Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
“She’s late,” Theo huffed. “Why is she late?”
He had told Callum to get her here at sunset, and it was well after. He had been standing here, waiting by this damned sinkhole, for far too long.
“Why are you being a giant prick?” Callum retorted. Helaina stood just behind Theo’s lieutenant, like he could somehow be a buffer between them. She looked tired, but it wasn’t the same tired he was used to seeing. She looked ready to be here, like she wanted to be here.
“Watch it, I’m in no mood.”
“Believe me, brother, I know. I’ve been dealing with your mood for weeks.” Callum brushed back his sweat-soaked hair.
Helaina didn’t laugh, exactly, but she sort of snorted. The sound made the corner of Theo’s mouth twitch. He oddly liked it—he liked a lot of the sounds she made. His mind strayed for a fraction of a second to the night they’d shared, the noises, the moans, the vulnerable parts he let her see.
Enough.
He was a commander, a leader. This duty, the reason he had been planted here for his entire existence, had to come first. The next weeks would be a test of that commitment he made so long ago.
She looked optimistic coming into this cave. He was going to make her regret that.
“Every day, she climbs with either you or Manos. Every day until I say so. Got it?”
“If you leave it to Manos, she’ll be ready by next winter. I’ll take care of it.”
Callum gave Helaina a gentle nudge with his shoulder. “See you tomorrow.” He turned for the exit. “Don’t go easy on him.”
“See you tomorrow,” Helaina replied with a smile. An exquisite smile.
Theo’s lips dipped in the opposite direction. She was befriending everyone under these fucking mountains but him.
He leashed his childlike jealousy as her smile faded into a frown. “There’s really nowhere else? We had to meet here?” Helaina’s skittish eyes tracked to the sinkhole.
“You said you were afraid to be discovered. I can’t have your mind distracted and anxious while you pull out your shadows. I need you to be clear and on task when you remove that bracelet.”
“If I fall in there—”
“You will fall in there”—Theo’s body changed into his demon form—“if you can’t fight me off.” It was a fresh breath to let it out. If he kept this part of him confined too long, things would get uncomfortable. His own skin became agonizing, his own thoughts even more so.
She stumbled back in terror, and it almost made the beast inside him break its damned chains and fully emerge. It liked seeing her terror.
She needs this, Theo reminded himself as he shoved his inner monster down. Your army needs her.
“You have no weapon, no sword, all you have is what’s inside you.
That might very well be your test in Ures’s realm.
” She always made it so abundantly clear she detested this side of him.
For every step he took toward her, she retreated.
“If you don’t fend me off, I’m going to push you down into those wandering depths. ”
Helaina stilled. “You wouldn’t.”
“I will. So fight me off. Or you can discover just how far that pit leads.”
“This isn’t training, Theo. You’re scaring me!”
“You think Ures will make it easy for you because you share his blood? He is the God of War. He has no use for weakness, and neither do I.”
Her mouth made a sour quiver, and she was instantly raging. “No . . . use.” Her tempest tears fell to the ground.
He had told her to stop letting her emotions control her power.
She had worked through the panic when saving Aaron, using her power despite her fear.
That was good, she was advancing. But what about her anger?
The most successful display of shadow she had demonstrated was when she was provoked.
Breyer had been an effective catalyst. He would recreate that here. Even if it pained him to do it.
She looked like she was about to retreat down the exit tunnel.
Theo pressed his hands on a nearby formation, cracking the cylindrical rock from the base.
Before she could escape, he lifted his hand in Helaina’s direction.
The heavy rock followed that invisible path through the air, crashing at Helaina’s feet, breaking into thousands of projectiles.
She fell back on her ass, lifting her hand above her face to block the debris.
She was up again just in time for him to hurl another.
“Are you fucking crazy?”
That foul mouth of hers, she had clearly been spending time with Breyer.
More rubble exploded at her feet until her shadows finally materialized, just enough to deflect the fragments, scattering them to either side of her.
“Theo, stop it!” She barely got the words out before he sent another spike careening across the cave. Her shadows sparked to life, protecting her from the debris. “I said stop it, gods damn you!”
“You want my help, this is what it entails. Although part of me thinks you’re beyond help at this point. Do you think the deserts would take you still? What about Keles?”
Another wisp of shadow appeared as her palpable fury grew. “I know what you’re doing . . . You’re trying to get me mad on purpose.”
His clever hellion. Her understanding of his intentions wouldn’t hinder him.
“They didn’t look for you.” Theo enunciated the words so slowly.
His blow landed perfectly.
Helaina screamed, thrashing a gust of shadow at him.
The black whirls spiraled toward his core in a clear attack.
He blocked them but wasn’t as lucky with the second flurry, which materialized just after.
He crashed to the cave ground with a rattling boom.
He rolled backward and recovered his footing, standing tall and cracking another formation in two.
“They forgot about you. They didn’t even try. Not a single soldier sent. How many are in your militia? Eight thousand? Ten?”
“shut up!” A mass of black waves barreled toward him.
Theo weaved into the air. The shadow was restless and chaotic.
It seemed holding in her own powers while he was away made them even more unpredictable.
They came to life, reaching for him like the hands of a drowning man, then dissipated the moment they didn’t hit their target.
Just for another gust of them to appear.
Theo hovered above her, his wings creating a wind that pushed her off balance. She went down on all fours, teeth bared as she strained against the blast. She lifted one hand and a wall of black followed, pushing out before her, blocking his attack.
Theo sent a barrage of formations hurtling right for her. Each pointed end exploded and shattered as it came into contact with her wall, steadily sliding her closer and closer to the edge of the sinkhole.
“they didn’t look for you!” he shouted as another whirl of Helaina’s power soared into the air, coming for him with a wild rage.
“you’re a heartless monster. i fucking hate you!” she screamed back as her shadow wall faltered and broke away into fibrous pieces.
Theo’s growl of outrage echoed all around as he sprang from the narrow arena. He came down on her in a flurry, scooping her up and carrying her until she was pinned to the wall that stretched just above that endless void. She wouldn’t use her shadows on him up here.
Her rapid breaths coasted his neck as she stopped struggling, realizing if he let her go, she would drop.
“They didn’t look, Helaina. But I would have.” His voice cracked at the last.
She held on to the gauntlets covering his wrists. Her face had been contorted in rage a moment prior; now it softened at his declaration.
“I wouldn’t have sent you away. I wouldn’t have given up. I would have come for you, just like the others. There is not a single candle in that vigil that I didn’t try to bring home.”
Her stare calmed, silver eyes going vacant.
“Lionel told me you saw it. I haven’t forgotten any of them.
Emeric, daughter of Temprah, cut down the year Vrasta and Creston warred with one another.
It was the same year a pack of nucka flooded our borders, threatening to break free.
Penelope, daughter of Nedos, she spent so long training with me to use the dagger, so she could come back just like Lionel after her trial.
Only she never did. Anton, son of Raphsa, went missing around the same time the attacks on Lynor began.
We spent months swarming these mountains, searching for him. Months, Helaina.”
As his list went on, her body went as rigid as the rock wall at her back. He gripped her shoulders, flying her back to the flat earth, letting out a grunt of frustration as he found his own footing.
“Theo . . . I—”
“Amelia, Warren, Quinn”—he rattled off the names as he paced before her—“all fliers in Manos’s ranks, all gone a couple winters back. It was too cold to know for sure if they were dead. We kept hoping they’d return, but spring came, then summer.”
His hands traversed through his hair; he was damn near about to pull it out.
“I brought them here, promising a life that was better than what they had. The Divine aren’t just who can be useful to me .
. . They were crumbling down there. Enduring a mortal life that wasn’t worth living.
I promised them better—do you think I make promises lightly?
Yet for so many it didn’t matter; I condemned them to death anyway. ”
“Theo, I didn’t realize . . .” she started, but couldn’t continue.
“Agatha, daughter of Ures . . .” He watched Helaina’s breathing pause. “I just spent the past weeks looking for her. Not just hunting the ones who hurt Aaron, but looking for her! So that I wouldn’t have to light another fucking candle!”
Helaina’s lip trembled before she spoke. “You . . . remember all of them?”
“I’ll never forget a single one. It’s my job to keep them safe, to train them so they can protect themselves.
Their lives matter to me just as much as the mortal lives below.
They don’t stop mattering when they come back as a demigod, they don’t stop belonging to someone, even when their families are dead and gone. ”
Theo got close, watching her visibly crawl out of her skin at the sight of his pale-winged counterpart. He did her a courtesy and changed into the form she was willing to get close to.
“Hate me for what I am, hate me for pushing you. Hate me for the monster I harbor. But don’t you ever, ever claim me to be heartless. I may not be mortal, but my heart is alive and beating, and it will go to every hell realm and back for the ones who offer it the same.”
Helaina looked at him with deep reverence, then dropped her gaze to her trembling hands, the same ones that had conjured so much power just moments ago.
“I would have looked for you,” he repeated, because he meant it. Even if she hated him, he meant it. “Lesson’s over for today.”