He laughed, a soft sound in the darkness around us. “Team Freedom. That’s what we’re fighting for.”
The freedom to make our own choices, to live out our own destiny and death. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”
I fell silent as we continued down. Trey’s hand fell from my back, but I felt him close by. Sometimes I heard him murmuring to Beth. I lost track of time. One moment would seem to take an eternity, each sound magnified, from the intake of my breath to a drop of water somewhere to Trey’s footstep behind me brushing across the top of the stone. It would seem we moved in slow motion, several lifetimes passing from the time I lifted my foot off of one step and brought it down on the next. Moments later we would seem to move in quick speed, the steps blurring beneath my feet, taking corners and switchbacks at breakneck speed. These moments disoriented and frightened me, and I would reach my hand back for Trey.
Each time his fingers clutched mine. “I’m still here, Jayne.”
“Do you feel it?” I whispered. “The way time passes strangely?”
“I feel it. Time for the gods does not flow the same as it does for us. We with our mortal minds can’t comprehend it, so it plays tricks on our brains while we try to make it fit in our world and reality.”
Those words did not comfort me. “How much time has passed?”
“I don’t know.”
That was all I got from him.
My hands grew sore and achy as we descended, my joints stiffening. The air got older and musty, thick enough to taste. A strand of hair fell over my shoulder, and for second I thought it looked white, but when I picked it up to examine it, it was brown. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the flame in my other hand leading the way, but my fingers appeared to be skeletal, white bones supporting the suspended, flickering light. My eyes turned to them, but it must’ve been another trick of the light. Or of the darkness, or of the heavy feeling pervading the air. My normal fingers were there, flesh and blood wrapped around bones.
“What is this place?”
“All of time. Yesterday, today, the future.”
His voice sounded faint, distant. I turned around and saw no one behind me. Instantly I stopped walking, and the light in my hand trembled, nearly extinguishing.
“Trey?” I called. Where was he? Fear thundered in my heart, thundered in my ears, as loud as a herd of elephants storming across a tin roof. A measuring beat, steady, steady, louder, louder. “Trey?” I called again, my voice arcing in fear.
“Jayne?”
The voice came from behind me, and I whipped around. There, about twenty steps below me, was Trey. I shivered, hating this place, fear pounding in my throat.
“How did you get down there?” I demanded. He’d never walked past me.
He shook his head. “Come, Jayne.” He held his hand out to me and didn’t lower it until I reached him and slipped my fingers into his.
“Don’t let go.”
His simple command, said without fanfare or drama, filled me with the knowledge that something sinister surrounded us.
We continued down, my fingers clenching Trey’s, each step feeling like a year. From time to time I caught a glimpse of my hair drifting across my shoulder, white as snow. But any time I looked at it, it appeared normal. The moment I took my eyes from my hand, in my peripheral vision I saw the glistening reflection of light on bone. And I knew this wasn’t a trick of the light.
“Are we dead?” I was afraid to ask, but I had to know.
Trey’s fingers squeezed mine, warm and alive. “No. But the living do not belong here.”
A year seemed to pass, then another, then a decade. We passed through time without speaking until I asked, “Will we ever get there?” Would the world we’d left behind be obsolete by the time we did?
The floor beneath our feet smoothed out, and Trey stopped walking.
“Dekla.” A voice boomed from the inky blackness, warm and affectionate and immediately dispelling my fears.
“We are here,” Trey said, but he didn’t let go of my hand. Instead, he drew me closer, shielding me behind him.
A light appeared from somewhere above us, illuminating a grand hall. It was decorated as if for a banquet, though no food sat on the table and no one else appeared. If Jumis hadn’t brought the light, we could’ve been in a darkened cave. Beth appeared in the yellow glow clutching Trey’s other hand, and she gave a little cry when she saw me. She threw her arms around me, and I felt her tremble.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Sorry you’ve been sucked into this.”
“You may go, Auseklis,” Jumis said. “Your job here is done. Thank you for bringing them safely.”
Trey hesitated. “They’ll need me to see them out.”
“Dekla is not going back.”
Trey tightened his jaw. “But Beth is.”
“What about the souls?” I said, fighting to keep my head clear.
Jumis nodded. “I know where Jod’s is keeping them.”
“You promised to release them. They’ll need me to ascend,” Trey said. His voice held a challenge in it, as if daring Jumis to go back on his word. Or make him leave.
“Stay, then, so you can guide them to the world of the living.” Jumis looked at me, eyes like liquid pools of ink. “Dekla, release his hand.”
My fingers opened, moving away from Trey’s without me telling them to. I choked back a gasp of astonishment. “How—?” I began, but then I remembered. I belonged to him. He could command me.
And then my knees went weak, because I knew this was not a binding I could break. I belonged to him.
Trey moved to steady me, but Jumis got there first. He caught me, cradling me. “Don’t fight this, Dekla. This is how it was always meant to be. You and me. The bringer of death and life and the goddess of fate. Together forever.”
I closed my eyes, tears threatening as the futility of the situation weighed on me. His words struck me wrong, sounding like a happy song gone mad.
“Where are the souls?” Trey asked. I opened my eyes to see his gaze locked on Jumis, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
“They are being kept in a cage. I do not have the right to free them, but with the goddesses’ powers, we can release them all. And then you can guide them back to the living. If the three of you felt the effects of the pathway even with your godly powers, it will be that much worse for the souls that are entirely mortal.”
I found the strength to stand up, preferring my own two feet to Jumis’ arms. “And when they return to the world above? How much time has passed since we began our descent?”
Jumis turned his dark brown eyes on me. His features were as lovely as ever, but this time I saw nothing enticing about them. I felt as if I’d been trapped, manipulated. I might have promised with my own words, but I had only done it because I’d been coerced to. There had been no other choice. And for that, I despised him.
“No time has passed,” Jumis said, his tone gentle. “When Auseklis returns to the land of the living with the souls, it will have been moments since the three of you left. Only Aaron has his physical body here. The other souls will disburse to find their bodies the moment they exit the pathway. Aaron will be in the care of Auseklis.”
I turned to Trey, determination strengthening me. “You have to get Aaron home. Don’t stay here. Make sure he gets home safely.” Don’t fight for me, I pleaded.
Tray hesitated. “My duty is not just to you, but to your sister. And Meredith—”
“I am sacrificing everything to make sure Aaron lives!” The anger that shook my words was more than just mine. Dekla’s power radiated in my veins, and I looked down to see flames lighting between my fingers. I tempered my voice when I spoke again. “Auseklis, your kind have always been trusted servants. I am trusting you now with one of my most precious treasures. Take him home.” Authority rang in my words.
Trey nodded. “I will get him home safely.”
I flung my arms around his neck. “Thank you.”
He hug
ged me back, but he didn’t speak.
“Come, Dekla.” Jumis’ hand closed around my wrist, and I fought the urge to fling it off. “Come,” he repeated. “I need you and your sister to set them free.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Jumis led us down a dark, dripping hallway. Then we went through a doorway into what appeared to pass for the outdoors in the underworld. A vast lake stretched out in front of us, tall, mossy trees and bushes with beautiful, exotic flowers surrounding it. Strange creatures with misshapen faces and lumpy appendages swam in the water’s depths.
“What are those?” I asked, a shiver running down my spine.
“You remember, Dekla,” Jumis said calmly, and even as he said it, I did remember.
The souls of the damned. Once they had been men, and then they were vadatajs. And then finally, when they lost all sense of humanity, they became nothing but hideous creatures. I looked away from them. “Where is Aaron?”
“I hid him with the other souls. I knew Jods would not look for him there.”
“Why is Jods in charge of these souls and not you?” Beth asked.
Jumis spared her a glance. “I am not the god of the dead. It is not up to me to guard the souls. I have been escorting them to the underworld in Saule’s place, but it is my job to begin the cycle of life, not end it. These souls are not dead, but neither are they living. Jods has captured them in this unnatural in-between state. By freeing them, you will be restoring balance.”
He led us around the lake and into another corridor. The light followed him. My flame had extinguished, and I was tempted to call it back. Doors lined this passage, and I heard voices, some of them desperate, crying, others merely curious, speaking to us as we walked by.
“And this?” I asked, waiting for the answer to reveal itself in my memory.
“You tell me,” he said, amusement in his voice. Like this was a game to him, watching me uncover the memories of my predecessors.
“Waiting,” I said. “They’re waiting for judgment so they can leave for their final resting place.”
“That’s right.”
Jumis pushed open a door, and we stepped into a room. What looked like a giant gilded birdcage sat in the middle of the floor. Figures whirled within it, and I caught glimpses of a face, a hand brushing the bar, eyes turning toward me, before they all swirled together into a misty mass.
But then the body standing at attention in the corner caught my attention, and I ran forward. An invisible barrier blocked me three feet before I got there, and I smacked into it hard enough to bounce onto my backside.
“Aaron!” I cried.
“He doesn’t have his soul back yet,” Jumis said. “Let us release them.”
I took a hesitant step toward the golden cage, but no barrier stopped my approach. “Beth,” I said, and she came to my side.
“What do we do?” she whispered, her eyes wide and uncertain.
I could easily pick out those under my jurisdiction; the orange orbs flitted and bounced against each other and the cage, eager to get out. I had no idea how to help Beth see them. I turned to Jumis.
“She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t know how to do this. Can you help her?”
He looked at her, and I saw him calculating what he could gain from this. I placed my hand on his arm before he could think of something else to leverage against me and said, “I’ll stop fighting. I promise.”
He turned his eyes on me, and I realized I’d underestimated him. Naked vulnerability and hope shown in his expression. All he wanted was my love.
He closed his palm, and when he opened it again, an orb of energy danced there, identical to the one he’d offered me, but blue instead of orange. Beth’s gaze landed on it, and there was no mistaking the hunger in her eyes. He extended it to her, and she snatched it quicker than I could blink. In a moment it dissolved into her fingers, and she closed her eyes and inhaled. When she opened them, the blue light flickered in their depths.
“I know what to do now,” she breathed, excitement and certainty in her voice.
“Then let’s begin,” I said. I focused on the souls in the cage and began seeking out individuals, one by one. Once again, time seemed to stand still. But it didn’t drain me like it had on the battlefield. An eternity passed and still, Beth and I were side by side, looking into their souls and offering them a choice.
There was no lock on the cage; they had been bound only by their inability to decide to leave. Once they decided, the cage couldn’t hold them. They slipped through the bars and crowded around Trey like ethereal beings.
The last one got free of the cage, and I took a step back to get my bearings, to fall back into my own body, my own soul.
The feather light touch of Jumis’ hands on my waist made me turn toward him.
“One more, Jayne.”
It was the first time he had called me by my given name since the battlefield. There was a tenderness and compassion in his eyes that I didn’t expect, and I didn’t want it. I looked in the direction of Aaron’s body, still lying prone on the ground.
“Jayne,” Beth said. She held out in her hand a shimmering mist. “This is Aaron. I thought you might want to be with him when I release him.”
I nodded, too emotional to speak. Jumis held out his hand for mine, and I accepted, eager to see this end.
He stepped to the barrier, but when he tried to pull me through, my hand would not pass. He looked at me, blinking, and I saw a flicker of confusion pass over his face. He studied our entwined hands and tried again to tug me in after him. “Why can’t I pull her through?”
Trey shook his head. “I don’t know enough about what created this to answer the question.”
“I passed through the barrier unhindered.”
I rattled my hand in his, but the wall bumped between our fingers. “Well, why can’t I get through?”
“Dekla, come to me,” Jumis commanded.
My body tried. I smashed up against the invisible barrier, but that was all.
“How can this be stronger than a binding?” Jumis asked Trey, his voice sounding more puzzled than angry.
“I’m not sure. But if Jods created this, he may have intentionally made it so no mortal could pass through.”
“As if he knew we might try,” Jumis said. “Then Jods knows the human boy is here.” He looked at me. “But if she cannot go through, I cannot keep my promise to her.”
A note of desperation entered his voice. If he couldn’t keep his promise to me, I was not expected to keep mine. For a brief moment, hope surged through me. I wouldn’t have to marry him. I would be free of him.
But then I realized what that would mean, why I had even agreed in the first place. I wanted Aaron set free. No matter what the personal cost.
“Can’t you get him?” I asked.
Jumis shook his head. “He won’t leave without his soul, and I can only retrieve the souls of the dead. I cannot put his living soul back in his body.”
“I can set his soul free,” Beth said. “Then he’ll be able to walk out of his own choice.”
“No,” Jumis said. “The soul is immortal but still tied to mortality. It won’t pass through either. One of the goddesses of fate must return it to him.”
“Try it,” I told Beth. Maybe he was wrong.
She looked at the mist swirling in her palm, and then it lifted away from her and spread out against the barrier like a raindrop on a windshield, dispersing before coalescing into a hazy circle.
Aaron. That was Aaron’s soul, trying to get into his body. I turned to Trey, my desperation matching Jumis’. “There must be a way to get me through.”
“You would need the powers of immortality,” Trey said.
“Is there a way to give me them?” I demanded.
“Not without Deivs—” Trey began. And then he stopped and met Jumis’ eyes.
There was another way. I saw it in their expressions. But from the look on Trey’s face, he didn’t like it.
�
�What?” I demanded. “Whatever it is, I have the right to know. I have the right to make that decision.”
“You can marry me now,” Jumis said.
I jerked, nearly pulling my hand free from his. “Is that meant to be some kind of joke?”
“No,” Jumis said, locking his eyes on mine. “It is an offer.”
“If you marry him, his immortality extends to you. As long as you are his wife, you can cross the same barriers he can.” Trey said the words softly, somberly.
“It is not how I planned it,” Jumis said. “But you knew a wedding was going to happen. If we do it now, we can free him. Before Jods discovers we’re here. It is something I can offer you.”
I couldn’t breathe. My eyes were frozen on Aaron, the man I had once hoped to spend my life with. And yet it seemed in order to save his life, I had to pledge my life to another. “How?” I asked, hearing how my voice trembled. “How can this be done now?”
“Auseklis can do it for us.”
I spun to face Trey, unable to hide my surprise. This was something I hadn’t known, even as Dekla. “You? Aren’t you a man of many talents.”
He looked rather sheepish. “It’s not done often,” Trey said. “In fact, I don’t know when was the last time it was done.”
“Because most of us married eons ago,” Jumis said. “In the presence of Deivs or Perkons. I am one of the few who was left alone after the last war.”
After Dekla chose mortality over me and left me alone.
I heard the words he didn’t say and made my choice. “Will you do it then?” I asked Trey.
He looked at me in disbelief. Then he nodded. “I’ll need help remembering the words.”
“I can help you,” Jumis said. “For more than a millennia those words have echoed through my head, as I’ve longed for the wedding day I was deprived of.”
The pity welled in my heart against my will. When the sisters split their powers, Dekla had known it would hurt Jumis, but she’d never expected him to pine away for her for hundreds of years. “You should’ve moved on,” I whispered.
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