of Abaddon and is the second most powerful fiend in

Hell. He answers only to the Lord of the Ninth Circle.” Here, he paused and took another

deep, steadying breath. “And he is Haledon’s greatest enemy.”

Raven watched her brother in silence. Then she looked away and gazed at the yellow

blossomed tree in the distance. Her chest ached. She wondered, as she stared at its gently

swaying blooms, if her brother blamed her. Did he hate her because she was the child of

his favored god’s enemy? The last thing in the world she wanted was to lose the love of

her brother.

A part of her yearned to apologize.

But a larger part of her refused. It wasn’t as if she had chosen her father. On the

contrary,
he
had chosen
her
. And she was not so certain that she
was
sorry, anyhow.

After all, it was this heritage of hers that had saved their lives at least once now. Where had Loki’s god been when she was laying beneath the weight of a man intent on raping

her? It hadn’t been Haledon who broke out the bars of her guard house cell and freed her

two nights ago.

She chewed her lip and pushed a lock of long black hair from her face. The ache in

her chest grew and she wondered what to say.

“I’m sorry, Raven.”

She straightened, suddenly, and turned to face him. She hadn’t been expecting to

hear that.

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Loki stared at her, his eyes repentant, his shoulders slumped. “I love you, Raven. I

always will. You’re my sister now, as you were before, and nothing will change that.” He

pushed away from the tree and came to stand before her. “I’m so sorry that I waited until

now to tell you that. I don’t ever want you to doubt that I’m here for you.”

Raven sagged against him as he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m an ass,” he said,

and she could feel him shaking his head over her shoulder. “Forgive me?”

She wrapped her own arms around his chest and squeezed, closing her eyes. “I

forgive you.”

They stood there a few moments more, and then he pulled away, straightening her

gently as he did so. She blinked a few times, looked at the ground, and turned away,

pretending to hide her movements as she wiped a few stray tears from her cheeks.

Loki waited for her to turn back around before he smiled and suggested that they

keep moving. She nodded and pointed at the tree she’d been staring at.

“That’s the next one.”

Loki’s gaze narrowed and he chewed the inside of his cheek. “I could swear this is

getting us nowhere. Some of these trees even seem to double back.”

Raven thought for a moment. “I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but it also

seems like some of them appear where there were none only moments before.”

Loki nodded. “I have. What do you make of it?”

Raven shook her head. “I don’t know. Papa used to tell stories about the forest. I

remember that he said a lot of strange things can happen in here. But, we have nothing

else to go on, Loki. And I doubt that Minea and Manus have any reason to lead us in the

wrong direction.”

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Heather Killough-Walden

Loki turned to look at her, and their gazes held for a moment. Then he sighed. “Very

well. We’ll continue on. At least for a little longer.”

They made their way to the tree with the cascading yellow blossoms and looked up

at it. As they had done many times before, they then turned away from the tree and

searched the surrounding forest for the next one. Raven spotted it immediately and

pointed it out.

They began to walk toward it.

And then Loki stopped in his tracks, his head cocked to one side. He held his hand

up and Raven stopped beside him. He placed his fingers to his lips and listened. In a

moment, he said quietly, “Do you hear that?”

Raven had been listening as well. She could make out the faint sound of distant

voices, a man and woman, arguing about something. She nodded. They followed the

sound, their steps slow and cautious. As they moved, the voices grew in volume.

“Over my bloody hide!” a man yelled.

“Daddy, you’re being unreasonable! Someone has to go to market, and you’re

incapable,” a woman retorted, her tone carefully held just in check.

“You’ll not step foot inside that city, I tell you. The Lords and Ladies will steal you

away in a heart-”

“Daddy! Do not speak their names! They’ll hear you.”

Raven and Loki glanced at one another and Loki’s brow raised in interest. They crept

softly to the forest’s edge and peeked out from behind the brambles.

A young, pretty woman, no older than twenty, stood before a bent middle-aged man.

She held his face in her hands and was speaking to him in rushed, rapid tones. His

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The Chosen Soul

expression was one of helpless desperation, the lines beneath his eyes and around his

mouth drawn tight. A cane supported him in one hand, while his other hand, wrinkled,

calloused and dusty, rested lightly on his daughter’s shoulder.

A small cottage sat behind them, nestled between thorny rose bushes on one side and

sunflowers on the other. A dirt path led from its front door to a two-horse stable several

yards away, and then continued on to a thatch-roofed barn. Smoke curled from the

cottage’s single, small chimney.

At first, Raven thought this strange. And then she realized that at some point during

their trek, the heat had let up. It was not nearly as hot now as it had been when they had

left their village. In fact, it seemed quite temperate.

She turned to her brother and widened her eyes questioningly. “What should we do?”

Loki chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then sighed softly. “We

may as well show ourselves.”

Raven nodded, and the two stepped out of the forest, into the clearing.

Their presence immediately drew the old man’s attention. He moved fast for a

crippled man, but his lame leg hobbled as he shoved his daughter behind him and held his

cane out like a weapon. He eyed the two newcomers with a wariness they had never

before encountered.

Raven instantly came forward, gesturing for Loki to remain slightly behind.

She held her hands out at her sides and smiled a warm, gentle smile. “I am sorry we

startled you. We are travelers from a village not far from here. We’re headed to Kriver.

We heard voices and decided to follow them.” She paused as the old man slowly began to

lower his cane. Then she continued, “Again, I apologize if we scared you.”

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Heather Killough-Walden

The man blinked, studying Raven carefully. Then he glanced back over his shoulder

at the pretty blonde girl and asked her something that neither Raven nor Loki could hear.

She nodded and the old man turned back to face them.

“What village are you from?” he asked as his daughter moved out from behind him.

“We’re from Aster Hollow. It’s just a few days from here. In fact, I didn’t realize

you could get anywhere within a few days through the forest, from Aster Hollow. I’ve

always been told that it would take months to find other people.”

The young woman looked up at her father and something unspoken passed between

them. Then they turned back to face Raven and Loki. The woman spoke up.

“Actually, Aster Hollow
is
months from here.” She fell silent for a moment and

studied the two of them very carefully, wariness evident on her youthful features. “Where

did you say you were headed?”

“Kriver,” Loki and Raven answered at once.

“Well,” the old man took a few hobbling steps along the path beneath his feet, and

then gestured with his cane toward the edge of the cottage behind him, “The truth is,

strangers, you’re dead center of Kriver. If you’re not lying, then you’ve come three

months’ distance in a few days. That’s Trimontium right over there.”

Raven and Loki glanced at one another and then moved toward the path and walked

slowly around the side of the cottage. They cleared the small building and were greeted

with an amazing sight.

In the distance, settled at the base of a range of rocky, snow-capped mountains, sat a

vast walled city. Trimontium was the capital city of Kriver, and the largest city in the

known world.

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Raven and Loki stared at it, dumbfounded. Somehow, they had traveled hundreds of

miles in two days. Neither of them spoke for a long while. And then Loki cleared his

throat and, without taking his eyes from the city scape, murmured, “The yellow

blossoms…”

Raven nodded slowly, her jaw slack, her eyes wide.

“I guess I’d say you’re surprised enough that we can believe you’re telling the truth,”

came a gentle female voice from behind them. They pulled their gazes from the distant

city and turned to face the young blonde woman.

“How did you arrive here in such a short time?” she asked.

Loki shook his head. Raven shrugged. "We were told that the path we took would

take less time. We had no idea how
much
less time…”

Loki ran a hand through his fair hair and smiled sheepishly at the woman. She

blushed. And then her father approached, his gaze bouncing from Loki to his daughter

and back again. He came to stand between them, and his daughter visually shrunk back

beneath the weight of his wary vigilance.

And then, suddenly, the old man’s expression changed.

He cocked his head to one side, studied both Loki and Raven carefully for a moment

more, and then turned to face them, effectively excluding his daughter from the

conversation.

“You’ll be heading into the city presently, then?”

They nodded.

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Heather Killough-Walden

The old man chewed his lip, leaning heavily on his cane. “Right. Then, I’ll ask a

favor of you. Please accompany my daughter to the market. I don’t like the idea of

sending her into the city alone. Her brother used to make our rounds for us, but he’s…”

“He disappeared,” the girl interrupted from behind him. “We haven’t seen him in

five days. He went out for water from the well and didn’t return.” She stepped to her

father’s side. Her expression was drawn, her pallor now somewhat more pale. “No one

has seen him or heard from him. He left no trace, no sign. He just vanished.”

The old man nodded sagely. “I trust Tolen to be safe. He is a strong man. He can

take care of himself. He’ll be back.” They all fell into silence. A minute later, the man

spoke again. “Summer, on the other hand, should not be alone within Trimontium’s

walls.” He turned to eye his daughter, and she shot him a warning look. “It isn’t safe.” He turned back to Loki and Raven. “I’ll pay you to accompany her. Two silver when she

returns this afternoon. What say you?”

Raven and Loki looked from the old man to the young woman and then turned to

face each other. They were twins. They’d cultivated a lifelong connection between

themselves, a bond strong enough that they often did not need to speak aloud in order to

communicate with one another. Now was one of those times.

Raven knew what her brother was thinking. It was the same thing she was thinking.

Their astonishment at arriving in Trimontium so quickly was lingering, however, it was

easy to rationalize, and its shock was currently being overshadowed by the realization