“You just said you’ve been waiting for me—”
“And I would have been content to wait an eternity.” A humorless smile bent the corners of the woman’s mouth. “Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say I have been dreading this moment, not waiting for it… .”
She dropped the medallion back onto Mason’s chest. It hurt when the iron disk hit her skin—as if it weighed far more than it should have. Mason tried, unsuccessfully, not to flinch.
She felt a moaning breeze begin to stir, bringing with it a chill, dreary dampness. Stray wisps of fog rose up out of the ground and swirled all around her. As the mists thickened, Mason thought she could make out shapes, rising up out of the ground with the veil of fog. People—or the shades of them—hunched or stretched thin, they looked like ghosts. On every side, wherever Mason turned, there was nothing but a bleak, wide-open plain as far as the eye could see. She looked down at the ground beneath her and saw faces. Twisted bodies, reaching hands … the endless plain upon which she stood seemed as if it was composed of an infinite number of bodies all jammed together into a solid mass. The eyes of the face Mason looked at, numb with horror, seemed in that moment to look back. The ground felt to her as if it writhed ever so slightly. She felt her stomach heave.
Her left hand convulsively gripped the collar of the black leather scabbard that hung at her side, home to her silver, swept-hilt rapier. Her right hand gripped the sword’s hilt. Both her hands were slick with blood. Mason had torn the ends of her fingertips to shreds, ripping away most of her nails, escaping the confines of the trunk of her brother’s car, trying to flee from him.
She still didn’t even know why he’d done that.
And now she didn’t know where she was.
She didn’t, at that moment, care.
One moment, Mason had been standing on top of the transport compartment of her father’s private train as it crossed over the Hell Gate Bridge in New York City. The next, she was standing here. In a twilight-tinged wasteland, a vast empty vista ringed with thunderclouds. It was an eerie, alien place that Mason knew instinctively was very, very far from home. She heard her own voice cry out, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
The brightness had swallowed Mason whole, then darkness.
Then … here.
“Mason! Did you hear what I said?” The words, sharp and commanding, broke her reverie. “For your own good—for the good of all—you must leave this place.”
“I don’t know how to get back,” Mason answered, her voice sounding very small.
She turned to face the tall, beautiful woman cloaked in darkness who stood in front of her. Her mother. At least … that was who she’d said she was. Mason felt her throat closing against a hot surge of tears.
“I don’t even know how I got here… .”
“I know how to get you home,” the woman said. “I rule here in this place, and I can help you. But you must come with me. Now.”
Wait. You’re my mother … and a queen … and …
“You want me to leave?” Mason asked. It wasn’t the question she wanted to ask. But the other one stuck in her throat. Are you my mother?
“Your presence here is an anomaly.”
An anomaly … that’s not a very maternal thing to say to the daughter you’ve just met for the first time… .
“I don’t say that to be cruel.” The woman’s face softened, as if she sensed Mason’s thoughts. “But your presence in the Beyond Realms creates an … imbalance. Something that could, if you stay, cascade into something much worse. I’m sorry, but you must go back.”
Her mother reached out for her arm, as if she would drag her forcibly away, and Mason stepped back. Her hand convulsed, sticky with blood, on the hilt of her sword and she almost drew the weapon Fennrys had given her as a gift.
Wait.
Fennrys …
He’d been there.
On … on the train.
The train …
Fennrys had been on the same train that had brought her to this place. Hadn’t he? Mason squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think about exactly what had happened. But it was all so jumbled—images of blinding light and rainbows that set the sky on fire … a massive, eight-legged horse pulling the train … and a sleek black wolf that chased them across the bridge … and Rory, her brother.
Rory, his arm twisted, the bones shattered in a brutal fight with Fennrys.
Rory … with a gun. Not just with a gun … but aiming it. Pulling the trigger.
No!
Mason could see him, his face purple and distorted with rage, spittle flying from his lips and his mouth stretched wide as he howled at her and pointed the weapon.
Blood … oh god!
He shot Fennrys.
Mason remembered the bright-dark burst of crimson, blooming out from Fenn’s shoulder. Fenn falling … tumbling through the air, off the back of the train … gone.
“NO!”
Her cry shook the air and was answered by an echoing howl of anguish that sounded as if it came from far away. All of a sudden, as if triggered by the sound, the ground beneath Mason’s feet buckled and surged upward, throwing her backward and away from the dark, stern woman who stood before her. And who added her own cry of denial as a fissure opened up in the ground directly under Mason’s feet and she felt herself tumbling, falling into darkness.
She skidded and bounced down a steep incline, and as she fell, she could feel arms and hands thrusting out from the rock face, fingers reaching to clasp at her hair and clothing, snatching at her limbs. It was horrifying, a nightmare, and yet Mason almost felt the urge to grab hold of those hands to keep herself from falling farther.
She could hear her own voice screaming; a sharp, shrill sound ricocheting off the side of the rocky crevasse, and—high above—she heard the frantic calls of the woman who’d called herself her mother.
Suddenly, the incline leveled sharply and Mason’s feet jarred painfully against what seemed to be the rocky floor of the cavern. Shock waves rippled up her shins, and she grunted in pain as she catapulted forward, instinctively tucking into a shoulder roll to protect her head and face as she tumbled through the darkness to come, finally, to a stop against what felt like the base of a jutting outcrop of jagged stone. She lay there, panting, for a long few minutes after the sounds of her own screams and the roaring of her pulse in her ears had faded to silence.
“You can’t go across the bridge. Bad things will happen. Do you understand?”
Fennrys.
He’d been the one who’d warned her with those words. Back in New York, on the train as it had thundered toward the Hell Gate Bridge. He had been trying to help her. Trying to save her—again—and all she’d been able to do was stand there, frozen in shock, as he’d gotten himself shot for his troubles. She’d just stood there, dumb. And her father’s train had crossed the bridge with her on it. She’d realized in that moment that it hadn’t been just any old bridge.
Bifrost.
The rainbow bridge of Norse myth. The causeway between the mortal world and the realm of the gods.
“Bad things will happen …”
Had she, then, crossed over to somewhere where just her very existence spelled disaster? Squinting in the almost total darkness, Mason looked down at the ruined fencing jacket she wore. The once-bright white fabric was stained with her own blood and striped with grease from when she’d forced her way out of the trunk of her brother’s Aston Martin, trying to escape both from it and from the train that had carried the sports car over the bridge. Her hands were a red disaster and her leggings were torn, more blood trickling down from a deep gash in her calf, pooling in her sneaker.
She ignored it and struggled to stretch out with her senses. At first, she thought the red-tinged glow that seemed to diffuse in the gloom was just the afterimage of blood vessels in her own eyes. But the harder she peered into the dark, the brighter the ruddy light grew until she could make out the jagged contours of the cave in which she’d fo
und herself. Slowly, steadily, her eyes began to adjust, and the glow resolved itself into flickering torchlight. Mason could smell the thick, smoky burn of pitch, and she could hear the whisper-quiet crackle of flames. She thought she heard the rustle of movement from somewhere, and she held her breath. But the only other sound that she could positively identify was a slow, steady drip—like water from a leaky tap.
Feeling her way in the darkness, Mason stood and made tentative progress across the uneven rock floor in the direction of the sound. Water might mean a stream or a river—the possibility of a way out. But as she rounded a striated pillar of red and gray rock, she drew a breath in horror. It wasn’t the dripping of water she’d heard.
Flanked by guttering torches set in heavy iron sconces bolted to the rock walls, Mason saw a serpent, massive and coiled on a wide ledge, its muscled body undulating like a wave, scales rustling and shimmering with the movement. Its tail flicked restlessly back and forth as it slithered forward on the rock shelf, its evil-looking mouth opening wide. Sickly yellow venom dripped from its fangs, each droplet shattering the black-glassy surface of a dark pool below.
That was the sound Mason had heard.
What was worse … the next sound she heard was a soft, anguished groan.
Half-hidden by rocks that thrust up out of the ground like stout prison bars, Mason could just make out the shape of a man, lying on a bed of stone beneath the serpent’s ledge, surrounded by the pool. The snake’s body convulsed and propelled it forward until its head hovered directly over the place where the man lay. A single, viscous drop of poison gathered at the needle tip of one of the great snake’s fangs—the one positioned above the man’s face—and clung there for an infinite, torturous moment … before dropping, glittering like a tiny shard of broken yellow crystal, through the blood-dark air.
Mason couldn’t see the man’s face from where she stood, but she could certainly hear his cry of pure, piercing agony as the poison hit what was probably his cheek or forehead and he writhed and bucked, straining at the chains that bound him, wrists and ankles, to the slab. The howl of agony turned to a roaring bellow of rage, and the entire cavern shook. Yawning cracks shot up the walls on all sides, and bits of rock and dust rattled down all around Mason. It must have been the same ear-shattering cries that had caused the ground to open up beneath her feet moments earlier, sending her plunging into this horrible place.
After what seemed like forever, the wails faded once again to low moans. A last rattle of rocks cascaded down, landing right beside Mason, and she yelped and covered her head. At the noise she made, the man’s groans stopped abruptly, and she could almost sense him straining to hear if there was someone there. She held her breath.
“You’d think I would have grown used to it by now.” The man sighed raggedly, the breath panting in and out of his lungs.
Mason wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, but then it became apparent he was.
“Here,” he murmured gently, as if coaxing a frightened animal out of hiding. “Come here, child. I won’t hurt you.”
Mason froze.
“I promise.” His hand twitched weakly, indicating the chains. “I couldn’t, in any case. Even if I wanted to … and I assure you, I don’t.”
That much was obvious. The chains gave him just enough mobility to arch painfully when the poison hit his flesh. Still, Mason hesitated.
“Please.” There was a note of quiet desperation in the word.
Mason frowned. He was chained. Hurt. There was nothing he could do to her in the state he was in. If he even existed at all, which she sincerely doubted.
Well … what the hell.
Nothing about this could possibly be real, anyway. Since the moment Rory had stuffed her into the trunk of his car, nothing Mason had experienced had made sense. It sure as hell didn’t now. So either she was drugged, or dreaming—it was entirely possible she was just experiencing the most vivid night terrors she’d ever had, or she was deep in the throes of a profound psychotic episode—the kind the therapists had warned her father she might experience someday if she didn’t continue on with the treatments that she’d summarily rejected at the age of ten—and it had most likely been triggered by Rory’s act of unfathomable cruelty.
Or maybe, she thought, trying to muster charitable feelings toward her brother, he hadn’t really meant to hurt her like that. Maybe it had all been some kind of joke that had just gotten out of hand. A stupid frat-boy stunt the jocks he’d been hanging out with lately had put him up to. She remembered that Taggert Overlea, star quarterback and egregious meathead, had been with Rory. She remembered hearing Tag make lewd comments about Heather Palmerston—Heather, who’d shown up out of nowhere to warn Mason that something bad was about to go down. Mason hoped Heather was okay.
She’s probably fine, you know. None of this is actually happening.
Sure. You just keep telling yourself that.
In truth, Mason really was hard-pressed to delineate where reality had ended for her and unreality had swallowed her whole. Maybe the last few weeks had just finally gotten to her and she’d snapped. Maybe the whole damn day was really all one long, lavish nightmare and she hadn’t even entered the fencing competition yet—and failed miserably. For a moment, she felt a bright spark of hope flare in her chest. Was it possible that there was still hope for her fencing career? Hope for her and Fennrys? Hope for her in the real world?
That’s assuming he’s even real …
The bright spark sputtered and threatened to go out. Mason shook her head sharply. Either way, there was clearly nothing the least bit real about the situation she found herself in at that very moment.
So what does it matter if you talk to this guy or not?
Mason stepped out from around the pillar that hid her from the bound man’s view, and the snake hovering above his head hissed and withdrew with whiplash speed into a dark seam in the rock behind its shelf, disappearing from sight.
With the snake gone, utter stillness descended on the cavern. A fine, shimmering haze of powdery dust hung like a veil in the air, and an acrid tang drifted, foglike, stinging Mason’s eyes and burning the sensitive skin of her nostrils.
The man chained to the rock was richly dressed—at least, he had been, once—but his gold-and-green tunic, edged with a wide band of elaborate, knot-work embroidery, was torn and stained with ages of filth. His breeches were tattered, his feet bare and coated with blood, dried and fresh, from having fought against his cruel restraints. His dark-blond hair had grown long, and his beard was unkempt. And yet, somehow, he still looked princely.
Mason edged toward him, between the rock pillars and across a narrow stone bridge that spanned the dark pool. Slowly, wearily, the man rolled his head in Mason’s direction, just enough so that she could see one of his eyes. Sky-blue and bright in the ashen gloom, it almost seemed to glow, as if lit from within. He stared at her, unblinking, and his gaze, beneath a sheen of excruciating pain, held warmth and wisdom and—Mason got the distinct impression—a wicked sense of humor.
“Who are you?” she asked, a tremor in her voice.
“Me?” the man answered. “Oh … no one of consequence …”
“Wow,” Mason said, swallowing her fear. “You must have done something pretty shitty to merit this kind of punishment, in that case.”
She waited for a moment, expecting to see anger or denial or bitterness fill the stranger’s expression at what she’d said. But he just continued to smile through the pain and shifted his shoulder in an approximation of a shrug. The one blue eye she could see remained fixed placidly upon her.
“Looks can be terribly deceiving,” he said.
The muscles of his cheek and jaw spasmed in pain.
“Right. So … what did you do then?” she asked.
“Something pretty shitty.” He chuckled. “Obviously. At least … there are those who clearly seem to think so.”
“But you just said looks are deceiving.”
“I said the
y can be—” His mirth collapsed into a racking coughing fit, the breath rattling in his lungs, and Mason winced in sympathy. He must have been terribly parched, lying there like that, chained in that smoky, dusty cavern for who knew how long.
When the hacking subsided and he turned his head farther to look at her, Mason had to swallow hard to keep the bile from rising in her throat. Half of the man’s handsome face had been seared to a raw, blackened mess by the snake’s corrosive drool. His hair and beard were singed, and she thought she could see the pale gleam of his cheekbone through the ruined flesh.
He shrugged again, seeing her reaction. “I’m sure it probably looks far worse than it feels. Looks, remember?”
“Deceiving,” Mason said through clenched teeth. “Yeah. Right …”
She swallowed hard again and forced her gaze not to shift, like it had every time she’d looked at Cal. This, after all, was much, much worse. Mason might have unintentionally shamed Cal by the way she’d reacted to him after the attack on the school gym, when his handsome face had been slashed open by the claws of a draugr, but she wouldn’t shame this man—whoever he was—by doing the same thing. She’d learned her lesson, and there would be no looking away this time. No matter how horrifying it was.
But then he did her the favor of shifting again anyway, so Mason could no longer see the terrible wound. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she saw that the rich blue orb of his undamaged eye was fastened on the iron medallion around her neck.
“What’s your name, child?” he asked again, in that same gentle tone.
“Mason. Mason Starling,” she said, even though he still hadn’t told her who he was.
“Starling …” He smiled as if in recollection of a pleasant memory. “Pretty birdie.”
Mason snorted. “Most people think starlings are pests,” she said. “They’re considered an invasive species in some parts of the world.”
“Ha!” The man laughed again. “I’ve had the very same accusations leveled at me. I prefer to think of such creatures as … adventurous. Survivors. Conquerors.”
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