Shadows Before the Sun (23 page)

Heart pounding, I picked one up to examine the softly glowing inscription wrapped around in a spiral. God, it was beautiful and mesmerizing, and I felt a little like Frodo Baggins looking at the Ring of Power.

You’re losing it, Charlie.

Sandra would’ve had a good laugh at me for that random thought. But Sandra would never laugh again. A hardness settled over me then, a tight, steely resolve. I pushed to my feet, wringing out as much of the gown as I could with one hand, and then headed for the passageway.

With every step I took, I grew weaker. Once I made it to the room with the three doors, I had to sit on the same bench that Sandra had pointed out before she died.

Blood was splattered on the wall across from me. One of the guards lay in a heap on the floor. Sirens could live for hundreds of years, as long as they didn’t face a trauma too intense to heal from. Decapitation, fire, the heart being ripped from their
body, or—like the siren on the ground—the skull being bashed into a stone wall until the brain was damaged and exposed.

If I thought Hank had sounded insane before, I knew now he was consumed. Some might take the opportunity to run away and escape. But others like Hank didn’t think about their own lives—only about defeating the evil or die trying.

I turned away from the scene, knowing I should feel
something,
have some reaction to the blood and small clumps of brain matter stuck to the wall, but the sight barely even turned my stomach. The physical drain had crept into my mind and dulled everything, even my reaction to Hank’s bloody rampage. But I had the Source Words. With them we had a fighting chance. I had to keep going.

That last surge of strength that always got me through, that always enabled me to shove everything else aside, felt so out of reach. Two of the Circe were dead. One by me, one by Hank. He was clearly on the warpath, but was his rage enough? Not if Ephyra made it back to the grid. If she drew upon the power of the Malakim, we were toast.

“I’m not done yet.” I kept one hand on the wall to support myself as I stood. There was no fight left in me, but if I was going to crap out, then I’d do it after giving Hank the Source Words at least.

The hallway that led to the Circe’s inner chamber was empty and quiet save for my movement and breathing. The Circe had been so sure of their power,
so set in their ways and secrets that now their lack of protection worked against them.

The sanctum door was wide open. Two bodies lay over the threshold. I stepped over them, sliding in their blood. My feet were bare, the soles leaving bloody prints as I edged around the vast room.

Power pulsated strong and loud, mingling with the eerie echo of chanting. Ephyra stood in front of the strange glassy statue, which I realized was a cage imprisoning the deity and her power. The bridges were gone. The last Circe was completely out of reach, and was glowing with gold radiance.

Hank faced off with his tormentor, the siren with the whip, as Ephyra watched. They circled each other as I continued to edge my way around the room. The smaller room off the main chamber came into view and beyond it the pedestal with Sandra’s head. I froze. Her eyes were open and glowing green. Her voice was the source of the eerie chanting, her mouth moving fast and possessed, spouting off strange lines and rhymes, increasing in magnitude. The power was so thick in the air that I wondered if it had set the oracle off.

The sound of the whip made me flinch. The siren arced it over his head and aimed for Hank. No longer shackled to a wall, Hank could move. And he was fast, just rolling out of the barb’s touch. A crack filled the room and then the whip sailed again, this time Hank didn’t dodge, but spun, and snatched the barb. It sliced his hand, but he held on, using his
other hand to grab the leather and yank the whip from the siren.

The siren advanced, but Hank was ready. They met in a brief but brutal hand-to-hand, Hank never letting go of the whip and finally wrapping it around the siren’s waist. With a hand on each end, Hank pulled, using all of his brute force. The whip tightened around the siren until it cut into him, severing him to the spine. Hank shoved him off the chasm ledge as his body broke in two pieces.

And Ephyra watched the entire thing. She never lifted a finger to help the siren, and she didn’t seem surprised or upset that her last defender was dead.

Hank stood in front of her, chest heaving, gripping the handle of the whip. Ephyra looked strong and so sure of herself. She didn’t need any guards, I realized. Whatever power was contained in that statue, she had tapped into it. That’s why she glowed; that’s why she looked smug. She was also holding the stone tablet in her hand.

I squeezed the jewels tightly in my fist, considering my options.

A chill crept up my spine. Her head turned toward me. I straightened. “Ah, so you survived,” she said in a voice magnified and so powerful that my eardrums rang. Before I could cover them with my hands I was picked up and tossed with a word. I experienced two seconds of weightlessness before slamming into the far wall. My skull, which was already bruised and battered, hit hard and something cracked in my back.

I slid to the floor, the movement agonizing to my back, neck, and head. My lung wasn’t working right. I was numb on the left side and knew I must’ve broken a rib, one that had punctured my lung. There was so much pain that I was too afraid to move. One tiny shift would intensify the hurt, and might make me pass out.

But I had to move, had to—

My vision swam. Heat radiated in me as my body tried to heal itself, but there just wasn’t enough time. Using my forearms, I began dragging my broken body ever so slowly—ever so excruciatingly—over the floor. Keeping my head up was like trying to lift a bowling ball. Blood filled my mouth. I spit it onto the floor.

“Hurt much?” I heard Ephyra say, before I was jerked by an unseen force and swept along the floor. I screamed, holding tightly to the Source Words.
Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out. Not yet. Please, not yet . . .

I didn’t stop sliding until I came to the ledge, one hand dangling over and feeling the cool air rushing up from the depths below.

“You do the honors, Niérian. Whip her.”

Had I been able to laugh I would have. Sick bitch. Hank stood over me with that evil whip in his hand. Sweat and blood covered him. His eyes were flat and his jaw was tight and grim. He shook all over and I realized that he was trying to disobey her.

“Do it,” she commanded, using all of the power at her disposal. His aura was still blank, but now I could see faint grayish words and symbols around him.

His hand lifted and a frown began to crease his forehead. His breathing became even more pronounced, as though he fought his greatest battle right then and there.

“Remember our deal, Niérian,” she said, her voice trembling with power. “The NecroNaMoria still binds your soul. Only I can release it. You have two choices. Honor your word and I’ll lift the spell. Or try to kill me to end it. I know you’d rather kill me, but really . . . look at me. I have more power than you can ever imagine. My sisters’ power is now my own.” She glanced up at the energy flowing upward. “And the deity’s and the Malakim’s . . . You can’t kill me. And when you fail, you will face the next thousand years wishing for a death I will not grant you. Your soul will never find freedom, never find that peace you’re so desperate for.” She glanced at me and smiled. “You follow this one order, and I will lift the NecroNaMoria.”

Hank glanced to the chasm. Ephyra laughed. “Killing yourself won’t release you. The spell does have certain safeguards. No, Niérian. You are mine. Mine until I release you. Whip her until she dies.”

He looked wild, feral, and I knew he couldn’t fight her. “And let’s not forget,” Ephyra added, “that she lies. She thinks you nothing more than a simpleton. She never really cared for you. Never loved you.”

“That’s not true.” Blood spilled out with my words. “Hank, you know she’s lying.”

Ephyra laughed again. “Peace, Niérian. I offer you a swift death and a soul free to enter the Afterlife.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Oh, didn’t he tell you? He gets the death he longs for in return for following my orders.”

That couldn’t be right. Hank would never wish for death. He was a fighter to the end. And he sure as hell would never wish it if it meant harming someone else. Like me. “That true?” I asked him. “You’d rather die than fight?”

“If he continues to fight and loses, his soul is forever tied to his body, his bones . . . It is a hell, a torture you cannot possibly fathom, human,” Ephyra answered for him. “He can’t risk that. He knows he can’t defeat me. So, what will it be, Niérian? Rest and peace, or everlasting torment?”

Our eyes met, mine and Hank’s. There was no emotion there. They’d hurt him so badly that all he wanted was to die. I swallowed, wondering if he’d do it, if he’d kill me—part of me not blaming him if he tried.

The only way to free him and leave him alive was to take out Ephyra before she killed him. And from where I was lying, she sure as hell had the upper hand. I coughed up blood and a spasm of pain ripped through my side. Cold sweat broke out.

Unable to keep my head turned anymore, I let it fall back on my arm. I felt Hank over me, heard the spark of the whip as he withdrew it off the floor in a slow arc, heard the sigh as it went airborne.

My fists tightened around the jewels. Under Ephyra’s spell, giving it to him now could be a monumental
mistake. I didn’t know what to do. But I did know if he did this, if he killed me, it would destroy whatever thread of sanity he had left.

And then the barb struck.

A shocked gasp robbed me of breath and filled me with a sting, a burn so harsh it felt like someone held me down and poured boiling water over my skin. Then I was crying out loud. How had he endured this?

The barb had torn my gown to my waist, baring my back. Then Hank’s knee touched my side as he knelt beside me.

“What is this?” His question came out very low, guttural, angry as his fingertips brushed my mark. He was silent for a moment. “Truth mark,” he whispered to himself, remembering.

All he had to do was ask, ask if the lies the Circe had told him were true. The mark prevented me from lying in response to a direct question. “Ask me,” I forced out.

“Finish her,” Ephyra commanded.

Before he could rise, I braced myself for the pain and rolled onto my back, just praying I would have enough time before I passed out.

I grabbed his left hand, as his right still held the whip, and pressed the pearls into his bloody palm. I wanted him to ask me to tell the truth. If he did, he’d know everything Ephyra said about me was a lie. But he didn’t ask me, he just stared at me coldly and then opened his hand to look at what lay there. “They’re
Source Words,” I bit out, holding on to consciousness. “Yours. Your family’s . . .”

He didn’t respond. His hand closed over the pearls. There wasn’t a flicker of anything, and I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to reach up and touch him. His hair, dark and wet with sweat hanging over his brow, his blood-streaked warrior’s face, the small lines around his eyes that used to deepen when he grinned, the strength in every breath he took . . .

“Choose, Niérian.”

“Ask me,” I forced out. “Ask me the truth.”

His voice was hard when he spoke. “I don’t have to.”

He stood and faced Ephyra, his left hand fisted, still holding the pearls. Tiny spider veins of gold appeared through the skin. He lifted his hand and opened his palm, eyes fixed on his prey.

The Circe’s eyes went wide. So did mine.

The blood vessels in Hank’s hand and wrist shimmered gold, the power of the words filling him, sweeping up his arm. It took my breath away, and I knew this was one of those images branded into my memory forever.

•    •    •

He’d whipped her. The barb had rent the gown from her shoulder, exposing her back and the mark she bore. The mark like his. He knelt next to her. He knew what it was, and yet . . .

“Finish her.” Ephyra’s command shivered through him.

He went to place a hand on her broken body. Pushing her
off the ledge would be such a simple thing and then he’d find peace.

The serenity he’d glimpsed and longed for so many times called to him, beckoned him stronger than any siren lure.

Just do as asked and then it’d be his. Or he could kill Ephyra instead.

He wanted to scream with this war inside of him. This fucking indecision.

Niérian. Hank.

Who the fuck was he?

Did it even matter now?

And then she placed the words into his hand. His fist closed tighter over the pearls. The tighter he squeezed, the hotter they became.

“Choose, Niérian,” he heard the voice of the Circe call to him amid the oracle’s constant utterings and the ragged breathing of the woman next to him.

The indecision pulled on his mind, stretching it out like a rubber band as far as it would go and then snapping back, breaking, opening, flooding with something new. Warmth surged from the words, seeping down into his hand, spreading out and bringing with it understanding and knowledge. “Ask me,” Charlie urged. “Ask me the truth.”

“I don’t have to.”

He didn’t need to ask her for the truth; he already knew it.

He didn’t need to decide; his decision was already made.

It was crystal clear, and he’d rain destruction down on them all.

And then try like hell to survive it.

When he glanced up, he realized that only a heartbeat
had passed and the last Circe was waiting for him to fulfill his part of the bargain. He stood.

His hand was hot now. Shimmering golden power snaked through him. He opened his palm for the Circe to see. The pearls were gone. They’d sunk deep into his skin, into the essence of his being, leaving behind a round brand. The words that had been inscribed on the jewels were now within this mark, shimmering like the gold energy radiating from the Circe.