Curiosity compelled her to look more closely at the lights, to reach out and touch. They were warm to the touch, and slightly more solid than mist, but still not solid enough to actually hold. Magic, clearly, but like no magic she had ever seen.
"Keep going," Jürgen said behind her, making Cortez jump again. Somehow, she had forgotten all about him, the reason she was there.
Reality crashed back down on her, and when Jürgen grabbed her arm and yanked her close, Cortez decided enough was enough. She slammed her bound hands into his gut and jerked free as he doubled over, driving her knee up into his face. As he toppled, she bolted, heading for the entrance at a dead run.
The guards, startled to see her running at them, just stood there a moment. By the time the stupid carrion reacted, it was too late. She ran at them, knocking one into the wall and kicking another right in his small dick. Fumbling free the dagger in his belt, she ran before they could recover, heading as quickly as she possibly could toward the forest.
Once safely under cover of the trees, ignoring the sick feeling that returned with a vengeance, she slowly managed to cut away the ropes binding her wrist. Tucking the dagger into her belt, she pushed away from the tree she leaned against and slipped deeper into the forest.
Her heart thudded in her chest, tensed for Jürgen to reappear—but as she rounded an enormous tree covered in moss, she instead saw the one person she most wanted to see. "Fidel!"
"Cortez!" Fidel said, dropping his bag in shock. He bolted up the path to her, swept her up, and Cortez laughed almost-hysterically while she held him close.
"Fidel, Fidel, you silly little fool," she said as he set her down, looking down at him with a warm smile and running her fingers through his thick hair. "Where have you been all this time, you layabout?"
Fidel kissed her, and Cortez happily returned it, angry with herself for never crossing that line and always keeping a distance, unable to remember all her logical reasons for it. His mouth was hot, and tasted of travel food, and his stubble scraped her skin. Cortez had never been happier. "I cannot believe—"
Pain.
Cortez went tense in Fidel's arms, and then she slumped, falling to the ground as he her weight shifted too suddenly for him to keep hold. Unbelievable pain. She screamed as Fidel yanked out the dagger. Maybe the wound was not necessarily fatal ...
But she could taste blood on her lips, could feel it pouring from her wound. She heard footsteps, saw Fidel move, tried to tell him to run—
And then there was blinding white light, and Fidel cried out in pain. Cortez tried to move, tried to react, but that light, that awful light. Where had it come from? What was it?
Then it faded away, and Jürgen loomed over her, his violet eyes glowing. He looked tired though, far more tired than he should have. "Corpse-eater," she whispered as he knelt, blood and spittle staining her lips.
Jürgen only laughed, the meanest sound Cortez had ever heard. She whimpered as he lifted her into his arms, trying to stay conscious, but the world had gone gray and periodically went black. It seemed to take forever to return to the temple. As they stepped over the threshold, some of her pain eased, her vision cleared, and she was able to look around the room at the end of the hallway.
The sanctuary was filled with more of the soft, white orbs of light. They spilled down from the ceiling and down the curved walls. Murals covered the walls, the colors still vibrant and depicting countless stories of days long gone.
Benches were scattered about, some against the wall, others positioned freely around the room. They were covered with velvet cushions that looked as new and bright as the paintings. There were little prayer books on some of the benches and little stands beside each for candles and incense. At one end of the room was a set of three doors, and Cortez knew they led to living quarters and private prayer chambers, and that the temple went on for miles and miles, deep into the earth and all the way to the top of the mountain.
In the very center of the sanctuary, in a circle about as long as a man, a rose in full bloom had been carved into the stone floor. It dipped slightly inward, toward a small hole in the very center.
Blood of the living, blood of the dead, blood of the god who is both. Protect the earth, protect the children, protect the cycle.
The rose should have been silvery white, but instead it was the dull, rusty color of old blood. It glowed faintly, making Cortez's stomach roil. There were darker stains closer to the center that made her shudder.
Cortez closed her eyes as Jürgen laid her down in the center of the rose. She could feel the power in it and ached to call it to her—but nine hundred years ago she had torn her soul into pieces. In the Temple she had hidden the power of Destruction. Two pieces she cast into her children: a greater portion of power into the royal bloodline where it would draw attention and mostly be safe. The last small portion that watched over unnatural deaths she cast into the people, to be hidden, forgotten, as lost as her temple.
Until all three pieces were brought together, the power remained out of reach.
She hoped Culebra succeeded where she had failed. She wished she could tell him she was sorry. More than anything, though, she hoped Fidel was alive.
Jürgen loomed over her, his long hair loose and tangled, his nose broken, and his clothes soaked in his blood and hers. "Now you die, and I am one step away from fulfilling my destiny. The power of the Basilisk will belong to Schatten, and the world will fall as it should have all along."
Cortez managed to laugh. The power thrumming beneath her could not save her, but it lent her the strength to say clearly and loudly, "Child of Schatten, when Licht died the threads of Fate fell under Teufel's control. No destiny since had been true because he manipulates the threads according to his own desires. But Order is not his to control, and eventually it was bound to betray him. The dragons are loose, and Chaos is breaking free of Order's chains. Your fate, indeed, is to bring death and destruction to Schatten, and you have, but don't think that it is the death and destruction that Teufel sought. Farewell, shadow of Licht. May you find peace when you die and happiness in your new life."
Snarling, Jürgen knelt beside her, drew his dagger, and plunged it into her throat. Cortez died on a choked laugh.
The white lights dulled to gray and all of Piedre trembled as two thirds of the Basilisk's soul rejoined.
Dario had not seen Culebra in so much agony since he had returned home without Granito. He pulled Culebra to his feet and hugged him tightly, looking over his head and sharing a grim look with Midori.
"She's dead," Culebra said dully. "He killed Cortez. Now it's only me left." Unable to reply to that, Dario just kissed his brow and held him tighter.
"I think we're close," Midori said. "Ruisenor seems ... restless, or eager."
"We're very close," Culebra said. "Jürgen waits for me, and he still has the four guards. I do not know what has become of Fidel." He pulled away, and Dario reluctantly let him go. "We need to keep going."
Dario took the lead again, with Midori behind him carrying Culebra on his back. They had been travelling thirty minutes or so—he thought, but time was frustratingly hard to gauge in the forest—when he saw the abandoned pack. His chest gave a lurch. Fidel.
Dario bolted up the path toward it, but as soon as he reached it he saw Fidel several paces away, where the path dipped low again before vanishing back into the dense woods.
Halfway between the pack and Fidel he saw the pool of blood—or what remained of it. Much had already soaked into the ground and still more was already thick and half-dried, but it was still very obviously where someone had been badly, even fatally, injured.
Continuing past the blood, he dropped to his knees beside Fidel and checked him over. There was a small knot on the side of his head and a minor gash on one arm, but that appeared to be the worst of his wounds. Relief washed over Dario, making him almost dizzy for a moment. Stupid that he had not realized just how much a friend Fidel had become until Dario had thought him dead.
Dario looked up as Midori and Culebra reached him. "Hand me your bag. It has all the healing supplies." Midori set Culebra down and removed his pack from Culebra's shoulders.
Midori knelt on Fidel's other side and began to treat his arm while Dario double-checked the blow to his head. Fidel began to stir just as they were finishing, fear and anger in his eyes. "Cortez!" He tried to sit up, but groaned and fell back down. "Where is Cortez?"
"She's gone," Dario said quietly. "I'm sorry.
Fidel seemed to sink into the ground, all the light in his eyes dying. He did not cry, but Dario knew he would later when he was alone. "I know," he said dully. "I was just hoping that somehow I was wrong." He lifted an arm, and Dario helped him to sit up. "She'd just found me. We should have kept running but we stopped—" He broke off, mouth tightening. "He stabbed her in the back, just threw his damn dagger like a flashy street performer. I tried to stop him from at least taking her. We fought, but obviously he won. I don't remember anything else. I failed her."
"No," Culebra said. "I failed her. We thought she would be better off if I was not with her, that she would be able to stop them if I was not in her way. I should have convinced her to go over the falls with me. I don't know why I didn't."
"Because then any chance of stopping Jürgen would have been lost," Midori said. "Because you can't just be a prince, now."
"I know," Culebra said. "We need to go. Jürgen waits. It's time to end this." Dario nodded and took hold of Culebra while Midori fetched Fidel's pack. "I can walk from here," Culebra said, pulling free of his hold. "The Temple calls to me." Not waiting for them to reply, he walked off, vanishing smoothly around the bend in the path.
Exchanging a look with the others, Dario resettled his own pack and quickly followed after him. It was strange to see Culebra striding with such confidence through a forest, but it was a happy sort of strange. He was stunning, so white against the dark forest, with Ruisenor slithering easily at his side like a shadow come to life to serve the Basilisk Prince.
Dario would give anything to see him walk around like that all of the time. He had a feeling that he would get to see it—if Culebra as a god still had any interest in a mortal lover. Dario slid a glance toward Midori, who moved to walk beside him as the path widened, and smiled briefly. Lovers, he mentally corrected.
There was still a great deal there to sort out—and talk about—but Midori was already proving to be a good companion: steady, confident, carried his own weight, and he clearly was as fond of Culebra as Dario.
And Eyes, the way the man tasted, the way he touched and moved. It had seemed the easiest thing in the world, after they had put Culebra to bed, to finish each other off. It should have felt stranger than it had, but Midori's mouth fit so easily against his—different than Culebra, different from Granito, but a perfect fit all his own. His touches were like a slow burn, agonizing and addictive all at once.
It was not the sort of thing he should have been thinking about, but distracting himself with how much he would not mind fucking Midori kept him from thinking about what was coming.
But all his thoughts stuttered and died as they spilled out of the forest and the Temple of Solace came into view. He had not expected it to be so beautiful, so ... calming. The name could not have been more apropos, but Eyes if he knew what exactly made it so.
"Beautiful," Midori breathed, face filled with awe. "It reminds me of the Temple of the Three Storms."
"They were made at the same time," Culebra said, a resonance to his voice that indicated he was more god than prince. "Designed by the Fae, built by the Dragons, decorated by the Basilisk, imbued with magic by the Firebird, and made sacred by the Light."
Dario could not tear his eyes away from it. "Incredible. How has it not deteriorated in all this time? It looks as if it was built yesterday."
"If gods cannot make something as simple as a temple last nine hundred years, how can they be trusted to create an entire world?" Culebra asked and smiled crookedly.
He was still Culebra, but Dario could see more and more of the god slipping into him. Part of him was dumbfounded, for he never thought he would be the one to see the Basilisk Prince become the Basilisk. Part of him was happy because Culebra clearly was coming into his own at last. The rest of him was sad because a god had no need of bodyguards, and Dario had nothing else to offer.
Culebra motioned to the temple. "Jürgen and four men await us inside. Draw your swords and be ready. Stop the men, but do not kill them." He resumed walking, Ruisenor vanishing into the grass in front of him. As they reached the temple and stepped onto the shimmering stone of the pavilion, the whole Temple began to glow faintly.
Inside, they walked down a long hallway lit by magic orbs, something Dario had not seen in years. Halfway down the hallway, shadows moved. Dario barely brought his sword up in time to counter the one coming at his head, and he had barely thrown the first man off when a second came at them.
From the corner of his eye he saw Midori and Fidel fighting their own foes. It was tricky in the light of the orbs; they were dimmed, not very bright—
And then they abruptly flared to life, and the sudden shift stalled Dario's opponents. He barely remembered in time that Culebra had said not to kill them, and only just managed to adjust the direction of his blow to injure and not kill. Shoving the man to the floor, he braced as the first man to attack him made a second attempt, but stopped when he saw Fidel come up behind the man and slam the hilt of a dagger into his head.
The man stumbled and weaved, and Dario stepped forward to finish the job. As the last man hit the floor, Dario sheathed his sword and looked them over. "I hope they stay unconscious because if they come at us a second time I make no promises about letting them live."