Chapter Thirty
The Priestess clapped her hands. “Who will be joining Theron and Star?”
“I will.” Ranis straightened in his chair.
“Me too.” Minha spun the stone, turning it in circles.
Jina looked between them, then at me. She said nothing but I saw the wanting she swallowed down.
I reached over and squeezed her hand. “Someone has to stay and make sure Fraya doesn’t do anything reckless.”
“Excuse me.” Fraya snorted. “I think it’s the other way around, right princess?” She winked.
Jina almost smiled as she handed her stone to Theron.
The Priestess lifted the four small cups she’d already prepared and set one in front of each of us. The liquid was pale and thin, almost colorless. It smelled of lavender and something bitter at the same time.
“Drink,” she said.
I looked at the cup. Then at Theron. He met my gaze and gave the smallest nod. I brought it to my lips and drank.
The lavender hit first—almost comforting. Then the bitterness spread through my chest like warm water finding every corner. The cups landed with a thud around the table.
The Priestess disappeared behind the bed, and returned with four folded blankets, laying them on the floor in a circle pattern.
“Lie down,” she said. “Heads toward the center.”
I took the blanket closest to me, Theron to my left, Ranis across, Minha to my right. We lay back, heads pointing inward like the spokes of a wheel, the stone floor cool through the thin blanket beneath me.
“Put the stone in your left hand.” The Priestess moved around the circle, checking each of us. “When you cross, it goes with you. Don’t let go of it. So does anything you take with you. Now take the left hand of the person to the right of you.”
Theron’s warm and steady hand closed around mine. My fingers found Minha’s hand and the stone, gripping tight.
“Do not break the chain,” the Priestess said. “And when you’re on the other side, no matter what you see, no matter what you hear, stay together. You might be tested. You might forget who you are and why you’ve come. No matter what, stand your ground.”
She looked at each of us in turn as she circled around us. “I can speak to you from here. But you will not be able to speak back to me.”
My eyelids grew heavy. Too heavy to fight.
“Don’t let your thoughts wander,” Theron murmured beside me, his voice low enough for only me to hear. “Don’t go dreaming about what I did to you the other night.”
Gods. Even now.
“Shut up, Theron,” I managed.
I felt more than heard him laugh, a low rumble through the hand still holding mine.
The ceiling blurred. Minha’s grip held fast on my other side. Theron’s hand tightened around mine, then as the dark pulled us deeper, their holds begin to loosen, fingers going slack, not from letting go but from the same current dragging us all under at once.
The Priestess’s calm voice reached me one last time. “Let the stones guide the way.”
Then the dark took me.
My feet hit solid ground before my eyes adjusted not to darkness, but twilight. No moon, nor stars. Not even clouds. Just an endless gray, stretching in every direction.
I stumbled forward and my foot connected with something that skittered across the pebbles with a hollow clatter. A skull stared back at me. I yelped and lurched backward, nearly colliding with Theron. I grabbed his arm for balance, then let go.
I slipped my free hand into my pocket. The stone warm against my fingers hummed. Good. My other hand dropped to my waist, the dagger still sheathed and solid against my hip, next to the bottle Nam’s sister, Sable, had given me, and the pearls I had taken from the cavern.
The thin fog moved across the ground in slow curling ribbons, sliding between our feet like something alive and curious.
The trees, if they could be called that, rose on either side of the path like sentinels.
Their trunks pale as bone, stripped of bark.
The roots clawed up through the ground, sharp-edged and grasping.
The branches twisted upward and outward into long jagged points, each one fine enough to pierce, angled like they were waiting for someone to fall into them.
In the distance, through the fog, the gate. Black iron, tall enough the top vanished into the gray, its shape barely visible through the darkness from the fog.
Enter the gate.
The Priestess’s voice echoed somewhere inside my mind. So it must mean the others heard her too. She’d said she could speak to us. I hadn’t fully understood what that meant until now, finding me across whatever distance separated the living from the dead.
We moved toward the gate.
“How do we get in?” Ranis tilted his head far back.
Minha shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m not touching that thing. And you can’t ask the Priestess.”
“I’m sure we can figure it out.” Theron waved a hand. “But after you, Crown Prince.”
“I’m not—” Ranis stopped talking when the gates swung slow and silent on their own, like they’d been expecting us.
“Fine. I’ll go first. Stay together.” Theron’s eyes found mine for just a moment. Then he walked through and the darkness swallowed him.
I followed. One step inside and the thick fog closed around me.
“Theron,” I whispered.
No answer.
“This isn’t funny.” I turned in a slow circle, seeing nothing but fog and bone-white trees. “Theron.” Louder this time. Then. “Ranis. Minha.”
Nothing.
Stay together. Do not separate. The Priestess had been clear. I supposed whoever ruled here had other plans.
I squared my shoulders. “Hello?” I called into the void. “Show yourself. Whatever you are, I know you’re there.”
The fog shifted.
A dark shape materialized fifty feet ahead—a wraith, easily six feet, formless where a body should be, hovering level with the treetops, a phantom wind lifting the shredded edges of its black cloak.
Where a face should have been, there was nothing.
Just darkness shaped like a head, tilted slightly toward me, watching.
The voice, neither male nor female, came from everywhere and nowhere, like sound dragged through water. “One comes seeking. One comes hiding. One comes already lost. Which are you?”
“I’ve come seeking the lost gods.”
Was I supposed to pick out of the three? I had no instructions for what to say or do if we got separated.
“Flesh and blood.” It tilted its head. “It has been a long time since the living wandered in. They never leave the same.”
I closed my fingers around the stone in my pocket, humming steady against my palm. A reminder of who I was and why I had come here.
“You are alone.” Its voice was almost gentle, but I knew better than to trust it.
“My friends and I got separated. Do you know where they are?” I shouldn’t have admitted I was lost. Damn it. Now it knew I was vulnerable.
“I can take you to them. Follow me.” It gave me its back, still hovering, cloak drifting in that phantom wind.
Not the answer I’d expected, but I took a step anyway. Then stopped.
The wraith spun toward me, noticing my every move.
“Tell me where they are first.”
“They are where you are, child.” A dry humor in his tone.
I searched. Nothing but fog, bone-white trees, and somehow the gate farther away than when I’d entered. Though impossible, either the gate had moved, or I had.
“I don’t see them.”
“You are not looking with the right eyes.”
“Who are you?”
“The keeper of the dead. Now stop asking questions and come along. You have much work to do.”
I opened my mouth to protest, then stopped. My feet moved. Not by my will. One step, then another, pulled forward like a current had taken hold of my legs beneath the fog.
The keeper was dragging me.
I dug my heels in. It made no difference. The stone in my pocket flared warm, almost hot, humming loud enough now that I could feel it in my teeth.
Stand your ground. The Priestess’s voice boomed, somewhere in the back of my mind. No matter what.
“Stop.” I grabbed the nearest bone-white tree trunk, cold as ice beneath my fingers. “I said stop.”
The invisible pull hesitated.
“I said stop!” I yanked the dagger from its sheath and held it out in front of me.
The pull released. Whether it was the dagger or my demanding voice that worked, I was grateful for the reprieve.
I staggered back against the tree, chest heaving, fingers still locked around the trunk. The keeper’s head tilted at that same unreadable angle.
“You have more fight in you than most who wander here.” The voice carried no anger. No surprise. Almost something like interest. “Who are you, girl?”
I straightened, the dagger at the ready. “My name is Star.”
The keeper was quiet for a moment.
“That is what they call you,” it said. “I asked who you are?”
“I will not answer you, Keeper. I have no dealings with you. Just take me to my friends. That is all I ask of you.”
“You do not know.” He tsked. “What a shame.” The phantom wind stilled. “You have been here before. And you left something behind.”
“What?” I said, though I didn’t believe him. I was more curious about his answer.
“Memories.”
I’d play his game. “So you do remember me.”
“Of course.” The faceless head tilted. “The dead never forget. The Seelie queen knows you’re here. She has eyes even in the land of the dead. I was told to stop you before you reach the gods.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why does the queen want me stopped?”
“You must be very important,” the keeper said simply, “for her to send word even here. Now. Give me your stone.”
“Over my dead body.” I gritted the words through my teeth, dagger still raised. “Why do you work for the queen?”
“She feeds me the dead.” The voice was matter of fact. “She has fed me many of your kind, Seaborn.”
The word hit me somewhere deep. Seaborn. My people.
“How many?” My jaw tightened until it ached. “How many Seaborn has she sent you?”
He tilted his head. “Oh, I cannot give you the number. Too many. More than thousands. More than I can count.”
My breath left me, my heart hollowing. “She will answer for that.” I said it through gritted teeth. “Every single one of them.”