Chapter 36 Kai
BAZ. OPENING A PORTAL INTO hell.
It was all Kai could think, all he could hear as Farran struggled against his grip. Farran had kept this from him. The slimy bastard had somehow reached through the recesses of time to find Baz and manipulate him into getting these gods out of the hell they were desperate to escape.
The pieces of the puzzle all fell into place in Kai’s mind. “You knew Luce and I would be falling off the path, didn’t you? You meant to bring us to the abyss so that Baz would have a reason to open this damn portal.”
“Kai,” Farran sputtered as Kai’s hands squeezed his windpipe. “Please—”
“I swear, if anything happens to Baz, I’ll make you regret ever being reincarnated.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to him.” Farran’s face was red as he fought for breath. “He doesn’t—he won’t have to—”
“Let him go, Kai.”
Luce was tugging at his arm, but Kai didn’t care, rage overtaking him, darkness pulling him under, as if exacerbated by this dark place they were in. As if hell wanted him angry, wanted him feral, all so it could feed on those negative emotions and keep him down here forever.
“Enough.”
Kai was ripped away from Farran by the sun god’s mighty grip. It only enraged Kai even more. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled.
The god let him go as if burned, a yelp slipping from his lips. He stared at his hands with confusion that quickly turned to anger. “What did you do to me, boy?”
“Kai.”
Luce was looking at him with wide eyes. Staring, like everyone else, at Kai’s collarbones—where his Luaguan tattoos shone faint silver.
Before Kai could make sense of things, the floor beneath his feet rattled, the roots above his head shaking as if under the impact of some great, terrible force. A thunderous sound filled his ears, like a boulder being pushed down a cliff. Or a heavy door being opened.
The goddess of the moon smiled, her head tilted back to stare at the roots above. “The way lies open, my siblings.”
Baz had opened the doorway to the living realms.
“See?” Farran spat at Kai, rubbing at his sore neck. “I knew he could do it. I would never have made myself or you or him suffer through the ripples of time and hell otherwise. Now we can all leave here and save the worlds we call home.”
The god of the air laughed, mischief dancing in their eyes. “Such a hopeful way to look at things. If only it were that easy.”
Confusion knit Farran’s brows. “What do you mean? I thought—”
“You played your part well, Reaper,” the goddess of the earth praised him.
“You told us about the tree we knew would open a portal. Delivered our ritual to the Timespinner at the proper moment in time, thanks to that pocket watch of yours. And brought the Dreamer and Nightmare Weaver to us so that both the Tidecaller and Timespinner would have the proper motivation to save us. Now we can leave, you’re right about that.
But not all of us. The abyss, as you know, does not relinquish mortal souls freely. ”
“Lucky for you,” the god of the air said with a mischievous smile, “we only need one of you to act as our vessel and emissary in the living realms. One whose soul has already been touched by the divine.”
A strangled, bitter laugh tumbled out of Kai’s mouth.
The gods had never meant for him or Luce to leave this place.
Only Farran, who seemed to come to the same horrible conclusion, eyes going wide as they met Kai’s.
They had all been manipulated, all been used.
And it was too late now to stop the gods from doing what they’d always intended.
It happened at dizzying speed: the four gods dissolving before their eyes, turning into specks of colorful dust that swirled around Farran in a maelstrom of power.
Farran screamed, his eyes shifting to quicksilver to rust to fiery coals to lightning blue.
Roots reached down to him, curling around his torso and pulling him up into the depths of the tree.
And just like that, the four gods of the living realms vanished with their emissary.
Desperate not to be left behind in the abyss, Kai made to follow them but found that he could not move, his feet rooted to the floor beneath him.
“What’s happening?” Luce cried out.
She was also frozen in place, kept there by obsidian roots that crawled up her ankles, same as Kai. Unimaginable pain shot through the base of his feet and spread to his ankles. He heard himself scream, the sound mixing with Luce’s own helpless cries.
They were turning to stone, like all the souls of the dead sentenced to the abyss. As if hell was claiming their souls, too, even if they weren’t dead. They might as well be, if there was no way out of here.
But something fell out of the canopy of roots above, landing before them. Two people, one of whom Kai recognized with painful awareness.
“Emory?”
The name spilled out of Luce’s mouth on a shaky, terrified breath, as if she didn’t trust her own eyes, didn’t trust this to be real.
Maybe she thought this was the start of her eternal damnation, a vision of the daughter she had abandoned and set out to save against all odds and would never see again outside of her own tortured mind.
But Kai knew this wasn’t a torment of hell; there was no reason for him to be seeing Emory if it was.
And Emory’s expression as she took in her mother was too raw, too complex, to be anything but real.
That expression steeled itself, becoming stony determination, as she erupted into light. Warmth spread through Kai, and the pain in his legs began to subside.
She was healing them, he realized. Casting back hell itself to prevent it from claiming their souls.
The light emanating from her, enveloping them in its warmth, flared brighter and brighter.
Emory screamed at the strain, this big a feat of magic surely taking a toll on her.
The boy at her side hovered close, an obscure figure amid the dazzling light, as if he were Emory’s own shadow, the darkness around him growing thicker as she flared all the brighter.
But hell was fighting back with everything it had, unwilling to let them go. Because while Kai’s limbs were flesh and bone once more, while the roots keeping him in place receded, a ring of white-hot flames suddenly erupted around the temple, trapping them in.
Distant, familiar screeches sounded through the hiss of flames.
The smell of sulfur that hit Kai was overwhelming, and he knew it meant the wayward souls of the dead were coming—that they were no longer contained to the hellfire stream their ship had sailed through, perhaps called here by the opening of the portal into the living realms or even Emory’s magic.
Or perhaps they still hungered for Kai’s and Luce’s souls, as unwilling to see them leave as the abyss seemed to be.
“We need to get out of here.” The light around Emory had extinguished. She was glancing at the network of roots above their heads, assessing how they might reach it. “Can you get us back up there?” she asked the stranger with her.
Kai wanted to tell them both not to bother—that according to the gods, the abyss wouldn’t relinquish mortal souls, which meant they were trapped here.
But just then, the wayward souls of the dead came rushing through the ring of flames around the temple, faces distorted on horrifying screams. And they were all aiming for Emory.
The boy at her side stepped in front of her, shadows swirling around him until he was no longer a boy but a towering umbra with clawed hands and depthless eyes and a wicked crown of obsidian that Kai had seen before, held before.
The crowned umbra pounded its foot on the ground. A crack echoed loudly, full of reverberating power, as dark waves shot the spirits back and created a protective layer of shadows all around the temple, keeping the souls on the other side of the ring of flames.
There was a sound like splitting wood above Kai’s head as tendrils of shadow shot from the umbra to pull at the obsidian roots, tearing an opening in the tangled mass of them. The dislodged roots rearranged themselves to create a ladder they could climb.
Go, the umbra’s voice rang in the sudden quiet. I can’t hold them for long.
Kai wasted no time. He tugged Luce out of her transfixed state, ushering her toward the ladder. But Luce only gripped her daughter’s arm, her face a tapestry of unspoken emotions reflected on Emory’s own face.
“I’m right behind you,” Emory said.
Kai went first, helping Luce over the lip of the opening once he’d made it up. They were on a path of obsidian, in darkness more oppressive than that of the abyss. Kai could feel life farther up, like a gentle breeze rushing down, and knew it was the portal into the living realms somewhere near.
Maybe they were getting out of here after all.
Luce screamed as dark, spindly roots reached out of the abyss to wrap around her wrist. Kai felt them grab hold of his ankle, trying to drag him back down to hell.
Light emerged from the opening as Emory appeared at the top of the ladder and cast her magic at the roots, which shrank back as if singed.
Kai scrambled up the path, heart pounding wildly.
A horrible screeching made Emory lower herself back down the ladder. “Sid?” she called out to the crowned umbra below.
There was no answer save for a chorus of ghastly screams. Whatever Emory saw had her going white with terror. Hands still gripping the top rung of the ladder, she turned to Kai and Luce. “Climb up the path until you find Baz. He’ll get you both out of here.”
Kai knew what she meant to do before she did. Luce seemed to guess at it too, for she reached for her daughter with a desperate cry, fingers grazing her wrists just as Emory let go of the ladder and disappeared in the chaos below.
Roots burst through the opening once more, a thousand of them now reaching for Kai and Luce like the tentacles of a great and terrible beast looking to plunge them back into the abyss.
With hell at their heels, they ran.