Epilogue
HEKATE’S TEMPLE
The land surrounding the temple was eerily silent. There was no wind rustling through the trees. The snow was untouched: no rabbit, fox or bird prints to hint at any wildlife about.
As Lerek trudged behind Gabriol, he wondered again if the Roison could actually call up the portal to the realm the gods were banished to.
And if he was successful, what if something—someone—came through?
Lerek had a very basic understanding of swordplay.
Unlike his brother, Lerek had preferred to study history and politics over martial arts.
He hadn’t worried before because there was always someone with him well-trained in warcraft.
Even now.
Turning his gaze to the mercenary, Lerek glared at his back. “Do you even know where we’re going?”
Gabriol didn’t respond. Lerek sighed and tried again. “What if—”
“The oracle told me what I needed to do,” Gabriol muttered.
Lerek’s mouth dropped open. “What? When? It was Terena—”
“When we rescued her in Messene.”
Gabriol slowed down and Lerek quickly caught up to him, his narrowed eyes locked on the Roison’s face. He had a shuttered look as he stared ahead, but Lerek thought he seemed troubled.
“She told me Terena would ask something impossible of me. And when that happened, I was to say yes. And when I was ready, I would know exactly what to do.”
“How do you know this is what she meant?”
Gabriol laughed harshly and shook his head. He glanced at Lerek and shrugged. “Terena’s never asked anything of me that I thought was impossible. Until she asked me to come north to Hekate’s temple and open a portal to the world known as Earth and find her mother.”
Lerek nodded. “Aye. I guess that qualifies.”
“Indeed.”
“But you told her you didn’t know how.”
Gabriol’s face when he glanced at Lerek was bleak. “I hoped to dissuade her.”
They walked for a time in silence. After a while, Lerek squinted at something on the horizon.
“Look!”
He pointed and ran ahead, his face breaking out in a wide smile as he saw columns come into view. Gabriol hurried, stopping beside Lerek as they gazed up at the haze-shrouded temple, the sun blocked out by the trees.
The greying marble was home to climbing vines and bird nests in the pediment. The temple looked as if it hadn’t been used in decades, perhaps centuries, and yet as they stepped inside, the small antechamber was immaculate.
Lerek crept behind Gabriol. The antechamber opened into a wide circular room with old braziers against the walls and an altar in the middle.
Lerek stepped closer, eyeing the remnants of candles and small vials, some still filled with spices.
Tarnished keys and scraps of paper with writing so faded Lerek could only see a few letters, lay beside the candles.
Gabriol pulled the shroud from his jacket. The braziers around the room came to life, bursting into flames and bathing the temple in light. Lerek jumped, covering his mouth with a shaky hand as he stared wide-eyed at the braziers and then at Gabriol.
He was gratified to see a similar look on Gabriol’s face. Lerek shuddered.
“How did that just happen?” Lerek whispered.
Gabriol turned in place as if searching for the answer. “I don’t—”
He stopped abruptly, his body stiff as he held onto the shroud in his fist. Lerek took a tentative step closer to the mercenary. His skin itched with the certainty they were no longer alone, and yet there was no one else in the temple.
“What is it?”
Gabriol turned his head so slowly, Lerek had the uncanny sense he might not be the one controlling his own body. When Gabriol spoke, Lerek felt certain he was right.
“Achandia,” Gabriol said in a voice so unlike his own, Lerek stepped back a few paces. He clutched his cloak and stared at the mercenary.
“Achandia,” he said again, this time in a whisper as if speaking to himself.
He lifted the shroud, holding it aloft in both hands, the fabric sheer and bathed in the glow of the braziers. Lerek watched as Gabriol whispered in a foreign language, his mutterings growing more intense the longer he spoke.
Something cool brushed the back of Lerek’s neck, and he jumped, grabbing his neck as his head whipped around, searching for the reason.
The fire in the braziers grew, and the room was almost uncomfortably warm. The hairs on Lerek’s arms rose, and he scratched at his forearms.
Birds took flight behind him. Lerek spun around to see the shadows of the birds, their cries fading away to leave behind an eerie silence broken up by Gabriol’s chanting. They disappeared as if only shadows.
“Gabe—”
Lerek turned and blinked. The fire in the braziers went out.
And Gabriol was gone.
“Gabriol!”
Lerek lurched forward, his eyes wide as he stared at the spot Gabriol had stood, then stumbled around the altar, the smell of the fire still in the air but the mercenary was nowhere to be found.
Lerek stared at the spot where Gabriol had been standing.
Realizing his jaw hurt because his mouth hung open, Lerek snapped it shut, his mind whirling with what he’d just seen.
All his life, the legends of the gods that had ruled this realm had been just that: legends.
Stories they’d all been told to explain away the unexplainable.
And yet he could not deny what his own eyes had seen these past few months.
Lerek lifted a shaking hand to rake through his already disheveled hair.
The quiet permeating the temple was unsettling, expectant.
Glancing around, Lerek felt an overwhelming need to leave.
He took a step back, his eyes darting over the marble columns and faded mosaic tiles.
As if hurried along by instinct, Lerek turned, striding across the empty chamber and down the steps onto the snow-covered ground.
Lifting a hand to his chest, Lerek’s breath puffed out in thin wisps of smoke as he cast his eyes about the lonely winter landscape for his mount.
Lerek pursed his lips and took a step as the ground rumbled beneath him. He spread his arms for balance, crying out as a sharp snap of wind crackled behind him.
Spinning around, Lerek gawped at the sight of the swirling vortex that disappeared as swiftly as it had formed. Lerek stared at the man who stumbled forward, a giant with bronze greaves over thick leather sandals.
As he rose to his full height, dread speared through Lerek as the man’s bronze breastplate flashed in the weak sunlight, turning to face him.
Ash-blond hair flowed onto the man’s large shoulder plates, a deep red cape settling around him like a sentient being as the man flexed his immense arms above bronze and blood-red studded vambraces.
Stepping forward, the giant’s steps made the marble tremble at his feet, and Lerek’s gaze widened as he trembled.
Hazel eyes, threaded with red lights swirling over the irises, stared at Lerek. The man’s mouth twisted into a sneer as if the sight of Lerek disgusted him.
Lerek thought his heart might have stopped.
Long minutes passed. Then, the giant stepped close enough Lerek had to tip his head far back to look up at him. A fine shudder ran through his frame.
“Bow, mortal!”
Lerek’s body moved without thought, sinking to his knees with his head bowed.
Quaking, Lerek dared not move.
“Where is my wife?” the giant asked in a voice that would give Lerek nightmares for the rest of his life.
Before he could respond, the giant grabbed hold of Lerek’s hair, snapping his head back to glare down at him. “Where are my daughters?”
Lerek’s mouth worked, but speech eluded him. He was a mass of shaking limbs, and he could not form a coherent thought to save his life.
“Speak!”
“My—my—”
“SPEAK!”
Lerek felt something warm and wet slide down his breeches. Tears slipped out of the corners of his eyes as he gazed up at the terrifying giant.
“I don’t—I don’t know—”
“Where is Achandia?”
“I don’t know who that is,” Lerek whimpered, gasping as the giant ripped more of his hair from his scalp when he tightened his grip. “I don’t know who that is!”
Lerek was shoved back onto the snow. Lifting his hands up defensively, he shied back as the towering nightmare before him seemed to grow larger.
“Then you are of no use to me.”
Lerek felt a fresh wave of terror when the giant reached back, lifting a sword that looked like it was forged in the underworld, sparking with red lightning.
“Wait! Wait!” Lerek begged, scrambling back across the ground, his feet slipping in the wintry mix of dirt and snow. “I can help you!”
The giant snorted, bringing the tip of his monstrous sword to Lerek’s panting chest.
“I am Ares, God of War,” the man snarled, his wrathful eyes swirling with a strange red light, and Lerek felt his insides melt. “I need no mortal’s help.”
And with that, red lightning crackled as he swung his sword.