Chapter Forty-Five
Avari
A shiver ran down my spine the moment I heard the door unlock. They had come back to finish me off.
Instinctively, I reached for the fire I knew was gone. I was a lamb bound for slaughter, utterly and irrevocably defenceless.
I would die.
My body was failing me more than it ever had. My limbs no longer ached; they lay cold and lifeless. A sob escaped me when I realised I wouldn’t even be laid to rest. The deviant woman would probably leave me to rot somewhere for her clan to admire.
Something in her eyes told me she had worse plans still. There was a satisfaction there that deepened every time I grew weaker.
Her minion stepped behind me and forced my head up as she regarded me with a condescending smile.
‘I was expecting more from you. But then again, you’re your mother’s daughter,’ she said, and they laughed. ‘You almost made it too easy. No fun. I hate you even more for that.’
She stepped away, and I couldn’t bear to keep her in my line of sight. I knew what was about to happen. I tried to make peace with it over the past few days. That didn’t mean it hurt any less.
The pain I had endured was nothing compared to the realisation that I would never get to explore what my life could have been. I had never truly lived. I had missed out on so much.
Anya wouldn’t stop until she avenged me. Her whole life would turn into a relentless hunt for truth and revenge. My beast’s loyalty wouldn’t let her rest until she drove herself mad. My weakness would destroy her chance at a normal life.
And River…
Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of him. He would blame himself. By now, I understood it wasn’t him who set up the meeting, but he would learn that a message from his number led me straight into this trap. Even though he had nothing to do with it, he would never forgive himself.
He had always seen me as his to protect. He would believe he had failed me.
The thought broke something inside my chest. The ache carved through me as my throat tightened.
I lowered my gaze. I didn’t want them to see how much I wanted to live. It would only make them happier to kill me.
She walked toward me slowly, holding her favourite blade. It no longer caught the light, coated in blood, dirt, and grime. She lifted it to her nose, inhaled deeply and chuckled.
Then she lowered herself to meet me eye to eye. ‘Such prospects wasted. What a shame.’
I didn’t respond.
Without hesitation, she drove the blade toward my throat. Moonlight glinted in the corner of my eye, and as it connected, everything went dark.
My veins, tendons, muscles, and bones stretched, ready to snap as a blinding light assaulted my senses, pushing me forward. It struck me with a crushing wave of heat that even my fire-craving soul found unbearable.
It charred every cell in my body. And then it vanished.
My hands slapped against the tiled floor in an unfamiliar room, the impact echoing as I collapsed.
For a moment, I relished the freedom from the restraints, allowing my lungs a full inhale and exhale. My breathing rasped, and it felt as though my lungs could no longer draw a deep breath, but at least the pain of the rope digging into my ribs was beginning to ease.
Blood oozed out of the cuts on my body and kept smearing across the pristine floor beneath me. My limbs wouldn’t even twitch as I craved to move and assess the place I landed in.
The high, mirrored ceiling frightened me.
Or rather, what it reflected. My hair was caked with dust and dirt, my cheekbones hollowed until they jutted from my face as though I were already half a ghost. The little curves I’d gained were gone.
I looked like death, or as though its claws would claim me at any second.
Only there wouldn’t be much left to claim.
It shouldn’t have been possible to feel an ache in my cells, yet I was certain I’d somehow achieved the impossible. Down to the very mitochondria, every part of my body seemed to beg for time to recover.
How did I even survive?
‘You look truly pitiful,’ a melodic voice rang out behind me, but I didn’t have the strength to even flinch at the stranger.
I shifted my gaze to at least see some of her silhouette and sighed as her expression appeared benevolent. ‘Who are you?’
Her faint footsteps echoed through the vast hall, lined with arched windows that poured in harsh sunlight my eyes struggled to adjust to. The space lay empty, with nothing to soften the rays before they reached me. It almost felt as though they were searching.
At the very centre stood a throne woven from thick rose vines, its thorns so large they could have passed for blades. Their pointed tips looked sharp enough to shatter bone.
‘I am Melinda,’ she said, her voice resembling a combination of the gentlest birdsong and thousands of wind chimes.
The name didn’t ring a bell. ‘Where am I, Melinda?’
The girl scrunched her nose. ‘I don’t usually get referred to by my name.’
A coughing fit made me drool slightly, earning me a sharp look of disgust. She stared at the fleck of foam clinging to the corner of my mouth as though it might somehow cross the distance and soil her immaculate golden dress.
‘Isn’t that how you introduced yourself?’ I asked, coughing again.
‘Indeed. I am not used to speaking to your kind anymore,’ she stated dryly.
Alarm bells rang out in my head. ‘My kind?’
She clasped her slender hands over her flat stomach. ‘The beings of your realm.’
‘My realm? This is Medeis, right?’
The beautiful blonde waves of her hair caught the sunlight like a torch, blinding me, but I couldn’t mind. She was breathtaking. ‘Not at all. This is the God realm. I brought you here because you needed my help.’
Deep breath. Was I dead or imagining things? No… it felt real. The pain and cold at my back couldn’t be an illusion.
‘That’s hardly new. I never not need help. Why now?’ Wait, did that mean… ‘Are you a Goddess?’
‘Goddess Melinda of Nature.’ She straightened, frowning more as her face turned downward to meet my gaze. ‘You don’t have to bow, since you are already so low.’
‘What the f–’
‘None of that! In my palace, we have decorum and class.’ She released a deep breath. ‘You’re a princess. Have they not taught you manners?’
Snappy Goddess with a stick up her ass—just my luck. ‘Each near-miss with death kind of burned them out of me.’
‘Death.’ She all but spat. ‘It has that detrimental effect on people. Their paths cross with ours, though it’s not usually very pleasant.’
I felt lost. ‘I have no idea what you mean.’
Her glare turned into something softer. ‘Neither should you. As I said, conversing with your kind isn’t something I often do.’
‘So why are you?’
‘Because fate has plans for you that I need fulfilled. Yet you keep trying to die. Is there something wrong with you? Blessed ones aren’t usually this troubled. Surely you must be doing something wrong.’
Spreading on the floor like a sea star, her claims circled in my mind until I questioned my sanity, ‘What are you even talking about?’
‘What part did you not understand?’ Melinda asked, sighing and rubbing her temples as if I were too stupid for her liking.
I probably was, but she didn’t have to be ostentatious about it. ‘So, you are the Goddess of Nature?’
‘No,’ she said sternly. ‘I am a Goddess of Nature.’
‘Right,’ I clicked my tongue. ‘Everybody knows there are multiple.’
Another sigh left her, followed by a hand on her hip. ‘Obviously…’
Nobody knew. It wasn’t mentioned in any of the books I’d read about the Gods.
‘Did you portal me here?’ I asked, hoping she would be able to get me back home.
‘I did. You were about to die prematurely,’ she said quickly, her tone sharp with reprimand.
‘I’ve had near-misses before, and you never snatched me away then,’ I accused begrudgingly.
The woman closed the distance and stood above me, her silver pumps softly tapping against the floor. ‘I have better things to do than rescue you out of every single oppression. Besides, I can only act if particular conditions are met.’
I met her glare. ‘What are they?’
‘You have some nerve questioning a Goddess. Some might smite you.’
‘Well, didn’t you say you needed me?’ I doubled down. ‘So what are they and how am I blessed?’
‘Not just blessed. Blessed by me. There’s a difference,’ Melinda claimed before kneeling beside me. ‘I’m fed up with talking like this. Why aren’t you standing up?’
Running her bejewelled hand over my forehead, soon the soft glow surrounding her palm spread over my body and caressed every injury.
It rushed through my chest, where they cracked my ribs, to my broken wrist and dislocated ankles and damaged thighs and knees, before focusing on the deep gash on my back.
The pain didn’t disappear entirely, but I felt flames respond to my call. The more she filled me with her light, the more they grew, answering my pleadings. A tear rushed down my cheek when my beloved fire rushed to my palm when I willed it. With each burst of her power, it twitched excitedly.
I thought it was gone. That they had taken everything I had.
She stopped abruptly, hovering her hand over my chest, snatching it away and trying again in a different position. I had no idea what she tried to do, but her repeated failures frustrated her beyond measure. It made me keep quiet.
‘Blessed, your cruelty knows no bounds. You’re forcing me to fraternise with death—I can’t untangle this web of chaos on my own.’
What? ‘I don’t understand.’
‘You will,’ she grunted, rising and leisurely walking toward her rose bush throne.
The moment she took a seat, I winced, knowing the pain of the thorns cutting flesh. She leaned back as if it were cushioned. This realm must have been working on a different set of rules.
With a quick twist of her hand, she conjured a similar chair made of a rose bush for me. ‘Join me. I want to talk in a civilised manner.’