“Everywhere you go there are hotspots, patches of earth that are more sensitive than others, and those patches, they create doors to the Underworld.” Malia explains rather frantically.
“Are you telling me that we are inside the Underworld right now?”
“Sort of. It’s more like we’re at the entry level. If we find our way out of here we’ll be safe. Good thing time moves a lot slower down here so even if it takes us a while to find our way back not much time will have passed on earth.”
“There’s six of us and three of them. Why did we run?”
It’s an honest question, one Malia has an answer for. “Do you know how to kill a Reaper, Bay?” She challenges my brother. He shrinks under her heavy gaze. To me it only makes her more attractive. A beautiful woman who, with one look, can bring a grown man to his knees. “Lucky for you I do.”
“How do you kill something that’s already dead?” Felix counters.
Niykee watches Malia’s expression, her own expression thoughtful. She dips her head, knowing the answer just by the smile on Malia’s face. “With their scythe.”
“It ah, it’s actually called a Reaper Blade, but yes. Those Blades, they don’t just have the ability to cut through bone. They have the ability to eat your soul. With each soul a Reaper’s Blade devours it makes them stronger, as well as the Blade. It’s tasted so much blood that if they were to be stabbed with it, they’d be devoured themselves.”
“If?” Niykee blurts out. “You mean you don’t actually know?”
“Believe it or not I don’t make it a habit of wandering into hotspots, but I know people who have. This will work, and they’re not Hunters so they’re not immune to our powers. If we can just disarm one we should be able to kill them, but remember, if we find the entrance to the hotspot we might not have to fight at all.”
“What does it look like?” Bay asks.
“Look for anything that looks out of place. Like a tree with branches that start, but don’t end or a patch of dirt two different colors.” Everyone looks confused by the directions, but I know exactly what she’s getting at.
“Where this patch of woods ends and where the one in Ironport begins.” I say, unable to hide my intrigue.
“Exactly.” Malia smiles and I feel like Amara and Roman when they’ve just bonded over a mutually loved book. They used to get this look in their eye that I couldn’t understand. A twinkle in her eye. Malia has that same twinkle.
And I sound like an idiot.
“Well alright then. Let’s look for the door and try not to die in the process.”
When we emerge from the cave the wood is dead silent. Either the Reapers are far from here or they lie in wait, ready to strike. Either way we venture out, searching the woods for the doorway back into our world.
While I search my mind drifts, to the first time I was here, in the Underworld. There we’d discovered that Kol was Theon’s pet, a traitor to his father, his whole country, but most importantly, Amara. The second time I was there for under ten minutes, retrieving Clea’s soul. Barely enough time to get into any scrapes with the Reapers. It makes me uneasy, knowing how profoundly little we know about this world we’re living in. I ask myself on a daily basis if I’d go back to my human life, just to be normal again. The truth is I don’t know the answer anymore. Maybe it would be better, because Tristan and Braylie would still be here. Or maybe we’d all be dead, like Clea was.
The first attack comes from above. The Reapers hover in the air, like silent death. They go for Malia first. They sense her strength and they exploit it, knocking her legs out from under her. She hits the ground with a thud. The rest of us swarm her, yanking her to her feet.
“Bay was right about one thing.” I say from behind Malia, steadying her at the shoulders. “We outnumber them two to one. They can’t come at all of us at once. Everyone run in a different direction. Bay, we’ll keep them off your back. Just keep searching for the rift.” Bay nods, determined. “Alright. On three. One…”
“Two…” Malia says.
“Three.” All at once the three of us dart off in different directions, swerving through trees, jumping over branches. Felix and Bay move like it’s an art, like their magic tells them where each root is in the ground or where every hanging branch might knock them on their ass. They avoid it all, with grace.
Malia isn’t so swift. She’s an excellent swordswoman, but I don’t think she spends much time running. I hear her gasp from somewhere far away, hitting the ground again.
I call to my magic, sending a thick, leafed branch whistling through the air. It lands on one of their heads and his hood damn near comes off. I’m not sure I want to know what they look like underneath. Luckily I never find out. He’s back on his feet in moments, advancing on us.
Niykee appears behind him and I see the black flame curl down her arm like a snake about to attack. It lights the Reaper up like a tree. He panics, jumping around, trying to rid himself of the flames until he realizes this is more than flame. It’s death. He knows it and knows it well. He chokes, giving Niykee the opportunity to try for his Blade. But when she touches it she leaps back with a piercing scream as if she’s been burned.
The Reaper spins on her, but Felix moves the earth beneath his feet, sending him flying. “Niykee,” I shout, running to her. “Let me see.” She shows me her shaking palm. I expect blisters and charred skin, but what I find is something much worse. Her palm is black and decayed, as if whatever material the Blade is made out of ate away at her skin. “Holy shit.”
“Aaric, it burns.” Niykee cries. Unfamiliar fear surges in her blue eyes.
“I know. I’ll take the pain away, I promise.” I coax her. I hover a hand above hers and my magic ripples through me only to be snuffed out when someone’s shoulder collides with mine. I clamber to the ground, taking Niykee down with me.
I cut Bay a daggered glare. “Sorry.” he mutters. “But I found it.” Behind him Bay points to a patch of woods where I can see Niykee’s bag sitting in the middle of the dirt path. It’s one she’d dropped when we entered the rift. Around the rift trees recede into it, cut off. Beyond it new trees start, but the most obvious difference is on the other side the sun shines while here the moon above pierces the dark night surrounding us.
“Malia, he found it!” Felix shouts to her where she’s currently fighting a losing battle with one of the Reapers.
“Fee,” I call to him, eying Malia.
Felix understands and wastes no time manipulating the earth around her. The trees curl around the Reaper like they’re as alive as us and Malia manages to stumble back before getting ensnared in a collection of moving branches and tree trunks.
“Let’s go!” I howl at Malia.
She scrambles to her feet and runs for us. All at once we start running for the rift. Niykee is as hysterical as I’ve ever seen her as I watch the black death work its way up her arm.
“Holy shit.” Bay gasps when he sees it too and I shoot him another daggered glare.
“Wait.” I stop abruptly, digging my feet into the dirt so I don’t tumble over. My eyes scan the wood. “Where’s Roman?”
“Run!” Roman screams suddenly, running up the hill. Beyond him a hoard of Reapers swarm his back.
“Fuck.” I grit out, shoving Niykee and Bay forward. “Fucking run!”
We tumble through the rift, landing in a patch of sunlight. A scream rips from Roman’s throat and when I look back there’s a Reaper’s claw-like hand curled around Roman’s neck, holding him captive on the other side of the rift.
Niykee, even in her agony, sends a black fireball the Reaper’s way. It releases Roman, squealing like a wounded animal.
Roman reaches the rift and I tug him through. The rest of us scramble away from it and watch the Reapers all retreat as one.
Silence falls over us for a time while we catch our breath, another narrow escape from the jaws of death.
“Aaric,” Niykee cries, reminding me that I still have one more thing
I need to do.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” Malia cradles Niykee’s wounded hand in hers and, to my eternal surprise, healing magic curls at her fingertips, slowly returning Niykee’s skin back to its sun-kissed golden color. “Better?”
“Yeah,” Niykee says firmly, probably feeling embarrassed. Niykee doesn’t like being vulnerable, especially not in front of strangers.
“How did you do that?” I ask Malia accusingly. “Your element is nether. Nether users can’t heal.”
“No,” she says evenly. “They can’t.”
“So how did you do it?”
“With ether magic.”
“Can…” I almost stop myself from asking the question because I know it is impossible, but everything about our world is impossible. So I ask anyway. “Can you do both?”
Malia pauses for what feels like forever before she finally answers. “Yes.”
—CHAPTER TWENTY SIX—
AMARA
FIRE
12 YEARS AGO
For the moment the house is silent. Nothing to be heard, but the sound of my feet creeping across Keenan’s creaky floorboards. When I reach the spot where he’s hiding he grabs hold of my wrist and tugs me down next to him.
“Keenan,” I cry out. “You scared me.”
“Sorry, Mara.” Keenan says. His bright blue eyes are the only thing I can see in the dark.
A scream rips out of me when another crash of thunder rumbles through the house, sending me deeper into Keenan’s arms.
“Hey, it’s okay.” Keenan’s hand brushes back my wayward bronze curls. “It’s just thunder.”
“I don’t like it, Keenan. Make it stop.” I cry, twisting my tiny arms around his neck.
“It’ll stop soon, I promise.”
“Keenan?”
“Yeah, Mara?”
“Do you ever feel like the world could just fall apart at any moment?” I ask him. “Like it’ll break?”
His hand moves over my back and I think he’s thinking about my question. “Sometimes.”
“I don’t want it to break.”
“Look at me.” He pulls me back far enough so we’re face to face. Then he pauses and his eyes fall on mine. “Do you remember last year in school when they taught us about the big triangle-looking buildings they had in the old world?”
“The pyramids?”
“Yeah. Remember how they said they were strong and solid and could withstand anything?”
“I remember.”
“Well, the world may break. I don’t know, but I do know you and me, we’re like the pyramids. Solid. We’ll never break, okay? We’re solid, like a pyramid.”
“Solid, like a pyramid.”
“Exactly.”
Keenan is so close I can feel his breath on my lips. I wonder what it would feel like to have his lips touch mine. His blue eyes widen when I try it. I press my lips to his and it’s cold…and wet, yet oddly makes me feel warm. Then I throw my arms around his neck once more. “I love you, Keenan.”
He’s quiet for a long time. Then finally he says, “I love you too, Mara.”
Every time I wake up Keenan is either lying in my bed with me or he’s asleep in a chair beside me. This morning he’s in the chair. His hand slips, making his head fall forward. He startles himself awake. Blue eyes flash up at me when he hears me laughing.
My laugh seems to bring a smile to his face. “Something funny?” he asks in playful challenge. I bite my lip, fighting another laugh. “I have not heard that laugh in quite a while.”
“Haven’t had much cause for it.” I say softly.
He moves from the chair to my bedside, brushing a strand of hair away from my eye. “How are you feeling, love?”
“I’m so cold, Keenan. Has Bastian found a fire user yet?” I ask desperately. When I feel again how warm he is I tug him down into the bed with me. I have no less than five blankets piled on top of me, but it’s only his skin on mine that brings me any warmth.
Keenan curls his fingers around mine, tugging gently, kissing my cold knuckles. “He’s got one in the cells. A Borderline, but he’s refusing to help at the moment. Bastian is trying to uh…persuade him to help you.”
“Persuade?” I shrink back from him, but don’t disentangle his hand from mine. “You mean torture?”
“He’s going to help you whether he likes it or not. Bastian is simply trying to make sure he doesn’t try to hurt you while he does.”
He avoids the question, but I don’t call him on it. The thought of a complete stranger who hates Bastian using his magic on me distracts me from it.
That’s when I realize something. I spent nearly a month in those cells with other Borderlines. I might know the fire user they’re trying to use.
“Who is it?”
“His name’s Hurik.”
“Uri?” I say, using the nickname Missy, Finn, and I had given Hurik considering his mother’s cruelty in naming her poor son. She’d named him Hurik because he’s a fire user and Hurik means small fire, but in the month that I’d known him he’d loved me for giving him a cool new nickname.
“Uh, I suppose, yes.” Keenan says, not seeming to understand the nickname at first.
“He’s not going to hurt me. I spent a month in the same cell as him. He’s my friend.” Keenan’s expression deepens into one of doubt. “What?”
“Was your friend, Amara. Even the people you made friends with down there won’t hold true to those old feelings when they see you’ve not been executed like the rest of them, that you’ve been given a place here, in the palace, in the king’s court.”
I grimace, not wanting to believe what he’s saying is true, even though I know it is. Even I hate me, forced to dance for the devil king, just to survive.
Keenan mistakes my begrudging acceptance for fear that I might not be cured. “But don’t worry. Bastian will get him to see reason. You’ll be fine. Just sleep. When you wake he’ll be here to cure you, I promise.”
All this excitement has made me tired and I slink down into my bed. Keenan tugs the covers up over my shoulders and I settle into his arms, into his warmth.
“Keenan?” I whisper.
“What is it, sweetheart?” he whispers back.
“I was right. Our world did break. So did we.”
Keenan tenses behind me, remembering what I know I was remembering in my sleep. Our pact to always be solid, like a pyramid. “I know I said we were beyond repair, Amara, but I was just being cruel. That’s all I want, is to be your solid rock again.” He pauses as if considering carefully what he says next. “I didn’t think you remembered that.”
“That or the fact that you were my first kiss?”
I can feel his lips tug up into a smile at the back of my head. “Both.”
“I remember. I remember it making me feel cold and warm at the same time.” My next thought is more for my own personal curiosity than for any hope that he could chase away my chill, but I turn to face him, pressing a hand to his chest. He winces under the coldness of my skin. “Maybe it’ll work again.”
Keenan shifts uncomfortably, his eyes landing on my lips. He can’t seem to draw them away once he realizes what I mean.
“You’re not gonna shy away from me now, are you, Volterra?”
Keenan starts to laugh and I cut him off by sealing my lips over his. I dig my fingers into his shirt, tugging desperately. His lips are warm against mine, just like the rest of him. He fills me with the fleeting warmth I hoped he would.
Keenan threads his fingers into the hair at the back of my head, pulling me deeper into the kiss. I let go of so many fears and doubts in this one kiss. I know it can’t last and I still don’t know if I can ever forget what Keenan has done, but maybe I won’t have to live with this hate. Maybe he won’t always be my enemy.
Neither one of us wants to break the kiss first. We’re both content to live in it for as long as we can, but eventually I have to catch my breath. I pull away gently, both hands gripping the sleeves of
his shirt.
Our eyes find each other at the same time and we release one another from the gaze only when we hear someone at the door. I turn, wary of it being Grayson here to visit his sick little cousin. Instead I find Bastian standing there with Uri. There are two guards at his back, holding him in place so he doesn’t try to run, feeble as that may be.
Bastian clears his throat deeply, making me recoil from Keenan. There is hurt deep in Bastian’s milky blue eyes, but he shrugs it off quickly. “Feeling better I see?”
It’s a jab and all I can do is stare back at him innocently. He wanted this. He set up this marriage to begin with so why is he angry? To the naked eye it would look like I’m finally accepting it. If only he knew I’ll be long gone before we can even start planning our wedding.
“I—we were just—”
Keenan comes to my rescue when he sees me drowning. “Finally got the fire user to cooperate?”
“He’ll behave lest he lose a hand…or two.” Bastian adds. “Try commanding fire with no hands to wield it.”
Keenan stands, pushing off the bed and I follow suit, grasping his hand. It’s for my comfort, though I sense the strength it gives him, my hand tucked away in his, the way it should have been for years. “Is this going to hurt her?”
“I don’t know, cousin. Probably.” Bastian sighs. “But I see no other choice.” With a flick of his hand the guards draw Uri near.
Uri’s a handsome fire user, with the flaming red hair to prove it. His eyes are a deep, russet brown, same color as the rags he wears. I see a look of hurt in his eyes and it stings like nothing else.
Keenan tugs me forward gently. “Long time no see, Bo.” Uri says, using the nickname Finn had given me when he realized my last name was such a mouthful.
“Uri,” I want to say more, but for once I am at a loss for words. What do I say? Sorry I made it out and you didn’t? Sorry you look like hell? Sorry for the way the king is looking at me, like I’m a cool drink of water in a scorching desert.
“Stunning as ever.” He forces a smirk, though the hours of torture weigh heavily on him, even if he doesn’t appear to have a scratch on him. Air users are masters at torment. They can torture you for days on end and never leave a mark. Uri tugs my hands into his, pulling one of them from Keenan’s. “Shit, Amara.” Uri says, shivering from the icy chill my skin must send through his body. “This might hurt.”
Savage Reign Page 29