“But you’ve lived elsewhere and met people from different parts of the world. Were their stories the same?”
“For the most part, yes.”
“Is that why you sing of the sea? Because you believe them?”
“I sing of the sea?” Then, he remembered the song he had used as a signal to her when he returned from the temple. “That. It’s one I learned from an old trader who used to come into my saloon maybe once or twice a year. He said his grandfather used to sing it to him and talk of a sea his grandfather’s grandfather had claimed to have sailed.” It was one of very few songs Blade had learned over the years appropriate to sing to a woman. “I suppose the thought of a sea so vast that huge ships take weeks to sail across it fascinates me as much as it would anyone else who’s only ever seen mountains and deserts.”
“There must be a lot of people on the other side of such a sea if they can build ships capable of sailing it,” Raven said. “Or maybe it’s all a lie, and the world really ends at the goddesses’ boundary. What if we make it through, only to fall off the world’s edge?”
She sought an excuse not to proceed. He would not give her one. If they could not cross, they would have to find shelter on this side of the boundary for the winter. And soon.
“That’s nothing more than an old wives’ tale. The temple has a library filled with books,” Blade said. “Some of those books predate the immortals and contain maps drawn by Old World cartographers. We won’t be falling off any edge because the world is round. The real question is whether or not people still exist on the other side of the boundary.”
She clung stubbornly to her opposition. “Some of the older Godseekers claim demons destroyed the rest of the world, and that’s why the goddesses trapped them in the desert.”
“It’s possible,” he conceded. “It’s also possible the Godseekers encourage the spread of those stories because they want to keep people in goddess territory, and therefore under their control.”
They did not talk for a long time after that.
Late in the morning, they crested a bluff and found a thick, green forest spread below them. Beyond the forest, the world dropped away. A dense mist blanketed the entire horizon.
This, then, was the boundary.
The world truly did end here.
“I didn’t expect it to be quite so…vast,” Raven said.
As she gazed at the layer of mist extending from the base of the mountain to the horizon, dread washed through her. This seemed to be very much like the half-world of the boundary between the demon and the mortal worlds, only this one did not welcome her.
In fact, she felt the opposite.
She did not believe she could cross this. The thought of making the attempt left her physically ill.
Blade crooked an elbow around her neck and drew her head to his shoulder, running his fingers through the back of her hair and tugging on a fistful of curls, sending a shiver of heat to the toes of her boots. The air was milder here, and he had thrown back the hood of his coat.
“The goddesses are gone,” he reminded her. “All that’s left below is a lingering reminder of their existence. The mist can’t harm you.”
Her demon disagreed. The mist was not mortal in origin. It expressed a great deal of reluctance to move forward, sensing danger, but from what, she remained uncertain.
She did not know how to explain this to Blade. There had been distance enough between them the past few days. She did not want to point out to him how much demon she had in her.
“No one has ever gotten through it before,” she said. “What happened to anyone who tried?”
“I know of no one who has,” Blade replied. “Assassins guard the approach to it. Entering it was part of a ritual for Godseekers, and none of them were ever harmed, not even the ones the goddesses rejected. They spoke of a heavy and blinding mist that led them in circles until they were back where they started, nothing more. Having ordinary people afraid to try to cross served their own purposes. If you’re worried and need some time to get used to it, we could wait until tomorrow to try to cross,” he added.
She would not have him believe she had not given this her best effort. And she would not have any immortal, including the goddesses, believe she was afraid.
She pushed away from him and settled the straps of her pack into place. “No. The sooner we begin, the sooner we can be out again. A day will make no difference. We’ll have to spend at least one night inside the boundary regardless, judging by the breadth of it.”
They began to descend, working their way around slides of rock and deeper into the verdant forest, until the first tendrils of mist began to wind around their ankles. The pliant ground beneath their feet disappeared beneath a layer of gray. The scent of rich, rotting earth enfolded them, and Raven’s unease spiked.
“Wait.” Blade stopped her. He set his pack down and rummaged in it until he found a length of rope. He laced it around his hips, then hooked it to her waist, tying the ends in secure knots. “Now, whatever happens, we won’t be separated.”
She could not shake the sensation she was about to step from the mortal world into one unknown and hostile to her, but the reassurance of a physical connection to him bolstered her determination to proceed. There was only one way to find out whether or not she could cross a boundary the goddesses had created, and that was to move forward. If she could not, then they would be forced to turn back.
And she could do so with a clear conscience.
Blade went first.
She followed, one hand gripping the rope between them so it did not drag on the ground. The mist crawled to her knees and then to her waist. She raised her arms higher and higher, reluctant to allow it to come in contact with her bared flesh. Then curiosity won out, and she dipped one finger into the soupy gray mass, only to jerk it back on a sharp, indrawn breath and a hiss of pain.
He turned to her, a question in his eyes. She held up her hand for him to inspect. A painful blister had already formed on the tip of her finger.
“The mist is consecrated,” she said. “I can’t cross the boundary.”
Disbelief, then determination, straightened his lips and narrowed his eyes. He plunged his hands in. When he withdrew them, they were unmarked.
He could cross, while she could not.
The mist crept upward, reaching to Raven’s chest now. An acid dampness had begun to seep between the layers of her clothing.
A muscle jerked in Blade’s jaw. “We go back,” he said. He caught her chin and held her gaze. “But this does not make you a demon.”
She wanted to believe he was right. Doubt, however, had shaken her certainty. She had not expected the boundary to be consecrated, or considered what it might mean for her that it was.
When they turned to retrace their steps, they found that the mountain behind them had vanished. Instead, they faced an immense wall of gray.
The demon in Raven rebelled. She could not hold it back. The rope connecting her to Blade placed him in danger from it, as well. She tore at the rope, too frantic to untie it, attempting instead to sever it with her bare hands. Her palms burned from where the consecrated mist had soaked into the rope’s fibers.
Blade groped for her hands, trying to stop her, but the rope snapped first and she was free. He dove for her, but she dodged out of his reach.
“We stay together,” he said as she backed away from him.
Seconds later, he disappeared from her sight. The mist receded so that it encircled her but no longer touched and burned her. Her steps slowed, and Blade’s shouts cut off abruptly.
A presence prowled nearby. Unease slithered through her. “Blade?”
She called to him softly, uncertain who else it might be. His name bounced back to her, an echo contained within the gray walls of her prison.
A shadow stirred. The demon inside her went silent and still. Danger.
“You should not be here,” the shadow said.
It was a woman’s voice, and Raven spun
to face it. The woman was very tall and golden-skinned, with straight, white-blond hair that swept the backs of her knees. She had eyes a luminous shade of blue so deep as to be almost purple. The silver gown she wore fell from her shoulders to her feet, caught at the waist and hips by a broad girdle of gold.
Several more figures were partially visible within the thick mist, but none stepped into the small clearing to join the first. Raven did not need to ask who they were.
“Where am I?” she asked the goddess who had spoken instead.
“You stand in the mortal world, but you’re held within the goddesses’ boundary. You’re demon. You cannot cross.”
“I’m not a demon,” Raven said. “I was born on a mortal world. You have no right to judge me.”
The goddess examined her. “You have demon blood. Therefore, we have the right to judge you here.”
Raven burned with a growing sense of injustice. Restricting the movement of demons was the purpose of the goddesses—she could neither refute that, nor fight against it. She could not cross their boundary and accepted it had been wrong for her to try. Her instincts had warned her. She should have listened to them.
But Raven would not be judged by the goddesses, or anyone else, for circumstances beyond her control. “I’m also a mortal. As such, you have no right to keep me here.”
She prepared to face anger at her defiance of them, but it did not come.
“We’ll permit you to go back to the side of the boundary where you were born,” the goddess said, “if you agree to one condition.”
While Raven did not want to barter for a freedom that was hers by right, she also didn’t believe she should refuse to listen to what they had to say. “I’d like to hear your condition before I agree to anything.”
The goddess looked to the others, who one by one, all nodded. “If you’re truly a mortal, as you claim, we would insist that you protect the goddesses’ chosen from the dangers the demons left behind in the mortal world.”
They meant from spawn.
Raven cradled her burned and stinging palms to her waist. It was never wise to agree to any immortal demand too hastily.
“No,” she said. “I’m not one of your chosen, and I can’t agree to your terms. This is the mortal world’s first chance at freedom since the coming of the immortals. Demon offspring are now a part of this world. They deserve as much protection in it as any other person. They have a right to life, too. I’d offer what help I can give to all mortals or none of them.”
“You’ve made your choice.” The goddess lifted her hand and the wall of mist receded enough so that the mountain where she came from was again visible to Raven. A path had opened up to it, but the boundary itself remained in place and impenetrable to her.
The goddesses vanished. She could hear Blade now, shouting her name.
Raven waded through the gray, dreary dampness toward the mountain, and safety, and the welcoming sound of his voice.
Chapter Sixteen
Patience was a skill Blade had honed over the years. Raven’s sudden disappearance had not been natural and he stayed where he was in the hopes she would be returned to him. If she did not reappear soon, then he would search for her.
And he would not rest until he found her.
He crouched, his crossed arms resting on his knees, and waited. It seemed ironic to him how Godseekers preached that the goddesses preserved all life, yet here in the boundary they had created, birds did not sing. Nothing moved through the spongy, rotted earth beneath Blade’s feet, and not a breath of wind stirred the dense fog enveloping him.
Hunter had once said he believed the immortals were one and the same, and that they served nothing but their own purposes. He’d had no love for any of them, not until he’d met Airie. Blade, on the other hand, had been raised in the Godseeker Mountains and could never seem to shake the beliefs taught to him at an early age. Because of his long-held beliefs that the goddesses were benevolent to the innocent, he had been certain that Raven’s demon blood would be of no significance to them.
He should have listened to her concerns. She had not wanted to enter here. If harm came to her it would be his fault, and he did not think he could bury his guilt as he had in the past and pretend it did not exist.
He had no idea how much time passed before the mist finally parted, only that he had started to lose his considerable, hard-earned patience.
But it was not Raven who appeared to him.
This woman was tall and blonde, with purple eyes, and while not as beautiful as Raven, she was more so than an ordinary woman. Her dress was whisper thin and translucent.
He had seen goddesses in his youth. He knew what she was. The sight of her mesmerized him. Held him in place. And he resented it.
“You’ve brought a demon into our boundary,” she said. Disapproval filled those purple eyes. Disappointment in him rang in her tone. “We would have expected better from one of our own.”
“She’s not a demon,” he said. He tore his eyes from hers, although with difficulty, and searched the mist behind her. “Where is she?”
“Lost.”
Fear for Raven bubbled up, and although he quickly suppressed it, he was not quick enough. The goddess felt it, too.
“No demon can cross,” she said. “But you, on the other hand… You’ve traveled a long distance to find us. You want to start over, to find a new life. You, we’ll let through.”
The mist parted. Far off in the distance, he saw a length of blue sky that rippled and shimmered.
No, he thought. Not sky.
Water. What he saw was the sea. He had dreamed of it for years. He had come here to find it. The temptation was overwhelming.
He stood and took a few steps toward it. And then he remembered Raven and paused, turning back.
His eyes met the goddess’s. “I won’t go without her.”
“Why not? You can’t save her,” the goddess said. “If the Godseekers don’t kill her, then the demons will claim her. You’re going to fail.”
Again, fear for her clawed itself free. He did not want to fail her.
He remembered how Raven had warned him not to show fear in the demon boundary because they would know and use it against him. This goddess tried to do the same. His bigger failure would be in walking away and not trying to save Raven at all.
“I won’t go without her,” he said again.
The mist began to slide back into place, swallowing the patch of blue, but in a tantalizingly slow manner. He could not tear his eyes from it.
“Even if you do manage to save her life, she can never be yours,” the goddess said. “Think of what the future would bring you. Imagine any children you might have together, the potential danger they create. You would never be able to teach them compassion or mercy or how to survive in a mortal world.”
In his head he knew he should not listen to her. This was another of his fears that she had managed to capture. But in his heart, he also knew that while demons used lies to get what they wanted, goddesses spoke truth. Raven deserved a future and he had nothing to offer her.
He glanced at the blue on the far side of the mist, then back to where the Godseeker Mountains should be. Somewhere, Raven was lost in this. She had not abandoned him in the demon boundary, and he would not walk away from her in this one.
Raven’s future was the one that mattered. If she were gone, his would have no meaning. He could not go forward and wonder, for the rest of his life, what had become of her, if he had failed her. He did not look again to the vanishing sea but turned in the direction of the mountain.
“I won’t go without her,” he said, for the third and final time.
The goddess vanished and the mist thinned.
Raven was deeper into the boundary than he would have thought possible, and he had to shout to get her attention. She ran to him, her pack jostling between her shoulders and hampering her stride, but a path cleared for her and she was soon in his arms. He buried his face in her hair, reassuri
ng himself she was safe.
But there was no time to do more than that. The thickening mist crept upward, forcing them to move back or become buried, and he was not willing to take any more risks with her life.
He grasped her hand in his, careful of her singed palm, and guided her over uneven earth, out of the forest and toward the safety of higher ground. They climbed steadily for another half hour until Blade was certain the boundary was well behind them.
He helped remove Raven’s pack and set it alongside his own, amid broken chunks of sandstone and spindly, naked elder bushes, then listened quietly as she told him what the goddess had said to her.
Anger and defiance sparkled in her eyes as she finished. “I won’t be judged by them, and I won’t let them condemn others like me either. It’s not their right. To them, we’re something even less than mortal. We’re nothing.” Her expression grew more determined. “None of us asked to be born. We should be given a chance to prove our value, not discarded as worthless.”
He did not respond right away. With the mountain at his back he gazed across the boundary toward the unattainable horizon. Although the sun battered hot against its surface, the blanket of mist did not dissipate. The wind, despite the deceptive heat of the sun’s rays, held an unmistakable chill that warned days such as this would soon be over for another season. Logically, Blade knew that time had run out and his options were now restricted.
There would be no new life for either one of them in the Old World.
In the eyes of the goddesses Raven was a demon, but if they could not see that she was so much more, then Hunter was right—they might be immortals, but were undeserving of worship or respect.
At the same time, the goddesses were not wrong to maintain their boundary. There were spawn at large in the world more closely resembling their demon fathers than their mortal mothers. More would likely be born.
The goddess who had spoken to him was correct when she said he was not the man to teach compassion or mercy. He had none of those things left in him.
Black Widow Demon (Demon Outlaws) Page 21