Chapter 24
NATE
I watched the light leave her eyes, and I died right along with her.
Resting my head against her chest, I did something I hadn’t done in so, so long. I cried. I prayed to anyone I could think of to guide her back to me. To take me too.
Anything but this pain. This failure.
I didn’t hear the others enter the room. Didn’t hear their own shock. Their grief. I was only vaguely aware of the mournful call of the Gryphon who’d lost his mate. Until they tried to take her body from me, I wasn’t aware of any of them.
Her life was tied to mine. How was I still here?
I looked up at Demke. “You’re the God of Renewal—do something!” I yelled. It was unfair, but I didn’t give a fuck. She was young and bright, and she’d died for nothing. That was unfair. “Bring her back.”
Demke’s pale face was drawn, pulled down by grief. “My power doesn’t work like that.”
I shook off the hands trying to grip me. Erus’s eyes were wide and watery, but he backed up. I didn’t want to be consoled. I’d failed her. I’d failed them.
The babies.
Jumping to my feet, I raced toward the crib, and when the Gryphon stepped in my way, I gave a war cry. I didn’t care if he’d been Wren’s mate; Wren was dead.
Wren was dead.
The only parts of her left were in that crib. “ Move! ”
The Gryphon roared back, making the babies cry harder, and then Milo was there.
“ ENOUGH! ” His anger was a force so great, it was almost a physical blow. Enough to stop me from going fist-to-beak with a monster that could eat me. Milo lowered his voice. “Enough,” he repeated, turning to reach into the crib. His big hands spanned three tiny chests, and he hummed a soft lullaby, even though his voice kept cracking. He looked at the Gryphon. “I know you can’t change right now, but can you ask Teron if they’re okay?”
Another keening noise came from its eagle mouth, but the Gryphon tilted its head further into the crib. The babies didn’t seem agitated by his presence, and I realized the Gryphon was as familiar to them as me or the rest of the guys.
Finally, he lifted his head and nodded. I let out a relieved sigh, even though it did so little to mend the hemorrhaging wound in my chest. Turning away from the crib, I realized the others had used my distraction to pick Wren up. Her body was lifeless, hanging limply in Tryp’s arms.
It wasn’t a dream.
I wanted to break down all over again.
Demke let out a choked noise. “Put her back in the nest. She should lay in state while we prepare her body.”
No. This is bullshit. “No! She’s not dead. This can’t be the end. Call Asclepius. Call Hades. Bring her back. ”
Demke gave me a hard look, but eventually nodded. “I’ll try. But pray to whoever your Gods of Death are too, because we will need all the help we can get.”
That was when I heard it on the wind—a sound that brought even the strongest warriors to their knees. The call of the bean-sidhe. Cliona’s cry echoed eerily through the silence of the night, and then the howl of the strays went up and joined in. Hundreds of dogs that had gathered around the town of Amourgeles let out a mournful, chilling sound. There would be no doubt to any person on this island that someone had died here tonight.
Wren was dead.
That’s when I realized Cy wasn’t anywhere. “Where’s Cydon?”
Surely he wouldn’t have let the Moirai past the wards. He wouldn’t have betrayed Wren like that. But how did the Moirai get so close without alerting the dogs or the Valkyries, or setting off the wards?
Moving from the room, I tried not to look back at Wren. The more I looked at her lifeless form, the harder it was to convince myself she wasn’t really dead, just unconscious.
There was thundering on the stairs, and the Valkyries suddenly appeared, one of them with Cy’s body in her arms. My heart twisted in my chest.
Erus stepped forward. “Is he…”
Hrist shook her head. “No, but he’s unconscious. Nothing we’ve done has woken him. We’ve tried everything.” She looked past me to Tryp, who was moving down the hallway to Wren’s room. She gasped, and the other Valkyries looked shaken.
“Mother of Fate!” Hildr moved forward, but the Gryphon blocked her. “Is she also unconscious?” I could see her staring at the blood-soaked shirt sticking to Wren’s body. To the gaping wound in her chest. To the color of her skin that couldn't be replicated by anything alive.
Demke shook his head. “The Moirai attacked the babies. Wren fought them off, but…” Tears filled his eyes. “We were too slow.”
The Valkyries lowered their weapons and fell to their knees as one, scary in their synchronization. Mist lifted her face to the ceiling. “We ask that Hel guide the Mother of Fate, Wren Mahone, to the halls of Valhalla so that she may feast with our fallen brethren forevermore.”
Hrist stood, handing me her sword. “We have failed in our duty and therefore accept the consequences of our shortcomings. We offer you our lives.” Again, she fell to her knees, all of them with their heads bowed, necks outstretched like they were waiting for me to behead them.
Fucking Dagda’s balls.
I threw the sword back at her feet. “I failed her too. Please stand.” I was shaking; I couldn’t remember the last time my ax hand had shook. “Your duty is still to the Kuningilin. You are honorbound to protect them. Especially now, while we… while we…” I choked on the next word, but Erus was there.
“While we grieve the loss of our bond.”
The Valkyries nodded, moving past us to stand guard in the nursery.
We were a solemn procession, following Tryp as he entered her room, moving toward the huge Gryphon nest where she’d slept. We laid her down on top of the blankets, still warm from our bodies, where we’d been sleeping not forty minutes earlier.
How could this have happened? I was meant to follow her. I wasn’t meant to live in this world without her.
Demke appeared with two thick gold coins, carefully placing them over her closed eyelids. “To pay the Ferryman to get her across the river.”
Hrist laid Cy down next to her, and I saw that his chest was barely moving. He was alive, but barely. Had the Fates done this? Had Cy found them first?
I had so many unanswered questions, but I wasn’t going to let Wren go so easily. Death wasn’t going to keep her from me.
I looked up at Demke. “Why didn’t we die with her? That’s what was supposed to happen, right?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, but I suspect that when the babies were born, our bond threads transferred to them.”
I hadn’t signed up for that. Though maybe I had. I would protect those babies with my very life, until my dying breath. I just never thought I’d have to do it without Wren. Not for a very long time, at least.
Is that what was wrong with Cy? Had he followed her into death? And if he had, why wasn’t he also dead?
Exhausted, I climbed into the bed beside Wren, uncaring that I was sticky with her blood. Uncaring that her body was cooling rapidly. I wanted to lie with her one more time before my immortal life went on without her.
I growled at the person who was trying to wake me. I wanted to stay in this blackness, untouched by pain and grief, where the whole ordeal could’ve just been a bad dream.
Except that fucker just kept trying to shake me awake.
“Néit, wake up.” Badb was on my bed. On Wren’s bed.
“Get off!” I shouted, and she showed that she still had a little good sense as she moved away quickly.
Beside me, Wren was still lying prone, coins over her eyes, though someone had removed her bloody sleep shirt and swathed her in soft white cotton. She looked like a corpse now, no life left in her body, almost like a wax figurine.
I hated it.
Jumping from the nest, I moved as far from the bed as I could get. As far away from that thing in the bed, who wasn’t the great love of my immortal life.
I looked over at my ex-wife and growled. “She’s dead. She’s dead, and you did nothing. ” It was like an arrow to the heart. “ I did nothing. And now she’s dead.”
Badb’s face softened. “I know. I heard Cliona’s cry, and the Valkyries filled me in on the rest. Néit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t even feel them enter the wards. Didn’t feel their bloodlust. They must have portaled directly into the nursery with the last of their power. They could never have restored themselves to being the Fates; this was petty revenge from deranged beings who didn’t know when to quit. There’s nothing you could have done.”
She stroked my arm softly, a touch that had been a regular thing so long ago, but now felt foreign. Would I forget the feel of Wren’s skin too?
“I didn’t want to wake you, but thought I should tell you that I had a dream.”
I frowned. She’d woken me to tell me she had a dream? What the actual fuck? I was a fucking mess, and she wanted to tell me about a dream?
“Get that look off your face, God of War. I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t important, and you know it.” She sucked in a deep breath. “I had a dream about Fea.”
Another knife in the heart. Another love I couldn’t save.
“Did you just come to rub salt in my wound?” I spat.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Shut up. I had a dream about Fea, and she was walking in the Underworld with your Wren. I think she was trying to give me a sign. I think Fea’s trying to help Wren get back.”