Two male voices shouted down below, ripping Araes from thoughts. Their words, indecipherable through the glistening wooden floor, fought against one another. Two sets of steps flew up the stairwell and boomed down the hall. Araes leapt for his sword, now hanging undisturbed in the wardrobe, and drew the blade from its sheath.
“Brother, listen to me. She cannot handle visitors right now,” Altair’s voice filtered from behind the bedchamber door.
“She is my wife. You cannot keep me from her any longer.” Procyon’s thunderous rage grew palpable in the air. The walls shivered against the sheer power of his demands. Araes stiffened into battle stance. He would first be pummeled into dust before allowing that miserable fuck tolay even a finger on Tethys again. Like a kettle brought to boil, his blood blazed through his veins. Flashes of the purplish bruises painted over her body tainted his vision red.
“Procyon, you will respect me in my own home. Or have you forgotten who I am?” Altair hissed, their voices quivering the door in its frame.
“I will see my wife.” Procyon growled. Araes’s heartbeat roared in his ears, drowned out only by the violent quakes of immortal fury just outside. A chill seeped through the cracks, bringing with it the putrid stench of rotten leaves, like carrion. This was bad. Araes had seen glimpses of the autumn king’s temper, but never like this. His anger thickened the air like smog.
“Until you calm yourself, you will not take a single step into these chambers. Do you think I am blind? I’ve read the healer’s report. Her body was riddled with bruises far too advanced in their healing to be from the accident. Do you think I don’t know who gave them to her?”
“What goes on in our marital bed is none of your concern. Let me see my wife,” Procyon replied. Footsteps scuffed against the door and the golden handle twisted on its lock.
“You won’t, little brother. Pull yourself together and cool off. I won’t allow you to hurt Tethys anymore,” Altair boomed, firm in his resolve.
In the seconds of silence that passed, Araes debated his next move. He considered throwing the goddess over his shoulder and scaling the castle’s exterior wall, but they were at least four stories high and the smooth white walls didn’t offer any reliable footholds for their descent. As extensive as his training and battle experience was, he didn’t stand a chance against the immortal. He cursed, positioning himself between the doorway and his queen—it would be a fight with death, then.
The lock turned over and the door swung open. Only Altair stood in the doorway, though, his eyes sunken anddark.
“He’s gone, although I don’t suspect it’ll take much before he returns again. I can’t keep him away forever,” he said, joining Araes beside his sister. He brushed a gentle hand across her brow, smoothing back a stray golden curl. “Eos, help us all if she doesn’t wake up.”
Araes shifted in his boots, watching the immortal pour a sip of water between his sister’s lips. All Tethys had was time. An eternity of it. Yet each tick of the clock was a battering ram to his chest.
“Lieutenant, I know you don’t want to leave my sister’s side, but rotting away in this bedchamber beside her isn’t helping her recovery. Get some air. Some sun. I swear to you, I won’t leave her side until you return,” Altair suggested, his gaze still fixed on Tethys’s pale face. Braids curtained his face as he took her small hand in his. A single shake of his shoulders gave the god’s grief away. Altair wasn’t concerned for Araes’s well-being or the fate of the realms. No, he needed a moment with his sister. An hour or two to collect himself.
“Alright. Some fresh air might do me some good, my king,” Araes whispered.
“Take this. My people don’t take outsiders lightly, and seeing you wear my sigil, they’ll accept you.” Altair slid a ring from his index finger and tossed it to Araes. The weight of its gold band was surprisingly heavy as he caught it in his palm. The magic humming in the metal sent shivers up his arm as he slipped it on his own finger. Araes paused, waiting for Altair to continue, but the god was silent and unmoving. Before he swung the door open, however, Araes turned back and said, “Promise me you’ll watch over her until I return?”
Altair glanced over his shoulder, his eyes glistening in warm daylight, and nodded. That was all the immortal could manage before he broke apart. Araes sucked in abreath before turning on his heels.
As the bedchamber door clicked shut against his back, he could’ve sworn the summer king whispered to the slumbering goddess, “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter 55
Tethys knew she’d left her physical body somewhere behind, because her toes were numb to the grains of sand between them. The blazing midday sun reflected off the rolling sea-swells like a blanket weaved from glittering diamonds. At least she’d stayed in the southern realm. Navigating back to her body wouldn’t be too difficult. She scanned the beach, its shoreline ebbing and flowing with the rising tide. The water, however, slithered and writhed in unnatural directions. Like breath from something ancient come to life. A veil shimmered over the curving sand dunes to her left.
She recognized this place, but the memory was fleeting and refused to be pinned down. Although her earthly body called for her, begging her to fill its empty voids once more, she ignored its pleas. It was warm here. Quiet. Her muted thoughts weren’t a constant attack on her mind.
A rounded mound, embedded in sand, shimmered in the distance. Tethys started down the beach, her footstepsleaving no prints as she walked.
The mound, she realized, was a temple—sunken so far into the earth its entrance only stood at shoulder height. Just as the Centaurian Cliffs, a current of ancient energy hummed through the salt-crusted air as she approached the white marble doorway. Two massive golden handles gleamed in the intense midday light. They, just like this temple, were so familiar, but her memories were jostled and distant.
Was she wrong for coming here? For disturbing whatever lay locked away, sealed from time itself? Tethys shuddered as she placed a wary hand on the handle’s base. A shimmer rippled over her skin, as if its ward knew she was an imposter. Glittering waves crashed along the shoreline, roaring like a warning in Tethys’s ears.
Now or never, she thought, giving the door a tug. The ancient hinges squealed with protest as darkness seeped into light. The temple’s shadowy vestibule was damp and cold and ancient. Sand and salt crusted its walls, diffusing every noise, even the smallest groan of decaying wood.
Tethys picked up a long-since forgotten torch. It lit in her hand. Her touch alone ignited a spark. The embers flickered then blazed to life, banishing the surrounding shadows with amber firelight. She continued into the temple cautiously. They’d been fools to descend so blindly into the cave system below Centaurus. Regardless of what realm or time or universe she’d found herself in, Tethys wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The echo of rushing water reverberated through the tunnels. Somewhere below, the ocean must have found its way in. She sucked in a breath, thinking of Araes lying unconscious in that dark cavern, and continued forward. Whatever awaited her in the shadows, she’d face, because she knew, down to the marrow of her bones, that he wouldn’t hesitate. The lieutenant plowed through flames for her. Sank into darkness for her. Broke nearly everydamned bone in his body forher.
She’d do this for him.
Each footstep sent the shadows slithering with warm amber hues as the hallway opened into a massive, cavernous ballroom. Sconces, forged from the same gold as the temple’s entrance, traveled up the walls in vertical lines, reaching a high, curved ceiling adorned with hanging crystals and charms. No, not hanging—floating.Nothing tethered the ornate objects from above; they simply hovered there in open space.
Tethys’s breath snagged as she took in the vastness of the room. She’d been so lost in thought, so focused on reaching its ending, she hadn’t noticed the subtle shift in the hallway as she descended into the earth. Centuries ago, she supposed this place would’ve stood at least ten stories high. But time and decay were cruel, relentless beasts, sinking the temple’s memory into the coastline.
Her torch met the sconce to her left, burning away the dust and cobwebs, and it roared to life. Heat from its flames crawled up the line, igniting each ornate, gilded sconce in its path. With a whoosh of blazing light, the darkness melted away. Patterns of black and white tiles traversed the floor, connecting with one another at the room’s center. At the far end of the ballroom sat a simple throne carved from a single block of marble.
