Chapter 31
Lining the walls of an office no one but her knew existed were Marlena’s most treasured keepsakes.
Light reflected off the iron band she pulled from her head, slicing her hand with the edge. Marlena balled her fist, her blood dripping down the crack of her palm, landing on the wooden lids of the jars.
The iron ring she wore as a crown held a very important curse—a key to an object Marlena had to keep safe.
Appearing from nowhere, a jar the size of all the others slid to the front.
Marlena could feel the beating drum in her ear as she reached for it.
A knock on a door in another office echoed through to the one she was in now.
Marlena dropped her hand and put the halo back on her head, waited for the wall of jars to disappear, and stepped through the void into her proper office—the one everyone knew about. There was no sign she’d been anywhere but here. Not even her smoke dared to give her away this time.
The force of the door swinging in blew Marlena’s hair over her shoulders. “Where is he?” It had been days since Meyer left on his search for Bridger.
How hard was it to find a bunch of misplaced rebels with nowhere to go?
Meyer stood on the other side of the door, stoic as always.
She hurried him in, slamming the door with a thud.
Marlena had been more on edge than usual. Vega breaking her curse was a rough blow, but the worst part of it all was what had happened to her sister when she broke the curse.
What had she turned herself into? And why couldn’t Marlena reach Diana? The beast she’d been able to shift into with the god inside her was gone—and so was its voice.
As if Vega had stolen it right out of her… How? How had she done it?
That was what Marlena had been doing since fleeing from the fight.
Research. She’d pulled apart every single book in her personal library before forcing Littera to shut down the Archives to everyone but her.
There was always something to find if you knew where to look.
Or at least that was what she’d always told herself, but she couldn’t and hadn’t found a single fucking thing about Remus and his curse in the nearly seventy years she’d been researching the gods.
Not before. Not now.
Not ever.
“Where the fuck is Bridger?” she asked again through gritted teeth.
Meyer wore his general’s uniform, which was similar to Bridger’s commander suit, without the billowing cape. “He stayed.”
Everything sped by, crashing around without any control, until those two little words slipped from Meyer’s lips.
The world halted to a stop. Ice coated Marlena’s veins, rage turning her body cold. “You lost him,” the voices hissed.
Meyer flinched away from Marlena’s rigid stance. “He what?” The question bubbled from the pit of her stomach.
“He’s staying with the rebellion,” Meyer repeated.
Had Marlena stepped into a time machine and walked through to the beginning of her reign? She finally moved, using her wind to send the table in the center of the room flying.
Meyer ducked away from the splintering shards of wood.
“Why? Why!” she screamed.
Meyer held his ground, and Marlena would give him credit—he didn’t shake with fear like he once had. “Because he loves her.”
It took everything inside Marlena not to blow this entire territory up with how hot her fury burned. “Where are they?” she asked, fearing her teeth might shatter from the force of her jaw’s tightening muscles.
“Vates’s caves,” Meyer answered quickly. “But they’re moving to Vincere.”
“You left people alive?” she asked, fighting against the roar of voices in her head, only able to address one concern at a time.
He cocked his head an inch. “What would you have liked me to do, Marlena? Attack four gods, severely outnumbered, and kill off children and the elderly? It would have been a blood bath, and not in the way you would have liked.”
The sensible side of her knew he was right, but the piece of the real Marlena was locked in a jar and cursed to disappear. She wasn’t real anymore.
“How many of the group you took stayed with Bridger?” Marlena wasn’t stupid. She knew what kind of army Bridger had built after she’d killed his father—one where the majority would follow him, not her.
She’d just never thought it’d become an issue. She thought she’d had Bridger hooked for good, given him the power he wanted, the distraction he needed…
“Twenty-three out of thirty-two.”
Marlena circled Meyer, doing her best to keep the anger from reaching detonation-level. She would be outnumbered as far as body count went, but not in knowledge—never in knowledge.
“Bridger told me to give the rest of the army a choice. To join him or to stay with you.”
A laugh erupted from deep within Marlena. “He’s got some fucking balls, doesn’t he?” Marlena stopped circling and stared at Meyer. “Are you going to let him take the army you’re about to inherit?”
“The army isn’t yours to give away… not while Bridger is alive. It’s his.”
Technically, Meyer was right, but Marlena had never once cared about technicalities. Technically, she shouldn’t have been able to live when she summoned twelve dead gods—but she had.
Technically, she shouldn’t be alive without a heart beating in her chest! But I am. That was her voice, growling in her head like a rabid mutt.
Marlena lost sense of herself, disappearing to reappear with Meyer now clutched by the throat, suspended above her. “This world is mine. I am the god people will bow to when this is over. Not them.”
“We. We. We,” the gods all chanted at the same time.
Meyer kicked his feet, fighting against the crushing hold of her fingers. It was no use—he’d never be able to fight her off.
“You are now in control of my army, General Ignis, and I don’t give people choices. If you don’t do as I say, you die.” Marlena dropped Meyer, letting him crash to the floor. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes,” he wheezed. “Very.”
“Perfect. Get the fuck out of my office.” Marlena stepped over Meyer, and the door to her office flew open as if it was getting out of her way, but the door didn’t open for Marlena. It opened for Meyer as his invitation to leave.
Marlena stepped through the pages of Tolevarre, suspending in the in-between before coming through the other side and landing in a dilapidated territory she’d never had a need to visit.
It seemed the tides had turned and she was in need of more bodies. Marlena would be foolish to think no one would follow him—she had to prepare for the significant loss in numbers.
She still held power in most of the territories.
Aeris bowed to her. Fraus and Ardor would follow, as would Pax, Oro, and Littera.
Fortis would be a toss, and for the first time since Marlena was handed control, Amora would be too.
Solum, Vates, and Imber were gone, turning into wastelands for rebels to seek shelter.
Demuto had been left to rot, with its shifters stuck inside going mad for fifty-five years thanks to the curse Marlena had put on them, binding their souls to the territory of the dead goddess, Diana.
“Diana… who you let go.”
“Who was taken from us,” Marlena roared back.
The gods recoiled from her explosive fit, hiding in the corners like frightened dogs.
Marlena masked her features, watching her black smoke waft above her head like a signal. The noises of Demuto hadn’t changed. The crickets still chirped, and the birds sang, flying away from Marlena.
Relaying a message.
Marlena had eyes everywhere, and she knew there was a small council within the shifters who’d managed to fight off the madness, who kept their people alive.
She had just never cared enough to pay a visit. She’d never needed anything from them until now.
Until she was desperate enough to give the shifters an opportunity they’d never get again… For a price, of course.
Marlena heard them before she saw them, fast footsteps approaching from the woods behind the log cabins lining the weathered road.
Leaves crunched, and then the sound of different types of feet pattered against the rickety stone.
“Lay a paw on me, and I’ll kill you all,” Marlena warned as the mismatched pack of shifters surrounded her.
If it was done to intimidate her, it hadn’t worked.
Nothing scared her anymore…
“Nothing but Vega,” a voice whispered.
Marlena lit a fire inside her mind, listening to the sounds of the gods scattering.
A wolf standing almost eye level bared its teeth, snapping at Marlena. The massive bear to its right pulled the mangy mutt away before Marlena could rip its teeth out.
None of the animals—beasts, she realized, raking her eyes across the group of shifters—could speak.
There was the wolf, the bear, a griffin flying overhead, and she could hear the chatter of a cruravis in the distance.
The spider-like bird, with too many legs and razor-sharp teeth on its beak who always smelled like the rotting flesh of its prey, used to be a creature Marlena never wanted to come across alone in the forest.
Now, she was the monster waiting in the night.
“Take me to the leader of your… pack.” She couldn’t call them people. Marlena eyed the bear and wolf since it seemed they were the ones in charge of this band of idiots.
A bird squealed from a nearby tree, and the bear huffed low under its breath.
“Hopefully, the leader of these mutts can actually speak.” A hiss slid through her shields. They could always get to her if they pushed hard enough.
Marlena stunned the voice with a pop of electricity. It yelped like a scolded dog and retreated back behind the wall.
The bear dipped his head in one slow nod and turned around to lead the way. All the other shifters followed, turning their backs on Marlena.
They were either too confident or stupid. Marlena assumed the latter.
The bird from the trees swooped down like it might nip, and that was the only act of defiance she would allow to happen here today.
A branch from a nearby tree shot out, wrapped its limbs around the raven, and squeezed until the pressure crushed its body.
Blood rained down, splattering across Marlena’s shoes.
Ceres, the dead goddess of Solum, had given Marlena control of plant life. The dense forestry of Demuto made every tree in sight a weapon.
“I warned you. Just because you’ve been locked behind my confines for over half a century doesn’t mean I’ll allow you to forget who you’re dealing with.” Marlena pointed to the path they were on. “Hurry. Before I get bored.”
The wolf whined, and the way his body swayed as he walked had Marlena wondering if the little bird was someone important to him.
They took a turn, following a well-loved path through the middle of the forest. The soil underneath Marlena’s boots squished from Demuto’s dense underbrush.
She could feel the moisture around her and the blossoming storm off in the distance.
Demuto had always been wet and muddy with a strong scent of pine.
After a short walk, the path opened to a clearing with thick tree cover. Marlena craned her neck to find a collection of tree houses hiding between the thickest branches.
Smart.
The bear nodded a lazy bob of its head to the tree at the very top of the canopy line. Marlena stepped from the ground to the patio wrapping around the home and the tree it was built around.
The relaxing breeze rustling through the home’s open windows washed the strong smell of sulfur over Marlena, a distant memory bringing her back to a time when her family had spent a lot of time in Demuto with the Feras.
Marlena entered through the open door, and as her eyes adjusted to the dimly lit tree house, a figure in the center of the room turned to reveal the identity of Demuto’s leader—someone she had never expected to see again.
The smile creeping over Marlena’s lips was genuine.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”