Beautiful Salvation (29 page)

The angel tore his sword from the corpse and tilted his head to the sky. A dark shape was approaching and the angel flew to meet it. Something hurtled through Aiyana’s body. She gasped. It was a sensation unlike anything she had ever experienced, different than the warm rush of fire, more like a thread being pulled through her body. She gaped at the figure hovering a few feet away from her, the man who’d just flown through her incorporeal form, and found herself staring into the shocked face of the demon prince of Nysa.

“Aiy…Aiyana?”

Aiyana raised a hand toward him, wanting to grab his arm but afraid her hand would pass right through. “You can see me?”

The demon nodded slowly, snatching a flying head out of the air when it dove for him and ripping its wings off without looking. He never broke eye contact with Aiyana as he drew a stone from his pocket, breathed fire on it until the stone glowed a faint orange, then plunged it into the beast’s throat. He released the creature, letting it fall to the earth as he continued to blink at Aiyana. “How…? How are you…?”

The ground cracked open in a cacophony of shattered rock, cutting off whatever response Aiyana might have offered. She glanced down to find another large pit opening up, massive teeth at the bottom opening and closing like the maw of a great beast. Her lips parted as she remembered Saamal’s story of creation, his warnings of the pact that had been made and was now not being honored.

“Cipactli,” she whispered.

“She’s getting stronger.” Adonis shook his head. “I hope Saamal can defeat her a second time. I’m game for a war, but taking on a primordial monster-god is a little out of my wheelhouse.”

At the mention of Saamal’s name, Aiyana searched the area, searching for some sign of her fiancé. When she spotted him, her heart seized in her chest.

“Saamal…”

The god was enormous. As tall as the castle itself, Saamal towered over the land, eyes burning like twin suns, skin coated in the spotted fur of a jaguar. The claws on his hands were the size of young trees, wickedly sharp and tipped with the crimson stain of blood. Chumana’s lower serpentine body was wrapped around him, emerald scales glistening in the moonlight as the muscles flexed under her skin, struggling to hold Saamal even as she grappled with the hand straining to tear out her throat. Saamal’s eyes had bled to the tar-black pits of his power-mad state. His hand trembled as he tried to close his fingers around Chumana’s green-scaled throat.

“Saamal should be more powerful than her,” Adonis muttered in frustration. “When you—” He paused, glancing at Aiyana.

“It’s all right.” She cleared her throat. “I know I’m dead.”

Adonis shoved a hand through his hair. “The power he gave you came back to him. Chumana should be no match for him now.”

“Chumana has had a century to gather her power,” Tenoch spoke up. “Saamal has spent that same century weak, and now Cipactli has turned on him so he no longer draws power from the land.”

Adonis blinked as if noticing Tenoch for the first time. “And you are…?”

Tenoch opened his mouth, his eyes flashing with remembered anger. Then suddenly his shoulders drooped. “It’s a long story.”

Aiyana blocked them out, riveted by the battle going on between Saamal and Chumana. Another giant pit opened up behind Saamal. Chumana noticed the pit, slitted serpentine eyes flicking from it to Saamal. She surged forward, forcing Saamal to put a foot back. Aiyana screamed, imagining the sharp teeth she’d seen at the bottom of the other pit. Saamal bellowed in agony.

“Cipactli has him.” Tenoch’s voice lacked any hint of joy or satisfaction. It was empty, hollow, the voice of someone who didn’t know how to feel yet.

“He just regenerated that foot,” Adonis cursed.

Heart pounding, Aiyana scanned her surroundings, searching for something to save Saamal. There had to be something, someone… Saamal bellowed again, the muscles in his forearm bulging as he tried to heave himself out of the pit with one hand, the other grasping Chumana’s scaled arm. Pain twisted his face and he roared. Chumana tried to take advantage of his pain, but no matter how she struggled, Saamal maintained his grip on her arm. She hissed, baring sharp, curved fangs.

Suddenly Aiyana had an idea. She tried to grab Adonis’ arm, but her hands passed right through him. She swore in frustration.

Adonis hazel eyes grew even wider. “What? What is it?”

“My body,” Aiyana said urgently. “You have to throw it into the pit.”

All the color drained from Adonis’ face and he drooped sharply in the air before catching himself. “Saamal would kill me. I have a wife, she would be very cross if—”

“Adonis, don’t you see? Cipactli’s pact demanded a sacrifice. She’s been waiting all this time, waiting for Saamal to make good on his word.”

“It’s too late for that,” Adonis insisted. “If a sacrifice is all it took—”

“I am royal blood, my family has a pact with the land the same as Saamal,” Aiyana said firmly. “Cipactli will not ignore it.” Desperation seized her and she turned pleading eyes to Adonis. “Adonis, please, I’m already dead. That body serves no one lying there in the bed. Feed it to Cipactli, show her that we intend to make amends. I would do it myself if I could, but…” She swiped a hand through Adonis’ arm again and the demon shuddered.

Adonis pressed his lips into a thin line, but then sighed in resignation. “I’m afraid that even if this works, I’m going to be the next sacrifice,” he muttered. “And right after the
god
gets all his power back.” He slanted a glance at Aiyana. “One of these days I’ll learn how to say no to a beautiful woman in distress.
If
I live that long,” he added pointedly.

Aiyana held her breath as Adonis flew toward the window and into her bedroom. She wanted to follow him, but she couldn’t tear herself away from Saamal, couldn’t turn her back on him. After Adonis came back out with her body, she closed her eyes, partially to avoid seeing her limp body and partially to focus on what she wanted. She concentrated on her breathing, deep, slow breaths.
I am a willing sacrifice. I give my body to the land.
She remembered what Saamal had told her.
It’s not merely flesh and blood. It’s honor, respect. I have no ceremony to offer you, Cipactli, but accept all that I have left. I give it to you willingly. Without you our kingdom is nothing.

For the second time that night, Aiyana felt herself falling. A startled gasp from Tenoch made her heart beat faster, threatened her calm with fear. She shut out those emotions, concentrated on Cipactli, on honoring her sacrifice.

Dirt. There was dirt all around her, pressing against her skin. She could feel the warmth of the earth, the life. All the things that had been lost to the world above, all the things that were missing, it was all here, the potential still here. Energy sizzled against her, the warmth of a blazing fire in the dead of winter, a summer rain in the middle of a drought. She breathed it in, let it sink into her. Awareness crept out and suddenly her senses screamed to life.

She could
feel
the earth. Its lifeforce coursed through her, the blood in her veins like rivers rushing through valleys, her flesh like warm soil, her fingernails like sleek stone. She was one with the land—and she could feel its suffering.

Tears slid down her cheeks as pain throbbed like a separate heartbeat inside her. A consciousness brushed against her, ancient and primal. She had a sense of thick scales and reptilian eyes, mouthfuls of sharp teeth and a deep hunger.

I can feel you, Cipactli. I can feel your pain, your hunger. I know how you have been ignored, left to suffer alone.
She drew herself up, her eyes still closed, darkness still surrounding her.
It ends now.

“Brave princess. Precious words.”

Cipactli’s voice boomed into Aiyana’s consciousness, not words, but thoughts. Aiyana bit her lip to keep from crying out, the weight of that voice, the raw power, nearly more than she could bear.

Not just words, Cipactli,
she promised.

“Black God changed. Not feared. Loved.”

Aiyana paused, confused.
You mean by me? Loved by me?

“Loved by all. Not a god, a man. Helps if he can. Little things. Plow. Build. Hard work. No magic.”

Saamal worked for his people? Aiyana searched her memory, trying to recall Saamal ever saying anything about what he’d done over the last century. He’d mentioned seeking power, mentioned trying to wake her. Nothing about interacting with the people. She stopped, remembering something Saamal had told her about realizing the people feared him.
He doesn’t want to be feared anymore.

“I do not want to be feared anymore. Black God is loved. I will be loved.”

The pits that have opened up are rather frightening,
Aiyana thought carefully, not wanting to offend the crocodilian.

“Starving. Must eat. I die, all die. You will find new way. I will no longer be feared.”

I want to help.
Pain lanced Aiyana’s heart and she tried to keep the sound of tears from her voice.
But I’m dead. I cannot help anymore.

“Goddesses do not die. Change. But do not die. Return to the earth, then return to life.”

Aiyana opened her mouth to ask what Cipactli meant, to follow the hopeful thread of thought the crocodilian’s words had inspired in her. Whatever she might have said was cut off as she felt herself rising, moving through earth and rock. The same buzz of life sizzled over her nerves, invigorated her. Strength flowed into her limbs and she flailed her arms, fingers digging into the soil around her. She climbed through the earth, adding her energy to that around her. Her head broke free of the surface and the wind rushed to meet her face and Aiyana opened her eyes.

The scene she had left when she’d fallen down into the earth was nothing compared to the sight that met her eyes now. Aiyana blinked, certain she was seeing things.

Female warriors had joined the men. The hulking werewolf that had been so violently tearing his way through the wendigos had been joined by a female of his kin. Her fur was lighter than his, her eyes shining a little brighter, but she shared his monstrous claws, thickly furred body, and maw full of jagged white teeth. As Aiyana watched, the female threw herself forward, sailing through the air like a battering ram into the chest of an oncoming wendigo. She raked her claws down its body, gutting it from stem to stern. Intestines and other organs erupted from the body, filling the air with the scent of blood and death as the female howled and whirled to leap at her next target.

“Marcela! Knock them down! They can’t bend their legs to get back up!”

A raven-haired beauty with skin as pale as fresh snow was shouting into the wind, leaning out Aiyana’s bedroom window. She held a bow in one hand, loaded with an obsidian tipped arrow and a quiver full of the same on her back. Her red cloak billowed around her like a victorious flag as she pulled an arrow back and held it ready, aiming for a group of massive, shaggy figures on the ground. She let it fly and it whizzed through the air, planting itself in the face of one of the enormous shapes. It screamed, a sound that seemed to shake the very earth itself, throwing its furred head back and baring its face to the moon.

“
Yawkwawiak,
” Aiyana whispered.

The giant bears, easily ten feet tall and nearly as round, staggered forward on stiff legs with no joints. Their bodies lumbered ominously forward as they opened snouts full of thick, sharpened teeth and roared.

A feminine voice laughed, the sound dancing on the breeze. Aiyana tried to follow the sound, straining to see the source. For a split second she could have sworn she saw a face in the wind, bright blue-green eyes sparkling in a ghostly form with long, tumbling hair. The being, whatever she was, flowed down with the force of a gale wind, slamming into one of the
yawkwawiaks
and throwing him to the ground, rolling him like a wagon wheel for several meters.