The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  “What the fuck are you?” Rienna shouted now, her voice echoing angrily through the cave and Belias raised his eyebrows with distaste at her outburst.

  “I’ve never heard you curse before, but it doesn’t suit you,” ‘Belias’ told her arrogantly, as if the word coming from his mouth sounded any less tasteless. “Do you remember the shade Erised? That pitiful elemental that finally lost his long, long battle with Nuriel?”

  A pit had formed in Rienna’s stomach and she couldn’t speak so she nodded.

  “Of course you do; you still weep for that idiotic couple, after all. He came sneaking into Sea Star’s realm where I lingered pathetically in despair. It was good of you to claw at my reflection after you let that clumsy oaf deflower you on the anniversary of the night we fell in love, by the way; a nice cold way of telling me you had so easily moved on.”

  Rienna’s misery deepened with every chilly word he threw at her. She started to wish he would beat her; this kind of torture was so much worse.

  “But you asked me a question that I so rudely neglected to answer. Erised visited me, a pathetic smear of a shadow and made me such a tempting offer; to give up his power, his old soul, to me to become the Shade that ruled them all, not just among the living again, but with eternity and more power than I could imagine at my disposal. How could I say no? I would be able to be with you again, but now that I’ve seen you again, my wretched little bride, I have realized that my heart no longer has love for you after all. Ah, don’t cry, my dear; I do still want a husband’s rights, after all, and you do so enjoy sex even without love, so it’s a win-win situation.”

  Rienna shook her head as his slow steps brought him closer. She shrunk away from him and her tears fell piteously.

  “No, Belias, don’t do this. I love Ashe now; you told me to move on and I was miserable without you but I did!” she begged him as she pressed her back into the wall, ineffectively hoping to slip through it.

  Belias laughed with cold amusement but did not stop his steps until he stood directly in front of her and she could feel his breath on her neck. She opened her eyes reluctantly to see he stood there watching her, a cold mockery of the smile she once loved on his handsome but frightening face, those once pale blue eyes were crimson, his hair not just pale blonde, but now snow white and brittle. She did not see any resemblance to Ashe there at all, nothing that endeared her to him as she watched with horror the lust filling his eyes. It was not a hot lust but it burned more painfully in the way that frostbite did. She tried to shrink away more, sure that the cave was leaving a clear impression on her back, not caring that it might be cutting her to ribbons. Adrenaline might be her only pain relief for what was to come.

  His hands stroked her bare midriff but did not linger long as he followed the curve to her thighs. Despite how hard she clamped her legs together, he separated them with the ease that a hot knife split through butter, wedging himself between them. He undid his pants with slow deliberation, letting her watch him free his ready erection and Rienna struggled in a panic to escape. His cock swayed large and veiny, the veins as black as his soul. Within moments, her unhappy screams and cries filled the cavern, matching the unwanted thrusts as he violated her. The shadows murmured with excitement as the cruelty continued unabated.

  When Rienna awoke again, her cheeks stung with the misery of her tears and her wrists and arms were caked with the blood of her struggles, the pain of her limp body weighing on them. The cavern seemed empty; no whispering shadows, no sign of Belias. Her inner thighs were badly bruised and there was blood drying there also as evidence of his abuse, as if the intense pain lingering there needed any such reminder. She had sworn that whatever foul appendage entered her had moved unnaturally and swelled to the point of nearly tearing her in half. Her lips were chapped and she was cold, her teeth chattered as she tried to test her hoarse voice.

  “S-s-s-s-Sea Star…” Rienna whispered almost inaudibly. “Can you hear me?”

  Despite the fact that she had not expected her to, Sea Star did appear and the elemental looked miserable, shining tears on her face as well.

  “I am not strong enough to stop Belias; he may be new, but his pact with Erised has made him stronger than Erised had been…” Sea Star weakly told Rienna.

  “You never told me,” Rienna accused her.

  “It is as he said, Rienna, I am so sorry. I did not trust the waters that have failed me so much and some told me of his fate, others had assured me that he had passed on in peace. What he said was true; corruption in my waters, shades mingling with undines,” Sea Star told her unhappily.

  “Can you free me?” Rienna asked, tired of hearing excuses.

  Sea Star hung her head and Rienna’s heart sunk, already anticipating an unhappy answer.

  “I cannot; the magic is too strong. I will look for your friends and try to lead them to you. It is the least and the most I can do, my child. Please stay strong. I leave you with my protection, it will keep you alive, dampen the pain, but you must endure,” Sea Star pleaded and then she was gone. Sea Star’s reach would be limited—she would not leave Rienna unprotected, to bear the full brunt of the Shade’s wrath. Rienna had not been wrong about his invasion; her human body would not have survived the violation intact without her intervention. Yet, Sea Star knew that would be no consolation and kept it to herself.

  Rienna would have wept in despair, but she was tired and sore and she passed out again, her only respite from feeling anything and she welcomed it.

  Pierait and Lyria had not exactly shown up on Elcarim together but they had been lucky enough to find each other rather quickly. The two of them were visited by Mot and warned of the kind of place that Elcarim was, more fully than the others, but again they were lucky. Pierait learned that his powers could make him a beacon for the others to find, but a beacon that might draw Viper to them first. Pierait would take that risk since he believed that Viper would at least wait to strike when all of them were together again; it seemed to be his style. Getting them together was of dire importance; the illusions would break his friends down rather quickly if they lingered here too long. It was also fortunate that while Pierait acted as a beacon, they would be immune to the illusions but they would have to sit put in this place, possibly for many days, until the others could reach them and Pierait would be in a trance state, not sleeping but not awake either. Lyria worried, but Pierait did not think twice in accepting.

  Pierait took a seat in the clearing he chose and let the pinkish purple light of the souls swirl around him, swelling larger and towering as a column into the sky. The beacon had spread to a 20-foot radius around him, easily large enough to be seen at a great distance. Lyria worried as she saw Pierait there, his golden eyes having become white and they did not blink. As they had agreed on, Mot then put Lyria into a sleep that she would not wake from unless the beacon were disturbed or Pierait stopped it. They waited, hoping their friends would be drawn to it.

  Melchior was the first to see the beacon appearing, but he did not go towards it. Something stronger was pulling him to the west and he kept to his course. He would eventually go towards the tower of light, but for now, he was resolute to keep at his path.

  Verity and Krose on the other hand had seen the towering light and had been immediately skeptical. They had both told it that it was an illusion but the light did not fade and they dared to hope that it was leading them towards their friends.

  “The stories in my village once said that the light of All-Souls was that color. It may be Pierait that seeks to gather us,” Verity told Krose now.

  Krose nodded but didn’t look happy. Elcarim knew this too and it could be yet another attempt to prey upon their hopes only to crush them. He did not trust Lumina to know the full extent of what this place was capable of, sleeping or not. It bothered him that this place was supposed to be so well guarded a secret but it would sleep with the old gods rather than be on full alert. What did that mean about the power of the old gods? As much as he wondered at
the truth, he knew that he probably would never get the answers he sought either.

  “All the same, I’m sure that Viper sees it too and that fool is putting himself in a lot of danger to do it.”

  Verity knew Krose would be right about that too, but right now, it was their sliver of hope, a thing that could take their focus off of whatever terrifying illusions might still await them.

  Viper had used his machines to watch over the little rats in the maze that had so foolishly followed him here. This little horror show amused him greatly, glad that the old gods were as perverse in their protection of privacy as he himself was. They wouldn’t have stood a chance if the place was awake, but Elcarim could give them enough rope to hang themselves with. He would sit and watch them get chipped away. The beacon greatly displeased him though. The once-Soulless brat was going to shorten the game, but he supposed he would allow it. The games he set up only amused him for so long and the world’s end ahead seemed more appealing with each passing day. He was tired of the flaws of organic life and bored with how easily he could predict the rest and when the toys in his games broke as they so often did, he would have to go through all the trouble to find more pawns to torment. Every time had to be more spectacular than the last and he so quickly exhausted those possibilities over time. Even finding out that the old gods were as perverse as he only thrilled him for a short while as it only left him wanting to wake them for a final game to end all games.

  It would be too easy to just smash the naïve boy and his stupid girlfriend but he wanted the fools to meet, crushed by madness and possibly watch them kill each other with the distrust this place liked to dish out. The illusions seemed to need time to build before they struck, but his machines had no such limits to the mischief they could cause. He watched and waited and did not plan. Impulse led to much more satisfying changes in the game.

  Not all illusions were openly dreadful, as Ashe was discovering, and it seemed that although Ashe did not deviate from his path to the south the scenery was obviously repeating and he was frustrated that his progress was hindered. He felt more than a little silly saying it out loud and that he had waited a day and a night to do so, but he took a breath.

  “Nice try, Elcarim, but I’m done with the illusion,” Ashe mumbled and when the scenery shifted it became more obvious from the large circular trail he had left in the grass that revealed itself now that once he had started down the ridge he climbed when he first got here, he hadn’t gone far beyond it before Elcarim played its tricks.

  However, once the veil had lifted he noticed a towering beacon of light to the south, the direction he had been heading to before and had little time to be frustrated for allowing the illusion to grip him for so long. He did now know if this was one of Viper’s traps or if it was one of his friends, but it was certainly not part of an illusion and the only damned lead he had as he wandered this aggravating and deceptively lovely realm now.

  Ashe tried not to succumb to doubt; he had wasted a day but then what was time here? There was no game plan now and he had no idea if he would see his friends again but at the very least, he had a purpose. The thought made him wonder about the desperation the Soulless must have felt not having a Purpose or straying from it. Right now, his own purpose tethered him from letting panic overtake him.

  Dinsch clawed methodically at the earth and so far he had managed to dig nearly 20 feet and still saw no sign of Rienna. Digging made him nervous here; he knew this enigmatic land was suspended high in the air and there was no way of knowing how deep he could dig without risking the ground crumbling away and falling straight through the continent to plunge to his death. If Rienna didn’t mean so much to him, it would paralyze him with fear. He did not have any illusions that the Mother who had saved Finn and Verity would be there to reassemble his mangled body when it shattered on the surface of the ocean. After digging 5 feet down rather quickly, he wasn’t so anxious to keep up that pace as he dwelt on that.

  Digging had been a calming thing for him on Vieres; it was in his blood to dig to secure a hiding spot. Bryfolk weren’t quite the artisans that dwarves were, who often carved their cities down into mountains and through stone, so Dinsch did not feel confident about his ability to test for weaknesses here. If it gave way even the smallest bit, it wasn’t impossible that the cave-in could be more like an avalanche, only with a ton of dirt and air and nothing to grab onto before certain death. The further he dug the more he was chilled with a feeling he never had while digging before, the feeling of digging his own grave. It did not sit well with him. Already he had tried calling Girdinus, but he had guessed the gnome wouldn’t be able to find his way up here and so far that guess had proven to be right. Then again, the gnome was forgetful as all hell and had strange priorities anyway.

  The dirt seemed damper the further he went, which was usual, but it started to get sloppy like mud after a hard rain and it was more difficult now to clear it away. He was covered in the muck up to his elbows; the bottom of his body up to his chest was painted in the filth as well. Dinsch had to stop several times up to that point already, to rest and to fight the dread that he felt the deeper into the earth he went. He plunged his hand into the watery slop and frowned as his hand closed around some kind of spongy small object.

  When he pulled it up, dark crimson pooled from that spot and he tried to figure out what it was he was holding but it was far too muddy to make out anything about it. He held it in one hand as he removed the flask from his belt and unscrewed the top with his teeth, spitting out the bit of mud that got in his mouth. He poured the water over the object he held and the color left his face.

  He held a large brown and white rabbit tail, the bone still inside it, a bit of blood still clinging to the fur where it had been severed. He dropped it and pushed himself away from the bloodswirled mud as far as he could, although he had not made the hole too wide. He was scooting back on his ass, the mud wall at his back and something roughly the size of a coconut landed in his lap. In his horror, he noticed it was a Bryfolk head and not just any but the head of his beloved Seles, the eyes clouded with the film of days-old death.

  Dinsch screamed in horror and shoved the head away, clamping his eyes shut and trying to grasp at his sanity.

  “It isn’t real, it isn’t real, this place is full of illusions,” Dinsch babbled hurriedly like a mantra or a wish he desperately needed to be true. He was reluctant to open his eyes, but when he did, the blood, tail and head were all gone and the mud itself wasn’t quite so wet anymore. Dinsch heard a rushing of feet from above and his panic came rushing back as he stared up out of the hole with dread.

  It was Melchior that appeared there, to Dinsch’s relief, and he was frowning down at Dinsch with his hands on his hips and an eyebrow cocked up curiously.

  “I know Bryfolk have gotten out of bigger holes that this,” Melchior pointed out derisively.

  By way of reply, Dinsch scrambled out the hole effortlessly, his eyes narrowed at Melchior.

  “This place is booby trapped with some pretty sick illusions. You obviously haven’t had the displeasure of finding that out yet,” Dinsch said with a glum tone.

  “Illusions have you screaming like a fishwife?” Melchior snapped back skeptically. He inspected his muddy comrade now and frowned, pointing at his own right eye. “The eye’s healed. Were you with Rienna?”

  Dinsch managed to look both guilty and impressed as his own frown deepened.

  “Yes, and the earth swallowed her here. Hours ago, I’m guessing, and I can’t find any sign of her. I’m thinking I’ll fall through the damn earth before I ever find her this way,” Dinsch explained morosely.

  “Why the hell didn’t you call your elemental?” Melchior chastised him, which only rewarded him with an evil glare.

  “You think I didn’t try? I don’t think gnomes can fly,” Dinsch shot back, seething with building anger.

  Melchior waved it off. He hadn’t even attempted to call Nuriel himself and from the way he had heard Dinsc
h screaming, he counted himself lucky that whatever ‘illusions’ had terrified the Bryfolk hadn’t decided to visit him in his ignorance of how to handle it.

  “What was this about illusions now?” Melchior changed topics.

  This time, Dinsch waved it off.

  “They’re not real but when you notice, you have to say they aren’t really there. Out loud, you know?” Dinsch said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I sure as hell wasn’t expecting to see Seles’ head falling into my lap.”

  Dinsch shivered involuntarily as he tried to shake the image out of his head. Melchior’s eyebrows shot up, realizing this place wasn’t fooling around and wasn’t too thrilled about the idea of anything pulling his past into the light to use against him. He wished that fucking unicorn had been a little clearer but he guessed it could have cared less about enlightening him.

  Melchior sighed heavily and shook his head.

  “Sorry, friend, I guess I ought to try calling Nuriel,” Melchior apologized and concentrated on summoning Nuriel through his gauntlet.

  Nuriel had appeared, to Melchior’s great relief, in a swirl of flame but Melchior had jumped in shock as a swift blue flash knocked Nuriel several feet away. Once the mess cleared, he noticed an unhappy Sea Star heaped on a very pissed off Nuriel. Sea Star frantically swirled into her usual hover in the air, swimming in a figure eight and clearly agitated where Nuriel took his time gathering his composure. Dinsch and Melchior maintained their confusion as Sea Star seemed to favor Dinsch to speak to.

  “Rienna’s in serious trouble, earth child!” Sea Star stuttered out, not at all her usual cool self as she grabbed his shoulders and shook him ungently.

  Melchior stepped forward frantically, grim worry dominating his face. Nuriel watched with irritation and impatience, not bothering to mask his disgust and arrogant displeasure at having been summoned so inelegantly. Fire and water were not very fond of each other anyway.