Nine
N INE
ESTRELLA
Hours passed in pure darkness, the sounds driving me back into the alcove slowly. I didn’t want to consider the violence that existed in a place so defined by pain and suffering. Feeling so painfully alone with all this suffering to surround me, I wanted nothing more than to curl into my mate’s arms and allow him to drown out the sound. As the fires lit, slowly rising off the rust-colored earth beneath my feet, a horrifying screech pierced the air. A bird made of fire streaked through the darkened sky, his feathers burning like flames. A trail of ash followed him, drifting down to land upon everything below as he followed his path.
I stepped out onto the plains, grateful for the coverage of my new armor as one of the cyclones of flame came too close. Fenrir emerged from beside the entrance to the alcove I’d called home for the night. His white fur was matted around his face and on his chest, stained with the red of blood. I tried not to think about what kind of creature he might have gotten ahold of in the night, resting my hand upon the clean fur at the back of his neck. Lupa and Ylfa approached slowly, walking through the middle of the flames to come to stand beside me. A single raven flew over their heads, its black feathers such a stark contrast to the bloodied gore of the wolves’ gleaming fur.
The raven transformed into the three Goddesses of the Morrigan, and they landed smoothly in a way that I didn’t think I’d ever manage. Two small birdlike wings separated into six humanoid ones, all hurrying across the sand to come to a smooth stop just in front of me.
“Is night always like that?” I asked, rolling my neck to the side. I’d only managed to get a few hours of tremulous sleep, the noises of slaughter interrupting it periodically. It was only the familiarity of Fenrir’s growl that allowed me to take any comfort, knowing my wolf companion wouldn’t allow me to come to any harm so long as he was near.
The Morrigan turned on their heels before answering, starting to walk farther into the prison of Tartarus. I swallowed before I followed, reaching over my shoulder to take comfort in the blades strapped across my back. It was so reminiscent of the way Caldris chose to carry his swords that it brought me extra comfort, making it feel as if he was closer than he was for just a moment. Imelda’s satchel was a reassurance in my pocket, the presence and weight of it there a reminder of the friends who waited for me in Tar Mesa as well.
“Many predators hunt in the night,” Nemain said, glancing over her shoulder at me and nodding her head to motivate me to follow. I did as instructed, shoving down my fear of what might be waiting for me farther inside.
My fear was irrelevant when moving forward was the only way to rescue Caldris.
“That is the way of things where you come from as well, is it not?” she asked, allowing her sisters to surround me. Nemain walked on my left, Badb at my right, with Macha taking up the rear. The Cwn Annwn guided the way, moving with an assuredness that spoke of the time they’d spent in this place.
“It is. It seems to happen more quietly somehow,” I said, then laughed at the ridiculousness of such a statement. The predators in the human realm were fine, because generally speaking you didn’t hear them fighting?
Okay.
The phoenix crossed his way over the sky again, cutting a different path than he had before. This time the ash rained down on us, coating my skin in warmth that didn’t burn. The bird was enormous, a sprawling beast of flames. It glowed with deep red light at the core of its being, its wings and tail fading out into bright yellow at their tips. A man screamed in the distance to my right, the sound coinciding with the path of the flaming bird.
I took a step toward him, ready to intervene in whatever pain could cause a scream that shrill. “Any who suffer here are beyond your aid,” Badb said, blocking my path. “To interfere in their punishment would be to incite the wrath of the Primordial responsible for putting them here. Unless you would like to risk taking their place, I suggest you leave well enough alone.”
Lupa circled back, taking up position between Macha and I. She pushed her head into my back, motioning me to continue on even as I still hesitated. It wasn’t in me to leave people to suffer, to let anyone feel pain.
“What did he do to deserve his punishment?” I asked, refusing to take my eyes off the distance to my right where his screams continued to echo through the void of the underground cavern.
“Never mind that,” Macha said, walking forward until I had little choice but to move lest she run me over. “All you need to know is that every soul suffering here deserves it for the wrong they committed. These people are not kind. They are not misunderstood. These are the murderers who enjoyed the kill. The rapists who violated more women than you can count. They are the very kind of people you yourself would condemn if you knew them, Tempest,” she added.
I found myself nodding along to her words, knowing that my constant seeking for justice would likely bring me to do just that. If I knew Mab could never escape, would I send her to Tartarus rather than give her a swift, merciful death?
The answer to that question didn’t come as quickly as I wished, and I didn’t want to stop to consider what that said about me. “Why do you call me that?” I asked, studying her intently.
The Morrigan shrugged with the slightest of smirks playing on her face. “A tempest is a violent storm, is it not? Would you not consider yourself to have wreaked havoc on the world that existed until he refused to let you die?”
I furrowed my brow, hating that I was to blame for the actions Caldris had taken that day at the Veil. “I’ve done nothing.”
“And yet your very existence has changed everything ,” Nemain said, continuing on the path forward.
The ground beneath my feet seemed to glow with an increasing red pulse, and it wasn’t until the scent of burning leather reached my nose that I really looked at the boots on my feet. At the soles that protected me from the hot dirt that couldn’t even be called soil. The silt and sand hissed lightly where my boots touched it as I walked, tiny coils of smoke rising up from the contact.
I glanced toward Fenrir as he led the way, watching his paws touch the ground without consequence. He was unbothered by the scalding heat of the earth, his paws sinking into the dry grains with each and every step.
“The Cwn Annwn are part of this place. They are born with helfyre in their veins,” Nemain answered, making it known just how closely they monitored my every move.
Fenrir’s red-tipped ears matched the color of Tartarus, and I’d always connected it with the bright red of freshly drawn blood, but watching him stand amidst the flames, I realized I’d been wrong all along.
It was the color of pure, uncontrolled fire.
“There isn’t a cruel bone in his body. How can he come from this place?” I asked, glancing toward the sharp peak to our right. It jutted out of the ground like sharpened stone, a pool of bright red fire churning at the base.
We avoided it, circling around it on our journey to the River Styx.
“His victims would likely tell a different story,” Badb said with a disbelieving chuckle.
She wasn’t wrong, and yet…
“Those people deserved it. I’ve only ever seen the Cwn Annwn kill to protect,” I said, thinking only of the fact that self-defense was hardly a crime.
The defense of a loved one should be treated in the same manner.
“As do those sent here for punishment,” Badb argued, a knowing gleam in her eye. She’d walked me right into the sharp edge of my own expectations and hypocrisy.
I couldn’t help the huff of laughter that escaped as I leveled her with a glare.
Her lip tipped up at the corner, amusement on her face that I couldn’t help but mirror. It was only the somber environment and circumstances that led to me being here in the first place that kept me from truly giving the moment the breadth it deserved.
My feet throbbed with twinges of pain, reminding me clearly of the days that I’d spent traveling with Caelum after the Veil first fell. It was strange to think of them now, with all that had changed and all that I knew. It had been so nice to avoid such human concepts of pain and inconvenience since coming to Alfheimr, and the exhaustion that riddled my bones seemed impossible to overcome. My joints ached, my back throbbed from sleeping on the stone cave floor.
Strange to think that my own ignorance had enabled me to not feel the bond pulling taut between us, when all I wanted was to feel it strengthen now.
I wanted what had been stolen from us.
The ground shifted as we walked, the soil becoming less burnt and more living, even as flames danced amongst the blades of grass that filled it. The Morrigan and I didn’t speak anymore, my own dread over what would wait for me at the River Styx keeping me from asking any questions for the moment.
We walked amongst the flames, letting them tickle the fabric of my leatherlike pants. They never touched my skin, never burned me through the fabric that I’d been gifted as it formed a protective barrier.
I found myself immensely grateful for the gift, thinking about the Morrigan’s words that they were always meant to be mine. But who had made them?
I thought of the snakes curving the hilt of the blades that fit perfectly into my palms. “Why would I have clothes made to withstand helfyre?” I asked, laying a hand over the flames. The warmth tickled my bare skin, forcing me to keep my distance or risk burning. Nemain met my gaze when I looked over at her, having seen her head turn from the corner of my eye. She swept a hand over a particularly large flame blocking the path, laying black feathers atop the flames. They doused beneath her magic, lowering to a height that enabled me to walk through without risking injury.
A building to our right erupted into flames as we passed, the columns burning and surrounded by fire even though the structures themselves never seemed to catch. There was no destruction in spite of the immense heat pulsing off of it in waves.
“For the same reason Fenrir was probably drawn to you from the moment he saw you,” she said, taking my hand in hers. She pulled it to her side, holding it over the flame as the heat kissed my skin. She held my gaze, something silent passing between us in warning before she used both her hands to shove mine into the fire at our sides.
“No!” I screamed, attempting to yank my hand back. She held me firm, my fight barely registering against the Goddess’s, faced with the truth of my power locked away by the gate. My skin erupted in agony, the burn sinking inside me and feeling as if the flesh would melt from my bones.
“Look,” she said, her voice quiet but stern. I pried my eyes open, realizing that all I saw was darkness because I’d blocked out everything and closed my eyes.
She turned my arm in the flames like a spit roast. I stared at the unblemished skin of my palm and forearm, whimpering through the pain that still consumed everything.
“It hurts,” I argued, yanking my hand back again. She released me finally, allowing me to cradle my uninjured arm to my chest protectively.
“Interesting,” Macha hummed at my back.
“I have to assume it’s a consequence of her unorthodox upbringing. Her body isn’t really hers, is it?” Badb asked, the three of them shifting to stand before me and staring at me like I was a curiosity.
As if they hadn’t just plunged my hand into a fire. “You didn’t know it wouldn’t burn me, did you?” I asked, my horror rising as Nemain turned on her heel and continued on.
“No one can know anything for certain when it comes to you. No one like you has ever existed before,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at me finally. “So I made an educated guess.”
“An educated guess,” I repeated, blinking at the back of her head as she turned once again. “And if I’d burned?”
She shrugged, her shoulders moving with the motion of it to reveal the slender play of feather tattoos peeking out from beneath her armor. “Then I suppose you would have burned, and we likely would have known the trials to be a futile effort for us all.”
“Your nonchalance is touching,” I snapped, my anger rising at the casual ease of her dismissal. As if I was something to toy with, to pick apart and understand. Her lack of care regarding my life or limb… I was truly alone.
Fenrir growled as if he’d heard the thought.
I couldn’t focus on that, not when there were far more serious insinuations to unearth.
“Why didn’t I burn?” I asked.
“Because you, dear Tempest, were first born in the Cradle of Creation,” she said, stealing the wind from my lungs.