Spring's Vampires. Withered Rose: A Reverse Harem Fantasy Romance (Soulmates of Seasons Book 3)

by Eva Brandt

  “Get them!” the Hecatoncheires predictably bellowed.

  Just like we had hoped, the giants were distracted once again. Baltasar and Cezar had bought me a little time, just enough for me to go through with my mission.

  As the giants ran after my friends, I followed them, already reaching into the satchel. From there, it was a simple matter of using my power to channel the magic hidden in the blooms.

  The flowers withered at my touch, but it did not matter. The gift Veggie had given us stayed behind and when I upended the bag, a cloud of nectar fell upon the giants, glowing like a rain of shooting stars. A little boost of my magic increased its range and potency, and the effects instantly showed.

  The giants froze in their tracks, stumbling over one another and flailing in confusion. The massive number of heads and hands made the scene look like something straight out of the grotesque comedies pure blood nobility fancied this century in The Voievodat.

  “W-What?”

  “What is happening?”

  “What are they doing?”

  Despite their confusion, the giants did have enough presence of mind to notice the source of the haze that had settled over them. Several of their heads looked up, at least three dozen pairs of eyes fixing me with identical vitriolic gazes. It made no difference. The nectar had already worked its magic—quite literally—and the giants no longer had the strength and speed to reach me.

  They still made a valiant attempt to catch me, but they were utterly unsuccessful. In a perfect mimicry of what had occurred between Eranthe, my friends and me, they slumped to the ground, now completely unconscious.

  Yes, I thought as I landed next to their limp forms, everything happened for a reason. I had felt foolish, angry, and maybe even betrayed when Eranthe had used the sleep enchantment on us, but in the end, it had led us in the right direction.

  “That went well,” Cezar said as he and Baltasar jogged to my side.

  Baltasar poked one of the giants with his toe, but the creature didn’t stir. “Surprisingly so, even.”

  “What, do you think it was too easy?” I arched a brow at him. “Don’t you remember what Eranthe’s lieutenants said? The hard part hasn’t even started yet.”

  We still had to get past countless other creatures to find Eranthe. We still had to convince a certain boatman to let us cross his river. And assuming we accomplished all that, we still had to find an exit.

  “I can’t argue with that,” Baltasar replied. “I guess we should hurry then. It would be best if we could make it out before the pollen wears off.”

  I deemed Baltasar’s assessment a little optimistic, but that didn’t change a thing. We still left the giants where they were and ventured deeper into the underworld, in search of our missing spring goddess. We might not be able to get out before the giants awakened. We might not be able to get out at all. But we would not abandon hope. We would do our very best, regardless.

  Ten

  Forgetfulness

  Eranthe

  My three undead guests were my soulmates. In hindsight, it made so much sense. I felt stupid for needing a handful of strangers to point out what I should have never missed, to begin with. I had seen Cassia with her own soulmates. I should have noticed the similarities.

  I hadn’t, and now I was paying the price.

  Clenching my fists, I glowered at the centaurs. Orthrus, at least, had the decency of looking regretful, but they just smiled at me smugly, as if they knew they had me trapped.

  A feeling of unbridled rage erupted over me. I had hated the concept of Fufluns keeping me trapped here and turning me into his plaything, but in my heart, I had not feared it. This, though... This was entirely different, and I could not stomach it, not even long enough to buy me the time I needed to come up with a real plan to free myself.

  Plans didn’t matter anymore. I refused to be kept here against my will, even for one second longer. I refused to let these people get away with their crimes.

  “Tell me something,” I whispered. “Who actually came up with this little scheme? Was it you? Fufluns? Someone else? Who?”

  It couldn’t be them. They were just subordinates, inhabitants of Hades who had no real say in anything. On the other hand, it this had just been about Fufluns, Orthrus wouldn’t have acted the way he had earlier. He wouldn’t have pretended he fully supported the former king of The Realm of Eternal Bounties.

  Someone else was involved here, someone who, for whatever reason, wanted me trapped and secluded in Hades. But who?

  “We can’t answer that question and you know it, Your Majesty,” one of the centaurs said. He seemed to be trying to sound respectful, but he abysmally failed.

  Orthrus said nothing, but something in his stance reminded me of the first conversation we’d had when I’d woken up in Fufluns’s residence. I didn’t need to ask such questions. He had already told me the identity of the culprit behind my predicament.

  There were only so many people whom the inhabitants of Hades truly obeyed. Fufluns was not among them. Queen Persephone was.

  I wondered if her lord husband knew she was trying to find a replacement for herself so that she would no longer have to stay by his side. Perhaps Hades had an arrangement going on with Fufluns too.

  Either way, it was clear that playing nice would not help me. I would not be getting out of here unless I forced them to release me. No matter how torn apart my magic might be, I would do exactly that.

  “You’re not wrong,” I told the centaurs. “I do know, but in the end, it doesn’t really matter, because neither you nor the people whose orders you follow can keep me here.”

  Fire rushed through my veins, as bright as the inferno that burned in the depths of Tartarus. “I’m not afraid of you or of Hades. And I will burn this whole place to the ground before I allow you to harm my soulmates.”

  Truth be told, I did not know if that was actually possible. The energies of Elysium might very well be capable of neutralizing all my skills, no matter what their nature might be. At that moment, though, I truly felt both capable and willing to destroy the beautiful, if fake, meadows and fields in front of me. My anger had reached such depths that I would not have been surprised if I learned it affected the Cosmic Tree itself.

  As energy started to gather around me, the centaurs grew visibly alarmed. “Your Majesty, you need to calm down,” one of them dared to say. “You are going to hurt yourself.”

  “What I need is to return to my homeland and not be told that I am going to be used as a weapon against my soulmates. But you have no intention of allowing that, do you? Not that I care.”

  I might have been the avatar of spring. I might have been a nymph. But I had something else, another advantage, a power I’d never truly used, a power that, to a certain extent, I feared.

  I knew it was foolish. The fire that lived in my blood was my birthright and my connection to it was as true as my link to the warm earth of Tis Ánoixis. But at the same time, I still remembered that day, that dreadful day when Cassia had faced off against Snegurka, on the river bank of the Amethyst. I had been only a girl and I’d helplessly watched my sister fight the ice queen with so very few chances of success. Tarasia had held me back so that I wouldn’t run to Cassia, but I’d still crossed the bridge half-way and gotten a close enough look to truly understand what had happened.

  Cassia had never really known it, and I hadn’t had the courage to tell her, but I knew. I knew that it was her elemental affinity to fire that had made her such a perfect vessel for Snegurka’s abilities. But at this point, I also had to accept that without those very same powers, she might not have survived Snegurka’s attack at all.

  My father might have failed and abandoned us, but he had still given us a gift. I would not spurn it, not anymore.

  As I finally made my decision, the grass beneath my feet began to burn, leaving behind scorched, dark earth. I watched the fire consume everything in its path and found that the sight didn’t affect me in any way. Normally, h
urting a plant would have felt like a form of self-harm to me, but this was different. Even the blades of grass here were a manifestation of all the cruelty and deception the rulers of the underworld were capable of.

  The centaurs stumbled back, pale and wide-eyed. “Impossible.”

  “Very few things are impossible,” I replied. “You were right about one thing. I am a queen of life and of death. But the death I can bring to you is not one any of you can control.”

  “B-But, how...?” Orthrus stammered. “You’re a spring goddess. Aren’t you?”

  My heart softened slightly at his trembling voice. Despite my anger, I didn’t have it in me to actually hurt him, or even the centaurs. At the end of the day, this wasn’t truly their responsibility. They were, in their own way, victims of the gods’ whims as well. None of this had truly been their decision, and so far, they hadn’t attacked me.

  “I am so much more than that,” I answered, shaking my head. “Get out of my way, and I will not harm you.”

  The centaurs tightened their hold on their bows, clenching their rugged jaws and trotting nervously in place. “I’m afraid we can’t do that, Your Majesty.”

  “I thought you might say that.” I sighed. “So be it.”

  The fire came to my fingertips with startling ease. It spread out from my feet like a star, pushing my enemies back. I expected Orthrus to display some kind of immunity to the heat, as he had the blood of immortals flowing through his veins as well. He didn’t. If anything, he reacted even worse, jumping back and snarling, his eyes suddenly filled with feral panic.

  I supposed the nature of a sun god’s magic was very different from that of an infernal hound. Flame could be many things. It could torture and it could purify. I just happened to wield the latter type, which was mostly incompatible with the former.

  “If anyone tries to punish you for my absence, just blame me. I’m sure your... employers will be too busy trying to track me down to get too mad at you.”

  I doubted my words would convince them, and in all honesty, I didn’t blame them for it. I wasn’t being truthful anyway. I actually had no doubt that the rulers of the underworld would take their anger out on Orthrus and the centaurs, if only because they had told me the truth.

  But as regrettable as that might be, I could not stop it. My responsibilities and my heart beckoned me elsewhere.

  Increasing the intensity of the magic, I pushed them back, forcing them to yield in the face of my brute power. I had next to no experience when using this kind of magic, and the subtler nature of my regular abilities only made it tougher for me to grow accustomed to the heat.

  I wondered how Tarasia had done it. I knew for a fact that she’d struggled when she’d received the powers of the avatar of summer. I could still remember her screams and the scent of burnt flesh, from the day we’d undergone the power transference ritual together. Even so, it had never occurred to me that I should try to help her in some way. I was a terrible sister, as well as a terrible soulmate. I would fix both those things soon, once I got back to the surface.

  With the centaurs and Orthrus no longer a threat, I retraced my steps and headed back the way Orthrus and I had come. Finding a way down would be tough, so I would just follow the river and see where I’d go from there.

  Orthrus caught up with me just as I reached the stream. “Your Majesty, wait. Be careful with the water. It’s dangerous.”

  I looked down at the stream still in my path, the waterway that appeared to be the only escape route I had. I would have been inclined to believe that he was just trying to stop me from leaving, but a memory nudged at the back of my mind, sending shivers down my spine.

  All of the rivers in Hades had some kind of strange property. The one that adjoined Elysium was, if I wasn’t mistaken, the Lethe. It was the river of oblivion, and if you drank from its waters, you would forget all of your memories from your past life. My breath caught as I realized what I’d narrowly avoided through Orthrus’s intervention.

  If I’d gone through with my original plan, I would have likely never gotten far. By the time I reached the edge of the islands, I might have forgotten why I wanted to leave.

  “This really is a well-crafted cage,” I said, clenching my fists. “Thank you, Orthrus. I appreciate the warning.”

  He might have had his own ulterior motives for helping me. Maybe he had been instructed to keep me from turning into a brainwashed slave of the underworld. That didn’t make me any less grateful for his aid.

  “If at any point you decide Hades isn’t hospitable for you any longer, do feel free to drop by Tis Ánoixis. I have a two-headed messenger bird you’d get along with wonderfully.”

  Orthrus stared at me like I’d suddenly decided to mimic him and sprout a second head. “But how do you even intend to go back, Your Majesty? You cannot possibly find a way out, not with everything that is in your way.”

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll come up with a solution,” I replied, shrugging. “You should know something about my family and me, Orthrus. We’re very resourceful. It’s precisely when we’re cornered that we’re at our most dangerous.”

  In that way, my sisters and I were all alike. It was an unavoidable result of our parentage. It had once led to Cassia almost killing Snegurka at age ten. I was not Cassia, but the situation was still similar. I could follow my sister’s example and beat the odds, just like she had.

  I stared at the crystalline water still joyfully trickling through the deceptively verdant grass of The Islands of the Blessed. Lethe. The river of forgetfulness. A river full of magic, right there, at my feet.

  It wasn’t just a path or a barrier. It was potential.

  I knelt next to it and let my fingers hover over the liquid, luminescent surface. Now that I was closer, I could definitely feel the power emanating from the water. It reminded me a little of the lake in The Forest of Purity. How could it not? Its core nature was identical, both of them having the ability to touch and channel the power of the mind.

  Did I have the strength to overcome its usual purpose and bend it to my will? Could I risk it?

  Something tugged at my insides, and a knowledge I hadn’t previously had stirred inside me. Three voices suddenly seemed to sound in my head.

  “We can’t lose her.”

  “We won’t be able to fight him now, but we can still find her.”

  “We’ll do whatever it takes, even track her down to Tartarus.”

  Emotion surged through me, powerful, true, and so earth-shattering it threatened to make me lose control of the unfamiliar power I was trying to channel. My vampires had done something to anchor me to them, to be able to find me here. The thread of magic that lingered over me was discreet, but it had held on despite the strain my journey to the underworld must have put on it.

  How had this happened? I didn’t know. I didn’t understand it. Was this what it meant to have a soulmate? Had Cassia felt this way when she had met her dragons?

  I doubted it. As far as I knew, she hadn’t drugged or taken them captive.

  But I couldn’t compare myself to my sister in every single thing. Every relationship was different, and I was lucky enough to have found something precious. I might not completely understand it yet, but in my heart, I knew I could trust it.

  Taking a deep breath, I plunged my hands into the stream and cupped several mouthfuls of water in my cupped palms. As I closed my eyes and drank, I knew my life and my world would never be the same.

  * * *

  Cezar

  Being part of the royal family of The Voievodat meant that I’d never once had to worry about lacking money. In one way or another, my pockets were always full, and wherever I went, I had all the coin I could possibly want.

  Today was, apparently, the day that would change.

  I’d lost my money pouch in the shipwreck that had landed us on the shores of The Realm of Eternal Youth, along with all our other supplies. Even so, Eranthe’s lieutenants had generously provided us with everything we n
eeded for our journey through Hades, so there should have been no issue. In a perhaps unsurprising twist, it didn’t go as we had hoped.

  As a rule, Charon only asked for one piece of silver to allow a soul to pass into the underworld. In theory, I had far more than that on me, so we could have easily paid. In practice, he was being an asshole and was refusing to let us use his barge.

  “Technically, you are not souls,” he pointed out, absently flicking some grime from underneath his long fingernails. “One single silver piece is hardly enough to sustain you.”

  Were we really going to have to haggle our way into the underworld? This was ridiculous.

  I knew it was a recipe for disaster to succumb to his demands outright, but I didn’t exactly have a choice. “All right. How much do you need then?”

  For a few seconds, Charon seemed to consider my question. “Well, the budget for the Styx docks has been a little tight lately.” He hummed thoughtfully. “We need to purchase some sacred olive wood, and the prices have risen so much as of late. It’s truly a travesty. You’d think we’d get a discount because we perform a public service, but no. Those damn Messengers of Hermes. They know they have the monopoly on such products and take shameless advantage of it.”

  Charon was doing the exact same thing since he pretty much controlled the passageway into the underworld and if he wanted to, he could leave the dead stranded on the shores of his river for centuries. I refrained from pointing out that little tidbit. I didn’t think it would help.

  Instead, I waited for Charon to finish his rant, which ultimately led to us being forced to listen to a recipe of the hawk stew he wanted to cook using the two offending Messengers of Hermes, Hierax and Daidalon. It was very creative and might have even been popular in some parts of Terra Bestias and The Voievodat. It also bored me, as I had other priorities than listening to the bargeman seethe over his trivial budgetary problems.