Chapter 50 – Kian
Chapter Fifty
KIAN
Rae chews on her lip as she looks at the waterfall. A pit of dread forms in my stomach, but giving up is not in my nature, and this is the culmination of years of searching. Nervous anticipation buzzes through my veins.
We follow Rae as she skirts the edge of the cliff, traversing a nearly invisible path that leads down to the waterfall. I remember her telling me about the screaming she heard in her dream, and I’m grateful that the occasional menacing roar is all we have to accompany us.
“I think there’s something behind the waterfall. The lion led me here over and over; he’s got to be here,” Rae explains as we approach the thundering water. The pool below looks surprisingly peaceful.
Sera stares at the depths and shudders. I don’t blame her. For all we know, there could be more dangerous creatures lying in wait beneath the surface.
Rae looks back at us, the furrow of her brow giving me pause. “I think I need to do this next part alone,” she says.
“Like hells you will.” I almost explode before reeling it back in. “I’m sorry, love. I just can’t bear the thought of something happening to you.”
Rae places her hands on her hips defiantly. “You can’t tell me how to do this.”
I palm my face, holding back a groan. “I know that.” I try to soften my voice. “I just really don’t think you should go alone.”
Her shoulders go up to her ears as she takes me in. Her gaze is calculating, considering her options. She blows out a breath, her shoulders lowering in acceptance. “Fine, but just you.”
I’ll take it. Even though I wish she actually wanted me with her.
“We’ll wait out here then,” Alex says. “Call if you need us.”
Gods willing we won’t. I give Alex a look that I hope he interprets as keep an eye on Sera and trail Raelyn toward the waterfall.
The water is so loud, there’s no use trying to talk. I’m surprised she was able to hear anything in her dream, but then I suppose it was a magical dream after all.
Misty spray from the falls is refreshing as the path down brings us closer. I grab her waist when she slips on the wet rocks, and she looks back at me, mouthing a thank you. We slow our pace, and the slim path that leads behind the thunderous falls comes into view.
The falls’ roar dims as we enter the cave, and faint light shimmers through the wall of rushing water. The cavern is damp and reeks of mold. I just hope we don’t have to go far—enclosed spaces make my skin crawl.
Rae lights up the space with a ball of sunlight, and pride swells in my chest. She’s a natural. I can’t wait to see all she’ll be able to do as she grows into her power.
A pained growl echoes throughout the cavern, and Rae pauses, looking around as if to determine which way to go. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she says, “the lack of screaming or what the lack of screaming implies.”
I pull her into my arms. “Whatever we find, we’ll face it together.”
She nods but doesn’t respond. I don’t even think I can begin to fathom all the things she’s feeling right now.
I want to feel hope—hope that we’ll find the answer to our realm’s struggle.
Hope that we’ll be able to free the god, even though he’s been unable to free himself all these years.
If Rae’s suspicions are correct and Kyros is trapped somewhere in this dank cave, I worry at the potential state of him.
The thought of being locked in here for nearly thirty years would drive a mortal man mad.
How would a god feel? Especially one who is meant for the sun?
Raelyn moves away from me, but I grasp her hand. I need to hold on to some small part of her, even if our safety is likely an illusion.
I’m thankful for Rae’s ball of light as we walk down, down, down.
The sloped path curves and winds around, and bones of long-decayed animals and remnants of torches litter the narrow path.
Does that mean humans had something to do with his imprisonment?
I frown as I file that information away to unpack later.
The thought that any man would dare to imprison a god is terrifying to say the least. I can only hope we’re spared from said god’s wrath.
Having his daughter here might be our only saving grace.
The narrow path opens up to a hollow cavern with what I estimate to be a six-foot hole in the center. Old markings that look like runes are painted around it.
A low, weak growl comes again.
Rae looks at me nervously. She squeezes my hand tightly as we approach the hole and look down into the deep pit.
An emaciated lion lies at the bottom, its golden eyes flinching at the light from Raelyn’s orb overhead.
“Hello?” Raelyn calls out.
“It’s a lion,” I whisper. “I don’t think he can talk back. He didn’t in your dream.”
She shrugs, the look in her eyes screaming helplessness. “I’m here,” she says. “I came. What do I do? How do I help you?”
A low growl reverberates up the walls of the pit.
Rae takes a deep breath, stepping away and pacing back and forth. “Gods, Ki. What do we do? How do we help him? Should you lower me down with the rope from your pack?”
“Let’s think this through,” I reply, trying to remain calm for her, even though I feel just as helpless.
“He looks so weak,” Rae replies, wringing her hands, the orb of light above her flickering uneasily in her distress. “Hells! I’m a fool.” She stops pacing. “He probably needs blood!” she exclaims. “He’s been starved down here for decades.”
Shit shit shit. The god would probably need to drain many men to regain his strength. We are ill-prepared.
“It’s fine. I can fix this,” she says, drawing my dagger from her thigh sheath.
“Rae, I don’t know. Maybe we need to think about this,” I say hesitantly. “He’s going to need a lot of blood. You’re only starting to regain your strength.”
Angry darts shoot out of her eyes as she faces me. “If that lion down there is truly my . . . f-father,” she stumbles over the words. “If that’s Kyros, who has been kept from me my entire life, I would never forgive myself for leaving him. I have to do something.”
I understand where she’s coming from, but something doesn’t feel right.
“Fine, we’ll give him some of my blood,” I concede. “You will need your strength for the walk back to the boat.”
She scoffs, “I’m a demi-god, Ki. I’m stronger than I look.”
“Yes, you are, but your powers have been suppressed for almost your entire life. I’m just trying to protect you.”
She shakes her head. “Don’t you get it? People have been ‘trying to protect me’ my entire life. Let me make my own damn choices.”
I raise my hands in surrender. “I hear you, Rae. I’m sorry. But please allow me to try some of my blood first?”
She takes a breath. “We can try that, but you need your strength too.”
I nod. “How do you think we do this? Cut my hand and drip blood down into the hole and hope he catches it in his mouth?”
She shrugs. “Unless you have a better idea, that’s what I was going to do.”
“As far as I know, lions can’t open water pouches, and I’m loath to empty mine out anyway,” I say. Not to mention, there is no way I could fill an entire pouch with my blood without needing some serious recovery time.
She reluctantly hands me my dagger, and I slice into the palm of my hand, holding back a wince at the sharp burst of pain.
Rae looks at me, almost embarrassed. “I don’t know what to call him.”
I shake my head, but I get her point. She leans back over the edge, and I bite my tongue to keep from reminding her to be careful. She is a grown-ass woman, and she’s made it clear she’s done with overprotective men telling her what to do.
“Um . . . hello, again, my lord,” she calls down. “We’re going to try to drip some blood down for you if you could maybe open your mouth?”
I join her at the side of the pit and wait for the lion to open his enormous maw. Gods, I really hope this doesn’t backfire.
Holding my hand over the pit, I squeeze tightly. Blood starts to drip down out of my fist and, miraculously, the lion catches it on its tongue.
“How much do I give?” I ask Rae.
She shrugs again. “Whatever you think you reasonably can?”
I stand there another minute, letting the blood drip, when a flash of light surprises me and I step away from the pit, covering my eyes.
A gasp out of Rae has me hurrying back to her side. “What is it?”
She merely points down into the pit, where an emaciated blond male now crouches. His clothes, if you can call them that, are tattered rags hanging off him.
“My lord,” Rae whispers in reverence and drops to her knees on the rocky ground.
Damn, that’s gotta hurt.
I, too, kneel on the ground, placing my bloodied hand over my chest in a sign of respect. “Lord Kyros . . .” I whisper.
A raspy voice echoes in the cavern, sending a chill through me. “Your offering is appreciated, son of Silenius.”
Rae’s eyes widen in surprise, hope lighting them from within. She peeks over the edge again.
“Hi . . . I’m Raelyn,” she says softly . . . almost timidly.
“I know who you are, daughter,” the god replies. “Thank you for answering my call.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she holds back a sob. “I can’t believe you’re real. That all of this is real,” she says.
The god’s eyes gleam in Rae’s orb of sunlight. “I have tried reaching you for many years but was always blocked somehow,” he growls, but it’s clear his frustration is not with her.
“How do we get you out?” she cries. “What’s keeping you down there?”
“Dark magic,” the god grits out.
“Do you need more blood?” Raelyn asks.
A low chuckle comes out of Kyros that sends a rush of fear over me. There is something deeply menacing about that laugh, but Raelyn doesn’t seem to feel the same.
“I am starved, daughter. Of course I need more blood. Far more than you could give me without draining your life forces.”
As I suspected. At least he isn’t begging her to sacrifice her life for his. Gods can be fickle, and even though she is his daughter, I don’t know how paternal he’s feeling.
“Are you alone? Is Cary here? Or is he too much of a coward to show his face?” he demands.
“My fath—uh, you mean Lord Astoria?” Raelyn blanches. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Who do you think put me down here, Raelyn?”
A sob erupts out of her at the confirmation. The questions we hadn’t wanted to voice: how much he’d known . . . how much he’d been involved in this.
“He’s not here,” I answer the god. “He raised Raelyn as his own, and she only recently found out the truth. He suppressed her powers for years, and any time she would come close to figuring things out, he would erase her memories.”
The sun god lets out a growl that would terrify the largest predator in our realm . . . but perhaps I’m looking at the apex predator of our realm . . . of many realms.
“I will tear him limb from limb,” he roars.
Large tears track down Raelyn’s face, and I so badly want to pull her into my arms, but something makes me pause.
“How do we get you out?” she repeats.
The god leans weakly against the side of the pit. “You’re the key, daughter,” he admits.
“Good! Just tell me what to do,” she says.
“We can’t use our rope to haul you out of there?” I ask.
The god shakes his head. “As I said, dark magic.”
“What can Rae do?” I ask.
The god ignores me and looks directly at her. “Daughter, I need you to come down here. I have need of your blood.”
A flicker of fear lights in her eyes. “Can’t I just drip some down to you like Kian did?”
Kyros’ growly chuckle is disturbing. “I’m afraid not. There is a ritual we must complete, and we must both spill blood together.”
I look to Rae, shaking my head. “I don’t know . . . Something feels off.”
“Nonsense,” she insists. “You can lower me down with the rope, and gods willing, haul me back up when we’re through. Then I can help you haul up my father.”
My heart rate picks up, and something is screaming Don’t do this! in my head, but it’s clear Raelyn’s mind is made up.
“Should we maybe get Sera and Alex first? We might need their help,” I ask, hoping to delay the inevitable.
Rae shakes her head. “No, we need to do this now.”
Kyros lets out another weak laugh. “Don’t worry, son of Silenius. I can barely hurt a fly in my state.”
I secure the rope around Rae in a harness-like fashion and explain how to rappel down the wall of the pit.
Rae bites her lip again, and before she can stop me, I drag her in for a kiss. “I love you, Rae,” I whisper.
She smiles at me, the crease between her brows wrinkling. “I’m going to be fine, Ki, but I love you too.”
Taking a deep breath, she drops her legs over the edge of the pit, and I pull the rope taut, then allow her the slack she needs to slowly make her way down. Damn, I should have brought gloves. My hands are burning as the rope slides through them, making the wound tear even further.
“Can I get a little more slack, please?” Rae calls out, and I loosen the rope as she kneels down next to the sun god.