CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Noctis
With every hour that passed, I started to believe the woman lied about the swamp.
I’d find her again and rip her apart with my bare hands.
I followed the land, inspecting where the ground became more damp.
As my feet began to sink further into the muddled, leaf-covered terrain, I knew I must have been approaching some sort of water source.
The tree line cleared, finally revealing a marsh. Sludge and algae layered atop the murky water. Trees bent in unnatural angles, cascading menacing shadows across the area. My stomach lurched, rotten, foul smells assaulting my senses.
I wasn’t one to pray to gods I knew and didn’t trust, but I prayed to anyone who’d listen that it was the one in which I was supposed to find the bell. And if they ignored me, it wouldn’t have been the first time. Or the thousandth.
I took a deep breath and stepped into the swamp. My feet sunk mid-calf into the sludge, sparking memories I worked to purge from my mind. Normally they visited me at night, right before my eyes drifted closed, but sensory reminders brought them forth harsher.
She was the only thing that took their place.
Flashbacks from decades ago of battlefields played behind my eyes, the feeling of mud against my leather boots.
Except it had not rained in weeks. The dirt mixed with the blood of my people…
my friends… my enemies. However, the latter’s deaths still didn’t make the lonesome trek back to the campsite any easier.
I was alone on the field. No friends. No foes.
Only me. Even as a god—one who would fight alongside my people—I could not protect them all.
My armies were gone.
I remembered digging each grave by hand, the earth damp and stubborn as it filled the space beneath my fingernails.
For days, blisters rose, split, and wept across my calloused hands, each one burning as I lowered my soldiers into the ground.
But my people left behind in Aetherkin Bound were safe from the land folk.
Even if their husbands, brothers, or uncles would not be returning home to celebrate.
Well, they were safe after the Battle of Drendomon.
Time buries many things, but not all. Hatred, vengeance, and the thirst for power often outlive the generations that first birthed them.
I would never understand it, but I would die protecting against the hate, regardless of the Bound in which I was sworn.
Except now, my death would also bring hers.
The swamp’s waters were icy and sluggish, thick and stagnant like tar, heavy with the absence of movement. The putrid, burning scent cradled my nostrils, seeping into my skin. I listened hard, turning my head in every direction, hoping the bell would ring or reveal itself.
There was no time for this. I needed to be with her. She needed me.
Whispers slowly filled my ears instead, drifting in from every direction.
I couldn’t make them out, but they scuttled along the suffocating haze and forced their way into my mind.
It rattled my head, confusion riddling me.
Then, only muffled sounds erupted from the water, bubbling before me like a cauldron.
I sighed, knowing I would need to go below. The chill of the water up to my waist bit into my skin like fangs, but I plunged below and forced my eyes to open. A breath escaped my mouth as my body acclimated to the cold, but I lost the rest of the air when I saw what lived below the swamp’s surface.
I’d never seen the likes—not in all my godly years.
Roots from ancient trees hung like tangled chandeliers, anchored in darkness and reaching where branches should be.
Logs and other debris drifted to the top and stayed there for the swamp creatures to make homes of, as if defying gravity.
The ground was unseen in the vast depths beneath the surface, whereas when I was above water, it was only waist deep.
The entire swamp civilization survived upside down.
I came above the surface for a quick breath and plunged back in.
Water rippled away from me, touching my skin delicately as creatures scurried away.
Small amphibians I’d never seen before—some covered in white, glassy eyes, some with legs that seemed as if they belonged on land, and some the size of my own body.
Each swam in opposite directions, gills reversed to allow water to filter through.
They minded their business, gliding slowly through the newly clear water.
I never would have assumed there was life beneath the surface.
However, the inverted swamp was like a pristine world below.
I came up gasping for air, barely pulling in anything before a solid, firm hold wrenched my foot and dragged me back under midbreath.
Shit.
I writhed against the thick, living vine pulling me, blasting my air power, but it was muted beneath the water. My heart pounded nearly out of my chest. The civilization dimmed the further I was dragged deeper and deeper.
Two glowing yellow eyes met me face-to-face, as the branch released my ankle. Claws dug into my sides, bending my ribs to near breaking point. Everything was dark—void emptiness—except the piercing, smoldering stare of the beast before me.
The daggers released, and I bellowed.
I clawed at the water, begging for purchase but met nothing to help. The iridescent eyes followed my miniscule, agony-stricken motion. I couldn’t form a bubble of air power beneath the surface, not without the air above to draw from.
A branch slammed into me, acting as if it had a will of its own. I crashed into the stony bank, agony rippling through my body and tearing at my consciousness. Two more vines approached, latching on to my neck, holding me in place.
This could kill me. Kill us. The curse seeping through my blood would allow this creature to kill a weak god. And Caelyn would die with me.
The dusk-like eyes advanced, stalking closer, assessing its prey. It moved slowly, then glitched and appeared instantly before me. Rows of fanged, sharp teeth glimmered in the dim light of the deep swamp.
A heavy wave of dizziness overwhelmed me.
I shot my palms out, another attempt to use my Aetherkin powers to aid in escape.
But that time, the water erupted. Streams of high currents blasted into the creature, shooting me into the trunk of a deep growing inverted tree.
I expelled more, propelling myself upward.
The power I used was not my own, filling me with immense pride.
My Caelyn. My Blood Tie. My heart.
There was power in her stare, her actions, her loyalty. But feeling the surge of tremendous energy through my own body invigorated me. She was power. The trident felt miniscule compared to the power flooding my system from her. I would have been overwhelmed if my heart didn’t already belong to her.
I shifted my aim, shooting her power through our bond to take me back to the surface. Air. I needed air.
My chest screamed as I clawed through the water, getting closer to the surface, but not quickly enough to reach air. Light rippled above, blinding and fractured, until a glint of gilded metal cut through the shimmer.
A faint chime hit my ears. It sang to me in a sweet melody, urging me to come closer.
The bell.
It was woven in a tangle of roots, like a caged animal that had long since stopped struggling. It hummed, as if begging to be used. Water trembled around in vibrations. My hand shook, clinging to it, as I used my other to channel Caelyn’s power and push us upward.
I pierced the surface, struggling to pull air into my collapsed lungs, and I rang it above the dingy swamp.
Where was that woman?
Voices attacked, swarming around me viciously—wicked accusations and truths. They tore into me, far deeper than any blade.
“You will kill her.” A child’s voice. Young and sweet sounding, as if she had no idea the words that were said from her tiny lips.
“They all die because of you.” A male.
“Your mother died because of you.”
Mother, I thought, a weight sinking deep in my stomach at her mention. The bruises that marred her body at the hands of my father flashed in my mind. I was only ten.
The voices continued, but I was alone, storming a quarter of the way back to the shore, waist deep in the sludge. I ran my fingers through my fiery hair that plastered to my face. The swamp above sat in dreary gloom, the putrid smell returning.
“She doesn’t love you.”
She does. She loves me. She just can’t remember. I tried to convince myself, but even I couldn’t let go of the hints of denial.
I spun frantically, out of control.
The voices continued to drift in spirals, circling around me and into every crevice of my mind.
“The gods are scheming against you. Against them all.”
“Your court despises you.”
“You’ll live eons alone.”
I believed the rest.
The crazed woman appeared, hovering above the tar-like water, flitting closer toward me.
I snarled, my nose scrunching in disgust. If games were being played, I would win them. She stopped before me as I finally trudged back to the land.
“When she screams for life, will you shed a tear like you did for your mother?” Her voice crawled along my spine. Her head cocked nearly perpendicular to her shoulders. “Or will you run away like you abandoned your Bound?”
I hesitated, so she kept going. Let her think she was going to win this.
“The first solstice when she died, you baked your own cherry rhubarb pie. Did it taste like mother’s?” The salty, burnt remnants of that pie lingered in my mouth for days. So many decades ago.
“Where is the ferryman?” I bit out.
She laughed happily, as if entertained by my peril. Then, her skin began to peel back, slowly at first starting at her scalp. It dropped into the swamp, smoke rising as the woman’s flesh hit the water. Like silk unraveling thread by thread, the woman’s skin wept, revealing a suited male.
The ferryman. I was sure of it.
“The ferryman waits where the lost souls stray. His oar will pull your final breath away,” he said, his voice poised and deep.
An oar rested against his shoulder as he flipped the Sunder Coin into the air with his opposite hand.
It fell perfectly back in his palm. A practiced maneuver—one that became a habit throughout the lonesome years.
“Strange to speak about oneself as if one is not present.”
“Who’s to say I am the one you seek?”
He flipped the Sunder Coin again.
My eyes flitted to the relic. The ferryman snatched the coin from the air and threw his hand behind his back angrily as if attempting to hide it. He leaned in, nose upturned and brows furrowed.
“Do you see me as careless?!” the ferryman screamed, spit flying from his mouth and landing on my face.
Pride filled my chest, a sly grin plastering across my face.
“I do.”
My sword struck from behind, cleaving the ferryman's head clean from his shoulders—delivered by the same swamp waters he once claimed as his chariot, wielding power not earned, but borrowed from my Blood Tie. I’d never felt more powerful in my life, yet fear coiled in my chest, tangled with a fierce, unwilling hope that the coin would actually work.
It landed within my palm as it slipped from the ferryman’s limp hand before his body was lost to the swamp.