Fated

by Sarah Fine

  The last time she’d seen Rylan, he was giving her up to be tortured. Bile rose in her throat at the memory of what had happened next. “I’m surprised you’re brave enough to come here,” she said.

  Rylan, his dark hair disheveled and his suit coat unbuttoned, opened his mouth to reply but seemed to choke on his words.

  Eli moved between Galena and Aislin. “Say the word,” he muttered to Aislin. “One word is all it takes.” Heat and violence poured from him in waves.

  “Tamasin, enter the Veil to make sure we’re not being stalked,” Aislin said. “Stay close to Galena.”

  The Ker disappeared, and Rylan focused on Aislin. “You think I’m here for Galena.”

  “No, I think you’re here as a distraction,” Aislin replied.

  “You’re wrong,” he said in a low voice. “I’m here to help you.”

  “Fuck off,” said Declan, his fists clenched as he took a protective half step in front of his wife.

  Rylan grimaced. “I know you have zero reason to believe me, but it’s true.”

  “After everything you’ve done, why would you help us?” snapped Cacia. “You don’t care whether we live or die.”

  Rylan’s forehead glistened with sweat. He was leaning forward, and his broad shoulders were hunched with tension. “I need . . . to tell you . . .”

  Every cell of Aislin’s body was on high alert. “Something you’ve been told not to tell us?”

  He let out an agonized breath and nodded. “It’s . . .” He shook his head.

  “Something’s going to happen,” Aislin said, looking at Declan and Cacia.

  Declan’s ice-blue glare didn’t soften. “He’s the ultimate game-player, Aislin. Have Nader and Eli take him out before he can spring whatever trap he’s set.”

  Rylan’s eyes glowed red. “That would be a mistake.”

  “It was a mistake to ever trust you in the first place,” Cacia spat out. Rylan had filled the role Aislin had always wanted to play in Cacia’s life, and his betrayal had probably hurt their youngest sister the most.

  “I want to atone for that,” Rylan said, his tone pleading.

  “Bullshit,” shouted Declan. “You’ve already sold your dark, twisted soul, Ry. You can’t get it back now.”

  “Stop arguing and let him talk,” Aislin barked, throwing her arms out to keep Eli and Declan from moving any closer to Rylan.

  “You believe me,” Rylan said, his voice raspy. “I can tell that you do.”

  “Are you here to warn us?” she asked him.

  He looked like he was straining against invisible bonds. “They made me promises when I said I’d help them destroy Moros,” he finally said, every word an effort. “They promised!”

  “Let me guess,” Aislin said quietly. “They lied?”

  He nodded, his handsome face a mask of agony. “They said we would be left alone.”

  “The Ferrys?” Cold dread crept along her skin, making her shiver.

  Rylan nodded again, his cheek twitching. “They promised to leave us alone!”

  “Is it an attack?” Aislin’s voice was ringing and sharp. “Are the Shade-Kere coming?”

  Rylan opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a choked groan. He let out a roar of frustration, his fingers curling into claws.

  “Is it about to happen?” she asked. “How much time do we have?”

  Rylan’s eyes were bulging, and his face was turning red.

  Declan looked around as if he expected Shades to materialize in the lab.

  “Can they enter buildings?” Galena asked in a small voice. “Regular Shades don’t, right?”

  “These can show up anywhere,” said Aislin, watching her eldest brother wrestle with his own words. It seemed like an unseen hand had closed over his throat, silencing him. “Is that it, Rylan? Are they about to attack?”

  “We have to get you out of here,” Declan muttered to Galena.

  “I’m okay with that,” she whispered. “It sounds like everyone might be safer if I weren’t here.”

  “Agreed,” said Aislin. “Go.”

  The two of them quickly stepped through their Scopes as Rylan’s face contorted. “The Shades aren’t the threat,” he finally managed to say.

  “What’s going to happen, Ry?” yelled Cacia. “Come on!”

  “He can’t,” said Aislin.

  “His master has commanded him to keep his mouth shut,” said Eli. “Whoever took his soul told him he couldn’t tell us.”

  Rylan closed his eyes in obvious relief, but it only scared Aislin more. “But whatever it is, it was heinous enough that even Rylan couldn’t stomach it.”

  His eyes opened, and he stared at her. “Please,” he whispered. “I can’t say more. Please.”

  Aislin bowed her head and stared at the floor, her thoughts whirling. Rylan was trying to warn them, and his continued presence now that Galena had disappeared made her think the scientist wasn’t the target this time. Rylan’s conscience was black, and yet he was risking everything to be here. “It’s Psychopomps,” she said suddenly, taking a step back and looking around. “Something’s going to—”

  The entire building shuddered as a muted explosion went off below their feet. Her eyes met Rylan’s. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, then disappeared.

  Aislin felt a wave of dizziness as the world swayed in front of her. “They’re bringing down the building,” she yelped. “We have to get people out!”

  Another explosion knocked her feet out from under her, and a roaring filled her ears. With fumbling fingers, she reached for her Scope, and turned to see Cacia doing the same. Eli was already gone. “Can you take the top floors?” Aislin asked. “I’ll evacuate the lower ones.”

  Cacia’s eyes were round with terror, but she nodded and stepped through her Scope. Aislin pulled wide her own window to the Veil a second later and stepped into the cold gray faltering world. Even here, they weren’t safe. She opened a portal down to the executive floor and stepped through. The ceiling rained plaster as she ran down the hall screaming, “Go through your Scope now! Get to safety!”

  Hugh poked his head out of his office. “What happened? It felt like an earthquake.”

  “It’s the building. Don’t bother to take the stairs—go through your Scope. Is Rosaleen here?”

  Hugh already had his window to the Veil open—it was clear he had no intention of helping to warn anyone. “She said she had a meeting on the eighth floor,” he mumbled just before he pulled the Scope over his head and disappeared.

  Aislin entered the Veil again and then opened a portal to the eighth floor, the home of their domestic banking operation. And as soon as she pulled open her Scope to step into the real world, she had to close her eyes against the roiling heat that greeted her. The air was hazy with smoke despite the spray of the sprinkler system, and the cold droplets rained on her skin as she closed the window to the Veil. “Anyone here?”

  She covered her mouth with her sleeve as she started to cough. The smoke became thicker and the heat became searing as she jogged past cubicle after cubicle. The lights flickered and then went off. In the darkness, Aislin fumbled toward the conference room, and then her toe hit something and she tripped, crashing to her knees. Her hand shot out and found the obstacle—a body. It took only a moment to find the Scope attached to the person’s neck. Holding her breath, Aislin wrenched her own Scope wide and wrestled the person’s legs, hips, torso, and head into the Veil.

  It was Rosaleen, her nose and mouth smudged with soot, her silver hair soaked with sweat, her eyes swollen red and streaming. But she was a Ferry, and so she was alive. Aislin opened an intra-Veil portal to an apartment she owned in New York City, the safest place she could think of, and yanked Rosaleen through. She kissed her aunt’s forehead and willed her to live, and then she returned to Psychopomps. Rosaleen had gone for a meeting, and so she couldn’t have been alone on the eighth floor.

  This time, she stayed in the Veil, searching for shadowy silhouettes as the
ground shuddered beneath her feet. After a few minutes, she found two more people who had been overcome by smoke, in the hallway near the conference room. By the time she’d gotten them to safety, she was drenched with sweat and her lungs were burning, but she couldn’t stop herself from going back in. This was her empire, and anyone inside this building was her responsibility. Satisfied that she’d cleared the banking floor, she flipped her Scope and opened another portal, this time to the finance floor just above it. She stepped through to the real world once more, relieved that the smoke wasn’t nearly as thick. But as soon as she began to walk up the hallway, a massive explosion caused the floor to heave. Aislin collided with a wall and fell backward, smacking her head against the hardwood floor. Her world spun as deafening crashes filled her ears. Huge chunks of the ceiling tumbled down around her, and she threw an arm up to shield her head as a light fixture hit the floor next to her, the bulbs shattering on impact.

  Wincing with pain, glass crunching beneath her, she rolled to her side. Then the floor tilted, and she lurched forward with a scream. As she clawed for purchase, her Scope slipped from between her sweaty fingers and slid out of her reach. She lunged to her hands and knees, shards of glass cutting at her palms and slicing through her pant legs while she crawled frantically after it. The building was coming apart, and she would be crushed if she couldn’t get out. Just as she was about to reach the Scope, the floor tilted again, and she toppled forward and smashed into the elevator door, the impact ringing in her ears and fogging her vision. The air was filled with dust and the bitter scent of smoke. Bracing herself against the wall, she pushed herself up once more—but then the floor dropped out from under her completely, a roar filling the air as the building began to implode. She looked around desperately for her Scope, her only chance of escaping intact.

  It was across the hallway, against the crumbling wall. But as she dove for it, falling through space, surrounded by the debris of her shattered empire, she knew it was already too late.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Moros arched back as a new, raw agony took control, blinding him to his surroundings. Nearby, he could hear Clotho and Lachesis shrieking. Something soft and warm and suffocating covered his face, and he realized it was the fabric of fate, falling apart completely, unraveling the threads of lives still meant to be lived—threads of heroism and betrayal, of love and lust, of deaths foretold. His teeth clenched against the screams as he felt his ribs breaking, his muscles pulling loose from his bones, his physical form coming undone. The wound in his chest was a vortex of pain, sucking his awareness down into a bottomless abyss. His thoughts exploded into a storm of hopeless confusion.

  A shadow passed through his mind, a dark silhouette striding toward him, malice in every step. Chaos was rising. But Moros was helpless, beyond fighting, as his arms and legs flopped uselessly. The torment went on and on, but his sisters’ voices faded. He was alone in this, like he had always been, with no one to fight by his side.

  Aislin was the one person who might have. He was leaving her alone to face the demon god who even now was coming for her and everyone she loved. There was nothing he could do to protect her.

  He had lost.

  Pain. That feeling that had been so foreign to him only days ago was the first thing that entered his awareness.

  The second thing was laughter. Deep and rumbling. And despite its volume, it held no humor or joy. Moros fought to open his eyes but found he barely had the strength.

  “You’re early,” said a voice that was devastatingly familiar, even though he hadn’t heard it in two thousand years.

  Groaning, Moros forced his head up. He was in a mostly empty room, smooth marble beneath his palms. Cold air lay heavy on his skin, the brutal chill penetrating his bones. In front of him was a dais upon which sat two thrones: one made of light, and the other of darkness. He squinted, just able to make out the shape of the beings who occupied them.

  “I have to go back,” he said in a weak, rasping voice. “Chaos is rising.”

  The figure on the dark throne rose. “You’re never going back, my friend. You’re mine now.” The Keeper of Hell slowly descended the steps toward him, his black cloak flowing behind him as he threw back his hood. His body was roped with muscle, and his face was youthful, with a blade of a nose and a prominent brow. His hair was golden, but his eyes were pure darkness, pits of dense, inky black that regarded Moros like one might a rat or a cockroach. “You’ve destroyed everything,” the Keeper growled. “What you did two thousand years ago is nothing compared to what you’ve done now.”

  “My love,” said a lilting voice from the throne of light. “That’s not really fair.”

  The Keeper of Hell grunted. “Fairness is a vastly overrated concept,” he said, but his voice had gentled at the sound of his eternal lover’s.

  The Keeper of Heaven slid gracefully from her throne, her skin shimmering as she moved. Her long black hair was the only part of her not made of light. “He didn’t do this on purpose,” she said quietly.

  “It doesn’t matter. He violated the treaty. Under his watch, the entire fabric has fallen apart.”

  “Lachesis and Clotho,” Moros said with a gasp, looking around as he tried in vain to get his eyes to focus.

  “Are guests of mine now,” said the Keeper of Hell, leaning down to glare at Moros. “Who said I wasn’t fair?” He gestured toward the stone wall behind the dais, and Lachesis and Clotho chained to it. “They thought they’d be allowed to truly die, or perhaps just fade into abstraction, but I think that’s too generous. For all of you.”

  “He’s the reason we’re here!” shouted Lachesis. Her arms were shackled above her head, and there was an iron cuff around her throat. “If you punish anyone, punish him.”

  “I intend to,” the Keeper of Hell said softly. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a very long time.”

  “Send me back,” Moros said as he tried to rise to his hands and knees. “Even as we speak, Chaos is about to plunge the world into mayhem. You don’t want that. Send me to fight him.”

  “You’ve already lost!” the Keeper hissed at him, his impossibly long forked tongue darting out from between his lips.

  Moros turned his face away just as that tongue lashed at his cheek, and a few drops of blood splattered onto the stones beneath him. “I was betrayed,” he said through clenched teeth. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the two who had done this to him, so he turned toward the Keeper of Heaven instead.

  Her prismatic eyes glittered with light as she regarded him. “Atropos is safe,” she said gently. “She’s not in pain anymore, and she never will be again.” She opened her fingers, and in her palm sat a ball of glowing light. “But she gave me this. Inevitability. Her divinity, and part of fate itself.”

  Moros felt himself sag. “Will she forgive me?” he asked, his throat tight. He had blamed her for everything, simply because she was the only one who had been honest about hating him. Instead, he had believed in the love of his other sisters, and that had turned out to be a wretched lie.

  The Keeper of Heaven gave him a sad smile. “Perhaps. With time. But you don’t have to worry about her anymore. She’s safe. Always.”

  “I hope that will comfort you as I unravel your intestines,” said the Keeper of Hell with a nasty grin.

  “You value order.” Moros heaved himself up to a sitting position. His muscles were weak and twitching, not fully under his control. His skin was almost translucent, and the blood that ran through his veins was black. “You know the souls who come to you—I know you have a place prepared for each. With fate and destiny destroyed, all of that will be ruined.”

  The Keeper of Hell clenched his fists. “Chaos cannot reach us here.”

  “Are you sure?” the Keeper of Heaven asked, misgiving in her voice. “I’m not.”

  The Keeper of Hell turned his ebony eyes to the one being who seemed to quell the hatred and bloodlust inside him. “What do you mean?”

  “There
are countless windows into our domains. We made sure of it when we signed the treaty that created the Ferrys.” She approached her lover, her gossamer gown floating around her legs. “We were so confident of the order of things, so sure we had hit upon a permanent solution that we may have made ourselves vulnerable.”

  The Keeper of Hell glowered at Moros. “Chaos cannot be in more than one place at once.”

  Moros refused to look away from the Keeper’s gaze. “But he has helpers. My sister and brother will be at his side. The Ferrys and their Scopes are woefully vulnerable.” Especially if Aislin wasn’t there to lead them.

  “We’ll void the treaty!” the Keeper of Hell bellowed.

  “But the Scopes will still exist,” the Keeper of Heaven reminded him. “They would all have to be destroyed for us to be certain.”

  “And how will the dead reach you?” asked Moros. “My Kere used to lay them at your feet, before you banished us from your throne room. And with me gone, they’ll be masterless.”

  “I can bend them to my will,” rumbled the Keeper of Hell.

  “To what end? There is no fate, not anymore!” Moros felt a flash of strength as his rage surged to the surface. “This will be the beginning of your end. Don’t fool yourself into believing Chaos will be satisfied with the earthly realm alone.”

  “We prize order, but we can survive without it, as long as the sanctity of our realm remains intact,” the Keeper of Heaven said calmly.

  “Then you’d better hope the Ferrys are strong enough to survive Chaos’s reign,” Moros said.

  “The Ferrys exist only because we bowed to your demands!” shouted the Keeper of Hell.

  “The Ferrys exist only because you didn’t trust me,” Moros corrected.

  The Keeper of Hell reached down and grabbed Moros by the throat, hoisting him up and yanking him close. “And I will deal with them directly.” He grinned as his fingers sank into Moros’s skin, filling his nose with the scent of burning flesh. “Starting with their Charon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY