Catching Pathways

by Danielle Berggren

  “Why do you think she looks as she does, yet the other spirits look as they do?” He nodded toward his hall. “Do you have eyes to see? Can you not tell her unique nature?”

  Rodan blinked, glancing behind him at the spirits—the spirits of Bairam and his family, he realized—and back to Maeve. She appeared solid, almost exactly as she was back in the living world, only paler and with the white streaks in her hair. “I can see,” he said in a slow voice, “but I do not understand. I—I suspected she was not human. Is she Fae? Is this what happens when a Fae dies?”

  “She is not Fae,” Ankou said, disappointment flashing through his features and coloring his voice. “Not entirely.” He gazed down at her, and something like tenderness softened the lines in his face. “Does she not look like me, then? I thought there to be at least a few similarities.”

  Rodan’s heart lurched, and he almost stumbled back. “Y—You? What are you saying, you—”

  “Yes,” the God of the Underworld said, his voice almost sad. “I know of her trials. I smoothed her path where I could, but my power is over the dead, not the living.” He lifted his yellow eyes to Rodan, his gaze piercing. “I can help her here. I can take away those memories that hurt her the most. She will reign at my side. She was meant for this. For this throne and this power. She will feel nothing but peace and happiness. Can you guarantee the same?”

  Rodan’s stomach clenched and curdled.

  Maeve shifted, her arms uncoiling from around her legs and her head turned to Rodan. Her eyes found his, and the breath left his lungs. The part of him that had been so empty and hollow at her passing vibrated like a struck bell. He wanted to go to her, to pull her into his arms, yet he understood if he moved toward her, the God of Death might strike him down.

  “R-Rodan?” she whispered. Her voice so sweet he almost fell to his knees at the sound.

  “She calls for you,” Ankou said. “Yet she is still not present. Her spirit is traversing my realm, finding its way here.”

  Rodan did not ask where she was, or how the god of death gleaned that knowledge. This was his domain, after all.

  “You truly love one another,” Ankou continued, “or she would not have said that. Would not look for you. She has drunk from the river Lethe, as do all the spirits who come to my realm in the traditional way. She should have forgotten you.”

  “If,” Rodan posited, “she is your daughter, perhaps the river does not work on her the way it does on other creatures that find their way here.”

  Ankou reached for her again, but hesitated, withdrawing his hand. He regarded Rodan, leaning back into one corner of the throne with a hand cupped around his chin. His robes swirled and moved like smoke, exposing a bit of his wrists and the hollow of his throat. “Before she finds her way here, we should talk of trade. You want my daughter. Desire her. Love her. Yet, you offer little save yourself and the forty-three souls you dispatched to find your way here.”

  “I will have an entire empire at my disposal, and soon. Ask what you will of me, as the future king of the Five Realms.”

  “I want little from the living worlds. I have all I need here.” Ankou stared lovingly down at Maeve, a smile curling his lips, and said, “I have a glimpse of your future, if you get her back. There is something in it which I desire—which I would trade for her.”

  Hope surged, and Rodan took an unconscious step forward, “What is it?”

  Ankou’s golden eyes found his. “You will have three children. Give me the third.”

  Rodan’s heart leapt at the first statement, and crushed with the second. Three children, an unheard-of number among the Fae. One was already lauded as a success and a blessing, two was practically a miracle. Three? Never in their history had a Fae coupling resulted in three children.

  Nothing is as precious to us as our children, his mother told him, not once but many times, a sentiment that echoed throughout the court.

  Would he do it? Would he part with one of his children for Maeve?

  Without her, nothing is possible, he thought.

  For centuries, being a patriarch never entered his mind. He did not envision himself as a father. Yet in the past few weeks, in the dead of night with Maeve curled around him, he wondered what it might be like. Not just to hold their child, but to raise them.

  That pain, that emptiness, throbbed again. He would not, could not, leave without her. To possess nothing of her but memories.

  “I can see your hesitation,” Ankou said, his voice like a purr. “You said you’d do anything to get her back. Will you, truly?”

  “What—what do you want with the child? When would you take them?”

  “I will take nothing. You will give.” He tapped a bony finger on the arm of the ebony throne. “You may have them for five years. Five years, and you will turn the boy or girl over to me. Do this, and I will grant Maeve Almeida her life back. Fail me,” he leaned forward, “and I will take all of them in recompense.”

  “But why?”

  Ankou shifted a little on his throne, and Maeve moved more, her head swiveling to face Rodan. She blinked her long lashes and raised her hand, as though she would reach for him. Rodan made a move toward her and Ankou called out, “No,” in that booming voice that shook the floor and echoed throughout the chamber. Then, in a normal conversational tone, he continued, “If you do not accept my proposal, and you remain here because you cannot bear to be parted from her, you will never touch her again. I forbid it. I will pull every memory of you from her mind. You will be her subject, but nothing more.

  “You ask what I want with the child. I want what I was denied with my own daughter. I want a successor, someone who can take my place when tasks take me elsewhere. Someone to ease my burden. Someone to share this life and throne with. Your child will be placed in the highest honors. They will want for nothing. They will come to discover the wonders of my underground kingdom and all the treasures it hides. Grant me my grandchild, and I will give you back your world.”

  His heart pounding, the heavy ache of emptiness inside of him, coated in the blood of the family who revered and loved him over these many years, Rodan stared at Maeve. He crossed many lines to be here, to simply be in her presence, but— “I must ask her. We have to make this decision together.”

  Ankou shook his head. “No. You make your choice now, and you both live or die by it.”

  Rodan swallowed on a dry throat, gazing at Maeve. Wanting to touch her, to clutch her to him, to show her he would not live without her, not with his wits intact.

  Would she forgive him for this? For this, and for what he did to bring himself here? Would she understand?

  “Alright,” Rodan croaked out, his tongue thick in his mouth. “The third child. You may have the third child.”

  Ankou rose, his robes billowing out from him to pool on the floor. He took two steps down, still looming over Rodan but close enough that they might touch and held out his thin hand. “Your oath.”

  He hesitated for a moment, then slipped a hand sticky with dried blood against the cold fingers of the god of the dead. He lifted his eyes to Ankou’s glowing yellow stare. For all that his chest grew heavy and his throat tight, he managed to say the words in a strong voice. King to king. “You have my word, that in exchange for the life of Maeve Almeida, you will be gifted my youngest son or daughter when they reach their fifth year.”

  The Lord of the Underworld smiled. “Done.” He let go of Rodan’s hand and stepped aside, sweeping his hand toward Maeve. “She is released.”

  Rodan lunged for her, but before he moved halfway to her—her eyes wide and questioning—she scattered into dust. He whirled, snarling, and Ankou stood there, closer than should be possible, his movements silent. The god grasped Rodan by the shoulders and shoved him, so he tumbled down the stairs and crumpled to the uneven floor.

  “Go,” the god said. “Run back to her, or she will wake alone.”

  Rodan lifted his head, confused for a moment until the golden light of the tunnel Ankou
summoned earlier caught his eye. He did not wait for another breath, but stood and sprinted for the corridor, the laughter of the god of death following him every step of the way.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Maeve

  MAEVE AWOKE, and the air burned like fire being drawn into her lungs. Back bowed off the cold table, she gasped, cried out, and reached for something—anything.

  A hand in hers, fingers warm and reassuring, pulled her back. Back from the yawning darkness.

  She opened her eyes, but all remained shadowed. Her tongue was so dry it stuck to the roof of her mouth, and she coughed. “Water,” she rasped.

  The hand on hers disappeared, and a cup pressed to her lips. Cool liquid passed through, coating her mouth and running down her throat as she swallowed compulsively.

  Her breath came hard and fast as the cup pulled away. She could not seem to catch her breath, to relax.

  Fingers brushed against her cheek and into her hair, and lips pressed against her forehead. They trembled, those lips, and hot liquid splashed down onto her scalp.

  She blinked, trying to dispel the shadows, and little by little her surroundings came back into focus. She continued to hyperventilate—not able to draw enough air into her lungs—but the gasping, shuddering breaths came further and further apart.

  She smelled smoke, and sandalwood—and blood.

  Tears coursed down her cheeks, and she whimpered, grasping at a coat—sticky with something, she did not care what—pulling that familiar body closer to her.

  Rodan’s arms went around her, pulling her close, and she continued to grasp at him, to try to pull him nearer.

  Something, some sensation she found impossible to describe, was welling up inside of her. It was as though, for a moment, another heart beat beside her own. Strong and sure, not stuttering and skipping like her own. He breathed, and she breathed. His heart beat, and so did hers.

  She was being lifted, and her spotty vision swam at the sudden change in scenery. She clutched tighter at the man who held her, gasping and straining to see. To understand.

  What has happened?

  She felt—joy. Elation. Guilt. The emotions not hers, yet she sensed them as clearly as she knew her own confusion and panic. She grasped at the feelings and Rodan grunted, staggering. “Careful, my love,” his voice rumbled near her ear. “Be gentle with me.”

  They ascended a staircase. She felt the warmth of the sun on her face, beating through the glass windows, and closed her eyes against the burn of it. Rodan pulled her into a room that lay in shadow, and after crossing an excessive amount of space, he set her down on a stone floor near a sunken bathtub.

  Maeve blinked rapidly, her vision still clouded and her mind too muddled to make sense of what was going on. She began to panic anew when he pulled away from her, reaching her hands out to stop him. “Shh, love,” he murmured. “I’m right here. You’re okay.”

  But she had not been okay, had she? Something happened. Something terrible.

  Rodan opened the laces of her ornate bodice and pushed it from her, then worked at the little knots which kept her overdress together. His movements quick and sure. She raised her head, beginning to hiccup, and drew in a great, shaking breath when her eyes beheld him for the first time.

  He was covered in blood. Soaked in it. Crimson and black and brown, only the whites of his eyes clean. Blood thickened his eyelashes and plastered his hair to his skull. She lifted her hand to touch him and realized that it, too, was smeared with blood.

  She began to tremble.

  “Wh—what happened?” she stammered, teeth chattering.

  “It is alright,” Rodan repeated, pulling the heavy black fabric off her. “I’m safe. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

  The hiccups grew worse, until she was gasping again. Rodan’s movements to undress her ceased and instead he grasped her and held her once more, cradling her body against his. Then he moved them, clothes on, into the bath. Hot water closed over her skin, seeping through it to her bones. She shuddered as the warmth chased the cold out of her body.

  He held her in the water until her breathing calmed, and she began to make out more than vague outlines of shapes. He stripped her clothes off the rest of the way, slinging the sodden garments onto the stone by the bath. As her breathing evened out and her shivering stopped, she began to remember the moments before—

  Before what?

  The water was pink from blood. Rodan rid himself of his clothes, probably dispatching them somehow through his transmutation abilities. He scrubbed his face, but dark red patches still clung to the edges of his eyebrows and his hair. Where the hair lay wet, pink rivulets of tainted water dripped down his glowing skin.

  Maeve frowned and touched his shoulder, then stopped as she noticed her hand against him. She was—

  “Glowing? How? What—”

  “What do you remember?” Rodan asked in a soothing voice, running his hand in circles along her back.

  She leaned into the sensation for a moment. She reached for her memories and recoiled. She leapt back and almost went under the water. Rodan pursued her, and his hands under her arms prevented her from slipping under.

  His bare hands.

  “Y-you bonded with me,” she said, her tone accusatory. She smacked at his chest, trying to pull away. “You told me you wouldn’t, you said—you said...” Another memory invaded her mind, and she cast her eyes around the bathing room. “Where are we? I was with Alexis.” She shuddered again. “Something bad happened.”

  Why can’t I hold onto these thoughts? They slipped through her mind like sand through open fingers.

  “Poison,” Maeve said, her tone flat. “There was—I was—there was poison. I drank something and then, and then... what happened? Rodan, what happened to me?” She was shrill at the end, almost screaming as he held her, and her shaking returned.

  “Shh, love,” he said again, caressing his fingers along the side of her face. “You’re safe now. You’re safe with me.”

  She wanted to climb the walls to escape. Bairam’s palace was not a place she should be. “The assassin,” she gasped, her breathing ragged once more. “It wasn’t Sebastian. Rodan, it wasn’t Sebastian, it was—”

  “I know, love,” he murmured, pressing her head against his chest and cradling her. “It is alright. They’ve been taken care of. No one will hurt you now.”

  “You can’t promise that,” she wept, tears coursing down her cheeks to drip into the pool of hot water. “Please. You can’t promise that.”

  He stayed silent, stroking her hair and holding her until she calmed down again. Memories kept flaring in her mind, and her heart would start to pound again. She remembered the wine goblet, and Alexis’s skirts rustling as she moved away. She had been unable to move. Paralyzed. She had been betrayed.

  Maeve touched her throat where the pain sat, where Pike put the tube to help her breathing. The flesh was smooth beneath her fingertips. She breathed on her own. She drew air deep into her lungs, inhaling the humid steam of the bath, and nothing ever tasted quite so sweet.

  “What happened?” she asked once more. “I remember being poisoned. You held me. You bonded with me. Am I—am I alive because of the bond? Did it cure the poison?”

  His grip tightened on her, and he pulled back enough that she made out his face and his eyes. Her breath hitched when she realized they were changed. The black eye remained, but where the green eye used to be it was now a piercing amber yellow like her own. She reached up and brushed her fingers along his cheek, right beneath that golden eye, and his lips curled in the slightest of smiles.

  “Your eyes changed,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “So have yours.”

  “Is it because of the bond?”

  He nodded again. “Yes.”

  “Can I see?”

  Rodan reached out and a piece of the lip of the bathtub crumbled away, a handheld mirror appearing in his hand. It was plain, wood and polished glass, but when he handed it t
o her it was warm.

  The woman in the reflection was pale. Paler than ever before. Her eyes red-rimmed from the remnants of tears, yet they were now two different colors. One the same color as always, but the other a black so dark the pupil disappeared into the iris. She pulled the mirror closer and beheld tiny flecks and speckles of silver in it, like a smattering of stars across the night sky. She lifted her eyes to Rodan, and when she stared long enough, those same stars shone in his.

  She set the mirror down and grasped one of his hands with both of her own. His fingers were long and looked surprisingly delicate without the gloves to shield them. She traced the lines of his palm and his fingers twitched, curling around hers. “That feels strange,” he said in a soft voice. “I don’t know how long it will take for me to get used to.”

  “I can feel you,” she said, rolling her eyes up to his, “in here.” She tapped her chest, and then her head. “And here.”

  “As can I. It is the bond. It’s still new. What we feel and how we lean on each other will change as time passes, but for now we’re only starting to get a sense of what is possible.” He squeezed her hand and let it drop back into the water before stroking her cheek and neck. “What matters is we’re both alright. We’re safe now.”

  A tremor of cold went through her spine. “We weren’t, though, were we? Something else happened. Tell me what happened. I—I can feel something, but I can’t remember anything. There was pain, and you, and Pike, but I’m afraid I—I don’t know what happened next.”

  He swallowed hard enough that his Adam’s apple bobbed with the movement. “It doesn’t matter now,” he murmured. “Maeve just—just be here with me. Right here, right now. I need you.”

  There rang desperation in his voice, and she stepped closer to him, resting her cheek against his bare chest. His heart pumped beneath her, steady and solid, and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her closer.

  She pushed her burning need for answers to the back of her mind. She would need to know what happened—and soon. She awoke to find her beloved covered in blood, to find herself changed and him as well. Why were they still in the palace? How had she gone from Alexis’s chambers to here—and where was here, anyway?