44. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Astaroth
H alfway through retracing her steps for the third time and finding no evidence for where Calista could have gone, I felt the realm, for lack of a better term, twitch. It was an odd sensation, like it retracted. But I didn’t have time to investigate because right after, my connection with Calista reopened and inundated my entire being with an array of emotions. She wasn’t gone long, but long enough for the sky to completely darken. This was the darkest I’d ever seen the labyrinth.
I quickly portaled to her whereabouts so as not to lose her again. The shadows in the corridors never worried me. They did worry me for her though. This time, instead of calling attention to myself to draw creatures away from her, I used her as bait. Eventually, a beast would happen upon her, and I would discover where she was.
I barricaded my emotions and focused entirely on Calista, following her through the pathways. Her newly constructed wall was barely held in place and easy to skirt. The upheaval I found confused me. I wondered if I could enter her mind like I did with Serwin. Could I do it from a distance since we tied our life sources?
What started as a hum of commotion became a cacophony as I filtered through her emotions in search of her thoughts. Once I found them, I let myself inside and entered a blazing sea of sand where a giant blooming wyrm chased her.
“Calista!” I screamed and tried to manifest next to her, forgetting for a moment I was in her mind.
She turned around, disheveled and burnt, with the worm suspended in midair as her thought paused. Shaking her head, she mumbled, “He wasn’t there. Quit thinking about him.”
The scene changed to snow. Calista moved into the icy terrain with no coat or boots. She would freeze to death. I rushed to the area and began my search while her thoughts shifted in her mind. Along her journey, she never stopped humming the sacred song. Was the realm driving her mad through our union?
“Cali, you must stop,” I said to her in the hopes she could hear me.
“Great, now I’m hearing him.” Her muffled, sarcastic thought reverberated back.
Relieved, I smiled. “You sound so happy to hear me.”
Her confusion fed through to me. “Are you in my head?”
“Wherever you are, so am I, love.”
“This is the ultimate invasion of my privacy!” Calista tried to barricade herself, but it was fruitless. I was already there, and she wasn’t strong enough to push me out. All she accomplished was trapping us in together.
I found her recent energy signature and followed it into another corridor. The snow piled up along the walls and the bricks were slick. A cloak manifested around my shoulders. I tugged the hood up over my head. “You can’t run from me.”
“Sure looks like I am.”
“I will find you and—”
“And what, Astaroth?” Her panicked voice rose. “Screw with my head again?”
“Take you back to the castle where it is safe.”
“Where you will do with me as you see fit, aka, fuck me as you wish. No, thank you!”
Betrayal laced her anger. All I stole from her frothed to the surface, clouding her train of thought and confusing her.
“We can discuss this when we get back.” Footprints appeared in the snow. They were not Calista’s nor one of my brethren. My fear spiked. Danger walked the pathways with us now. “I will set things right.”
“Stay out of my head!”
The ground shook, and I stumbled. Or maybe it was my brain rattling inside my skull. I gripped the sides of my head and stood still as the reverberations of her anger leveled out. It sounded like the sky rumbled, but I couldn’t see anything above me in the darkness.
A scream ricocheted off the walls. I blipped through the corridors, sword in hand, ready to slaughter the beast that hunted her, when I heard them on the other side of a wall. I found a nearby opening and ran through. A grizwyn stood over her as she crawled backward, hands and feet sliding out from under her on the ice. A ferocious roar rumbled in my ears as it took its first ragged-clawed swipe. I leapt on its back and clung to the thick, coarse pelt. It turned and stumbled, leaving Calista shivering in a pile of snow. Her chapped, purpling lips quivered as she watched in horror.
Enraged, the beast slammed me against the bricks to shake me loose. When that didn’t work, it rushed the other wall and slammed me against those. My sword clattered to the ground and was enveloped by the snow. I’d have to do this the hard way.
The shadows wrapped around me. Imbued with my magic, they shot out of my limbs and wrapped around the grizwyn. When it released a frustrated roar, one plunged down its throat, straight to its life source. It struggled while I fed on its energy, leaching it of every drop until it swayed and crumbled to the ground as it withered. When I looked up, Calista was gone. Once again, I couldn’t sense her.
Calista
The desert was a dream vacation compared to the arctic, albeit a nightmare. I didn’t think I’d survive the subzero temperature, icy terrain, and miles of mountains and frigid seas. The glaciers gleamed like diamonds in the full moonlight. Every step was agony. My bones and joints ached. The tears crystallized on my cheeks, cracking with every wince and then immediately refreezing. Shivers wracked my body until my frozen, prickled skin felt like it was engulfed in a blazing fire. Through the brain fog, I vaguely remembered something about hypothermia. In my confusion, I didn’t question when the song led me to the dark waters lapping against the edge of the ice and was thankful to extinguish the flames licking my skin. I jumped in. Two things happened simultaneously: I gasped, and I became paralyzed from shock. Saltwater burned my nose and lungs while I sunk deeper, choking on the sea brine.
The moon undulated on the surface to the beat of the warbled tune, light shattered by shadows moving above me. Alienesque sounds sang along. It was a hauntingly beautiful ode, saluting my attempt at freedom. Darkness ringed the fringes of my vision as whatever sang my funeral song swam over me, its slick skin brushing against my own. An overwhelming sense of peace came from the slow thuds of my heart. This was a much better way to die than being eaten by a sand dragon. When the whale turned around and opened its mouth, I welcomed my fate. I was propelled inside by the eager water and slammed into a wall as the waves crashed and spread over the bricks around me.
I laid in the puddle. Every breath wheezed this high-pitched whistle as I coughed. My lungs worked overtime to expel the salt water while my body convulsed and thawed in the humid corridor.
Wait. That was two corners I visited. Is this what Astaroth was looking for when we searched? Was the realm guiding me to each one?
“You’ve proven your point.”
I squeezed my eyes shut when his voice pounded in my head.
“And I have proven mine.”
What point is that? I thought.
He ignored my question. “Stay put!”
The pendant pulsed in warning. I rolled to my stomach and pushed onto my hands and knees like a baby giraffe. Every bone ached, my eyeballs burned as they darted around looking for him, and I could barely breathe. I wanted more than anything to lie down. If I did, he would find me. I wasn’t ready to give up.
Unsteady, I stood up and leaned against the wall. My thighs twitched and spasmed while I clung to the vines for support. They wriggled in my grasp, reminding me of the day they held me captive against these very walls while Astaroth filled my body and made me quiver.
“I will do it again.”
He would not. My will to escape would vanish beneath his touch. The only freedom I’d find would be in his bed, traveling the galaxies in his lust-filled gaze. “Get out of my goddamn head!”
Thunder rolled overhead. Startled, I plastered my back to the wall as lightning splintered the sky. The giant bloodsuckles stretched up as the first raindrops fell.
“That’s never happened before.”
His precious labyrinth was falling apart. I had to keep going so I wasn’t trapped here when it imploded. A sharp pain shot through my ankle when I stepped forward. It was swollen and turning shades of purple and black. My fingertips weren’t much better, but I couldn’t feel them, and I didn’t have to walk on those.
It was a last-ditch effort, but I was willing to try. “I wish I could heal faster.”
Tingles traveled over my skin as another round of lightning zipped through the sky. My fingertips hurt as the feeling and warmth came back. I smiled when the deep purple skin faded, and my nails returned to their natural pinkish hue. Suddenly, the bone in my ankle cracked as it reset. I tried to cover my mouth to muffle the scream, but the crack of thunder hid my pain-filled mewls. A moment later, the throbbing eased. I tested my weight on it. It was sensitive, but I could walk.
I looked down the darkened corridor ahead. The next corner was close. I could hear the tune in the distance. Favoring my tender ankle as it healed, I gently wove in and out of the doorways, feeling my way through the darkness and allowing the bright flashes of lightning to reveal the paths.
“Calista!”
I whipped around to his booming voice. He wasn’t far behind, and I was almost there.
“I don’t know how you’re doing this, but I’ll figure it out.”
I refused to feed him a morsel of information and cleared my mind of everything by humming along with the realm. Astaroth’s presence weighed on me as he pressed further and probed deeper into my mind, triggering memories I didn’t want to relive. One memory in particular caught my full attention.
I floated gleefully in the air while Astaroth directed my flight from the ground with a stick taller than he was. A twig snapped, and his head jerked in that unnatural way. I followed his gaze as Grandma raced into the clearing, terror and disbelief etched on her face. I screeched as the force holding me up disappeared and fell, arms and legs windmilling to right myself. Pain tore through my back as the stick pierced me. Shocked, I looked down at the wood protruding from my chest. Blood glazed the bark and seeped around the edges of the hole. When I looked up, I was no longer standing. Grandma hovered over me, her tears dripping onto my face. She screamed at Astaroth, shoving him away when he knelt beside me, but I couldn’t make out their exchange. I coughed to clear my throat, to ask what was happening and to tell her to be nice, but all I did was gargle. Astaroth reappeared. His little hand glowed as it covered my chest, and his eyes twinkled with those bright stars I loved. There, faintly playing in the background and getting farther away, was the song.
My finger found the thin scar near my sternum. I never could remember how I got it and assumed it was due to some childhood mishap. The more I thought about it, the sicker I got. I didn’t remember ever being ill. Accidents that should have injured me barely left a scratch. Luck played no role in my life, and the pendant wasn’t the only cause for all my fortunes and misfortunes. Astaroth didn’t just heal me. He changed me.
The pressure became too intense. I held my head as I hobbled quicker until I ran. The rain fell heavier in blinding sheets, deafening any noise in the labyrinth, but it did little to assuage the haunting whispers of love, devotion, and sacrifice. What did he know of sacrifice? What did he know of any of it?
“I know more than you ever will,” he shouted.
I gasped when the lightning revealed Astaroth running down the path behind me. He didn’t see me yet, but he could sense me as he looked around. Patting the wall, I found an opening and took it.
Water began to flood the corridors under the deluge of rain. I trudged through, thankful for the noise disguising my sloshing steps and praying there were none of those creepy-ass mermaids swimming around me. The song played loudly nearby. I just had to make it a few more yards.
Something grabbed my wrist and yanked me back. Astaroth stared down at me, his eyes wildly searching mine. Rain dripped from his nose and lashes and plastered his hair to his face.
I jerked my arm, but he refused to let go. “Release me!”
“Never.”
All the pent-up anger had a target now. I went on the attack, punching and kicking as I screamed at him to let me go.
He pulled me in close and lowered his face to mine. “I will not allow you to kill yourself!”
“But it’s okay if you do!” I yelled back over the pounding water.
I took his moment of stunned silence and punched him in the dick. His eyes widened and he let go when I jerked my arm with all my strength to free my wrist. I tumbled backward. Straight into the next corner.