As Cannon groans and swipes the flail at my stomach, I turn and dive. I have to get that flail; use the chain to choke him unconscious. I can spare Lilly and defy the ring leaders at the same time. I just have to—
A spike drives into my thigh and I scream.
I hit the ground hard, and Cannon yanks the spiked ball from my leg. I hear the sickening squish as it leaves my skin. He towers over me, a deranged look on his giant features. I feel the static pull of the electrified cage bars behind me. It tugs on the fabric of my clothes, my hair.
Cannon has me closed off. He swings the flail one final time above his head as he prepares to bring it down on my head. The ball descends, the whoosh filling my ears as the Cage zaps behind me.
I thrust my sword toward the flail.
The chain circles my blade, and I yank back and throw the sword behind my head. The sword connects with the Cage. A current travels through the spiked ball and chain to Cannon’s flesh.
His body sparks. His eyes illuminate like the moon above, and his body convulses. He sinks to the ground, still holding the flail as the current continues to drain his life.
I drop my head to the dirt.
The cheers of the crowd surround me, and the announcer’s voice shouts over the chaos.
I’ve won.
I’ve killed.
My eyes seek Lilly. She slips her hand through the bars of her chamber and flattens her palm, her fingers crossed. Tears brim my eyes.
We’re still us—she’s still with me.
The announcer waves me to my feet, and I push off the ground. As I slink my way toward Bax’s chamber, I keep my gaze on Caben. I don’t know if he would’ve defeated Cannon in the final battle, but now I don’t have to worry. It’s over.
Goddesses, forgive me.
I guzzle water. My mouth is as dry as the sand-covered earth of Cavan. I can’t get enough. Maybe I can flush the evil from my system.
“That’s enough, Kal,” Caben says, taking the canteen from my lips. “Let the adrenaline ease first, or else you’ll get sick.”
Bax didn’t speak as he led us back to the cell. Lena stayed close to Crew. I doubt she fears another attack from me, but she hasn’t made eye contact with me since we left the Cage.
This was a shaky alliance from the start. The only thing holding it together is the possibility of our escape. But we don’t stand a true chance. They know this also. I just need to make sure Caben and Lilly are freed, and that the relic is returned to Empress Iana.
“Caben,” I say, glancing down at him as he continues to bandage my thigh. He looks up. “Before tomorrow . . . I need you to make me a promise.”
His brow furrows. “What are you asking?” He rips the gauze and ties the ends together, then sits back on the cot.
I press my back to the hard wall and stretch out my legs on the mattress, avoiding his eyes. “That no matter what, you’ll get the relic to my empress.”
“Kal, we’re both—“
“Just promise me,” I cut in. I meet and hold his stare. “I need to hear this vow spoken from your lips.”
He breathes deeply, releasing a heavy exhale of air through his nose, and presses his lips together. “If that’s what you need to hear, then yes.” He nods once. “I vow to return Cavan’s relic to the empress.”
I allow his oath to wash over me, knowing that as a prince, his honor binds him to his sworn words. As the man I know him to be, regardless of his noble blood, I trust that he will keep his pledge.
I wish I could ask more of him. I wish I could request for him to make sure my mother and father are taken care of, but that’s asking too much. If he succeeds in returning the relic, then the empress and Cavan will thrive. I have to trust the goddesses to watch over my family. And Lilly. Lilly will escape with Caben, and she’ll assure my parents are looked after.
This knowledge is a sudden release to my burdened mind, and I close my eyes, feeling maybe, for the last time, at peace.
A clank echoes through the tunnel and I jerk upright, my senses heightened and aware. The peace was bound to end.
After a tense-filled moment, the door to our chamber grinds open. Bax stands in the frame. “I need to speak with you, protector.”
“Whatever it is you have to say can be said in front of him.” I nod toward Caben.
Bax tips his head forward, his eyes hard on me as his brow rings glint in the dark light. “Now, protector.”
Groaning, I lift my leg and scoot to the edge of the cot. Distributing my weight to my good leg, I wobble over as Bax leads me into the tunnel. I’m curious as to why he didn’t give his usual speech after we returned.
He turns around and laces his arms over his bulky chest. “I was wrong about you,” he says, and his gaze drops to my chest. Self-conscious, I wrap my arms around myself.
“About what?” I ask.
“I was wrong in thinking you couldn’t stop it.”
My mouth parts, and a small flame of hope sparks within me. Bax continues before I can question him. “Who put that cybernetic fix in you?”
Taken aback, I cock my head and study his intense eyes. They’re the same beady pools of black as when I first met him. No red. “First, you answer a question.”
He shrugs, unruffled by my demand. “Go on.”
“Your eyes . . .” I motion my hand in front of my own. “Why do they change color?”
His lips press firmly together. “As the dark priest gets closer to resurrecting Bale, his control over the Otherworld grows.” He looks around cautiously. “Once the moon goddess walks in our world, it will become like no other hell dimension you can imagine. This is why I need to get my family far away from here. Why I need to take them with us when we escape.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “What?”
“Yes, protector.” He groans. “I said escape. Now answer my question.”
“A physician,” I answer hurriedly. “Someone a nun from the Temple of Alyah knew.”
His eyes grow wide, and a hint of a smile curves his lips. This information seems to please Bax, and he says, “Tomorrow night”—he lowers his voice into a husky whisper—“you will keep the contenders from earning their three kills.”
I shake my head. “And how do I do that?”
“By going forward with your alliance,” he sneers the word. “Oh yes, protector. I know about that. We’re gifted with great hearing where our vision fails.”
Goddess.
“Don’t fear, protector. The other ring leaders are not aware, but you must make sure the moonstones are not triggered on anyone’s cuff. They can’t kill the ring leaders or their guards. It makes no difference who is killed, as long as Bale is given her attributed sacrifice.”
“Because that’s part of the ritual,” I say, leaning on my good leg as my other starts to throb.
Bax nods once. “The moonstones on the cuff are the summoner. The sacrifices have kept her alive over the years, but she’s bound to the earth in a dormant state. When the moon is eclipsed, the veil between realms will thin, and the moonstones allow Bale to enter a willing vessel.”
I scoff. “Willing? There are no willing vessels here, Bax.”
“That makes no difference. As long as the ritual is performed in order, and the moonstones lit with the sacrificial kills, a passage will be created for Bale to possess a human body.”
My mind spins. Whether from the blood loss or the overload of information, I’m not sure. “I can keep the contenders from reaching their third kill, but what about my empress’s relic?” I eye him closely. “What part does it play? I need to know everything before I even attempt this.”
He unlaces his arms and steps closer to me. “The goddess relic will make Bale corporeal.”
A coil of fear wraps my spine. “I’m afraid to ask what happens to her ‘willing vessel’ then.”
“You should be.” Bax turns his head to the side, and I study his hard features.
“The goddess relic is not whole,” I say. “Bale can’t be ma
de corporeal because the priest doesn’t have the last shard.”
Bax snaps his beady gaze back on me. “That’s only a matter of time, protector. Once Bale inhabits a being, she can use the relic to free herself of this plain anytime thereafter.”
Caben’s ring presses against my heel as I bear my weight down.
Bax widens his stance and grits his teeth, a muscle feathers across his pale jawline. “You also have to face the dark priest.”
Shaking my head, I scoff. “No. You’ll have to figure out a way to strap him down or something. I felt the evil coming off him in the temple. I can’t—”
“You’re the only one down here who has any chance of defeating him.” His eyes go to my chest again. “You haven’t used your full strength or your power in the Cage. But I know you possess both.”
My power—my power of madness. Something me and the moon goddess share. I am nothing like Alyah. My heart aches. My mother couldn’t have been more wrong about my blessed blood.
Taking in a gulp of stale, Otherworld air, I fill my lungs and accept this as the reason the goddesses placed me here. “Fine, Bax,” I say. “You got your promise from me. But I want one from you.” His eyes flash red and I curse. “Stop that!”
He shakes his head. His thick dreads sway, their beaded ends clank together. “It’s too close to the eclipse,” he says. “I only have till the end of the Reckoning. But you’re not in danger, protector. I have it under control. Now what do you demand?”
I level him with a stern glare. “Lilly, Kai, and Caben are to escape, too. And as many others as we can manage to save.” I take a measured breath before my next demand. “The relic comes with us.”
He chuckles. “That’s asking too much, protector. I offer you freedom—”
“And you ask that I basically sacrifice myself for you. I will only face the dark priest if I know that my friends are safe, and that my empress will be saved.” I raise my brows. “You will steal the relic before the final battle, and then we’ll stand against the ring leaders, the guards, and I will do what I can about the priest . . . but you have to face your father first.”
He turns his back on me and walks away.
“Bax—”
Stopping mid-stride, he turns about. “I’ve only just managed to keep my wife’s and child’s minds from Bale’s manic control by using a few tricks. I am the priest’s son, after all.” His shadowed face pulls together in hard lines. “But I stand no chance fighting him. Bale has gifted him with far too much power. That is why you are here.”
My father’s angry face flashes before my eyes. I understand Bax’s fear. Our circumstances are different, but I sense the same fear in him that I lived with in my home for years. But they’ll never make it out of here alive if the priest isn’t defeated completely. He’s been the problematic factor in our shoddy plan from the start. The chaotic variable.
“You have to face him,” I say. “You don’t have to take him down—I believe I can do that. But you have to get me into his chamber to do so.”
Bax steps up to me, his illuminated eyes sweeping my face. “Do you believe your goddesses gave you the divine blood for this purpose?”
I look away. That is the question—the uncertainty I’ve lived with nearly my entire life. I can’t give him the answer he needs, the answer that will persuade him to believe. That we can defeat the dark priest and leave this hell. I can only give him what I do know. “I believe I have a purpose.”
I just don’t know what it is.
The tunnel feels ice cold against my skin as I slowly make my way back to the chamber. I had already accepted my fate before Bax told me the whole truth of the ritual. And even though I’m relieved that my friends and the empress are going to be helped, the knowledge of what I must do sits heavily on my chest.
I step into the chamber. Caben lies awake on the cot. He’s a true prince—a king. I know that my sacrifice is the right thing, as he was meant to do great things in the Three Realms.
His head turns slowly toward me as I enter. “Do we have a plan?”
I nod. “We do.”
Scooting over to the far side of the cot, he makes room for me. I lie down next to him and he wraps his strong arms around me. I never thought I’d savor the feel of a man this close—that I’d long for it. And that I’d mourn its loss.
“The dark priest is using mind control over the Otherworld—for Bale.” I explain the rest of the things Bax enlightened me on, all except the last: where I must take on the priest, and somehow defeat his dark power. The power of the moon goddess.
But Caben doesn’t need to hear this. He needs to hear that our plan will work. “Bax is preparing an escape for us,” I continue. “I need you to do everything I say tomorrow night without question.” I turn and look into his blue eyes.
His frown line deepens between his brows. “You know that I don’t take orders from a woman.”
I’m about to snap at him, but then I see the hint of a smile forming on his lips. “Caben, I’m serious.”
He sighs. “If it means that we all leave here together, then I will take your commands with pride.” He pulls me closer, careful not to jostle my injured leg.
“Promise me,” I demand.
“I promise,” he says.
With another of his oaths sworn to me, I take in a relieved breath and press my lips to his. I want to take with me the memory of the most stubborn man I have ever known, and the way his kiss invades my soul, chasing away the darkness.
The moon bathes the Cage in a white, haunting glow. The stomps of the Otherworlders grow louder, like thunder rumbling through the dark realm. Their eyes flame red like embers. Bale’s control over her subjects is near complete.
At least everything makes sense now. Why the Otherworlders attacked Perinya and Cavan, stripping us of mercury. Why they’ve been abducting outside our realms, offering their goddess sacrifices while keeping us in the dark of Bale’s existence—until her prime moment to strike.
The moon goddess corrupted and mutated her worshipers, her own followers. The goddesses had every right to banish her evil. Only one thing does not connect.
Why the goddesses are allowing Bale to do this.
If the dark priest succeeds in his ritual tonight, then the Otherworlders will follow Bale out of the Otherworld and demolish whole realms at her command.
She won’t stop until she recovers the last shard.
The key piece needed to restore her to the powerful deity she once was.
The goddesses have done nothing so far to intervene. Anger simmers in my core, boiling over as the darkness of this place strengthens its hold on me. I fight it down. No matter what happens next, I have to make sure the shard is disposed of. That it will never be found. I raise my cupped hand to my mouth and place the sliver on my tongue, then swallow.
If Bale is brought forth tonight, and I die, then the shard will go with me in death.
“Where’s Bax?” Crew asks, jerking me out of my thoughts. I swallow hard, making sure the shard goes down.
Sitting farther back in Bax’s chair, I stretch my sore leg. Bax gave both Caben and me pain relievers, but the pain is still present though dulled, and I fear the hindrance my injury will be later.
“He’s meeting with the ring leaders before the final battle,” I say. “Why? Do you miss his company?”
Crew scoffs at me, then returns to where Lena is watching the other contenders across the caged ring. I have to make sure they stick to the pact—that they stand up against the ring leaders in the final battle, and that they don’t light all the moonstones on their cuffs.
My head pounds in sync with the stomping in the risers.
Goddesses . . . My prayer trails off.
What more can I ask of them? Everything now depends on me. As long as Caben and Lilly make it out alive, I’ll accept whatever fate they intend for me.
I rub my forehead. Bax has disguised himself and is now stealing the relic. Once I see that he has it in his possession,
I’ll know for sure that he aims to go through with his crazed scheme, and that he will keep his word to free my friends. I just hope he doesn’t back down from his father.
I close my eyes for a long moment, praying to the goddesses for their will to be done. I can’t ask that they spare me. I feel that is too selfish, too much to ask when I’m imploring them to free the people down here and to stop Bale.
The cheers in the risers crescendo as the dark priest makes his entrance.
He’s here.
He circles the ring, swathed in a black robe, his hands held high toward the projected moon above. He wants a front row seat to watch his goddess appear.
Kaide sidles up beside me, his eyes trained on the Cage. “I suppose this is the end,” he says.
Shocked the silent feather brother has spoken, and in the common language, I raise my eyebrows and look up at him. He appears calm, resolute, as if he too has accepted his fate. Or maybe he’s accepted that he will soon be with his brother.
“Nothing is ever the end,” I tell him. “Good luck.” It’s a pathetic reply, but the only one I can offer him.
He nods his head, his dark eyes finding mine. “To you too, protector.” Then he returns to his lone corner.
The guards escort the dark priest to his chamber and up to his seat high in the risers. Anxiety claws at my stomach. Where’s Bax? He needs to be here before the first fight, or else his father will suspect something.
The bang of the chamber door makes me jump. Bax enters, a brown hooded-cloak covering his face, and a leather satchel strapped across his chest. He eyes the contenders as they stare him down.
He pushes the hood back. “Protector,” he says. I prickle all over, wishing I could feel the life force of the relic—to know that my empress still lives. “Come with me.”
Lena and Crew jerk their heads my way, scowls apparent on their faces. This isn’t good for our alliance, but I have to see the relic with my own eyes. It’s what I requested of Bax. If I can’t feel it, I have to lay my eyes on it to make sure Bax intends to keep his word.
I follow him into the dark corridor, the muffled chants of the stadium background noise as my heart rate speeds, thumping in my ears. “Show me,” I order.
Of Silver and Beasts (Goddess Wars) Page 23