“Why are you tirelessly seeding halflings and renewing ancient alliances?” Hekate asked. “To battle what foe?”
Nïx breathed, “The Møriør.”
The other goddesses tensed at the mention of the Bringers of Doom. They didn’t speak of the Møriør lightly.
The Valkyrie seemed unaware of the stir she’d caused. “All the harbingers are there. They descend upon us. Though the Accession exists to cull the immortal population, mortals and gods alike should fear this one.”
Lamia offered, “Nïx would sense them first,” and earned glares.
Skathi’s flames grew and grew. “You took it upon yourself to plan a defense against the Møriør? You toy with the fate of the entire Lore, Valkyrie!”
“Not defense. Offense. Why come out of the dugout for anything less? I’m not interested in a farm league. Which is why I’m here. Only a divinity—with this pantheon’s resources—could unite all of the factions.”
“You believe you can lead the charge? Against them?”
“Review: transcript of this meeting. See: farm league comment.”
Skathi drew her head back. “All of your sarcastic—”
“Multilayered.”
“—answers will not help your cause. You’re very flippant about these proceedings.”
Nïx’s playful demeanor vanished in an instant, her amber irises swirling, mercurial. “Because I’ve already seen the outcome.”
“And what is that?”
“You’ll move to dismiss my petition, telling me that I must have a cause—an area of power, a specialization of sorts. After all, you are goddess of the hunt, the Great She-Bear is goddess of shapeshifters, Lamia is goddess of some-some.”
When Lamia scowled, Nïx shrugged. “I calls ’em like I sees ’em.” Then she addressed all the goddesses: “You believe that this area of power must be a critical one. Since foresight has been taken—hat tip to the goddess Pronoea—you expect I’ll come up short. Yet, in fact, I’m going to reveal my specialization, and all of you will comprehend the inevitability of it.”
Skathi pursed her lips. “Thrall us, Valkyrie.”
Nïx paused dramatically. “I will rise from the ashes of the old ways to become Phenïx, the goddess of . . . accessions.”
THIRTY-NINE
In the belly of the beast, stygian darkness was interrupted only by glowing green filth.
Thronos had awakened to find himself trapped against a pulpy surface, held upright by meaty tentacle-like veins that snaked around his arms and legs.
Oozing cavities covered each vein; at that moment, one secreted green sludge onto his disintegrated clothing, his skin, his wings.
Pain flared, smoke rising. Acid! The putrid air was noxious, scalding his lungs. He thrashed—the need to fly surging inside him—but he couldn’t get loose.
Nïx had given him just four minutes to get himself and Melanthe free.
He darted his eyes to his right. Lanthe.
She was in the same predicament as he—attached to what looked like a stomach lining, surrounded by sizable glowing pustules. She remained unconscious, no doubt believing them still in Feveris.
Acid had eaten away parts of her skin as well, even most of her metal breastplate. The indestructible dragon gold around her neck had protected her to a degree.
A pustule burst beside her, thicker tentacles emerging from the sore to sweep up bits of her pale flesh.
To consume her.
With a bellow, Thronos thrashed with all his might, yanking at his arms. As the tentacle trapping his right arm stretched, he gazed out, spotting thousands more immortals ensnared, unconscious. The stomach walls seemed to go on for miles.
In a rush of bile, the tentacle vein around his arm ripped open. He used his claws to slash another. At his legs, he hesitated, peering over his shoulders and then down. Hundreds of feet below him, a bubbling pool of green acid awaited his fall. How damaged were his wings?
Praying they could support him—and Melanthe—he freed his legs. He plummeted, unfurling his wings, grimacing in pain. But even in the dense miasma, he was able to ascend the wall back to her.
Though he heard eerie moans from a legion of beings, he couldn’t think about anyone but his mate. Nïx had told him that this stomach was too thick to slash through, that he’d be drugged again before he could fight his way free. She’d warned him he had only two hundred and forty seconds from the time he awoke until a poisonous mist would be dispersed, wiping away his memories and sending him back to the place of his most coveted dreams.
He darted a glance over his shoulder. On the opposite wall of the stomach, some kind of bulbous gland, at least twenty feet in diameter, was swelling. To emit the mist?
Running out of time! A portal was their only hope. He flew to Melanthe.
Thronos wished he didn’t have to wake her until he’d taken her from this place—he’d heard of Loreans faced with such horror that they never recovered their faculties—but he had no choice.
Gripping the tentacle vein coiled around her arm, he slashed at the rubbery surface, pointing the acid-dripping end away from her body.
Her eyes shot open. She sucked in a breath—then released it in an earsplitting shriek.
He redoubled his efforts, attacking another tentacle.
“No, no, this isn’t happening.” Her face crumpled. “Tell me it’s not eating my skin!”
“Melanthe, you have to calm yourself. You’ve got to create a portal.”
Her head thrashed against the putrid lining, searing strands of her hair clear away. “That’s why it felt like I was burning in Feveris!” Once he’d freed her and taken her into his arms, she latched onto him. “M-make this stop! I’ll do anything. Just make me wake up!”
“We are awake. But if we don’t leave this place, we’ll be here for eternity. In Feveris, you restored your power.”
“You said that wasn’t real!”
“Didn’t it feel real?” He wished to the gods it had been. “You have power, right now. I need you to use it. Remember, it’s a muscle.”
She darted her gaze at her surroundings, a series of cries bursting from her lips. That gland swelled, threatening to burst.
“No, look at me!” He pinched her chin. “I know you can do this.”
Her tears threatened to spill, wrecking him.
He rasped, “You can do this, lamb.”
At that, she said, “I-I’ll try.”
When her eyes began to glitter, he murmured, “That’s it.” He felt her tensing in his arms. Despite her terror, she called up her power; he could perceive it welling, unstoppable.
Could others? Unconscious captives moaned louder.
Sorcery sparked around her, growing and growing, blazing out from her like dawn—pure, pristine blue overwhelming rancid green.
Dimly, in the back of his mind, he wondered how he’d ever considered the light of her sorcery anything but . . . wondrous.
Heartbeats passed.
She sagged against him.
“I did it,” she gasped.
“Where?” He spun them in circles. No opening. The mist would come at any second.
“It should be here! I made a portal. I felt it happening.”
The gland erupted, spewing a green fog. “Damn it, no!”
Relaxation stole through Lanthe’s body. “This is better.” She grinned up at him as her eyes slid closed.
“No, stay with me!” Another turn. Nothing. “Where is the bloody portal?”
With dread, he looked down. A narrow tear in this reality lay waiting—one surrounded by piping acid.
When the portal started to close, he muttered a prayer, wrapped his wings around Lanthe . . .
And dropped.
As they plummeted through the rift, he realized some being had followed.
FORTY
Lanthe woke to the resounding silence of the sea.
When she opened her eyes, she saw murky ocean pressing down all around her and Thronos. In the dim light, his face was set with pain as he struggled to hold on to her and get them to safety.
They’d been freed from that nightmare—only to reach another one.
She clasped him tighter, so he could use both arms to swim. The water was lightening. At least there was a surface!
They were halfway there when her lungs reached their limit. She clawed him, needing air . . . about to involuntarily breathe water. He swam even faster, his heart pounding against her ear.
They breached the surface into a stormy day, sucking in misty breaths as they rolled on giant swells. She blinked against sea spray, trying to get her bearings.
“Where are . . . ?” She trailed off when Thronos’s head craned up. She twisted to look over her shoulder, saw water all the way up to the sky.
Inconceivably high. About to crash over them.
He’d already kicked for propulsion, shooting into flight. But if he couldn’t get high enough . . .
Her mind couldn’t accept the size of the wave—like a mountain of liquid toppling over. “Faster, Thronos!”
His jaw was clenched, his heart sounding like it’d explode. “Don’t let go of me, Lanthe!”
When the swell began to crest over them, he rotated in the air, wrapping his wings tightly around her. The wave collided with them so fast the water became as solid as brick.
The momentum hurtled them toward the coast, a jagged stone cliff. When they crashed into it, the rocks tore his wings like a monster with fangs, trying to rip her away from Thronos.
They clung to each other.
The wave sucked them back out to sea.
They clung harder.
The force raked them over coral reefs—before catapulting them back against the wall.
But when it receded the second time, they . . . remained.
Somehow Thronos had clung to the cliff with one quaking hand.
Gritting his teeth, he leapt higher, pulling them out of the wave’s reach. The next crest slapped just beneath their feet, foam licking their legs, but it couldn’t catch hold of them.
He hauled them up until they’d made the top of the cliff. At the edge, he shoved her ahead of him onto solid ground, then followed.
They lay on the stony ground, heaving breaths, coughing seawater. Beneath them, the cliff shook with each crashing wave.
“Melanthe, speak to me,” he said between gulps of air. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head. Again, he’d kept her cocooned for the most part. “Just some wounds from . . . from where we were.” Swatches of her skin had been loosened by the acid, then sucked away.
She’d been food. Still would be, if not for Nïx. Except that the Valkyrie had sent them there in the first place! Why, why, why?
Most of Lanthe’s breastplate was gone; the scant remains of her skirt clung to her hips. “How long do you think we were in . . . there?”
“Could’ve been hours or days,” he answered. “Even weeks. I doubt our conception of time in Feveris corresponded to the actual duration.”
“Right.” She would never have words to convey to anyone else how horrific it’d been. Only Thronos could understand those tentacles, the pus, the burning.
Lanthe shuddered. She simply couldn’t think about that place right now without losing her ever-living shit.
When he rolled toward the edge of the cliff, scanning the waves as if searching for something, she noticed that one of his wings looked worse than normal, those scale mosaics even more skewed.
“How bad off are you?”
Over his shoulder, he said, “I’ve got a forearm and a wing snapped. I might’ve cracked my skull. Nothing major.”
That all? “What are you looking for?”
“I think someone—or something—followed us out. It was difficult to see in there, but I believe I spied a being.”
“Anyone who followed is probably dead. No one could break free of that current.” She frowned. “How did you?”
“I’m not as weak as you think me.” As if to prove his point, he lumbered to his feet. His shirt had been either eaten away or torn free; most of his leather pants had disintegrated from acid. “I’m an immortal male in my prime.”
“And that was the equivalent of an immortal current. Our bodies should have been dashed to pieces.”
“Well, they’re not.” He reached a hand down, helping her stand.
As he steadied her, she asked, “Do you think we had supernatural assistance?”
“Is it so difficult to believe I did that on my own?” He stared down into her eyes as he said, “Maybe you make me strong.”
He looked so earnest about this, she decided not to argue the point. “In any case, thanks for getting me to safety. We keep saving each other’s asses, don’t we?”
“That’s the way it should be, no?” He seemed to be asking more than just that simple question, so she changed the subject.
“Where do you think we are?”
“I have no idea.”
She turned her attention to herself. Though her necklace was unharmed, her breastplate was beyond salvage, the irregular edges cutting into her already damaged skin. She unfastened the last stubborn clip, then dumped it. Not that she cared, but her hair was long enough to cover most of her br**sts. In the back, her locks had been eaten away, an involuntary bob cut. Her boots looked like acid had been drizzled over them, but at least the soles covered most of her feet.