The Night Realm

by Annette Marie

  She let out a relieved breath, then turned to her second problem.

  Lyre stared at her, lust burning in his black eyes.

  Madrigal had almost taken her will multiple times, but she had taken control of his will in only a few moments. Lyre, too, had been helpless to resist her mimicked aphrodesia. It seemed the virile incubi were more susceptible to their own breed of magic than anyone else.

  She dispelled the mimicked aura, letting her natural green energy return. The haze in the room disappeared, but Lyre’s expression didn’t change. Crap. How long until the effects wore off? She cautiously approached him, and his gaze followed her every movement with the watchful intensity of a hunter. A shimmer of aphrodesia unraveled around him, though he had recovered only a little magic in the hours they’d been apart.

  Problem was, weak or not, his aphrodesia was enough to make her heart rate pick up again. Tantalizing heat whispered through her.

  Not knowing what else to do, she placed her fingertips on his forehead and sent the same sleep spell rushing into him. He slumped forward, the chains snapping taut as his weight pulled on his arms. She quickly broke the lock spell on the cuffs and he fell into her. She laid him back, removed the silencing spell on his mouth, then broke the magic-dampening weave on the collar. Once the weave was gone, she wrestled the collar off him.

  Knowing the rest of the Rysalis family could return any second, she touched Lyre’s forehead again and lifted the spell. His eyes flicked open, still black as pitch, but they focused on her face without that predatory intensity.

  “Clio,” he croaked. “What the hell did you do?”

  “I’ll explain later. We have to get out of here.” She grabbed his arm and started to heave him up. To her surprise, she ended up sprawled on his chest instead, her arms trembling.

  He pushed up, lifting her with him, and helped her straighten. “How much blood have you lost?”

  She glanced at the wet bandage. Streaks of drying blood marked the entire length of her arm. “A bit? But I’m only a little dizzy.” So far.

  He swore and heaved himself to his feet, then pulled her up. With fumbling fingers, she lifted his spare chains from around her neck and dropped them over his head.

  “Your bow and arrows are just outside the door.”

  He hauled her across the room and into the hall, holding her good elbow to keep her steady. Were her knees so weak and shaky from the blood loss or from the adrenaline?

  “Hang in there, Clio,” he muttered as he slung the quiver over his shoulder. “We’ll be gone soon.”

  “I’m fine,” she said, but her voice fluttered breathlessly. “How will we get out of Asphodel? Do you know where the ley line in the valley is?”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her down the corridor. “We aren’t going to that ley line.”

  “But Eryx said the other one is heavily guarded.”

  “We aren’t going to that one either. Let me handle this part, Clio. You’ve done more than enough.”

  Gently leaning her against the desk, he turned not toward the staircase leading upward or the door to the underground tunnel where he’d shown her the Underworld’s sun for the first time, but to the wall behind the desk—the one with the deadly blood-magic ward.

  “Lyre?” she whispered. “What are—”

  “Shh. I need to concentrate.” He traced part of the weave, not quite touching the wall. Almost absently, he reached over his shoulder, pulled out an arrow, and used it to nick the fleshy side of his thumb. Blood ran down his wrist.

  She brought her asper into focus, but the room got fuzzy around the edges and she couldn’t make it work. Lyre touched the wall. A five-foot-wide circle of glowing lines appeared, filled with runes and geometric shapes that revolved around the center point. He wiped his fingers through the fresh blood on his hand, then tapped a rune.

  All the runes stopped spinning, then turned in the opposite direction. He rewet his fingers and touched another rune. Everything stopped again. He touched a third rune, and the circle vanished. A whoosh of stale air blew across them, and cracks appeared in the wall, forming the shape of a broad door.

  Lyre pushed on it and the panel slid backward, then glided to the side, vanishing from sight. A dark corridor yawned in front of them, beckoning them onward.

  “Lyre,” she began, “where—”

  A soft scuff—a footstep—had both Clio and Lyre whirling around.

  Dulcet stood in the doorway leading from the upper level, and a gemstone resting on his upturned palm sparkled ominously. Smiling with eerie serenity, he turned his hand, letting the gem fall. It hit the stone floor with a quiet clink.

  Lines of golden light flashed across the concrete, shooting straight for her and Lyre. She didn’t have a chance to shield before they reached her. Glowing bands snaked up her legs, binding her to the floor. Then the wires crackled—and horrific pain flooded her lower body.

  A scream tore out of her throat. Lyre cried out at the same time. Her legs buckled but the binding held her in place as more agony raged through her limbs. With tears streaming down her face, she squinted at the spell, forcing her asper into focus. The weave was climbing her thighs, the pain increasing with each second.

  Lyre plucked an arrow from his quiver. He nocked it on the bowstring as the wires snaked up his thighs and wound around his waist. Pulling the string back to his cheek, he let the arrow fly.

  It whipped across the room and hit the floor at Dulcet’s feet. The arrow shattered on impact and debris flew in every direction.

  The spell vanished. Clio’s knees hit the floor, her lower body aching with phantom pain. She stared, confused. Hadn’t Lyre missed? Why had the spell disappeared?

  She blinked at the spot on the floor in front of Dulcet and realized with a shock of disbelief that Lyre hadn’t missed at all. He’d hit the gemstone—the marble-sized gemstone—shattering it with his arrow. How? How was that kind of accuracy possible?

  He pulled out another arrow and nocked it, the motion so smooth and graceful it would have been utterly mesmerizing under different circumstances. The moment the string reached his cheek, he loosed the arrow.

  Dulcet cast a shield and the bolt struck it in an explosion of sparks.

  “Clio,” Lyre said, strangely calm. “Go through the doorway. At the bottom is a ward—a dangerous one. Can you disable it?”

  At the bottom? The bottom of what?

  “Lyre,” she whispered, “we need to get out of the building and—”

  “Trust me. Disable the ward and I’ll be right behind you.”

  Dulcet ran his hand down the chain of spells around his neck and selected a new one.

  “Go!” Lyre barked.

  With a final agonized glance at him as he drew a third arrow, she dove into the dark corridor. She cast a faint light, illuminating rusted metal walls, and sprinted deeper into the blackness.

  She came upon the stairs so unexpectedly she couldn’t stop her momentum. She jumped and flew down half a dozen steps before landing. Catching her balance and pushing away her growing dizziness, she continued. The stairs turned and kept going. Down, down, down. She lost track of the steps, but they went on forever.

  Somewhere above, something exploded and dust rained from the ceiling.

  She ran until the stairs leveled out. How far below Asphodel was she? Why were they fleeing underground? There’d better be a super-secret escape tunnel down here.

  The small landing ended with another massive security door. As soon as her feet touched the floor, the ward lit up—an enormous circle filled with complex runes and constructs that began to spin.

  The real problem, though, was the way the room was spinning too.

  She staggered into the wall, catching herself before she pitched face-first into the floor. Everything spun around and around in her head, and her vision blurred. Breathing fast, she touched her bandaged arm and found it wet with blood. Her wound had reopened—if it had ever stopped bleeding.

&nb
sp; The ward on the door shifted from green to yellow. With painful effort, she brought her asper into focus. The complexity of the runes, combined with the multi-directional rotations, almost had her on her knees. She swallowed down her stomach and stumbled closer.

  The weaves were pulsing, and she saw that it was counting down. As the color shifted from yellow to orange, the spell prepared to strike. It had to be disarmed within a set time, or it would kill whoever had approached it.

  Knowing her time was running out, she scanned the constructs, searching for the key, for the trigger to turn it off. She just needed her head to stop swimming for one damn minute so she could concentrate!

  The glowing lines deepened from orange to the color of fire.

  She leaped forward and slapped her hand on a rune. A shot of her magic cut through the lines, and the entire ward went dark. Gasping in relief, she leaned against the wall. She was so dizzy. And thirsty. Why was she so thirsty?

  A boom rattled the ceiling and she looked up, knowing she should go back to help Lyre defeat Dulcet—and knowing by the time she climbed back up all those stairs, she’d be useless. She needed to rest for a minute and regain her strength.

  She closed her hand over her wounded arm and squeezed hard despite the pain.

  “Hurry, Lyre,” she whispered. “Please hurry.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Lyre ducked behind the overturned desk as Dulcet’s spell blasted it like a spray of gunfire. Clutching his bow, he gritted his teeth and tried to think through the burning pain and exhaustion.

  How long had his brothers had him chained in that room? He wasn’t sure. He’d lost consciousness during the first round of questioning, only to wake in the lower level examination room where Dulcet had arrived to begin the next round. But they’d barely begun when a series of explosions had rocked the building.

  Lyre wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but Clio’s appearance had almost given him a heart attack.

  He glanced at the yawning doorway, filled with darkness, and hoped he hadn’t made a mistake by sending her down there. But disarming the ward was a safer task than facing down Dulcet. He pressed his back to the makeshift barricade and wondered how the hell he was going to win this fight. His magic reserves were pathetically diminished, and physically, he wasn’t doing much better.

  “Hiding, Lyre?” Dulcet called in a singsong voice. “Come out and play with me. I want to know how you survived my death spell.”

  A magic spark pulsed through the room as his brother activated a new weaving.

  “I worked so hard to make that spell irreversible,” Dulcet continued in a pout. “On the plus side, since you survived, I can test the next version on you. And this time I’ll get to see what happens.”

  Lyre snarled silently. His fingers brushed over the fletching of his arrows, searching for something that could pierce Dulcet’s shields.

  Another pulse rippled through the room. Soft spots of gold bloomed everywhere as though they were standing in a field of stars. The orbs drifted randomly and Lyre shrunk back even though none were nearby.

  An orb floated close to the wall and touched the stone. The sphere ruptured, spikes shooting from its center. A lethal golden starburst pierced the stone and lodged there.

  Well, shit. Lyre pulled his limbs in tighter, but he couldn’t see what was behind him and if one of those lights touched the other side of the desk, it would impale him right through the steel. Grabbing the chain around his neck, he used a precious drop of magic to activate a spell.

  Yellow light flashed out, taking the shape of a dome that passed through the desk and floor, protecting him from every angle. Once it had formed, the light solidified into a transparent barrier.

  An orb drifted closer and touched his shield. It splintered into spikes that tore right through the barrier. The starburst hung in place, its longest spears only a foot away from Lyre’s flesh.

  Dulcet laughed softly.

  Lyre hunched his shoulders as a second, third, then fourth orb connected with his shield and burst open, tearing more holes. The barrier wouldn’t last much longer. He gripped the chain around his neck. He couldn’t defeat Dulcet, not like this. But he didn’t need to beat his brother. He just needed to delay Dulcet long enough to make a break for it.

  His fingers closed over a gemstone. It would require a lot of magic to activate—most of his pathetic reserves. But it would delay Dulcet. For how long, he couldn’t be sure. With no better plan, he snapped the gem off and flooded the weave with power. A fierce glow lit the stone.

  In the same motion, he dispelled his barrier and flung the gem into the center of the room. It hit the concrete and light raced across the floor and up over the walls. From the gem, a larger bloom of light rose like a cloud, materializing into a rough shape. With a final flash, the spell manifested.

  A beast rose onto its short hind legs, drool hanging from its jowls. Its massive shoulders bulged, its white mane shifting against the dark fur that covered the rest of its body. It swung its thick arms wide, giant claws spread. It was identical to the rock bears that inhabited the desolate peaks of the northern mountains, except the creature shimmered with a golden hue.

  Dulcet cackled. “Impressive illusion, brother. Do you think I’m so easily frightened?”

  The bear lumbered forward, fangs exposed. It passed right through the glowing orbs without touching them, heading straight for Dulcet. His brother folded his arms and smirked when the bear raised a bulging arm and swung it.

  The giant paw hit with a bone-cracking thud and Dulcet flew into the wall.

  Not just an illusion. An illusion and a hell of a lot more.

  It wasn’t a match for a master weaver—or even most warriors since it followed a choreographed set of simple movements—but Lyre hoped it would keep Dulcet busy for a few minutes. Leaving his creation to do its job, he crawled beneath the drifting orbs and into the dark threshold. Jumping up, he sprinted into the darkness.

  The stairs went on and on, descending deep beneath the building. When he whipped around the last corner and saw Clio slumped against the wall beside the door, his heart seized in his chest. But before he could panic, she tilted her head and squinted at him. His heart stuttered back to life and he rushed to her side. Her face was ghostly pale and her smile didn’t reach her dull eyes. He glanced at her arm. The wound under the strips of fabric had to be deep, but he didn’t have the time or the magic to heal it.

  They didn’t speak as he helped her up and wrapped an arm around her waist. Kicking the heavy door open, he pulled her into the space beyond.

  Her steps faltered. “What … is this place?”

  It wasn’t a room so much as a cavernous chamber of stone and steel, the rough walls supported by lines of rusting pillars. A handful of iron doors were embedded in the rock on one side, but it was the structure dominating the space that held Clio’s attention.

  Steel beams and heavy cables in coiled bunches formed two towers twenty feet apart. Between them, a band of bluish-green light crackled and danced like arcing electricity.

  “This,” Lyre muttered, “is Hades’s most dangerous secret.”

  “But that looks like …” Disbelief crept into her tone. “Is that ley line energy?”

  He nodded and steered her past the towers, giving them a wide berth, then pushed her into a jog, heading into the pitch-black emptiness of the chamber’s farthest end.

  “How can there be ley line energy down here?” she demanded, clutching his arm. “Why is it going through that—that machine? How is it even possible to—”

  “Can we talk about it later?” he asked, increasing their pace. The cavern’s back wall loomed, a darker shadow in their path. “I could only delay Dulcet, and I have no idea how long before he—”

  A metallic bang reverberated through the chamber. Lyre jerked to a stop so fast that Clio fell. He couldn’t pause to help her as he spun around.

  Dulcet charged toward them, moving unnaturally fast. Shimmering light coated
his legs—a speed-enhancing weave.

  Lyre snatched three arrows from his quiver and nocked one, the other two pinched against his palm as he drew the string back. A pulse of magic down the shaft activated the spell on the head, and he loosed the arrow.

  It shot through the darkness, hit Dulcet directly over the heart, and shattered against his defensive shields.

  Lyre nocked the second arrow, activated the spell, and loosed it. Dulcet laughed as the spell hit the exact same spot and splintered in the exact same way. He stormed toward Lyre, closing the distance fast.

  Flipping up the third arrow, he activated the spell, took aim, and shot again. The bolt flashed across the mere twenty yards between them and struck Dulcet in the same spot for a third time—and the arrow lodged in his chest. Light flashed, and electricity erupted over Dulcet’s body. He crashed to the ground, convulsing and paralyzed.

  Lyre grabbed Clio’s arm and hauled her up again, already running for the back of the cavern.

  “You hit the same spot,” she babbled, “three times!”

  He shook his head. It hadn’t been that difficult. Dulcet, trusting his protective weaves, hadn’t tried to evade, but Lyre had developed his arrows to pierce shields. It might have taken three bolts to the same spot to break the weave, but it had been enough to get that one spell through Dulcet’s defenses.

  Knowing it would identify their location but with no choice, Lyre cast a small light to illuminate their path. The cavern wall loomed, rising fifty feet before it was lost in ancient stalactites.

  “A dead end?” Clio yelped.

  “No, this way.” He yanked her to the left and there, ahead of them, was an irregular opening—the entrance to the underground cave system. More strength energized her steps as they ran into the tunnel.

  “Where does this go?” she asked, panting for air. “What’s down—”