Dastian offers a sharp, jagged grin that doesn’t reach his eyes. “That’s the spirit. Nothing like eternal damnation to save on the cost of living.”
“Remember,” Voren says, taking my hand. “Command the threshold. It belongs to you.”
Dreven opens his arms, and the world simply dissolves.
We arrive at the crypt, on the lookout for Tabitha or The Order. It is pitch black, dawn still hours away.
The air is thick enough to choke on, smelling of damp earth and ancient magic. I walk toward the fissure, my boots crunching on the grit. The crack in reality is pulsing—a jagged line of black-gold that swallows the dim light of Dreven’s presence.
“Tabitha isn’t here,” Voren murmurs, his breath hitching a frost-pattern against the dark. “Neither are the others.”
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t watching,” I say, stepping up to the edge. My palm is itching. The snake coiled around my soul stretches, a cold ripple along my ribs that tells me it’s ready for a homecoming. I don’t bleed on it this time. I don’t ask.
I reach out and touch the air at the centre of the rift. The heat from my chest surges down my arm. I don’t shout; I don’t even whisper. I just think.
The fissure shudders. It stops its erratic pulsing and widens, becoming a doorway instead of a wound. I can feel the realm on the other side sensing me, shifting its focus like a giant eye turning towards a light.
The shift is smoother. No vertigo, just the sudden transition from Irish damp to the thin, grey silence of the Pantheon. The fog is waiting, but it doesn’t press. It bows.
“No one pulls me out of here without my say-so,” I murmur, feeling like an idiot.
The air around us ripples in acknowledgement. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
“Good enough,” I mutter, though my skin still feels like it’s being watched by a thousand eyes I can’t see. The grey expanse of the Pantheon feels different this time. Less like a graveyard and more like a predator holding its breath.
Dreven’s hand rests steady on my lower back. “Keep tight, Nyssa. Don’t let the light bleed.”
We move deeper into the murk. The architecture here is a fever dream of marble and pillars that stretch into a sky that doesn’t exist, and stairs that lead to nowhere. I keep my hand on the hilt of my blade, the cold metal a grounding wire. The snake in my soul is practically vibrating, its consciousness merging with mine in a way that makes my head throb. Nothing is where it was before; everything has moved.
“This way,” I say, pointing toward a massive archway that looks like it was carved from a single, giant rib.
As we cross the threshold, the air changes. It’s no longer thin; it’s heavy, smelling of ozone and old, wet iron. We aren’t alone.
“Heads up,” Dastian murmurs. “Company’s coming.”
From the shadows of the archway, a line of several creatures show themselves.
“Water, Air, Fire, Lust and, huh,” Dastian says in surprise. “Ambivalence.”
“There’s a god of ambivalence?” I ask with a snort.
“There is, and he is looking a little rattled.”
“Dreven!” The one whose hair is on fire calls out. I’m going out on a limb and assuming he is the god of Fire. “Aethel is dead, things are changing. Something comes.”
“Yeah, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I thought you fled when the door was unsealed,” Dreven says, stepping forward. I’m happy to let him converse, seeing as I don’t have a fucking clue who these gods are, where they went, why they are back or whose side they are on.
“Meaning?” the one that looks like a fish out of water gurgles.
“Meaning,” Dreven says, his voice low, lethal, “that while Aethel is gone, the throne isn’t empty anymore.”
I shift my weight, trying not to look like I’m vibrating with enough raw power to level a small cathedral. The god of Fire stares at me. His eyes are like heat-distorted tarmac, flickering with a nervous orange light. Beside him, the god of Ambivalence shrugs, looking like he can’t quite decide if he should be terrified or go for a nap.
“This?” Fire scoffs, his flames spitting. “This is a mortal. A slayer.”
“She is the Queen of Wraiths,” Voren says, his voice a glacier cracking. “And the Crown of the Pantheon chose her. Unless you’d like to test the edge of her blade, I’d suggest you find a more respectful tone.”
Ambivalence god looks like he’s finally picked a side. Fear. It’s a good look on him.
