The Goddess Quest

by Clara Hartley

  “Ouch,” I said. Riding the steed without a saddle was making my thighs ache and gave me horrible chafing. Liam rode with me, his hard chest brushing against my back. He was gripping the horse’s plentiful mane.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just wondering why we didn’t bring the carpet along with us.” I sighed. “How long before we get there?” I glanced up to the sky. The moon hung overhead, glowing brightly amongst the scattering of stars. It should already be close to midnight. “I hope we’re not too late. Maybe I should have tried flying.”

  “Your wings don’t work reliably yet,” Theo said, his horse cantering beside us. “We’re not letting you fly alone. Not with your clumsiness. You’ll accidentally hit your face on a rock or something, then die.”

  “We’re almost there,” Liam said. His presence made me feel safe. That did nothing to abate the anxiety I felt for Devon, however.

  Liam kicked the sides of the steed. Hansel and Theo did the same, and the horses started a race. I winced at the pain between my legs. We must have been riding for hours, and my body wasn’t used to such strain. The steeds ran across familiar hills, and soon, I saw the towers of the Sanctuary in the distance. I clutched the elixir tightly and hugged it to my chest. Devon’s face appeared in my mind—his eyes closed, his chest softly rising and falling as his consciousness held on lightly to this reality.

  Please work.

  The goddesses be damned if the elixir didn’t do what it was supposed to.

  My lungs were straining for air when we reached Agness’s study. I’d run through the hallways of the Sanctuary as quickly as my legs could take me.

  “Agness!” I shouted. “We have it!”

  I pushed the door to her bedroom open. It thwacked against the wall. On the bed, Agness turned to us, blinking, surprised at my sudden intrusion.

  “We have it,” I said again. I opened my hand, revealing the bottle that contained the elixir. “Where’s Devon?”

  Agness’s expression was grave when she stood from her bed. She was still dressed in her nightgown. Calmly, she walked toward the exit. She brushed past me and entered the hallway. Watching her act like that caused my stomach to sink. Dread, worse than when I’d been talking to Deimos, weighed my shoulders down. Shouldn’t she be more relieved that we’d brought the elixir? “What happened to him?”

  “Follow me,” Agness said.

  I shared worried looks with my vassals, and the four of us trailed after Agness. The torches that lit the hallways seemed dimmer for some reason, and my feet dragged against the ground beneath me. If Devon was dead, then I didn’t want to know. I wanted to delay the revelation of the truth for as long as possible.

  “Tell me he’s not dead,” I said. And if he were, I wanted Agness to lie.

  “He isn’t,” she replied.

  I breathed out in relief, now hyperaware of the potion I carried. I’d guard it with my life. It was the only thing that could save Devon.

  “How is he, then?” Theo asked.

  “See for yourself.”

  Agness led us to a dark corner of the Sanctuary. During our trip here, we’d walked past a few curious students and brightlings. I’d paid little attention to them, my focus entirely on Devon and his safety. Agness pushed a wooden door open, leading us into a dark room. I squinted until she waved her wand, and the torches in the room burst to life.

  In the middle of the room was a bed. A figure lay on it, covered with thick blankets. As I walked closer, the state of Devon’s condition became clearer, and seeing him like that tore me up inside.

  I could barely recognize him.

  His face had turned gaunt, and his tan skin had darkened into gray. His fingers were thin and bony, his fingernails a deep yellow that belonged on a corpse.

  He didn’t look the least bit alive.

  “It’s almost time,” Agness said. “I’m not sure if his consciousness has already joined the land of the dead. His breathing is nearly nonexistent. If he’s gone too far, then I doubt that even the life elixir can bring him back.”

  Liam walked ahead of us and stopped by Devon’s side. He grabbed his companion’s hand gently. Devon’s fingers looked so brittle, like they might break at the lightest touch. “Let’s get to it, then,” Liam said.

  I refused to accept that Devon had left us.

  The sage, being the stingy twat that he was, had only given us two drops of the elixir. I couldn’t spill it, or I’d never have the chance to talk to Devon again, and that thought made me so sick that it hurt just to think about it. Carefully, I lifted the potion to Devon’s lips. I pried his mouth open. His skin was ice cold, chillier than even the air around us. I held my breath as I tipped the elixir. I watched the two drops fall into his mouth. Could this really make a difference? Holding my breath, I waited.

  I pulled away from Devon. I no longer wanted to feel the coldness of his skin on mine. He felt so dead. Tears pricked my eyes. Damn it. Was I about to cry? I usually tried not to cry, but despite my parentage, I acted decidedly human, and I couldn’t hold my emotions back.

  “Come on,” I said. “Wake up, Devon. I’ll hate you if you die.”

  There was no reaction. Devon remained still.

  I shook my head. “Please.” I held on to hope, though my grip on it seemed to be weakening as time went by. “Wake up.”

  Devon lay there like a corpse.

  The room fell into silence as we waited for something—anything—to happen. The seconds turned to minutes. Resignation weighed down the atmosphere. I grew weaker as the truth of the matter sank in.

  Devon wasn’t going to wake up.

  Liam, sensing my distress, wrapped his arms around me and hugged my head to his chest. “It’s all right, Cara.” Only when he spoke to me did I notice that I’d been shaking. I wrapped my arms around Liam, using him to ground me when the pain of loss sliced through my chest. I sucked in a deep breath, trying to control my emotions. But they poured out of me anyway, gushing in waves and refusing to stop no matter how much I wanted them to.

  “No, it fucking isn’t.” I hiccupped. Snot ran down my nose, and because Hansel was usually prepared, he had tissues. He passed me one of them, and I blew my nose. “It’s not all right. Nothing is.”

  Liam breathed out softly. I heard the beating of his heart as I leaned against his chest. Even though he didn’t break down into a bawling mess like I did, his heart rate increased. Liam might have had a better control of his emotions, but he was grieving just as I was.

  “I’m sorry,” Agness said.

  “Sorry means nothing.” The grief that overwhelmed me made it difficult for me to stand. I couldn’t accept this. I’d just met him, fallen in love with him. We were only beginning to get along.

  I couldn’t lose him this soon.

  I just couldn’t.

  Rage surged through me. I pushed myself from Liam and spun so I faced Devon. I hated him for succumbing to death. Hated that I’d met him in the first place.

  And most of all, I hated myself, for it was me who’d sunk that blade into his stomach.

  “Wake up!” I shouted. I grabbed his shoulders and shook him. “Wake up, Devon. Wake the fuck up.”

  “Cara, calm down,” Hansel said. He pulled me away.

  “I’m not going to fucking calm down.” I swiped Hansel’s hand from me. “He’s not dead, okay? He’s still with us.”

  “Cara…”

  I turned back around to look at Devon.

  He had stilled completely, all signs of life gone. I waited for a sign, staring at him as the last remnants of hope died in me. A slight movement was all I needed to see. A flutter of an eyelid. A twitch of his finger.

  Still, nothing.

  “You’re not dead,” I said. I was shaking so hard now that my teeth chattered. I grabbed my wrist with my other hand, trying to still the quivering of my body, but my soul felt like it was getting ripped apart. I looked to Agness. “You’re a goddess. Surely you can do something?”

  �
��Death is final. In both realms.”

  “What’s the point of being a goddess if you can’t control life and death?”

  “It doesn’t work that way, Caramel.”

  “Hel, the goddess of death, can—”

  “She doesn’t have a choice in her duties. Her powers spread far, wide, but when she takes a soul and sends it to the Underworld, she doesn’t do it of her own volition.”

  The world crashed around me. I felt tired. Exhausted. But also angry. I wanted to lash out. This wasn’t fair.

  It was the crushing guilt that made it unbearable. How was I to wake up every day knowing that I’d killed him? I didn’t want to face reality. My insides were getting torn apart and my chest felt too tight, like my lungs were getting crushed together, and it was a struggle just to breathe.

  I rested my head at Devon’s bedside and grabbed his cold, dead hand. I began sobbing at his side. The tears wouldn’t stop coming.

  “You need rest, Cara,” Hansel said. He rested a palm on my shoulder in an attempt to provide comfort, but nothing could save me from my emotions. “Take some time for yourself.”

  “There has to be another way.”

  Hansel wrapped his arms around me, hugging me from behind. He gave me a soft, reassuring kiss on my cheek before pulling me into his arms. I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave in to the emotions. All that trouble to save him, and we’d failed. My mind kept going back to the question of “what if?” What if I hadn’t eaten that stupid fruit?

  Then I’d have gotten the elixir faster. What if we’d been five minutes earlier? Would that have made a difference? I should have heeded those warnings from Agness and Devon’s father. It would have been better if Devon had been taken out of my vassal team. Why had we been so stubborn and ignored the warnings? Devon would have been safe.

  I could brood over a thousand and one possibilities, but the truth of the matter was that Devon had died.

  That finality was too difficult to accept.

  I looked up at Hansel. He, too, felt grief. His nose had turned red, and streaks of tears fell from his eyes. The other vassals also mourned the loss of Devon. He had been part of the team.

  “I’ll take you back to your room,” Hansel said, walking toward the exit. “You don’t have to look at him like this.”

  “I loved him,” I said.

  “We all did.”

  “It hurts.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  I sank into Hansel’s arms and almost broke into an ugly cry, but I mustered all my self-control to stop myself from doing so.

  I knew I needed rest, but I was certain that it’d be impossible to sleep a wink tonight.

  “You should have listened to my warnings,” Agness said. “Now look what happened.”

  At that, my anger increased in intensity. But I wasn’t sure where to redirect it. I tried to control my breathing to calm myself. Still, the grief fogged my mind and I couldn’t get a proper grip.

  Hansel had almost reached the exit when a soft murmur punctured my thoughts.

  “Cara?”

  It was almost inaudible. The voice was weak. Tired. But familiar, nonetheless. I reached up and clutched Hansel’s shirt. Hansel spun around immediately.

  I blinked past my tears. All at once, the turmoil that had made it so hard to breathe washed away from me. I stopped shaking and blew out a deep breath as unbelievable joy took control of my being. I wasn’t sure what to feel in that moment, having gone from one spectrum of emotion to the next.

  Devon sat up. Already, some color was returning to his skin. Hansel instinctively knew what I wanted and let me go. I rushed to Devon and swung my arms around him, careful not to use too much force, because that might hurt his recovering body.

  He chuckled. “Glad to see you, too.”

  “You’re ali-i-ve.” It was difficult to speak through my shaky voice. I focused on my breathing to get a hold of myself, but Devon’s presence was too distracting. Had it only been three days? Not knowing about his fate made those days stretch on forever, and I was far too glad to have him in my arms again. “Thank god.” I rested my face in the crook of Devon’s shoulder and took in his scent. His calming scent was already returning to him.

  “I had many dreams,” Devon said. “The wonderful thing is that you were in all of them.”

  “I love you,” I said, blurting the words out as quickly as I could. Almost losing him had made me afraid that I’d lose the opportunity to say them in the future. “I really do, Devon. I can’t say it enough.”

  Devon smoothed the hair at the back of my head down. “I love you too.” Devon tipped my chin up to meet his gaze. When I looked at him, his charming handsomeness had returned fully. Color had returned to his skin. His golden eyes, so bright that it looked like there were little specks of white in them, enraptured me fully. He brought his lips closer to mine. “It’s wonderful to hear you say that, Cara.” He closed the distance between our mouths. When we kissed like that, it was not lust or desire or passion that swelled in my thoughts, but security. Devon was safe, and that made me feel safe.

  Tenderly, he pulled my hair away from my face and swept it back. “I heard everything you said when I was asleep. I was waiting.”

  “Were you?” I asked, my voice breathy.

  He nodded. “And I believed in you. I knew you’d get the elixir and come find me.”

  “I thought I’d failed.”

  “I’m alive now because of you.”

  I celebrated that more than I’d ever reveled in anything. I let relief wash over me. I kissed Devon again. Almost losing him made him seem all the more precious.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For?”

  “Just being here.”

  That was enough.

  Chapter 11

  I woke up to a heavy sensation around my waist, my chest, my legs. We’d fallen asleep in a big, sweaty cuddle. Devon needed time to recuperate, and the rest of us had gone through a lot trying to save him. I glanced at the clock above me. It was ten in the morning. Classes had already started. Where was I on scoreboard now, and did that even matter? I probably sat at the bottom of the list, next to dear Herena, because I’d been absent for so long.

  The only way to avoid the morgue was to save both realms. Great.

  Agness had been kind enough to give us a special room in the goddess tower for some shuteye. I was to return to my own dorm the day after. The room was huge, with Renaissance paintings on the ceilings. Agness’s golden vines decorated the interior, as they did many places in the Sanctuary.

  The bed in my dorm was way smaller than this one. This, at the very least, could fit all four of us. My chest hurt, probably from the emotional rollercoaster Devon’s fate had put me through yesterday.

  Oh, and my chest probably also hurt because of Theo’s thick arm pressing down against it. I groaned, then pushed him off me. I couldn’t feel my legs either, since Hansel had his swung over mine. It was getting a little too hot. The rooms in the Sanctuary had air conditioning, but it still wasn’t enough to stave off the heat we generated cuddled up like that.

  “Guys,” I said. “You need to get off me.”

  Devon, who had somehow ended up sleeping next to my waist, lifted his head and peered at me. “Hey,” he said. There was a slight morning rasp to his voice that stirred my insides. His short hair had been thrown into a casual mess, and a strand of it had fallen to the side of his sharp yellow eyes. Just being able to look at him like that made me thankful. He looked so much better than he had yesterday. The elixir had healed him completely, color returning to his skin. His muscles had filled out, too.

  He looked full of life. The elixir was aptly named.

  Devon was here and he was mine. Knowing that made me all giddy.

  I returned his smile. “Morning.”

  Devon toyed with the hem of my tank top. Hansel had chosen this outfit for me. Agness had provided me with a new, temporary wardrobe. He pushed the fabric of my tank top up and ki
ssed my stomach. Cool anticipation crawled up my spine.

  “It’s still early,” I said.

  “It’s the best time for us to enjoy ourselves,” Devon said. “Life’s short.” He continued to plant kisses on my belly with his slightly chapped lips. Abruptly, he grabbed my waist and blew at the area right next to my belly button. It tickled, so I squirmed and laughed and accidentally elbowed Theo, who was sleeping to my right.

  Theo stirred. “Hm?”

  “Don’t do that,” I said. “It tickles.”

  “That’s the point,” Devon said. He dipped his head and pressed his lips on my stomach again. I squirmed again. My arm shot up and smacked into Theo’s face.

  “Why do you keep hitting me?” Theo asked. He sounded like he hadn’t fully woken up yet. “It’s…” He blinked his eyes open, glancing at the clock. “Cara, you’re late for class.”

  “I figured that class isn’t important anymore,” I said. “I’m not getting anywhere close to the top ten percent. Not after all that running about—”

  Devon blew at my stomach again.

  I stifled my laugh and grabbed a bunch of his hair. “Can you stop doing that?”

  “I like seeing you laugh,” Devon replied.

  “Not like this.” I screwed my nose up. “Can you make me do something else instead?”

  “Like?”

  “Come.”

  Devon’s expression immediately changed into one of desire. “You’re being pretty direct about it.”

  “I’m on a bed with four hot males. I’d have to be a saint to not be turned the hell on.” My panties were already soaking wet. Devon inched my shorts down and dragged them off, along with my underwear, exposing my center. My mind fogged from desire. He ran a tongue down the bottom of my belly until his mouth rested between my legs. Every part of me tightened. He latched his lips on to my pussy and sank his tongue into it, before sucking lightly. I arched my spine and grabbed a chunk of Devon’s hair. “Fuck.”