He paled. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have acted the way I did.” He still hadn’t moved his hand from her leg, and his grip tightened slightly as he added, a shade quieter, “You scared me.”
Looking away from him, she said, “I need you to tell me. My sister, Kelshie—she’s dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” he said without wasting a moment to let her guess or wonder.
“I killed her, didn’t I?”
His thumb slipped down her inner knee in gentle motions. “You saved her from a far worse fate. Death by dragonfire is not a kind way to go.”
“Who is he?Mòr Maslach?”
Vane’s thumb stilled. “A monster in a mask,” he said in a low voice, adding bitterly, “a pet for King Johannas.”
“Have you met him before?”
“We have bigger problems to worry about,” he said, shaking his head.
She narrowed her eyes. His hate for the masked rider seemed personal, so she didn’t understand why he wouldn’t reveal who he was. He had already told her most everything, and she didn’t like the secret between them.
But she let his bait work for now and asked, “Like what?”
“Anabeth still has connections to Arcadia,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s why she was here. She came to warn us.”
“Who and…how?” Soren asked.
Outside, someone was walking past the tent.
Vane let the footsteps fade, eyes on the canvas flap, before he said, “You saw the Three Sisters, didn’t you? Not long ago?”
“I don’t know…” she said, trailing off as she remembered those voices in the mountain on the journey to the Sisters of Arcane’s temple.
Vane caught her hesitation, nodding. “Anabeth thought so. The Sisters are under Juno’s jurisdiction, so when they appeared on this side of the barrier, Ana said she felt it.”
Soren wrung her hands. Vane slipped his fingers away from her leg, leaving coldness in his wake. Resisting the urge to ask him to touch her again, if only to chase away the cold, she said, “What do they have to do with Arcadia? I thought no one could cross the barrier.”
“No mortals.”
She stared at him, shocked. “Then why are you still here? Why did Anabeth stay in Aren, for that matter?”
Vane grimaced. “I was raised here. And after…everything, neither of us were welcomed back to Arcadia.”
“She wasn’t the one who sold us out?”
“No.”
Soren paused. “What about her father? The scrollkeeper in Aren?”
“Her brother. A godling. He decided to stay with her in mortal lands, to protect her should Kronos send anyone to try and hurt her.”
“And Kronos just…let you go?” she asked quietly. “Once I was dead?”
Vane flinched, and for a split second, she saw it—not from her eyes but from his…
The white marble was slick as he crawled to Sora’s still body. Above, Kronos grunted and brought down the barbed whip again. His body convulsed, but the pain was nothing compared to the ripping in his soul. He just kept crawling, even as tears and blood obscured his vision. When he reached her, Kronos just stood there, watching, as if his pain was a show.
Her bright blue eyes were wide open, but the familiar silver hue that had always lit them up was gone. A gasp turned into a heaving sob, clawing its way up from his chest. His body shook violently as he pulled her into his lap, her blood staining his hands, his legs… There was so much of it.
His punishment was setting in now. All he wanted to do was lie down and die with her, but Kronos wouldn’t allow that. He was going to force him to endure an empty world, one void of her.
