“A hollowed out one,” Rook answered, grinning broadly at my realization. “So don’t go worrying about lava and all that. This one died a long, long time ago.”
“A hollowed out volcano as a prison for ancient mythical beasts. Incredible.”
“We can probably dispense with all that mythology business now, can’t we? I mean, it isn’t exactly a myth after all, is it?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but was interrupted by an ethereal female voice floating into the chamber from somewhere off to the side.
“To what do we owe the pleasure of a Morningstar’s presence?” She cooed, floating into the chamber in a gown of ombre gray. As her skirts shifted, they changed color. From white to gray to black and shades in between.
Her skin was cracked and splintered and of a grayish-green hue. Her hair, which seemed perpetually wet, was roped and hanging in strands around her face. At the base of her throat was a deep cut all the way around, as if her head had been severed from her body and reattached long ago. Her lips were full. Her eyes were both dark and bright. Everything about her screamed unnatural and yet I could see she had been beautiful once, before whatever had occurred to her, before time had taken its toll as it did for all things, even the immortal.
“Which one are you?” she asked, coming to a stop in front of Lark and raising her chin while narrowing her gaze in examination. It wasn’t an act of intimidation, but mere curiosity. She folded her hands demurely in front of her and awaited an answer.
“I am Canis Morningstar,” Lark announced. “Son of Perseus Morningstar. This is my sister, Casseiopia.”
She looked from Lark to Cass and then swiveled her head around to peer at Rook and I.
“And your friends?” she asked, quirking a manicured brow. “Or… foes?”
“Friends,” Lark answered quickly at the look she was giving us. “Rook is a Fae of the Court of Blood and Bone. Seren is—”
“A mortal,” Medusa hissed, nostrils flaring as if she had just caught a whiff of my mortal scent. Her tongue snaked out and flicked once and I realized, with horror, that it was forked.
“Half Fae,” Lark corrected and Medusa’s gaze whipped to him. She cocked her head in surprise and raised a brow again.
“Yours?” she asked, simply.
“Uh,” he hesitated, clearing his throat. It was the first time I had seen him flustered and it was nearly as shocking as the ancient woman of mythical lore standing right in front of me.
Medusa’s cracked lips spread into a grin and she clapped her hands together so suddenly that I couldn’t help but jump.
“It’s been so long since we’ve had visitors,” she cried, suddenly excited. “Come on out, everyone. We have new friends to get to know.”
At her encouragement, dozens of gorgons began to slink closer from the shadows. Without making the conscious decision, I leaned closer to Rook, so close that it pressed my heaving chest against his back.
“You’re safe, Ren,” he told me under his breath. “But you may want to take just a tiny step back. I’m not in the mood to be gutted by Lark today.”
Cheeks heating, I stepped away. I couldn’t help but gape at the creatures crawling toward us. Their skin was much like Medusa’s, cracked and splintered, coarse like stone itself, and various shades of pale red and light yellow, even blue and green, but all faded and grayish. Their hair was roped, their teeth sharp and dripping with some blue venom. Most shocking of all was that they had no legs. Unlike Medusa’s moderately humanoid form, the surrounding gorgons had the upper body of a human and the lower body of a snake. They slithered forward rather than walk and I shuddered at the hissing emanating from all corners of the room.
“Tell me, Canis, what situation is so dire that a Morningstar would dare to treat with me?” Medusa asked as her people hissed their approval.
I narrowed my focus to her, seeking her emotions. But I was met with silence as solid and sturdy as cold stone.
“You won’t be able to read her,” Rook whispered under his breath, divining my intentions. “She’s—well, she’s technically dead.”
My eyes bulged from my head as I turned my gaze to him.
“Dead?” I croaked.
“She doesn’t like to talk about it, of course. But yes. She’s… not alive, not really. You know the story, don’t you? Medusa was the only gorgon born mortal, the only one passably human. She had a rough go of it and then Perseus, not Lark’s father, another one, killed her by cutting off her head. Then her sons sprouted up from her blood and he took the head as a trophy.”
“So how—”
“Some necromancer came along and, well, it’s really not worth getting into. But these gorgons still see her as their queen down here. They follow her word like its law. There isn’t anything a gorgon does that she doesn’t know about, in or out of Hellscape. The point is, you won’t be able to read her. But Cass will.”
“Cass? What do you—”
A sudden hissing sound interrupted me as a blinding white light shot suddenly from Medusa’s own eyes toward Lark. I let out a scream but Rook didn’t even move as Cass flung out a hand and silver smoke flew from her, colliding with Medusa’s strike and landing on the cave floor with a soft thud, smoke turned stone, silver, gleaming rock.
