by Liz Schulte
“Should he bleed?” He cut Simon from ribcage to groin, letting his intestines spill out and sizzle on the ground.
“Leave him alone!”
“Why?”
I could barely look at him.
“Because he only came because of me.”
“You’re very good at killing boys, little witch. Want to make a new deal?”
“Leave him.”
“What will you give me if I do?”
I swallowed, my mind racing for something I could offer him to save Simon. Then it hit me. Simple and elegant. “I won’t complete the trail if you stop hurting him.”
Minos narrowed his eyes. Then the flames snuffed out. “Deal.” He offered me the burnt limb to shake.
My fingers barely touched it and it crumbled into ash. I glared at him. “But you have to let Simon pass through. He has already worked off his sins.”
He hummed a few notes then agreed. “Where do you wish to go, little witch? There are so many places you fit in here. You have been naughty, haven’t you?”
I pointed across the gorge toward Corbin. “Over there.”
“Why?”
“You know, been there, done that with the rest.” I wheezed. Not moving was taking its toll on me.
He stared at me unblinking, and I stared back just as still. “Very well.”
A frail, rickety bridge appeared behind me and he nodded for me to cross. “Little witch, if you complete the road after you swore not to, I’ll make sure you get my full attention and you still won’t get to leave.”
I kept walking, though the bridge shuddered beneath me. When I made it to Corbin, Simon and the bridge disappeared.
“You have to finish the trail,” Corbin whispered. “If you do, he can’t renege on his promise. No matter what he says.”
I moved toward the next river. This one ran fast and strong. It was thick and red with a strong smell of copper—blood. I tried a spell, but nothing happened at all. Minos had found a way to block my magic completely. Corbin dipped the toe of his shoe in the river and nothing happened. He pulled it back up and it dripped with blood, but otherwise the shoe looked fine.
“I could toss you again,” he said.
I shook my head. I had no doubt Minos had accounted for that method as well, even if I couldn’t see it. The other side of the river was bright and sunny, desert for as far as I could see.
“How do you want to cross?”
I glanced at my watch. We had less than two hours. “We wade.”
He nodded. I went in first. The blood was hot as it pushed against me. My feet slid on the ground as I fought for traction. The farther in, the stronger the current. Midway across, one foot slipped and I lost traction completely. I struggled to get back on my feet, but the river was already washing me downstream. A strong hand clamped down on my wrist and pulled me up, sputtering and drenched in blood. I wiped the blood from my face and looked at Corbin. We didn’t say anything to one another for a long moment. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling, but I knew whatever it was he was struggling with it. He pulled me along with him until we made it to the other side.
Stumbling up the bank, I noticed my clothing had changed. I was wearing what I’d had on when I killed Jaron, but my side still ached. I lifted my shirt to see angry, burned skin around the stab wound. Why hadn’t it healed when the burns had?
Beyond us, sand dunes stretched on forever, silent and still. Corbin and I were utterly alone— still holding hands.
“I thought you couldn’t touch me,” I said.
He glanced at our interlaced fingers. Something close to wonder quickly followed by a scowl crossed his features before he let me go. “This way.” He trudged off in front of me, and I scrambled to keep up with him.
I stayed on guard, waiting for something, anything, to come after us, but there was nothing. “Do you see anything?” I asked.
Corbin nodded.
I frowned and looked again. I didn’t see anyone.
“What do you see?”
“Those I have taken.”
We walked and walked as the sun beat down on us, but we didn’t burst into flames or sizzle if we stopped. I couldn’t see the trail, but I trusted that Corbin knew what he was doing. He seemed so sure of himself. As we crested the next dune, a brown wall of sand and wind barreled towards us. Corbin yanked me close to him and covered me with his body as the sand and wind tore at us.
We were covered in dirt and buried in sand up to our knees by the time the storm finished, but we dug ourselves out and kept moving. Ahead there was a city I hadn’t seen before. I nudged Corbin and pointed. He nodded, though the muscles in his neck looked strained. Just outside of the city gates, I finally saw other people. Jaron stood bloody and scarred, staring at me with lifeless eyes. The few soldiers I had slain in battles were behind him. Jaron cradled something in his arms, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I kept moving forward. My heart hurt for those lives taken by my hands, but I was sure of the fact that I’d only done what I had to do.
Inside the walls, the city bustled with life. There was a lively market with exotic food at every turn. The people, however, ignored me as if I weren’t there. I didn’t understand the place. The spicy smells made my stomach rumble, and my throat felt dry and cracked. People surrounded a fountain, drinking greedily. I licked my lips.
“Don’t drink or eat anything,” Corbin said.
“I know.” I did know, but the sights and smells were so tempting I almost didn’t care. We kept moving until we came to a crossroad. Corbin looked one way then the other, frowning. Finally, he beckoned me to follow him.
“Selene?” Cheney’s voice called as I passed an alley. I stopped.
He isn’t real, I told myself, but I had to look anyway. I went back a couple steps and there he was, wearing the half smile I loved so much.
“You did it, Selene. You won. We can finally be together.” He held out his arms to me.
My heart squeezed. I took a few steps toward him, and he shimmered for a moment before looking solid again. My feet stalled.
“In here. I have everything waiting,” he said.
I took another smaller step, and his image blinked in and out again. Not Cheney. My next step was backward. This time the image disappeared and was replaced by a large red beast at least five times as tall as me. Not good.
I ran, passing Corbin.
“What—” He glanced behind us before he joined my run. “We’re almost there. Couldn’t you just do what I said for once? Instead you had to go find mamu.”
The heavy steps of the beast thundered behind us. Corbin took my hand and pulled me into another alley then another and another until I was so turned around I had no idea where we were when we finally came to a stop.
We stood in a large courtyard filled with statues of people. I didn’t recognize any of them, and they all wore different styles of clothing. Corbin weaved in and out of the statues while I caught my breath.
“This is what happens here. Either you are devoured by a mamu or you turn to stone,” he said conversationally. He sounded strange though.
“Why do you turn to stone?”
“They’re conscious statues though,” he said as if I hadn’t spoken. “They can see you and hear you, but they can’t talk or scream or weep. They will sit here until they atone for all the lives they took.” He stopped in front of a woman who looked like she could have been friends with Marie Antoinette. “There’s a loophole though.” His eyes finally met mine.
“Oh?” I said with no idea where he was going with this.
He nodded. “I wasn’t sure you’d be strong enough to make it this far when I agreed to come, but I had to try.” He looked back at her. “I had to.”
I backed away. “What exactly do you want, Corbin?”
“My life back,” he whispered, lunging for me.
I darted out of his way, bumping into a statue. It fell, shattering on the ground.
“Careful, pet. These are peopl
e you’re destroying.” Corbin made another grab at me that I barely avoided.
I pushed another statue at him, hoping to slow him down enough to work out a plan. Elves were quick, but not as fast or as strong as vampires.
He caught the statue and righted it. “You’re making this far more difficult than it needs to be.” He slowed, holding his hands up as if surrendering. “You already agreed not to finish the road. You’re stuck down here no matter what now. Please help me free her.”
I had only agreed to not finishing the road. I never said a word about staying. Minos should have thought through his terms a little better. Once I had the Pole of Charon, I was on the first train home, and if I could wield even a tenth of its power, no one could stop me. “Who is she?”
“My maker.” He looked back longingly at her.
“How do you know she’s even alive in there?”
“When she turned me, her essence seeped into me. I can feel her pain and she can feel mine. It is with me constantly.” He gave me a tortured look. “It has to end.”
Everything in me paused as I stared at him. “You can feel her suffering?” He nodded. “Like you can feel mine?”
Corbin’s head tilted to the side. “Yes.”
I blinked slowly, letting the information sink in. “Did you turn me into a vampire?”
“Nearly, but you aren’t a vampire. This wouldn’t work with a vampire. I needed a witch.”
“That’s why I can’t feel your suffering because I am still a witch?”
“Yes.”
Despite the fact my one ally had turned on me, relief filled me. I was still a half-elf. “How do you break this curse?” I nodded to the statues.
“With your blood. If I bathe her in your life force, she will rise up and you will take her place.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
He faked one direction and then came at me from the other, capturing me. “I have to try. You understand, right?” He brushed a hair from my face and kissed my cheek. “I really do like you, Selene, but I can’t keep living like this. I need to be released.”
“But I have your essence now. Won’t you just be replacing one with the other? You will still suffer.”
He paused as if considering it. “No. She is my maker. It is a different bond. I’ll make it fast. I promise.”
“That’s comforting.” I stopped struggling because it was no use. I took a deep breath and jabbed my thumb into the wound where Simon had stabbed me. Corbin jerked, his grip loosening. I ran—but his foot slammed into my back, crashing me into another statue. My head whacked into the stone and my ears rang. Corbin lifted me off the ground with one hand.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” he muttered as he carried me to the woman.
He laid me on the ground, carefully rested her beside me, then knelt over me with a knife in his hand. “I’m sorry, pet. I told you what my sin is. I betray everyone. Though, had there been any other way…”
I stared at him, waiting, but nothing happened. Corbin’s hand shook above me but didn’t come any closer. His face twisted, and a war carried on behind his eyes.
“Do it, my love. Bring me back.” A beautiful woman in a cream and blue satin dress appeared behind him. Her powder pink lips moved close to his ear. “We can be together again.”
Corbin looked at her, his eyes filling with tears. “I missed you.”
She smiled, looking angelic. “You don’t have to miss me anymore.”
He glanced at me and then back to her. “I can’t feel you.”
She waved her hand. “Kill the witch and you will.”
The knife lowered toward my chest.
“Corbin, she isn’t real. She isn’t here. What if you can’t feel her because she is already gone? You don’t want to do this.”
His hand trembled.
“Why else would you see her now? They are trying to tempt you, trap you here. Fight back.”
He looked down at me with pity. “But this is why I came with you.”
The woman’s lips curled in a pretty smile. “You’re almost there, my love. The witch means nothing to you.”
“This isn’t why you came. You may have told yourself that, but you came because we are friends. Corbin, look at me. You know what I’m saying is true.”
“We aren’t friends, Selene.” Corbin smiled slightly. “Despite both of our best efforts, I think I love you.” He stabbed the image of the woman, shattering the mirage, revealing the red giant. A loud roar shook the buildings surrounding us. Corbin stood up, releasing me. “That way”—he pointed—“and don’t stop until you get to Styx.”
I took off, leaving him to deal with the giant. I ran as fast I could, never once looking behind me to see if anything had followed. The city became darker and more sparsely populated as I ran, but I didn’t slow. I had to get to Styx. Each step I took became harder and pain began shooting through me. I took another step, and my leg gave out beneath me. All of the injuries I’d suffered along the way came back. All around me, kindred spirits limped and crawled their way toward Styx, miserable expressions on their faces. They knew where they were going. This was the last stop before Hell.
I pushed myself along, dragging my damaged foot behind me. I could do this. The ferry was in sight, a long gondola-like boat that took one person across at a time. However, as soon as it rowed away, it reappeared at the dock. A tall, cloaked figure stood at the bow, holding a warped, wooden stick he used to propel the boat forward. The Pole of Charon.
I raced through the hallways seeing nothing but my target. I tore open the door, and Sy and Frost jumped up from their chairs.
“What’s happening?” Sy asked.
“My father is here.”
They looked around. “In here?” Frost asked.
I searched the room top to bottom, but he wasn’t there. “He wants Selene dead and is distracting me with the elverpige.”
Frost shrugged. “Wish granted.”
“Yeah.” I looked at Selene’s body. It wasn’t like he could make her deader. Maybe he’d seen her and left, but where had he gone? The sudden appearance of the exact spell the witches needed to send me directly to the elverpige had been too convenient. Had he been in the castle all day, planting decoys, listening to my plans? “But he’s here—and she’s running out of time.”
“We’ll make sure she’s safe. Find your father and take care of things for good this time.” Sy gave me a hard look. He had wanted to kill my father when we took the crown, but I’d stopped him. I could see in his eyes he thought that was a mistake.
I went to the hallway and waited until I heard the door lock. There was only one place my father could be. What he was doing there though was another question.
I sprinted toward the old family wing. We hadn’t used it since my mom’s death. I used my key to unlock the wing and relocked it behind me. “Why are you doing this?” My footsteps echoed in the empty corridor. “What do you think you’ll accomplish?”
A second pair of steps sounded in the hallway.
“It’s good to see you, Cheney.” My father came into view, looking relaxed and calm.
“Why are you hurting us? Why Bella?”
“Sitting imprisoned in that house while you were off with the half-elf whore gave me time to think about where everything went wrong.”
My fists clenched. “And where was that?”
“When your mother died, of course.”
“I agree. Because that’s when you lost your mind.”
“I used to have control of this kingdom. I used to have a family who loved me.” He held out his arms. “I used to have a son.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“Are you going to tell me how we can all live together in harmony and get along? Are you really that naïve? I don’t want to get along. I want what is mine.”
“I guess I am that naïve.” This was the same face who used to tuck me in at night. The man who’d had an answer for every problem I ever had. The ma
n who checked out as soon as my mother was gone, I reminded myself.
“Will you let me tell you a story?”
I nodded.
“There was once a man who had a perfect life. He had a beautiful wife and a robust son. They looked up to him and times were good. The couple conceived another child, but this one was not a blessing. It broke the happy family and took the man’s wife away. The man’s heart would never heal from the loss, but matters still got worse. The child demanded attention and monopolized the son’s affections, blinding him to her true nature. The beastly thing grew into an ungrateful adult, set on embarrassing her family beyond repair. A human. She believed her affair was hidden from her family, but the father had eyes everywhere. He knew of her plans and he knew his son had kept her indiscretions from him, but he did not blame the boy.”
Father stood before me, tapping his foot.
“The man waited for the couple that night, and when the human betrayed her, killed her, the man’s only daughter, he took his revenge. The son fell back in line and everything was once again tolerable, but the man was lonely. He did not wish to remarry, but he needed companionship, so the man made the grave mistake of going outside of his race. He didn’t know it was mistake, however, until it was too late. The son, who was always impressionable, also strayed from the natural order and allowed himself to be seduced by—”
“Enough,” I cut him off. “I know the rest of your ‘story.’”
“Do you?” He smiled without humor.
“The ungrateful son allowed his head to be turned by a pretty face and fell prey to a half-elf. He betrayed his father and imprisoned him. But the father had one more trick up his sleeve. He devised a plan to exact his revenge and clear the books of all past mistakes. He charmed one of his guards, no doubt, and retrieved the body of the first person to betray him, his daughter. He then sacrificed his wife’s people, feeling they too had betrayed him, in order to raise an elverpige that would clear away all his indiscretions. While the elverpige did her job, the man came to personally take care of the half-elf who ruined his beloved son.”
“Close, very close. The guards were loyal to you though. I had to reach outside for help. You were always better at storytelling than me.”
