“Go now,” she said, and the stag moved, smoother than any horse. “Faster.” It broke into a trot. “Faster!” The leaves and branches melted into a blur. “Faster!”
She laughed in exhilaration. It was like running in a dream, an effortless, mad, horizontal fall, until the woods fell away and nothing but darkness surrounded her, speckled by a myriad of stars.
Liana shut her eyes and the sense of movement disappeared. Had they flown at all?
“Liana?”
Liana sat on the back of the unmoving stag, deep in the ancient forest. Her mother stepped out from the shadow of a tree with the deadly grace of a panther. It shocked Liana how inhumanLela looked. She’d never noticed it as a child, perhaps because at that time she had known no mortal women to compare her with.
“Mother.”
Liana slid off the stag’s back and stood still, keeping the distance. Lela made no move to approach her, measuring her up instead.
“So, you finally decided to visit me.”
A hundred furious replies bloomed in Liana’s head and she swallowed them all. “I got your message,” she said, barely keeping her voice from cracking.
“And?” Lela moved so fast Liana saw a flash of her black hair, and then sensed the goddess behind her, lithe and predatory. “Have you come to join me at last?”
Liana swallowed a volley of possible answers, reminding herself that the gods felt no empathy and it was futile to expect it from them. “I’ve come to ask you to help me bring Amron back.”
“Oh, not that old story again.” The goddess now stood beside her, features melting into something softer. Not motherly, definitely not, but unthreatening. A hand, deceptively human, no claws in sight, touched Liana’s cheek. “I don’t understand why you like to pretend you’re human and play wife to one of them.”
“Because he was kind to me when nobody else was,” Liana said so softly the sound hardly crossed her lips. “Because he loved me.”
The goddess chuckled, which sounded more like a growl, coming from a mouth full of sharp teeth. “I don’t see how you can find someone so weak, so vulnerable, so quick to age, desirable?”
The corners of Liana’s eyes itched with angry tears. She blinked quickly, then lifted her gaze to her mother’s mocking face. “Just tell me where Amron is. Please.”
The goddess flicked her question away with a sigh. “Gone. Asyou knew he would be, eventually.”
Liana grabbed her mother’s wrist. “No.” It was like a kitten trying to fight a cat, but Lela paused nevertheless. “That’s not the whole truth. His man told me he saw him die, but there’s no body. What happened to him, Mother?”
“Perun took him.”
“Then he is…not dead?” Liana’s patience was wearing thin, yet she forced herself to remain calm, to focus on her goal. They were in the wild and unbridled territory of legends now. The Father-God raising heroes, welcoming them into his hall. Lela had her hunt, Morana had her cursed souls at the bottom of the lake, and Perun had his warriors. “Is he in a place where I can reach him? Maybe you could lead me—”
Lela’s sinister chuckle interrupted her. “That’s nonsense. You cannot go where you’re not invited, and I’ve never heard of Perun inviting a woman to join him.”
“I don’t want to join Perun,” Liana snapped. “I want Amron back. Here, with me.”
Her angry words turned Lela’s chuckle into full-blown laughter. It echoed among the trees, mirthless and threatening like a leopard’s growl. “Oh Liana, oh child, you didn’t come all this way to ask for this. You avoid me for years and years, and when you finally appear, you come with this ridiculous, puny, utterly human request.”
“What is it to you?” Liana asked. “If it’s so small and insignificant, why can’t you just grant it? I promise I’ll repay you in any way you see fit.”
Lela’s image flickered once more, and she became something sharp and savage again, all claws and fangs and carnivorous grace. “Is that a promise?”
“Yes,” Liana said. “You have my word.”
Chapter 4
Melia
Three days afterthe wedding, Amron’s retinue was getting ready to leave. He watched them, leaning on the window frame in Melia’s room, the morning sun gilding his hair. Melia’s meager possessions had been packed and loaded on one of the carts. Having nothing useful to do, she paced to and fro on the carpet worn to a threadbare rag, her feet itching to run downstairs.
“Shouldn’t we get ready?” she asked.
“As soon as they leave.”
