Chapter 18
“Wait,” Stheno uncoiled until her head nearly touched the ceiling, laughter rolling out of her. “Ah, Zeus’s ass, you think...you own her? That’s amusing. She does not belong to you, Storm Child. The witch stole her memories, destroyed everything she was, and was going to bind her to her.”
Veyyr tried to pull me behind him, but I blocked the move, jerking my arm out of his hold. If I could just stay between the two of them maybe I could keep this from getting deadly. Stheno had helped me, and I wouldn’t turn on her. “Stop. Veyyr, Stheno is—”
“Do not say friend. Or safe.” He growled. “She is…”
“Wearing your coat.” Stheno began to unbuckle the belt. To take the coat off.
“No fighting!” I snapped, fully aware that she could shift fast and probably eat him whole and seeing as I suggested she take the coat off before she shifted next….“Just knock it off!”
As if I were scolding two unruly children.
Veyyr’s magic began to rise, the crackle in the air drawing goosebumps along my forearms.
“It seems he wants to fight.” Stheno cracked her knuckles and her body began to uncoil as the candles blew out slowly, one at a time.
Veyyr took a half step to the side, his one hand going to his lower back.
He keeps throwing knives there.
“No!” I stepped with him as he threw a knife, just as the final candle went out.
If I’d been able to see, I could have caught the knife with my hand, but blind as I was, I caught it on an angle between my clavicle and first rib, the edge of the blade skating across my trachea.
I went down hard, the knife pinned to me in a way that sent shockwaves of pain roaring through me.
“What have you done?” Stheno screamed, and the candles flared back to life, more than before, illuminating the cavern.
She crawled across the floor to me and rolled me over.
The blade was deep and the tip of it…strange to feel exactly where the blade was, slowly cutting through my trachea, slowly driving in deeper to my heart.
Damn, he’d thrown a true killing blade at Stheno.
That’s why I hadn’t been able to catch it; they were created for one use and one use only.
What I knew was that they were incredibly hard to come by, the spells and creation of them something only a few could manage.
Once directed at a person, the blade would cut into them, working its way toward their heart.
Just as this one was doing to me. Cutting in and angling downward, an impossible thing if not for the magic driving it. Like an animal burrowing its way through my body.
“Fuck!” Veyyr’s roar was guttural. “Get away from her, I can have her healed.”
Stheno’s hands tightened on mine, dragging me away from him.
“By that psycho bitch? I think not! She’ll own her then, Storm Child, Mallory has not had long enough to rebuild herself.
Do you want that? She needs time to be who she was always meant to be, not a creation of her mother’s, not a shadow of her father, but who she is meant to be.
What the world needs her to become. She cannot do that if that bitch owns her heart and soul. ”
I didn’t realize my eyes were closed until that moment, just feeling them move around me. Talking as if I couldn’t hear them, the words incredibly loud and so soft, like a whisper at the same time. To be fair, the blade seemed to have me locked up, in movement, sight and sound.
There was no pain.
Paralysis. Part of the spell, to keep you still while the blade does its work.
“The blade is—”
“Cursed? Yes, I am aware. You seem to think you are the only one who knows magic you idiot man?” There was the sound of a slap, like she’d knocked him away from me.
A shuffle of her scales retreating, and then Stheno let go of me.
“Bring her to my table, lay her flat. We will work together to save her or she will die. Of that you are correct. Her immunity is of no use against you, since you’ve bound her to you.
And your magic is deep in both the blade and her. ”
Well fuck. He’d made the blade. I wasn’t terribly afraid, there was no panic, no fear of death, more of a feeling that this had been coming for me a long time, that perhaps I’d finally found the place that I couldn’t dodge the end.
Would anyone wait for me on the other side?
Veyyr—I was sure it was him, the bond between us lighting up—slid his arms behind my back and under my legs and didn’t even grunt as he lifted me.
I’d say he’d had practice carrying Isla around all the time, but she had been built like a bird and I was not.
His mouth came close and he whispered a command. “Do not die on me, Tracker.”
“Here,” Stheno said, the sound of her hand patting something hard, stone maybe.
Veyyr’s voice rose. “That is a sacrificial table, gorgon. I’m not—”
“Do you think I have more than one table? I eat off it. I sacrifice off it. I’d fuck on it if I could find the right man.
I can heal on it if I so choose! And yes, I clean it in between uses, if you must know.
Gods, these children and their stupidity will be the end of me.
” I could imagine her throwing her hands in the air, appealing to whatever Greek gods she thought might listen.
The clattering of pottery, glass breaking and then I was flat on the table. Stone table by the cold, solid feel of it.
That was when the world went truly dark, the knife seemed to dig harder into me, the tip of it piercing the top chamber of my heart, a sudden bolt of pain shooting through me and then the pain was gone.
My soul fluttered away and I wondered just what would happen…death wasn’t something to be afraid of, it was just another step in the journey. I frowned and turned, to see a man walking toward me. He was taller than me, broad shouldered, long legged.
Blond hair, devastatingly handsome, his smile was only a little crooked as he held his arms out to me. “Hello my girl.”
I knew him, my heart whispered the word before I did. “Dad?”
And then his arms were around me and I was sobbing, clinging to him. “I don’t remember anything but your death and how much it hurt. Not one memory…just your voice and…”
“I know.” He stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head. “I know…I can’t even give you the name your mother chose for you, because it will not stay with you. You don’t have long here.”
I clung harder, as if I were a child afraid to be sent back to a dark bedroom.
“Please don’t leave me. I can’t say this to anyone else, but I am so fucking afraid.
I’m…I’m lost.” My voice caught on the truth that had haunted me since I’d opened my eyes in the shadows of the Rift.
“I have a witch hunting me, Veyyr is tangling me into his life, and I don’t think he’s one of the good guys and I just feel… alone.”
My father held me tighter. “Even when you believe you are lost; you are not alone. None who have loved you and have crossed the Veil have ever left you. In your darkest moments, I am right here, at your side. And there are those out there…looking for you too.”
A howl echoed in the distance and we both turned. “You have a connection to wolves.”
“I do. And so does my daughter.” He smiled and kissed my forehead. “They will bend to you, my girl. Remember that. Trust it.”
“My name is Mallory now.”
His smile was instant. He brushed a few tears away from my cheeks. “It suits you. Mallory. My beautiful, fierce, little fighter.”
“What…is your name? Maybe I can hang onto it.” I hoped, gods I hoped that I could have one thing. “Even if I can’t remember it later, tell me. Please.”
His smile was sad, but he gave me his name.
“Liam. My name is Liam, and it won’t matter if you forget my name, as long as you never forget how much I love you.
How much you are loved, Mallory. Keep going, this new path is one that no one could have predicted, and you will be okay.
The story isn’t over, my girl. You will be okay. ”
I opened my mouth, maybe to tell him I loved him too, but there was no chance.
There was no mild drawing back from dying, just one moment I was in my father’s arms where I knew I was safe, where I could be vulnerable and afraid and know that he was there to be with me, and the next I was on the stone table, staring up at the metal and concrete ceiling of Stheno’s tunnel.
“You must give it time, Sylph. You cannot force her to choose life.” A heavy sigh slid from Stheno, rounding out with a low hiss.
“But she…she has a story separate from that of the place she came from. It’s not over yet so I think her body will bring her back, even if her heart will want to stay on the other side. ”
Her words so closely echoed that of my father’s that I shivered, which sent a slice of pain through my sternum. I bit back the groan, but not quick enough. My eyes fluttered as I breathed through it.
Veyyr leaned over me, his silver hair framing the space between us, his hands on mine where they rested on my belly and if I didn’t know better, I would say he was being gentle with me again, with the way his fingers worked across mine. “You thought you would get out of your contract by dying?”
So much for gentle. I wanted to sit up and smack the shit out of him, but the weight in my chest was too much, like the knife was still there and pinning me to the table. My throat hurt, and while I knew I healed fast I had a feeling this would be a longer time than I’d seen so far with my wounds.
“This is not the time to be flippant with her,” Stheno slipped around to the other side of the table. “Hurts still, yes?”
I blinked once, because the idea of moving anything else, even my mouth had me holding back my words.
“Give her this, every few hours, it will keep the pain dull while she heals.” Stheno shoved Veyyr out of the way and then she leaned over me, her eyes scrunched up as she sniffed the air around me.
The gorgon shoved something in my mouth and manually made my jaw chew while tears leaked down my cheeks.
“The first one will hurt, the rest, just eat one as you feel the pain come on.”
Whatever it was she’d shoved in my mouth sent a spike of icy shards straight down my throat, numbing everything until the pain in my chest was also numb.
Stheno’s eyes never left mine, and finally she nodded. “There, it has taken hold. Sit up. Slowly.”
I pushed myself to a sitting position. Tired but…there was no pain. “Where did he go?”
“Oh, I shoved him into the darkness and blocked him. He’s having a right hissy fit.” She grinned and I couldn’t help but smile back. A distant boom of thunder drew a soft huff out of me, best I could do.
Stheno held up a handful of what looked like pine nuts. “When you get sore. Chew one.”
She poured them into a small leather sack and tied it to my waist. “There is something else in there, that I…give you freely. A gift.”
I blinked up at her. “Why?”
Her fingers paused and then she quickly slid backward.
“You saved my life, Mallory. Something I am not sure any, but a true sister would do. You stepped into the path of a blade that would have killed me. There is no way that the Storm Lord would have saved me. But you did it without thought. And…you gave me a coat that I quite like.” Her smile flashed her fangs in the candlelight.
I put my hand to the pouch and pulled out a vial. The fluid within was sparkling, as if lights were inside of it, a deep purple, nearly black. I tipped it and watched the colors shift, tiny lights everywhere. “What is it?”
“My blood from my right side.”
My mind flicked through what knowledge I had. A vial of blood from the gorgon’s left side was dangerous, deadly to any who drank it down. But from the right side…it would not only heal, but could even draw one back from the dead.
I looked up at her. “You didn’t want him to see this.”
“I do not.” She patted me on the head, as if I were a small child. “But I think you will have need of both, before your journey is done.”
Both. I pulled out a second vial, the blood a proper red, blood wine, no sparkles, but flecks of darkness within it.
A vial for death, and a vial for life. If I wanted to help Veyyr, I could give him the vial to resurrect whoever it was he was trying to bring back.
But then what would I be tied to him for?
How many other tasks would he ask of me?
Too many.
Putting both vials back into the pouch I slid off the stone table as the ground rumbled, as if something large had been dropped into it. Or maybe a bolt of lightning had been slammed into it.
“I should go stop him before he tears down your home. Thank you, Stheno, for everything,” I held a hand to her, palm facing outward.
Slowly she lowered her body and pressed the palm of her hand to mine, her skin cool, and smooth.
“Be safe, little sister. I will be watching for you in the darkness. The journey you are on…I believe you will have more souls hoping for you to succeed, than you even realize. One last thing.” She slipped a folded piece of paper into my pouch. Read it when you reach the mineshaft.”
The darkness enveloped me before I could answer, and I stumbled as the world was lit up with a brilliant shock of lightning that raced straight toward me.