36. ACHERON
It had only been a few hours, but Ash’s hands were itching to send a message to Sofreya. What was she thinking? What was she doing? What did she think about last night? The questions rolled endlessly to the point where he was distracted. Ash never got distracted. Ever.
“Taranis,” the deep voice of Pallas, God of Battle and Warcraft, pulled Ash from the hamster wheel of thoughts he didn’t remember jumping on.
They stood a few steps away from the edge of the portal that Kaine had created. It reeked of sulphur and the screeches that echoed through it made the hairs on Ash’s arms stand up. There was nothing good about the Shadow Realm. There was undeniably nothing good about the four-hundred-metre-wide portal in the Spring Court of Faery that led straight to it. It would have taken copious amounts of blood and power to have wrought such devastation. The soil had turned black and the trees around the portal had petrified. Ash had never seen anything like it.
“Pallas.” Ash acknowledged the god with a firm hand on his shoulder. As soon as he touched him, Ash could sense the anger that consumed him.
“It’s Artemis.” Pallas looked like he was going to split someone’s head open. His long grey hair practically levitated off him.
Ash quickly looked over Pallas’s shoulder in search of Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt, and the peaks of her dark red wings.
“She jumped into the portal.” Pallas’s face was pure anger.
Ash moved past Pallas, storming to where Achlys stood. The god of eternal night, with his dark skin and hair, peered over the edge of the bright red portal, a wash of concern on his face.
“Was she hunting something?” Ash asked Achlys.
“She murmured something about a voice calling her. One moment she was checking the perimeter and then next . . .” Achlys stood up, brushing the dirt away from his knees.
“By the Fates . . .” Ash took a moment to reel in his thoughts. He pulled the small messenger scroll he had tucked away in his sandal and scrawled a message to Ares. He shot the message through the Between where it would head straight to Ares. It disappeared on a puff of smoke. Ash turned back to Achlys and Pallas who patiently waited on orders. “Achlys, Pallas. Find Ares. Tell him everything. As you saw it.” Ash’s voice was steady, but he didn’t like the odds of this at all. The Tienthan had never ventured into the Shadow Realm and for good reason. The place was the literal underworld, and they had no business being there.
Fuck. This isn’t how I expected the day to go.
The two gods nodded and quickly shot up into the sky.
Ash let out a loud wolf whistle, pulling the focus of Deymos and Nemy from across the portal. He beckoned them over. They sped around the perimeter of the portal in case anything decided to claw its way out. The blackened soil around them kicked up as they landed swiftly next to Ash.
“Achlys and Pallas think Artemis went in,” Ash growled.
“We would have heard her,” Nemysis pointed out.
“She’s right. The surface would have burned her alive,” Deymos added.
“It’s a portal that only allows things to come out. Anything that tries to go in, burns.” Nemy picked up a stick and threw it into the portal to prove a point. The stick disintegrated from the heat before it even touched the surface.
It made sense, but it didn’t sit right with Ash at all. The whole thing reeked of foul play. “They said she heard voices. We can’t rule it out.”
Deymos swore under his breath.
Ash moved a little closer to the edges of the red portal. Perhaps the voices would speak to him if he was patient enough. One of the Tienthan was in there. For all intents and purposes, Artemis was his sister, and he would never leave a family member behind. Ash took in a deep breath. “There’s only one way to find out. Tether me and if I don’t come back in five minutes, pull me out.”
Deymos and Nemy didn’t protest. Deymos conjured a dark glittering rope and lassoed it around Ash’s waist. Nemy stood behind Deymos, a supporting hand on his shoulder. When everything was in place, they nodded.
“Five minutes,” Ash reminded them.
Ash turned back to the portal, washing himself over with a protective layer of magic in case the portal burned him. Fates be kind. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dived in. The portal surface sizzled as it met his layer of magic. No damage. Good. As Ash moved through, the portal turned darker and darker. Sulphur burned his nostrils as he catapulted through the Between. FWOOM. There it was. Thick air snapped into place, stifling his breath. His wings dragged against the thickness of its a barrier and an almost deafening sucking sound filled his ears. He’d made it to the other side. Ash shot his wings out, pulling himself into a swift stop.
By the Fates.
It was bloodier, darker than he assumed it would be. The Shadow Realm.
Soot floated through the air, clinging to his wings as the smell of burning filled his nostrils. Looming black mountains painted the entire landscape before him. The Shadow Realm was a giant crater of shadow and foreboding. The screams. Fates, the screams and shrieks of demons and creatures made of pure nightmares were debilitating. Ash had to layer another protective coat of magic over his ears to dull the sound.
Four minutes.
Ash advanced with precision, scanning the dark flat land he landed in, Deymos’s glittering rope still tied firmly around his waist. Large boulders scattered all around. He scanned, right to left. There. A set of tracks. Two feet. The size too large to have been Artemis’s. He followed the track regardless. If it wasn’t Artemis, then perhaps it would lead him to her.
The sound of yelps and howls sounded the more Ash followed the tracks. He took cover behind a large boulder, his shoulder resting upon its warm surface as he angled his head to peek around it.
Three minutes.
From the corner of his eyes, Ash spotted a pack of hellhounds much larger than Calypso. Some rested while others looked like they were taking orders from someone, moving around in various formations. Ash shifted farther away from the boulder so he could get a better view.
Who is that?
A male, with long black hair stood in the centre of the pack. He commanded them with various clicks of his tongue and hand signals. The hellhounds obeyed.
What the? Ash stepped back, dirt beneath his boots crunched, giving his position away. A miscalculated step on his end.
The male ahead snapped his head to the sound.
It was as if all sound, all feeling and all control over his mind was razed to the ground by a deadly fire. And all that remained beneath the embers was pure, deadly rage. Ash stepped out from the behind the boulder and faced the male. He’d seen the likeness before in his own mirror.
Kaine.
“It’s you.” Ash’s voice was deep, calm as he flowed into his fighting stance. Arms braced. Legs slightly apart.
“You,” Kaine seethed, his eyes narrowed on Ash. There was rage there. A rage that he had no right to feel.
“I’d wipe that look off your fucking face.” Ash didn’t hesitate. His mighty wings pushed out. With a powerful thrust, he shot up into the air, unhooking his war hammer from the waist. Lethe. Kaine. Whatever he deigned to call himself, he would pay for what he’d done to Sofreya and the Faery Realm.
Two minutes left.
Ash roared as he funnelled all his power into his flame-engraved war hammer. Lightning and thunder crackled into the air as he swung for Kaine. CRACK. A narrow miss. This guy was fast. Too fast. Kaine rolled himself back in time using his mana, forcing the hellhounds back behind a shield of air. They clawed, barked, and scratched at the shield their master had put up, adding to the pandemonium.
“Don’t be so sure of yourself.” Kaine shot out two giant blades of mana. The air rippled and sharpened. Dust kicked up, shrouding them both as Ash pulled back swiftly, shooting up into the air, away from the grasp of Kaine’s mana.
Damnit, he’s stronger than I expected.
“You stole her from me. You stole MY soulmate!” Kaine closed the distance between them, shooting out blocks of air to step and manoeuvre off, a nasty snarl across his face.
The word soulmate twisted Ash’s insides. This guy was insane. Ash threw a lightning bolt at Kaine, smashing him into the ground. CRACK. His head smashed upon a rock but as if he were more than Fae, Kaine shot back up, shaking his head. He quickly recovered. Too quickly.
What the fuck?
“Sofreya is not something to own. She’s not something to be stolen. You forfeited your chances with her the moment you laid a hand on her!” Ash pointed his war hammer into the air, filling it with raw lightning again. Thunderclouds rolled all around him as he hovered just above the darkened dirt of the Shadow Lands.
This is going to feel so good.
Ash pointed his war hammer at Kaine. The edges of it glowed and electricity flitting across its surface. “May you never reach the—” Ash was cut off by the strong tug of Deymos’s rope around his waist.
Fuck.
Ash flew back to the portal at pace, completely out of control and by the whim of Deymos’s rope. His wings rustled against the speed as he careened to the edge of the portal.
Kaine pushed himself into the air, a fierce snarl across his face as he gave chase. “You are wrong, angel.” He let out a maniacal laugh. “It is I that runs through her mind when she uses her mana. It is I that runs through her mind when she looks upon your face. My face. MY fucking eyes. You stole my identity. You stole my soulmate. And you will do well to remember that, angel. Whenever you think her gaze softens for you, remember that it was me. Me who claimed her first. Me that will claim her always.”
The words were all twisted. Vile. All fucking wrong.
Enough.
Ash shot out the lightning from his war hammer at the last minute. Kaine dodged it, rolled midair, grabbing a fist full of Ash’s wing. Pain lanced through his wing, sending sharp pain down his back. Ash twisted in the air, fighting against the hold, but it was futile. As the threshold of the portal tingled against his skin, he felt the sharp pain of his feathers being ripped out.
Shit.
The last thing Ash saw before he disappeared into the Between was Kaine’s satisfied smile as he held several plumes of Ash’s feathers, coated in blood. The portal to the Shadow Realm closed in on Ash as he swiftly flew through the Between and out of the portal into Faery. He landed with a crash on the dry soil of Soxis, breathing heavily.
What the fuck was that?
Deymos and Nemy were at his side immediately, pulling him up from the ground. Deymos vanquished the rope around Ash’s waist.
Ash watched the portal as if Kaine was about to burst out from it. He stared and stared, but the Breaker of Realms did not give chase. The snapped hollow shafts of Ash’s feathers stung as the Soxis breeze hit them. Ash let out a soft grimace.
Nemy moved to quickly stop the blood that dripped from his wing. The wound would heal soon enough but the feathers would take a bit of time before growing back.
Deymos and Nemy stared at Ash, waiting for an explanation.
“It’s worse than I feared.” Ash brushed a hand through his hair.
“Did you find any trace of Artemis?” Deymos asked.
“No, but the Breaker of Realms has a hold on Terr’s hellhounds and who knows what else.” Ash paused. “And he’s a lot more powerful than I expected. His power could easily match any of ours.”
Deymos swore under his breath.
Ash hated to admit it but when his magic brushed up next to Kaine’s, there was a challenge there. He was so much stronger than a Fae. His power felt like a god’s. Something had changed since they crossed paths in Faery. That much was true.
“We could take him on, right?” Nemy asked.
A beat of silence passed between them all.
“I’m not so sure.”