Chapter 29 Tartarus
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
TARTARUS
Death will find you.
His words are alluring. Soft.
And when she does, she will show you your darkest nights. Endure it, for it will pass when you have completely healed from your wound.
“Where…are…we?” I ask, moaning in pain.
“I’m carrying your near-dead arse out of hell,” he says with a deep chuckle, and the hint of a smile nudges at my lips. “Rest, Saya. You deserve it.”
Ink bleeds around my eyes as the nightwalker moves.
Everything he says blurs together, spinning intricate webs, and I sink into a spider’s bite. As I do, the nightwalker’s voice and the sounds of creatures fade away.
Silver moonlight glimmers over two figures in the distance.
I am in the valley. Moonflowers thrive, and pollen sprinkles the air like mist. Further down, a trickle of sound from the river winds through the valley, flowing out to the Slayer Sea. Those are the sounds I missed most—the sounds I have longed to hear.
But the happy remembrance is quickly shattered by panicked movements ahead.
Her strangled, whimpering breaths spill from her mouth, while his exhalations sound like a moan. As her hands push against his chest, her Blessed unbuckles his belt, and his friends hold her legs to keep her from escaping.
“Gag her,” her Blessed says. “I don’t want her waking the village like last time.”
One of his friends takes off his shirt and twists it into a thin rope. As he moves it towards her mouth, words I don’t recall saying escape from her desperate lungs. “Zahan Riganun!”
Crimson-dripping ribbons spring from the ground.
Her Blessed falls back and scrambles away from her.
The men run, and her Blessed is far ahead of the others, fleeing more easily than the rest. Ribbons wrap around his friends’ legs and lift them into the air.
Skin stretches like it is made of rubber, and their screams remind her of the cries she released when they dragged her to the valley last time.
A wash of crimson paints the moonflowers red, and as silence torments the night, she curls up in a ball, tugging down her torn gown in shame and disgust.
“Saya, get up!” Mum grabs my arm and lifts me up from the bed of moonflowers. “Your Blessed told his father, but because they can’t punish you, they want your brother.”
As I stand, I stare at Cole clinging to Mum in a restless sleep. Small hands cling to her, and he grunts. But before her words can fully sink in, I face the bloody mess behind me. Streaks of crimson violently splattered across the moonflowers, and clumps of guts dot the garden like pebbles.
My bottom lip trembles, and as I face Mum and the worried look in her hazel eyes that have never mirrored mine, I say, “I didn’t want this.”
Her hand tightens on my arm, and she says, “I know. Forgive me. But—”
I shake her off and cry out, “Pres laes hos siptau vix cec!”
The ground trembles at the vegodian words “I didn’t want any of this,” and a rush of vibrant light pulses through the air.
Mum gasps, stepping back as I lean forward, hands on my chest, my breathing heavy with frustration and exhaustion.
White light glows, and the moonflowers stand erect, breathing flakes of glittering white dust into the air.
“Vegodian,” Mum breaths, a slight smile on her face as she holds Cole tighter.
“That’s it, Saya. Focus on these powers.
This is you.” Hazel eyes lower to mine, and she steps forward to rest her hand on my cheek.
“Forgive me for not seeing you sooner. And as much as I want to teach you, your Blessed will be here soon.”
With a sharp exhale, I step forward mechanically, taking Cole from her arms. “Where should we go?”
Mum points to the Slayer Sea. “Follow it, and you will find our Life Tree. She will be waiting for you, and will take you somewhere safe.”
I hold Cole close, my hand cradling the back of his head. “Where?”
Mum shakes her head, tears springing to her eyes. “I don’t know. All I know is that you and Cole will be safe and far from your Blessed, okay?”
“And if he finds me?”
A stern glint hardens her features as she says, “Caet mu o.”
Don’t let her take you, kamai.
The nightwalker’s voice cuts through the darkness. I open my eyes, wincing at the light of the flames from the bone torches lining the path. The fire suffocates the air, making it feel dense. My skin protests, and I shy away from the stinging heat and lean closer to the coolness pressed against me.
His hands grip my flesh around my waist and legs.
Moonlight spills in from the fissure above, perfectly illuminating the path of skulls.
Creatures prowl around us while the nightwalker climbs the mountain of rubble, bleeding bodies, and picked-clean bones.
The creatures swarm, and he bears his fangs, bursting with a quivering anger.
He takes another step, crunching through brittle skulls, when a clawed hand breaks through from underneath the debris.
The nightwalker hisses as the hand grips his leg.
“Inge kahazen!” the nightwalker spits.
“What—” An ache in my chest scrapes against my ribcage, and a tightening in my throat threatens to hold my words back. “What did you say?”
The nightwalker kicks free from the creature’s grip and presses on, advancing up the mountain of death. “I said, ‘damn monsters’ in Daryun. There are a lot more than I expected. Instead of trying to reach the surface, they crave you.”
Another creature approaches, and the nightwalker sends a swirl of shadows to envelop the beast. Guttural cries emanate from the writhing mass, and an arm, followed by a shattered eyeball roll away from it.
A river of dark blood flows. The nightwalker slips through the stream of black blood as rotting corpses fall from above, the chasm crumbling a little more with every quake.
My mind sharpens when another ache strikes me. Primal hunger grips my throat like a hand trying to crush it, tightening with desire. My eyes settle on his neck…
“It’s closing,” he says. “But we’re close.”
Darkness grips me again, and I sink into his arms, then oblivion.
The ground trembles, and I fall forward, hands that aren’t mine sinking into the charred, blackened soil. Fire licks up buildings, and bodies lie in bloody streaks across the battlefield.
What? Where am I?
The body I am in moves, and I am nothing but a passenger in their mind. Panic slips from a hoarse throat, and they sprint ahead while bursts of dirt and sharpened explosions create a ringing in their ears, dampening all sound.
They fall again, and when they stand, a man is waiting with his gun poised to shoot.
“Please,” my body says, the voice a deep croak, dry and filled with pain. “Please, don’t kill me.”
The man, stained red and brown, dispassionately rests his finger on the trigger.
“Ardulgyu prus urot!” Light zips across the throat of the man with the gun, and his head rolls from his shoulders before his body falls, revealing a teenage girl standing behind him.
She lowers her glowing blue sword, leans down and looks at the person I am trapped inside of.
Dressed in a tightly fitted yellow outfit, her silver eyes glisten like the stars, and her white, moonlit hair is tied back. Bloody streaks stain her.
“You’re a vegodian,” the body I inhabit says.
She moves closer and tilts her head to one side. “Are you wounded, boy? Your parents? Can you walk?”
“No,” I—he says, hiding the cut on his knee. “No parents,” he chokes out, and wetness leaks down his cheeks. “And yes. I can walk.”
The girl straightens, sheathing her glowing blue blade. “Then I will take you to safety. Come, human. Keep up.”
The dream fractures, and I return to hell.
“What was—” I lick my parched lips. “What was that?”
“A memory. Mine,” The nightwalker grunts before he mutters something in Daryun. “When man fears magik, war is inevitable, and innocent children tend to be caught in the crossfire.”
As I try to sit up, a creature bursts free from underneath the sea of bones. Skulls, torn limbs, and splatters of blood fly as the monster’s claws reach out, hungering for my flesh.
“Zahan Riganun,” I say, the words my younger self spoke rolling off the tip of my tongue.
White ribbons break from my skin. Like swords, swift and quick-flowing, they cut through heads, bodies, arms, and torsos, splitting them apart and ripping flesh from bone.
“Thank you,” the nightwalker murmurs as we step over the corpses. My hands grip his shirt tighter, and an overwhelming fatigue seizes me. I rest my head against his chest and gaze at the moonflowers sprouting at the nightwalker’s feet as he walks.
We arrive at the opening of the Hellsgate, the walls of the fissure draped in dripping black blood burnished red in the moonlight.
Serun mutters a few indiscernible words, shifting his position slightly.
Shadows peel away from him, slipping across my skin like a lover’s hands, and with little effort on his part, I’m repositioned onto the nightwalker’s back.
My arms move lazily around his shoulders, and shadows slip around my wrists to hold me in place.
With a blur of speed, the nightwalker grips the uneven wall and climbs skyward. When we reach the surface, the air turns brisk and I shiver. Serun moves to cradle me in his arms once more, my body too weak to protest, and through bleary eyes I watch the Hellsgate seal shut behind us with a hiss.
I gaze up at the sky and the red moon. Mother is no longer there, and milk begins to flow through the crescent, softening the red until silver once more illuminates the city. Tall buildings stand silent, the screams from below now swallowed by the darkness.
“My brother. Where is my brother?” I murmur.
“I could only save you,” he says. “Besides, he wouldn’t want to see you like this. Your glamour was shattered.”
What Jax said in the vent, about the Vampire Lord, burns brighter in my mind now that I see him for what he truly is. “All we have to go off is that it conceals its identity with shadows.”
My fingers tighten on the sleeve of his shirt, and I glare at the nightwalker as I say, “And you are the reason, aren’t you, Serun? You are the Lord of the Undercity, and have been deceiving me this entire time.”
Cold crimson eyes settle on me, and the corner of his mouth curves into a smirk. “You had a choice. Die, or feed from me.”
I recoil, my eyes tearing away from the pretty corpse and looking for an escape.
His hold tightens around my legs, but his hand around my back slackens. Fingers snap, and darkness spools around me. “I’d rather not carry you kicking and screaming the entire way to the Sunken City, kamai. Sleep well.”
“Serun,” I seethe, but as I breathe in, shadows slip into my mouth and nostrils, invading my body and turning my mind to fog.
“Next time you wake, you will rise on your deathbed,” he says, and his arms circle tighter around me as I grow limp. “Don’t make me wait too long.”