In the days that followed I had became unhinged, sneaking into the opera house—watching. Unable to stop myself from intervening. I did questionable, stupid, unforgivable things to orchestrate my dark angel’s descent into my kingdom.
In truth, I had wanted her to choose to come to me freely. To perhaps spend some time thinking about her magic after we talked so openly. To willingly come back to me—to learn about her gift. I could not have foreseen what happened with the chandelier. With the viscount. I could not have foreseen that initial intrigue and dark fixation would lead to love of all things. Nor that I had broken her trust before even knowing her. And that now, I wasn’t sure if I could ever get it back.
“You’re so busy helping all these folks; anybody check on you, sweetheart?” Carol Ruby’s steady voice sounded behind me as I wandered through the city, assisting where I could, and I almost lost the carefully crafted control that I maintained. Carol was dressed in men’s clothes: Carl today. But his spirit was so fluid, he could easily slide into the Carol Ruby persona without any of the makeup or trappings of drag. Carl’s presence was welcome at that moment.
“If I told you I was doing alright, would you believe me?” I gave Carl a wry smile as I turned to face him.
“Not a chance.” Carl was tall—not as tall as his Carol Ruby persona with the heels and the hair, but still, he stood eye to eye with me, well over six feet. He was bald, the smooth shiny brown skin on his head glinting in the flickering féerie lights. And his eyes could pierce through anyone’s armour. One could not hide anything from Mama Ruby.
“These last few days have been… I don’t know. I’m still trying to process what happened with this attack. What it will mean moving forward. Who I will have to be for the people here. I fear I did some things that have ruined any trust I had built with Seraphina. I fear that I may have lost her forever. And I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say to my friends. So, I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving so that I don’t break.” Damnit. This magnanimous drag queenhad a way of stripping me bare and leaving all my vulnerabilities out in the open.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Carl pulled me in for a tight hug. When I lost my mother and then was forced to leave Rory’s and Fionn’s mother behind in Erinn, I was rudderless. The three of us had only each other. But Carol Ruby saw us all and took us under her wing.
“Well, I know there isn’t much I can say to make you feel better. But I’m here for you whenever you need anything. As for that girl, Ciaran, she is so smitten with you. She’d be crazy not to hear you out. I think you’ll be surprised. And that gorgeous face of yours doesn’t hurt either.”
Carol Ruby had never once made me feel ugly orotherbecause of my scars. Carol and Seraphina had that in common. Seraphina always looked at my scars with reverence. Like they were beautiful. I didn’t know how to react to that—to me, my scars were just a constant reminder of the horrors that I had endured. But I appreciated it, nonetheless.
“Thank you.” I bowed my head to this person who defied all the norms, broke all the boxes and refused to be anything but kind and vulnerable and wholly herself. “You always know how to cheer me up.”
“Hang in there, beautiful.” Carol Ruby winked.
GODDESS
Sleep had claimed me—hard and fast. I had no idea how long it had been; maybe it had been hours, maybe days. It was impossible to tell within the darkness of my mind. I knew, vaguely, that I was still asleep, but I was also acutely aware of my surroundings.
It was dark, wherever I was. My feet were on solid rock—the kind that lined the walls of the Cistern: raw, untamed. There was a dripping sound coming from somewhere, like water trickling down the wall. I was underground. That was obvious. But I had spent the last several months living underground in the City Beneath Lutesse, and so I was not alarmed. This place, though, wherever it was, felt older. Deeper. Further beneath the surface. It was utterly unfamiliar.
“Hello?” My voice was still hoarse, strained from when I sent out that final blast of power into the Bowl. That final blast of power that had doomed the viscount. Before I slit his throat for good measure. I pushed that thought down. Oh Goddess… I would deal with the repercussions of that later. My voice came back to me in an echo. But no one responded.
I took some tentative steps forward, assessing my surroundings. My foot splashed—the floor was covered in afew inches of dark water. Yet my feet didn’tfeelwet. Curious. I walked a few steps further, my eyes adjusting to the total darkness surrounding me. In the distance, there was a light—dim, violet and pulsing.
I should have been more tentative, more wary. I didn’t know what the source of the light was. But I was not afraid, and I moved toward it, my feet splashing through the shallow water of the cave floor.
“Hello!” I called again. Again, there was no response. But that pulsing light grew stronger. I walked toward it. Around a corner—more bare rock with water trickling down it—toward the source of the light.
I froze. It was terrifying to behold.Shewas terrifying. Sitting atop a raised platform in the middle of a large open chamber, the light shone from within her. It pulsed in time with her heartbeat. I felt it in mine. Her head was tipped up, eyes open, unseeing, staring at the raw rock ceiling of whatever chamber this was. Her hair unbound, the dark thick curls of it cascaded down her back, over her shoulders. Her skin seemed grey in the dim light of the cave and she was completely naked, save for twining bands of onyx wrapped around her upper arms and a crown of horns that adorned her dark head. At her back was a pair of magnificent wings, each feather a different shade of violet, lavender, lilac and indigo, tipped in gold. Her legs, muscular women’s legs, ended in vicious talons.
But it wasn’t her wings, or talons, or the way that ethereal light seemed to pulse from within her that was truly terrifying. No. It was the way her veins, black as ink, spiderwebbed up her body. The way that black flames licked over her hands, her arms, wreathing them in the same flames that I had conjured in the fight against the viscount. Terror twisted in my gut as I took in the full picture. I tried desperately to wake myself up. To get out of whatever dream state this was. But my waking body wouldn’tanswer. I was stuck. I didn’t dare move another step lest I attract the attention of the creature before me. This creature who somehow bore the same magic as me.
But I couldn’t evade her notice any longer, as she realized that she was not alone in this chamber. Her head tipped forward, revealing a mouth full of elongated, sharp teeth. And her eyes. Her eyes were the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. They were completely black—not a spot of white or colour in the corners, the irises or anywhere. They were so dark they seemed to absorb the light. But they saw me.
The woman—the creature, really—tilted her head to the side, curiously.
“How did you find me?” Her voice was all things contradictory. Young and old, male and female, soft and strong. It filled the chamber with a power that had me trembling before her.
“I don’t know. I think… I think I am dreaming,” I replied, voice shaky and weak.
“If you are dreaming, then wake and leave me be. You have disturbed me. Away, human.” She flicked out a hand—one terrifyingly encircled in those black flames that looked so familiar.
“I have tried. I can’t seem to wake. I don’t know why I’m here,” I whispered. “Who are you?”
“Who am I?” She laughed—the sound chilled me to my very bones. Stupid.Stupid, stupid, stupid.Why did I ask?
“Who am I? You ask a bold question, human. So very bold for someone whose entire species is responsible for my entombment in this underworld.”
And as she said it, a cold realization sluiced through me. I had never seen her depicted. But I remembered the story that Rory had told during the Spring Equinox. It seemed so long ago, back when I had first come to the underground city, Beneath.
“Ishtar?” I breathed out in a whisper, not bold enough to say her name any louder than that.
