74. THE BARGAIN AND THE BEAST
I shook my head against my restraints. The last thing I wanted was for the queen to make a bargain with this goddess, but my voice died out in my throat as I tried to warn her.
Skadi looked moderately amused. “It’s a little late for bargains, don’t you think?”
The queen’s glassy-eyed glare became more menacing. “Let her go,” she commanded.
Skadi chuckled to herself. “Now, why would I do that?”
“Because I have what you want,” the queen answered, pushing past Weston and the other Dionach.
“There is nothing you have that I could possibly want.”
Corinne looked down, then she finally pulled forth what appeared to be a necklace from the pocket of her long, crimson robes.
For a moment, she kept it cupped in her palm, admiring it, like it meant a great deal to her.
When she unfolded her fingers, letting the black stone dangle freely in the air, I gasped.
It was Erebus’s amulet.
Skadi’s eyes went wide, and her hold around my neck faltered enough for me to claim much-needed full breaths.
“I will barter this.” Corinne held the amulet higher, and suddenly, I sensed . . . Niall. His essence was leaking off the necklace—faint, but there nonetheless.
But how? And how did the queen even have the amulet?
I drank in deep breaths of air, tension bracketing every muscle in my body as I tried to figure out what the hell was happening. Weston wasn’t protesting, and neither was the other Dionach. And Corinne appeared as calm as ever, like what she held wasn’t a world-altering object.
Did she not know what she held in her hand? That amulet—that power—
“This is yours, is it not?” She shook the chain.
Skadi had gone eerily still. “Where did you get that?”
“From a friend. I know what this stone is; I was born a witch, after all.”
Skadi hissed. “A witch queen? Now, that is interesting. Did my sister give that to you? Did she tell you what that stone contains?”
The queen held the goddess’s stare. “I did not need to know. I do not want its power. I just want her.” Her eyes flicked to me. “Give me the girl, and you will have your father’s token once more.”
She’d glazed right over Skadi’s question of if Torin had given her the stone, but I did not dare say a word. There had to be a reason why she was doing this.
Skadi remained quiet, then, she crooked a finger, and her shadows manifested once more, tugging me closer to her.
They were nothing like Niall’s shadows. These were harsh.
Their physical touch felt more like the roughened hand of a slave rather than the smooth wisp of sentient power like my mate’s.
No matter how much I protested against them, I yielded, step by step.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Weston inching forward, his hands clenched at his sides.
“That stone can only ever belong to someone with my father’s power in their veins,” Skadi said.
“My power is just similar enough. My sister does not have his power. Hers is tainted by our mother’s wraithlike essence, which is why you witches will always be lesser—weaving conjured words to do your bidding.
” She twisted her hand in the air, yanking against the magical cord around my neck.
As I finally stepped into her physical grasp, she grinned, smug and content, then spun me around to face the queen.
“Words are nothing against actual power.” A pointed nail pressed against my cheek.
“That amulet belongs to me. Why should I have to trade for it?”
The queen gave a shrug. “Because at any moment, I could simply vanish from here, and place this in the hands of one of the other gods.”
Skadi stilled, the tension around her lips going slack. She had no favor with the other gods of this world, and in any of their hands, the amulet would be as good as lost.
The queen may not have magic, but she had two Dionachs at her side who could port her anywhere in a split second. Skadi’s odds were against her, and she knew it. Though she was a goddess, this was not her homeworld, and she did not have the advantage.
Despite her predicament, her restraints on me held firm. I jerked, trying to angle my head away from her as she began to stroke my cheekbone with her finger like I was her new pet. On the inside, I snarled with anger, wishing I could figure out whatever was keeping my power locked away.
“Bring me the amulet,” the goddess finally said, “and I might reconsider this one’s fate.”
Weston met my gaze, his expression seeming to say, Hold on just a little longer.
I shook my head as much as I was able, longing to scream at them to not give up the amulet. My stomach plummeted when the queen handed it to the auburn-haired Dionach.
No!
The unfamiliar Dionach approached, stoic in both appearance and nature.
He didn’t say a word, but his eyes briefly landed on me.
There was compassion behind his expressionless face.
It made me think that if I chiseled away his stony facade, I would find a heap of unspoken sentiments, just like I would with Remic.
He stopped several feet from us and extended a hand toward me while keeping the amulet close to his chest.
“First, the stone,” Skadi commanded.
The Dionach looked at me once more, then stepped forward to place the stone and chain in the goddess’s open palm.
The moment Skadi closed her fingers around the amulet, the air shifted.
It happened in a blink. Skadi took in a sudden gasp and canted sideways, bending as if someone had dealt a blow to her ribs. The Dionach emerged from behind her, withdrawing a needle-thin blade from her side, tinged with blood. I hadn’t even seen him port.
Slowly, the shadow that Skadi held me with began to dissolve, and the Dionach took hold of my arm with gentle strength, and ported me to the queen and Weston.
Skadi looked down at her left flank, at the blood that was blooming on her bodice. She stumbled to the side, hissing. Her head whipped up at the Dionach, then to the queen. “Poison? You dare use poison on a goddess?!”
No one answered her as she fell to the forest floor, trembling under whatever toxin the Dionach’s weapon had been laced with.
Though her body betrayed her, she still managed to snicker from where she lay.
“You fool. Poison isn’t nearly as incapacitating to a god as you think.
You may have bought yourself time, but for every minute you draw breath you will pay it back in blood. ”
The queen stared Skadi down, a promise of death in both her expression and her voice as she said, “You will be as good as dead when this war is over. Thus, I do not fear your wrath.”
Skadi screamed in anger. A pulse of dark power rippled from her body, but it faded into nothing as quickly as it came.
Her eyes widened, realizing that whatever the Dionach had used was having more of an effect on her than she expected.
With a strained grunt, she swiped a hand upward, as if pulling something forth from the ground.
A shadow manifested and began taking a physical form beside her, until we were staring down a creature of darkness, taller than any man or fae I’d ever seen.
It was humanlike in form, but other in its nature, made of shadows, with blackened claws that hung like razors from its large hands.
Its broad chest rose and fell as it silently drew in breath.
Breath from a face that had no features—no eyes, no nose, or mouth.
It stood eerily still. Shadows leaked from its spindly hands, dripping to the ground and disappearing on contact.
Skadi’s power might have been hindered in one aspect, but she was clearly still able to conjure something to do her bidding.
Weston and the other Dionach drew their weapons, the latter not hesitating to take the creature head-on.
His long strides closed the distance, and he swung, his blade hissing through the air with acute sharpness.
It sliced across the shadow being’s chest, but only wisps of darkness wafted in its wake.
Confused, and momentarily stunned at the creature’s composition—or lack thereof—the Dionach lingered too long on his follow-through.
The shadow lifted its long arm and thrust it into him, knocking him back to the tree line.
The impact of the collision sounded like stone cracking against bone, yet the Dionach showed no sign of injury.
His wings flared as he gathered his composure and took a fighting stance, poised to launch and strike once more.
Weston turned to me, his face frantic. He was about to say something, when an unearthly snarl rippled through the trees.
I’d heard that sound before, so distinct and menacing that I’d never forget it as long as I lived. I whirled and sucked in a breath at what slunk out of the trees.
A cù-sìth.
Shaggy, black fur lined its muscular limbs.
The long, crinkly mane that grew around its face and neck was thicker than the animal I’d seen in the highlands.
It pawed at the ground anxiously, its perfectly sharpened claws ripping through moss and vines, waiting for the shadow to make its move.
When it did, the cù-sìth launched, becoming a blur of black.
Giant paws swung, and this time, they made contact with the creature.
Darkness was ripped away from the shadow’s form like flesh from a mortal body, and the entity let out an ear-splitting screech.
It whirled on the cù-sìth, swiping its talons with fury.
They traded blows, colliding in a mass of claws and chaos.
The creature dodged the cù-sìth’s next attack, dipping low and catching the animal around its ribcage.
Bones cracked as the shadow’s long arms squeezed, and the cù-sìth let out an agonizing yelp.
Its long tail whipped around like a spear and struck the shadow’s unformed face, causing it to lose its hold.
The moment the cù-sìth was free, it leapt, scaling a nearby tree and using it as a launching point.