Authors: Annette Marie
Lyre’s fingers closed around her hand, squeezing it gently. “What Seiya doesn’t see,” he whispered, “is that you’re good for him. Since we got you back, he’s been more animated and engaged than I’ve seen him in weeks. Have you had a chance to talk with him yet?”
She shook her head, enduring a stab of guilt.
“Don’t worry. This probably isn’t a good time anyway. The only thing he’s worrying about right now is getting you through this.”
Ahead of them, Miysis had stopped. She and Lyre joined the group in what appeared to be a random spot in the forest. Lyre kept her fingers in his, his thumb rubbing the back of her hand comfortingly as her nervousness increased.
To get to one of the other worlds, a daemon first had to enter a ley line—one of the invisible rivers of power running across the Earth, the Underworld, and the Overworld. From there, he had to jump into the Void, the empty nothingness between worlds. If he survived the Void, he would come out into another world.
Piper couldn’t cross the Void on her own, so someone would have to put her to sleep and carry her through. Raum had carried her the first time. Ash had done it the second.
“Can you feel it?” Lyre whispered to her as Miysis discussed something with Ash and one of his men. “The ley line? You have magic now. You should be able to sense it.”
“Me?” she whispered back in disbelief. Her? Sense a ley line?
“Close your eyes. What do you feel?”
She closed her eyes, trying to blank her mind, but she didn’t have to try hard. As soon as the visual distractions around her were gone, she felt it; like an invisible canal rushing past, the ley line was impossible to ignore, a combination of the spark of magic in the atmosphere and an indescribable presence in her mind. It called to her, urging her closer. She couldn’t see it or picture it in any way, but she knew it was right in front of her, just a few steps beyond where Miysis stood talking with the others.
“Wow,” she whispered to Lyre, opening her eyes. She squinted at the boring stretch of trees. “Should I be able to see it too?”
“If you were a daemon, you could, but haemons can’t.”
“What does it look like?”
“Like a band from the northern lights running across the ground.”
Her eyes widened. “Wow. Wish I could see it.”
“Well, you know, they say that when two people are as one, they can see through each other’s eyes. I’m totally willing to try if you want—”
“Not
now
, Lyre.”
“So later then?”
Miysis looked past Ash and caught Piper’s eye. He motioned her over. Her anxiety levels shot up. Lyre gave her hand one more squeeze before letting go. She warily approached Miysis. Ash stood beside him, his expression unreadable. An icy drop of fear hit her stomach as she searched his eyes. Too much like Raum.
“Piper,” Miysis said, “Koen will carry you through first. My men will partner with Ashtaroth, Seiya, and Lyre to make sure they come out in the correct spot.”
The ley lines on Earth and the other worlds didn’t correspond geographically. You had to know what exit point you wanted, but since the Underworld daemons had never been to the Overworld before, they would need guides.
Her eyes darted from the Ra daemon beside Miysis to Ash. “Can’t Ash take me through?”
“He’s only done it once and my man is trained in this,” Miysis said.
Ash nodded his agreement.
Her hands shook a little. She’d felt a lot better when she’d assumed Ash would take her through. She trusted him a lot more than a daemon she’d just met, even if he were more experienced than Ash.
Ash stepped closer and leaned down to put his lips to her ear. “You’ll be safe with Koen. Don’t worry,” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear. “It would drain my magic to carry you through, and I don’t know where I’m going. It’s not worth the risk.”
She nodded. She hadn’t considered the drain on his magic stores; it would be a very bad idea for him to go into the Overworld already weakened.
She caught his wrist before he could pull away. “Ash ... could you do the spell to make me sleep? I—I don’t want anyone else messing with my head.”
With a glance at Miysis for confirmation, he slid one arm around her waist to catch her when the spell took hold. His other hand cupped her cheek, warm and gentle.
“Ready?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Her cheek tingled under his touch as soft magic spiraled through her head. Her eyelids grew heavy and slid closed. The next time she opened them, she would be in another world, but that wasn’t where her thoughts lingered.
Instead, as she slumped forward and he pulled her against his chest, she wished he would hold her in his arms again, and that by holding him in hers, she could fix the damage Samael had done to his heart and soul before it was too late.
CHAPTER
13
P
IPER
sat on a rock and stared. Just stared.
The ley line Miysis had chosen in the Overworld was on the side of a mountain. Behind her, grassy slopes rose steeply before giving way to craggy rock. High, high above, the snow-tipped peak of the mountain challenged the sun in the sky.
Five yards beyond her feet, the flat stretch of grass ended. The sheer cliff dropped a hundred feet to a fast-flowing river below. She’d taken one peek over the edge before the vertigo had forced her away. She’d decided sitting was her best bet and had parked her butt on a rock.
Beyond the cliff, on the other side of the river, two more mountains rose. Miysis had already pointed out the suspected location of Vejovis’s residence—at the base of the third, most distant mountain. It was a long distance to travel on foot, but there were no ley lines any closer.
The shapes of the mountains and valleys were familiar, but nothing else in this place reminded her much of home.
She felt as if she were looking at the world through blue-tinted glass. The grass had a bluish tinge, and each waxy blade was decorated with tiny bright blue dots. The rocky peaks of the mountains were veined with blue stone, some of it glittering in the sunlight and sparkling like lines of blue ice through the rock. In the valleys, she could see the tops of trees, their wide, pale leaves scattered through with azure orbs—some kind of fruit or flower? She was too far away to tell.
She looked up, squinting at the bright morning sky. Directly above, a second sun beamed down on her face. Her gaze dropped to the horizon. The curve of a planet rose beyond the farthest mountains, just breaching the horizon as it rose into the sky. It wasn’t quite as large as the planet in the sky in the Underworld, but big enough. If the Overworld hadn’t had two suns, it would’ve been dark for much of the day due to regular eclipses from the planet orbiting them. Or perhaps it was this planet orbiting the other.
Ash sat beside her, his eyes also on the slowly rising planet.
“The first time I saw it,” he murmured, seeming to be reading her thoughts, “I wondered if it was the same planet. What if the Underworld and Overworld are both moons of Periskios? But there’s no way to know for sure.”
“Daemons have never tried to figure it out?”
“Underworld daemons don’t normally visit the Overworld and vice versa. In fact, we deliberately avoid such a thing. And we don’t talk to one another either. Philosophers and scientists we are not.”
She squinted at him. “So you’ve been here before then. Why didn’t you say so?”
“I didn’t think it was wise to mention it around Miysis.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was Samael who sent me here.”
She quickly schooled her expression. Whatever Samael had sent Ash to the Overworld to do would have been something bad for the Overworlders. Definitely not a good thing to mention.
Lyre stood a half a dozen paces away, a lot nearer to the cliff’s edge than Piper was willing to go. He stared across the landscape, silent with awe. Seiya stood beside him, also gazing at the beautiful world they’d found themselves in.
Miysis strode over to them. “My last man just came through. He’ll stay here until we return in case we need to separate for some reason.”
He turned to the valley. “We’ll follow this mountain around, staying on the east side of the river. It only runs north for a few miles before bending toward the west.”
He pointed, his finger tracing the path of the river. “The mountainside eventually grows too steep for travel, but there’s an easy crossing where the river goes underground. We can cross without getting wet then continue through the west side of the valley. The river exits the caves a mile downstream. Beyond that is Two Dragon Falls. We’ll have to rappel down along the west side; there’s no other way into the valley.”
Piper let out a long breath. Staying dry was a good thing on two levels: it kept them out of the ryujin’s element, and she wouldn’t have to admit to anyone that her swimming skills were limited to a clumsy dog-paddle. Rappelling down a mountain didn’t sound all that fun though.
“After that, it should be easy travel through the base of the valley to the north end where Vejovis resides.”
“The river goes under the mountain?” Piper asked. She’d been squinting at it for several minutes already, trying to figure out where the water flowed.
“Yes. There are dozens of major rivers and hundreds of smaller ones in this stretch of mountains, and most of them flow in and out of the extensive cave system beneath the mountain range. It’s made mapping the valley rather difficult.”
Lyre turned away from the valley. “I have a question. Why are we walking there? We have more than enough wings to fly. It would take, what, an hour or two to fly across? Versus an entire day to walk?”
Piper blinked, then remembered that Ra daemons were griffins—and griffins had wings. She and Lyre were the only members of the group who couldn’t fly.
“About two centuries ago,” Miysis replied, “a warlord of questionable intelligence decided that an aerial raid was a surefire strategy to exterminate the ryujin in the valley, which is sitting on the borders of five different territories. Since then, the ryujin keep close watch on the skies. They have become quite adept at shooting moving targets out of the air.”
“Ah,” Lyre replied. “In that case, I really don’t mind walking at all. Good exercise.”
“Speaking of wings,” Miysis said, turning to the draconians, “I strongly recommend you keep your glamour in place while we’re here. You know the consequences of releasing it.”
“What consequences?” Piper asked in alarm.
“Our magic is different from Overworld magic,” Ash said with a shrug. “It would attract too much attention.”
“Oh.”
“Definitely something to avoid,” Miysis remarked. He focused on Ash. “If you do die, should we be concerned about searching your body for the Sahar?”
“Do you really think I would walk around the Overworld with the Stone in my pocket?” He looked Miysis straight in the eye. “I don’t have it and I didn’t bring it here.”
Shadows passed across Miysis’s eyes as he checked Ash’s truthfulness. “A smart decision. Are we ready to begin then?”
Miysis and one of his men went first. Lyre followed, Piper trailing behind him, Ash behind her, then Seiya and the last two Ra daemons. The fourth one stayed on the narrow plateau. Piper kicked at the gravel-scattered path, watching the stones tumble down the gradual decline ahead of her. The trail was decorated with blue and brown stones in all shades, with the occasional ice-green pebble mixed in.
The track soon narrowed and grew steeper as they followed it along the side of the mountain. The slope rose steeply on her right and dropped away a few feet to her left. She tried to keep her eyes off the cliff, with the river—a shimmering, ocean-like blue distinctly different from an earthly river—rushing below. Instead, she watched Lyre’s back. The sunlight glinting off his hair made it look as pale as ivory.
They walked for nearly an hour, the pace as fast as was safe on the rocky ground, before the slope gentled somewhat. A few trees had taken root among the grassy patches, with thick, twisting trunks and wide, bluish-green leaves. The azure orbs she’d seen from a distance looked like some sort of seedpod, with long trailing vines—roots, perhaps—dangling from the branches. She stared as they passed the first tree growing a dozen feet up the slope. Its roots coiled and twisted at the base, only half submerged in the turf. The trunk was covered in greyish blue moss.
The next tree, an even larger one, hung over the trail, the tendrils from the azure pods swaying in the breeze. Miysis and his man walked off the path for the first time, trudging through the calf-high grass so as to not pass under the branches. Lyre followed their route and Piper stepped off the trail too.
The ground suddenly tilted as dizziness swept over her.
Hands flying up to clutch her head, she stumbled backward, fighting for balance as the ground tried to throw her off her feet.
“Piper!” Ash’s voice was sharp with warning but she couldn’t even see where he was.
A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to the side. Someone else’s grip tightened on her other arm, pulling her back the other way, all while the world whirled crazily.
As quickly as it had come, the spinning stopped. Free from the dizziness, she looked up, swallowing her stomach back down. Ash held her arm, leaning away from her as though he didn’t want to get too close. His grip was almost painful. She turned to see who was holding her other arm and felt the blood drain out of her face.
No one was holding her other arm. Instead, hundreds of root-like tendrils from the tree’s pods were coiling around her arm, in her hair, and over her sword. Her mouth dropped open in horror. Little roots wiggled under her clothes and tickled her skin. She jerked backward and felt her feet nearly leave the ground as the elastic-like tendrils tugged her back again.
“Don’t move, Piper.” Miysis stopped beside Ash, his three men joining him. He assessed the tree, calm as if foliage attacked people every day.
“Keep a tight hold on her,” he said to Ash. “We’ll have to cut her loose.”
Piper tried not to hyperventilate, her face scrunched against the burning pain in her arm where Ash was holding her back from the slow but powerful pull of the tendrils, and also against the violating touch of the roots wiggling under her shirt.