“He betrayed us,” Tynan hissed, death sucking back as his body reformed. “He knew I would have been powerful enough to stop him and the little army of demigods he created.”
“And he sent you here…”
“God of Death, he named me.” Tynan shook his head as he paced. “I was the God ofPower,” he seethed. “And he stuck me down here with the dead, believing my power would drain along with theirs.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “But I stopped him from claiming them, didn’t I? Stopped him from claiming the raw power of the dead. He’s waited for them on the other side for thousands of years, to snatch up their power, andthey never come.”
“The power of the dead? What do you mean? Where do the dead go?”
Tynan blinked, as if he’d forgotten I was here, forgotten who he’d been talking to as the wrath for his brother flamed in his eyes.
“The dead do not ‘move on’ after their sentence is dealt. If they did, Sintarrak would simply take their souls, and they’d be doomed to live within him. And he would grow ever stronger.”
The dead are trapped, Xenelpha had said. But she had spoken about it as ifTynanhad saved them…
“You’ve caged them… You keep them here? In hell?” I asked, looking around frantically. That was where I was, right? If Kellan had died and I followed him, I had to be in Tynan’s Hell. Kellan…I needed to find Kellan…
Tynan’s smile stretched into a grin, too wide to be considered natural. “This is not hell, my dear.”
At the flick of his talons, the ominous, obsidian stones sank down and disappeared into the sticky ground. I staggered back as the smoke rose high above us, clearing our surroundings.
“You are merely standing at its gate.”
A sea of tar spread as far as the distant horizon, stretching in all directions. I kept my shield intact as I slowly turned and scanned the vast body of black water. My eyes snagged onmovement in the distance, and I squinted at a boat sitting on the surface.
A tall, gaunt-faced creature manned a vessel hewn from bone. Wisps of white hair hung from its elongated head and arms, both ending in a hand connected to three long claws that stretched to the floor. Empty space sat where its eyes should have been, their sickly, gray skin light enough to see the gnarled muscles, tendons, and bones that lay beneath.
The creature bent over the edge of the raft and reached its claws into the black water. I gasped as it straightened, its claws wrapping around the arms of a middle-aged woman. Thick, black liquid dripped from her agonized face as it pulled her from the sea of tar and onto the deck of the vessel.
Alive. She wasalive. My heart picked up a gallop as I watched in horror as she shook and curled into a small ball. Her nails raked across her arms as the creature picked up the thin oar and began to row.
“I don’t understand—” I started, my stomach twisting.
Tynan’s humanoid form unwound as he merged back into pure death, the spiraling ribbons rolling over one another as they hovered in the air, and the ground beneath my feet began to shift.
I staggered, my eyes shooting to the ground, and bile rose to my throat as I lifted one foot and then the other, the sticky thickness sliding beneath my feet.
Blood. Coagulated blood, I realized, and as I looked closer, long fibers bundled closely together.Muscle.
What the hell?
As the muscle contracted, I began to lower. Fear shot through my veins, and my breath became hollow. My chest constricted, and I looked around in a panic as the tar of the black sea of death inched closer to my boots.
My shield wavered, breaking completely as the inky liquid hit its edge, and the creature I stood on top of continued to lower. My powers siphoned back into me, and I reached for my bond with Tiberius, a wave of his own panic colliding with mine. I forced quick breaths from my lungs as the liquid crept closer to my boots.
Tynan’s darkness loomed above, hovering over us as he watched the first bit of black water lap thickly up my boots and then my legs. His slippery voice cut through the shadows overhead.
“Prepare to face your sins, Lyvia. Welcome to the Abyss.”
CHAPTER THREE
LYVIA
The magic required to create threads pulls at the fibers linking us to this realm.
– Bonded Magic, 18thlevel, Living Library.
Lyvia – The Abyss
