Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Aria
The transition was not like entering the Threshold where I had visited with the princes in my dreams. The Threshold was a place of mind and magic, a chaotic storm of color and emotion. This? This was plunging headfirst into a bucket of ice water and rotting kelp.
My human senses vanished, extinguished like a candle in a gale.
In their place, a kaleidoscope of alien inputs flooded my consciousness.
I didn’t see with two eyes; I saw with three independent fields of vision, a fractured panoramic view of the dark tunnel that was painted in shades of radioactive green and thermal heat signatures.
I didn't smell with a nose; I tasted the air with wet, quivering antennae.
The scent of the cultists down the tunnel wasn't just a smell; it was a physical texture, a greasy, metallic film coating my mind. Fear. Sweat. The ozone burn of unstable magic. And beneath it all, the deep, rhythmic thrumming of the Titan’s bone, beating like a second heart in the earth.
Hunger, the Skal’s mind whispered, a cold, wet thought that slithered over my own. Prey.
It wasn't a complex thought. It was a biological imperative, sharp as a hook.
I anchored myself to the sensation of Kaelen’s hand gripping mine back in the tunnel, the searing heat of his dragon skin against my cold fingers. That claim was my lifeline. Without it, I felt I might dissolve into this creature’s primitive drive to consume.
Go, I commanded, pushing my will down the bond. Silent.
The creature moved. My perspective lurched forward, low to the ground and terrifyingly fast. I felt the scrape of stone against the chitinous armor of my underbelly. I felt the independent articulation of too many legs, a clicking, scuttling rhythm that made my phantom bile rise.
We, or rather, it, burst from the tunnel mouth into the excavated chamber.
If the cavern above had been a natural wonder, this was an open wound in the world’s foundation.
The ceiling was low and oppressive, supported by rough-hewn beams of petrified wood.
The air was hot, humid, and thick with the cloying sweetness of the glowing glass jars lined up on stone tables.
They pulsed with a soft light, the markings that must be the stasis runes keeping my stolen potential alive.
In the center of the room, half-embedded in the rock wall, was the Titan fragment.
It looked like it could be part of a ribcage, but it was the size of a cathedral, bleached white and weeping a dark, viscous energy that pooled on the floor.
Somehow I knew that if I had been there in person that energy would have been invisible to me.
Around it, the circle of robed figures chanted.
They were a mix of the ragged Order of Khaos cultists and Keepers in their pristine grey robes, traitors who had sided with the old regime. They swayed in unison, their voices rising in a discordant drone that made the Skal’s sensitive antennae twitch with pain.
Or maybe that was irritation.
Meat that makes noise, the Skal thought. Annoying meat.
I focused my attention, our attention, on the figure standing in the center of the circle.
Keeper Marissa.
She looked exactly as I remembered her from years ago.
Tall, severe, her white Healer’s robes spotless despite the filth of the excavation.
Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, her face a mask of clinical detachment as she conducted the chanting with small, precise movements of her hands.
She stood before the largest cluster of jars, drawing the dark energy from the Titan bone and weaving it into the stasis fields.
Her, I projected into the Skal’s mind, tightening the metaphysical leash. The White One. Stop her. But do not eat the jars.
The Skal chittered, a sound of grinding plates that echoed in the chamber.
The chanting faltered.
Heads turned. The cultists nearest the tunnel entrance froze, their eyes widening as they saw the nightmare crouched in the shadows.
"What is that thing?" one of the Keepers screamed as they backpedaled, trying to get away from the Skal.
Attack, I ordered.
The Skal launched itself.
It was an explosion of violence. I felt the immense power in the creature’s limbs as it sprang, closing the distance in a blur of black armor. The Keeper’s bones shattered like sugar glass under the impact of the Skal’s primary claw.
Then came the feeding.
It was chaos. Absolute, wet, slurping, crunching chaos. I tried to direct it, tried to force the creature to carve a path straight toward Marissa, but the moment the first drop of blood hit the air, the Skal’s discipline fractured.
I didn't know how it had remained alive in the water by the amplifier, but it was starving now and a full course meal had just landed in front of it.
The cultists panicked, breaking formation, running in every direction. To the Skal, this wasn't a tactical engagement; it was a buffet where the food had started running.
A cultist in rags lunged with a jagged dagger.
I felt the echo of steel against the armored shell, insignificant and annoying.
The Skal whipped a tentacled limb around, catching the man by the waist. I felt the sickening pop of ribs giving way, the warm gush of fluids.
The creature tossed the broken body aside and lunged for another.
Not them! I screamed in the shared headspace, fighting the wave of sadistic pleasure radiating from the beast. It was intoxicating, a rush of dopamine triggered by the kill. I felt sick, my human stomach turning even as the creature’s maw salivated. Go to the center! The Woman in White!
Meat everywhere, the Skal argued, distracted by a Keeper trying to keep it at bay with fire. It absorbed the heat, shaking it off like water, and snapped the Keeper in half. Abundance.
"No!" I gasped aloud in the tunnel, my physical body sagging against Kaelen.
"Aria?" Kaelen’s voice was tight with worry. "What's happening?"
"It’s... it’s too much," I whispered, my eyes squeezed shut. "It won't listen. It’s just killing everything."
Focus! I slammed my will against the Skal’s mind, using the golden chaotic mark I had branded onto its soul. Obey me!
The leash snapped taut. The Skal roared, a sound of frustration, but it turned. It ignored the scrambling cultists, ignoring the easy prey, and swiveled its triad of eyes toward the center of the room.
Toward Marissa.
She hadn't moved.
While her followers were being dismantled, while blood painted the walls and screams filled the air, the Matron of the Line had simply turned to watch. She stood amidst the glowing jars, her hands folded into her sleeves, her expression one of mild curiosity.
She didn't look afraid. She looked... disappointed.
Target, I pushed. Subdue.
The Skal surged forward, stepping over the ruin of a cultist. It clicked its claws menacingly, saliva dripping from its mandibles. It pulled itself up to its full height and towered over the woman, a mountain of death ready to fall.
I braced myself for the strike. I wanted her stopped and captured, so I could find out what she had done to me, what she planned to do with what she had stolen from me.
But as the Skal loomed over her, ready to pin her to the ground, it stopped.
It didn't freeze because of a shield. It didn't stop because of a weapon.
It stopped because it smelled her.
Through the Skal’s senses, the scent washed over me, drowning me. It wasn't the smell of blood or magic or fear. It wasn’t even the smell of the ocean. It was the scent of authority so old it made the Titan bones look young.
But mixed with it was something else. Ambrosia. Gold. The scent of the High Seat. The only way I knew that was because the Skal knew that.
Error, the Skal’s mind stuttered, backing away fast enough that its legs scraped sparks on the stone. Its aggression evaporated, replaced by a terrified, instinctive submissiveness. Invalid target.
"What are you doing?" I mentally screamed at it. "Attack her!"
Cannot, the beast whined, a high-pitched psychic keen. Owner.
Owner?
I looked through the Skal’s eyes, really looked, at Marissa.
She smiled. It was a small, thin curving of her lips that didn't reach her eyes. She raised a hand, not in defense, but in a gesture of command. A simple flick of her fingers.
"Heel," she said softly. Her voice carried across the carnage, cutting through the screams of the dying.
The Skal dropped to its belly. My control shattered. The golden mark I had burned into its mind didn't disappear, but it was overlaid, smothered by a presence that felt vast and crushing.
I gasped, my physical body jerking in the tunnel. "It won't... she stopped it."
The Skal cowered, its eyes rolling back, terrified. Through its fractured vision, I saw the air ripple around Marissa.
That was when I saw it.
It was a flicker at first, a distortion in the light like heat rising from pavement. But as the Skal stared, paralyzed by divine awe, the image sharpened.
Superimposed over the plain, severe face of Keeper Marissa was another face.
It was beautiful and terrible. A woman with skin like polished marble and eyes that burned with a cold, white fire. She wore a crown, not of gold, but of peacock feathers and woven stars. She was taller than Marissa, grander, her presence filling the room until the cavern felt like a closet.
The overlay didn't move like a puppet; it moved like the master. Marissa was just the suit. The vessel.
Queen, the Skal whimpered in the depths of its mind. The Mother.
Recognition slammed into me with the force of a falling star.
I knew that face. There were statues of it in the archive's restricted section. Descriptions of her in the texts Theron had hidden. She wasn't just an Olympian. She wasn't just a general or a soldier.
She was the Matron. The one who presided over marriage, birth, and the sanctity of bloodlines.
Hera.
Or at least, an avatar of her. A shard of the Queen of the Gods, wearing my tormentor like a second skin.
The realization washed over me, freezing the marrow in my bones. The breeding program. The obsession with the Pandoros blood. The redundancy. It wasn't just the Council trying to maintain a lock. It was Her.
She hadn't hidden. She had been there the whole time, watching me on the table, guiding the instruments, ensuring that the line would continue so the bait remained fresh.
Through the Skal’s eyes, the goddess-avatar looked directly at the creature. And then she looked through it.
Her cold, white eyes locked onto the Skal’s vision, and I felt her gaze travel up the psychic tether, lightning fast, hunting the source of the override.
She saw me.
Across the distance, across the link, she saw me huddled in the dark tunnel with her enemies.
The face overlapping Marissa’s finally smiled, and it was a look of pure, terrifying possession.
Found you, little vessel, a voice echoed in my skull. It sounded like bells tolling for a funeral.
She flicked her wrist.
A pulse of white power sought to travel up the line, to touch my mind, perhaps even control it, just as I had taken control of the Skal’s.
I panicked. I slammed the mental door shut, severing the connection with a violence that felt like chopping off my own limb.
"Aria!"
My scream tore my throat raw as I snapped back into my body.
I fell, thrashing, the phantom sensation of white fire licking at the edges of my mind. Strong arms caught me, Kaelen and Thane, holding me down as I convulsed.
"Not right," I gasped, clutching Kaelen’s tunic, pulling him close until our foreheads touched. I was hyperventilating, tears streaming down my face from the sheer psychic shock. "She's here, but not here."
"Who?" Kaelen demanded, his hand cupping the back of my head, dragon fire flaring hot against my skin to chase away the cold. "Who is here?"
I looked at them. The Dragon, the Wolf, the Bear, the Phoenix. The bait.
And now I knew who had set the hook.
"Marissa," I choked out, the name tasting like ash. "It isn't just Marissa. It’s Hera."
The silence in the tunnel was absolute. Even Flynn stopped breathing, seeming to freeze in place.
Elias stepped forward out of the gloom, his face pale as moonlight. "The Queen?"
"I saw her," I whispered, trembling uncontrolled. "She's... she's wearing Marissa. She’s inside her. She saw me, Kaelen. She knows we're here."
I looked up at the ceiling of the tunnel, feeling the weight of the rock, the weight of the Citadel, and the crushing weight of the divine attention I had just attracted.
Before I could say anything else, to try to explain what had just happened a sound began to echo from down the tunnel. Not chanting. Not screaming.
Laughter. Clear and regal.
And then, the sound of the cavern beginning to collapse.