Behind us in the alley, bricks tumbled from the buildings as they started to crumble. The earth vibrated, and a white vapor floated up from Laima’s body.
She wasn’t going to survive this. I needed to get her off Samantha. Gritting my teeth, I threw myself over the both of them and wrapped my own arms around Laima’s waist, starting a tug-of-war with her body, fighting for her.
Samantha held Laima in an iron grip. Heat emanated from her, burning me everywhere we touched, but I fought through the pain. I struggled to remove Laima’s hands from Samantha’s throat, unpeeling the fingers digging deep into the hollow of Samantha’s neck. Samantha’s eyes rolled forward as I freed her, and she released Laima.
Laima and I both tumbled backward, crashing into the crumbling building. Mortar and bricks fell on top of us, but I brushed them aside and turned my attention to Laima.
She didn’t stir. Could she be dead? Had Samantha stolen the goddess powers? The thought frightened me to my core.
Samantha stood up. She brushed invisible flecks of dust and dirt from her arms and approached us.
“Move out of the way,” she commanded me, her voice echoing and vibrating like rolling thunder.
I stood in front of Laima’s body and spread my arms wide. “No.”
Samantha eyed me with curiosity. “What do you think you can do? You can’t call down the fires of heaven or open the mouth of hell. If you want the earth to shake for you, you’ll have to make it feel your death throws. Like Laima did.” The smile she gave me was so sinister, so evil, that my desire to spare her dispelled. I straightened my spine and summoned my courage.
“Just try me,” I said, and the fiery indignation that swept through my veins reminded me that I was no longer a mere girl.
Samantha approached, her body moving into a position that was almost cat-like, as if I were a mouse and she were ready to pounce. Or at least, ready to toy with me. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and a low rumbling growl emanated from her throat. The ground cracked between us, and I knew she was calling on the powers of hell.
What she wasn’t doing was watching me.
I removed the weapon Ursins had given me from within my tunic, the cloth wrappings disintegrating beneath my fingers. I gave the briefest of pauses, a split second of hesitation, and in that moment, Samantha lowered her head and looked at me.
There was no time to wait, and I stabbed the sword into her exposed chest. Instantly the same vapor I’d seen lifting from Laima’s body pulled away from Samantha’s. Only it had flashes of orange and blue mixed in with it.
I stared at the ribbons of light, recognizing them as parts of Dekla’s soul. My soul. I called the orange streaks of energy to me, and they rushed into my eyes without any hesitation.
“No! No! Don’t take them!” Samantha gasped, her hands grappling at the weapon an inch deep in her skin. Blood seeped from the wound, but it wasn’t a lethal blow.
The sword was meant to take her immortality. And I’d accomplished that. I could stop there.
But the sword was also created to kill.
Samantha leered at me. “This isn’t over. Thanks to your husband, Jods and I laid a pathway to Slitere. We can go in and out of the arch as we please. It is set; nothing you do will stop it. We will take the Tree of Life by morning, and all of you will die. Then there will be no goddesses of fate.”
“There is one way to stop you.” I pushed the blade in deeper.
“Killing me won’t stop us,” she said, but her eyes went wide. She gripped the sword as I thrust it in farther. “No!” she gasped, gurgling.
I couldn’t stop now. The sword didn’t go in easy, piercing through the skin but stopping as it hit hard tissue and bone and who knew what. I couldn’t breathe, taking in short inhales as she screamed. She pushed at my hands, but I forced myself to keep going. In in in. My teeth chattered, and chills popped up over my skin. Tears ran down her face, and I cried right along with her.
Finally she went still. I released the hilt and she fell backward, blood leaking from her mouth and around the wound, onto her dress and skin. I collapsed and scrambled out of the way, panting, shaking. A black smoky haze coalesced around Samantha, and then her back arched so high that only the tips of her fingers and toes dangled on the cobblestones. Her mouth fell open, empty eyes staring skyward, and darkness rose out of her mouth, spiraling upward. Then her body wilted, and the dark cloud disappeared into the atmosphere.
“Jayne.”
My name whispered from Laima’s lips, and I immediately turned toward her.
“Oh!” I gasped. “You’re alive!”
She lifted a hand, and I clasped it, registering the icy temperature of her fingers before I laid my head on her chest and sobbed.
“We can’t stay here,” she whispered. “The shield I put around our location has failed, and Jods will be upon us in a moment. He will seek revenge for killing her, and if he brings Jumis, you are a liability.”
I didn’t want to think or strategize or figure out how to get out of this, but I knew if I didn’t, it would only make things worse. “Can you transform?” I asked, trying to still my shaking hands.
She shook her head, tears drifting down her face. “I don’t think so. She took almost all my power.”
“But you still have some?”
“I would be dead otherwise. You stopped her before she finished.”
“Then you can call the pieces back.” I remembered how we’d gotten Beth’s powers back to her, and just now how I had urged the powers Samantha had stolen to return to me.
“With Samantha dead, they are lost. I can’t get them without a ragana.”
The ground trembled, and I turned my head as the air rippled around me. Jods was coming.
“Take me back to the meadow,” Laima said. “We can fix this later. We must leave.”
“How can I get you there?” I asked, trying not to panic.
“Just fly. I’ll hold on.”
“But I’m—”
“Much stronger than you think.”
I would have to take her word for it. I clasped my hands together, not looking back as my arms reshaped into wings and my body into the soft downy feathers. I threw my wings down to create the updraft needed for flight and then lifted off the ground. Laima clutched my foot, and I felt her weight, but she wasn’t heavy. I flew into the sky, opening a pathway with my mind. I didn’t dare look back as I focused on one location: Laima’s cabin.
We touched down moments later. Only after I was human again and had wrapped my arms around Laima’s waist and helped her up the steps and inside, after I had closed the door, did I finally let out a breath of relief.
“We made it,” I panted, my heart still hammering in my chest.
Laima sank onto the floor, not even making it to the couch. “Where is Ragana?”
I ran through the living room to the spiral staircase. “Meredith!” I yelled up the stairs. I waited a moment and then called again. “Meredith!”
“Use your communicator.”
Oh, right, I’d forgotten I could use this thing. Holding my wrist to my mouth, I said, “Call Meredith.”
“You have to text,” Laima said, her voice bleak from where she still lay like a puddle on the ground.
That was why Laima never called. And why anytime I tried to call her, it was a number not in service. So I said to my arm, “Meredith, come to Laima’s house immediately.”
A moment later my arm vibrated, and delicate lilac words crawled across my skin. I’m on my way.
I stepped over Laima and waited at the door for Meredith. She arrived moments later, coming on foot down the forest path.
“You’re already back!” she said. “I hadn’t heard the news. Did you complete the task?”
The task. I ground my teeth, not ready to rehash that particular event. “Laima needs you,” I said, redirecting her attention to the cracked woman huddled on the floor.
“Oh no!” Meredith said, her eyes going wide. She dropped to Laima’s side.
“What happened?”
My index finger found its way to my lips, and I chewed on my nail. “She got attacked. She’s broken. Like Beth was.”
Meredith looked up at me, her face pale. “Where are the other parts of her soul?”
“Samantha doesn’t have them,” I said, understanding her thoughts. “Laima can get them back.”
“Protect the house,” Laima said, opening her eyes and focusing her gaze on Meredith. “Set an enchantment so no one can enter here except us.”
“Is someone coming?” Meredith asked.
I looked at Laima, alarmed. “You think Jods will follow us?”
“I heard what Samantha said. The plan is in place. Jods will come and attempt to take the tree, even without Samantha’s help. Killing her did not stop that. And when he comes, he will kill you.”
Oh, lovely. I’d traded one baddie for a worsie.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Meredith pressed her lips together. She scratched something into her arm and said, “Gates of fate.”
A feeling like static electricity raised the hair on the back of my neck, and then it passed.
“Is it done?” Laima asked.
“It’s done,” Meredith said. “No one may enter the house unless accompanied by one of the goddesses of fate.”
I gestured to Laima. “Let’s get her to the couch.”
Meredith helped me scoop her up and set her down on a cushion. My tea from earlier still sat on the table. I picked it up and handed it to Meredith. “Make this warm?”
She didn’t hesitate, but traced a rune onto her skin and whispered into the teacup. She handed it back to me, and I felt that it was perfect steeping temperature.
“You’re handy to have around,” I said.
She graced me with a smile even as her cheeks flushed, and she pushed her glasses up on her nose. I felt a flash of envy. Out of all of us, she was the only one who still got to be a human girl. Perfectly mortal with crazy powers.
I held the cup up to Laima’s lips, coaxing her to take a few sips. She closed her eyes and sighed as color returned to her face, and her shoulders relaxed.
“We can call them back now,” she murmured. “Ragana.”
“Bring back her broken pieces,” I said to Meredith.
I didn’t even catch the rune, Meredith did it so fast. She placed her hand on Laima’s and said, “Unbreak.”
Laima kept her eyes closed, but even as I watched, the cracks and fissures on her porcelain skin smoothed out and disappeared.
“That was faster than last time,” I said.
“I’ve become more succinct. What happened? Did Samantha get away?”
“No,” I said, bile rising in the back of my throat. Now that the fury and adrenaline had faded, a rotten, sick feeling coated my insides. “She’s dead.”
“Then the mission succeeded!” Meredith said.
Again I felt the resistance of Samantha’s body as I forced the blade through sinew and muscle tissue. “We almost failed.”
“We would have failed without Jayne,” Laima said, and her voice was strong now. She sat up straighter. “I underestimated Samantha’s ties to the underworld. She had grown so evil and so dark that her touch burned me.” Laima turned her gaze on me, and I couldn’t quite interpret it. “Samantha nearly stripped me of my immortal powers.”
The tears welled up in my eyes, and a salty tear tickled my lips. “I did what I had to do.”
“You always were stronger than I gave you credit for,” Laima said, and tears emerged in her eyes also. “I’m sorry,” she said, and suddenly she was sobbing, the deep, gut-wrenching kind. “I’m sorry for asking you to split your soul. I’m sorry for what’s happened between you and Jumis. I knew the cost, and I did it anyway. I’m so, so sorry.”
I could only stare, at a loss with this emotional outburst. For how long had she been harboring this guilt? And I couldn’t even assuage her conscience. I put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “It’s okay. Dekla knew what she was giving up. She agreed.”
“She knew. But she had no way of knowing the cost.” Laima put her face in her hands. “My sisters. I destroyed them.”
Meredith handed me the teacup, and I tried to get Laima to take a sip.
“And now Jumis,” she said. Her voice hitched on the word, and something odd twisted in my gut at the way she said his name.
“What about Jumis?” I asked.
“I did this. I did this to him. This is not who he was.”
I took her hands and pulled them away from her face, needing to see if my perception was correct. She would not meet my gaze, but kept her eyes focused on her hands.
“You have feelings for him,” I said. I rocked back on my heels, stunned. “More than just feelings as a sister-in-law.”
“Wait, for Jumis?” Meredith said. “As in, your husband?”
“Dekla never knew.” Laima’s tears dried up, and she stared at a spot on the wood floor to my right. “I would never come between them.”
A horrible thought occurred to me. “Did you—is that why you asked Dekla to give up her life?”
“No.” She whispered the word and shook her head. “At least, I don’t think so.” Her eyes glistened, but the tears stayed at bay. “Jumis was devoted to her. And even after her death, I felt too guilty to ever let him know my feelings.” She finally met my gaze. “He has shadowed every Dekla since the separation. But I never expected him to latch onto you the way he has.”
Did that make her jealous? Was she envious of me? “Am I very much like her?”
“You could be her, Jayne. While your face is different, your carriage and aura are very similar.”
My system was still absorbing the revelation, but as the shock settled, I felt sorry for her. Pining for hundreds of years for a man who was pining for her sister.
“It should have been me,” she stated. “I should have split my own soul and let Dekla live forever with Jumis.”
“It couldn’t have been you,” I said, seizing on an understanding from Dekla’s memories. “You were always the strongest. The innovative one, the one who understood life and death and the purpose of mortality. We needed you to be our mentor. Nobody else could have done that.”
She didn’t answer but sat in somber silence. I nudged the teacup against her knuckles.
“Take a sip. Calm yourself.”
She finally accepted the cup. “Thank you, Jayne, for your strength and understanding.” She took a sip before adding, “And for what you did to Samantha.”
Meredith swiveled to me, her eyes widening. “What did you do, Jayne?” she asked with bated breath, as if desperate to know but afraid of the answer.
Laima’s teary eyes met mine, and I straightened my shoulders.
“I killed her,” I said, owning the action. “Ursins gave me a weapon forged in the leviathan’s breath, one of the only capable of killing immortal beings. I intended to give it to Laima. I didn’t think we would have to kill her. I thought we could use it to take Samantha’s immortality from her and let her go crawling away as nothing but a shell of her former self. But then she—” The memory of the boy flashed through me, his young life cut short. “She murdered a child. One who I fated to live. And when she attacked Laima—when I thought Laima was dying—I knew Samantha could not remain on this earth.”
Laima sipped the tea again. “She would have killed us both and taken our powers.”
I recognized that, and I knew I had done the right thing. But I nearly gagged as I felt again the blade punching into her body and saw the liquid life, the bright red blood, spilling onto her chest and collecting in the hollow of her neck.
Would I ever get that scene out of my head?
“Let me see if we have anything sweet to eat,” Meredith said. “Sugar solves everything.” She disappeared into the kitchen, and I focused once more on Laima.
“Did you know?” I asked softly. “When Samantha became Karta, did you know all of this would happen? What she would
become?”
“No,” Laima said, matching my tone. “I never would’ve allowed her to be the successor if I had known. And yet—you know, Jayne, as well as anyone, that some things are inevitable.”
“What do you mean?”
“In that battle when Dekla and Karta divided their mortal souls among mortality, I knew it was the element of surprise we needed to win the war. But I also Saw that the day would come when one of you, one of the successors, would attempt to overthrow the balance. I did not know who it would be, and I vowed to do everything in my power to prevent it. There were several times throughout the years when I refused a potential successor, thinking that was the one who would throw us into anarchy. And maybe they would have. But I could not stop what was meant to be, and this war was meant to be.”
I couldn’t tear my gaze from her, mesmerized. “And will we win?”
She closed her eyes. “That I do not know. I have seen some outcomes where we do and some where we don’t.” But now her eyes opened, and a hint of a smile pressed her lips. “You, Jayne, were also meant to be.”
I tilted my head. “In what way?”
Meredith came back in with a platter of cheese and pickled herring. “No cookies! Who do I talk to about getting cookies around here?”
Laima took a piece of fish. “You should know, Jayne. Ever since your sister brought Aaron here, in every vision where the outcome is that we win, Aaron is the hero.” She gave Meredith a nod. “Thank you for the nourishment.”
Meredith said something else, but I wasn’t really listening. Because I heard what Laima didn’t say: if Aaron failed, we would lose. And there were still futures where that happened.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Perkons himself came to Laima’s cabin to invite us to a feast.
“In your honor,” he said after I let him in. “You and Laima. For killing Samantha.”
“Aren’t we in danger?” Meredith asked. “I put a protection on this house so no one else can enter. Jods plans on attacking the meadow.”
Perkons brushed off the threat. “He won’t dare. Even if he did, my court is protected by more spells than you can place. I can guarantee your protection within my courtyard.”
Destined (Goddess of Fate Book 4) Page 13
