“Elbert.” Then, suddenly aware he’d flubbed, he blurted out, “Your Majesty. My name is Elbert, Your Majesty.”
I wanted to smile, but Tam had taught me a great deal about truly being queen to his realm. Instead, I nodded and gravely said, “Good. You remembered. Now, don’t forget again, all right?”
He worried his lip for a moment, then bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty. Thank you. Should I take a message in return?”
I shook my head. “No, I’ll go now. You get on with your other errands.”
As the boy sped off away from UnderBarrow, I suddenly found myself longing for the old days, when nobody knew who I was save for a select few. But even as the thought crossed my mind, I shook it away. Life had never been carefree for me, or easy. And the further I distanced myself from some of my memories, the better.
THE TEMPLE OF New Olympus had been built from marble blocks carted over from Seattle. It wasn’t anywhere near as grand as Naós ton Theón had been in the Peninsula of the Gods, but it was still breathtaking. Only one story now, the temple spread out to a fair size, but the gods had downsized their expectations.
I dashed up the steps to the massive door that had been formed of oak and walnut, and the guards standing watch opened it as I approached. I gave them a quick nod as they bent their knee, and then hurried inside.
Hecate’s office was near the front of the building. Coralie was sitting in a small cubicle outside of Hecate’s office. She had been Hecate’s assistant for longer than I could remember, and when the temple of Naós ton Theón had still stood, her desk had been massive and exquisite. Now, she had a manual typewriter, a small marble desk, and no air conditioning. But she looked happy.
“Is she in?” I asked.
Coralie quickly stood and curtseyed. She might work for a goddess, but she knew to give the Queen of UnderBarrow her fair due. The gods extended respect—generally—when they received it. I wasn’t sure if Coralie was a Theosian, or if she was divine in some other way, but I had the feeling she was anything but human.
“Yes, she’s waiting for you. She said to send you straight in when you got here. Go ahead.”
I tapped at the door.
“Enter.”
Hecate was sitting on the corner of her desk as I entered the office.
She had furnished it with beautiful old oak furniture from a raid on Seattle, and she had her requisite leather chair, curio cabinets filled with blades and weapons, and several filing cabinets. She had her own lights, magical in nature, but then again, she was a goddess of magic as well as the goddess of the Crossroads.
Hecate was wearing a pair of black leather pants, a pale gray shirt, and a black suede jacket. She was tall—close to six feet—and her raven hair was caught back in a sleek ponytail that brushed her waist. She wore a silver diadem in front of the knot of the ponytail. The circlet reminded me of a Celtic knot, with three snakes entwining as they held aloft a crescent moon. The horns were pointed up, and in their center, a black moonstone. She fastened her gaze on me, her eyes the color of early dawn—periwinkle with hoarfrost drifting in them.
I knelt before her. Every time I laid eyes on her, my love for my lady returned in a flood of gratitude. This was the one place I truly belonged, truly felt at home—in Hecate’s presence. She might ride me hard at times, but she was forever in my corner, always standing behind me, always pushing me forward.
Hecate wasted no time on small talk. “I heard about the massacre. Tell me what you know.”
I frowned. For simple murders, the gods usually didn’t usually get involved or pay much attention. The concerned look on her face worried me.
“Lycanthropes. It had to have been a pack of them. We’re not clear on how many people were actually there—it was a group of herbalists out foraging. At least six adults and five children, as far as we know. It was bad, Hecate. Really bad.” I sank onto the leather sofa in the corner, still feeling queasy. “They ate them—parts of them. The guards found body parts all over. We have to tell the village, but we have to be cautious. There’s no way we want to incite widespread panic.”
Hecate nodded. “How do you know it was lycanthropes?”
“Prints.” I told her what we had found. “Yesterday, I sensed something was off. I was out near the wheat fields, and I sensed something on the horizon, coming in with the storms. I have no clue what, but it set me on edge. I felt the same energy where the attack happened.” I paused, then added, “This reminded me of the Aboms, but yet, it didn’t. I don’t know how else to explain it—but it was something in the distance. A threatening force.”
For a moment, she said nothing. Then Hecate straightened her shoulders and turned to her wall of blades. “There is something on the horizon. I don’t know what yet, and neither do the others, but we can all feel it.”
“Do you think Gaia might be planning another siege?”
Hecate shook her head. “No, I don’t think so, though I can’t be certain. Since the second World Shift, the world has grown more feral and dangerous. Gaia’s weary after raining down her chaos and she slumbers, resting. The Greenlings patrol the woodlands, but only for those who would strike against the natural order.”
“Then what could it be? Has something new come through the World Tree?”
The goddess walked over to the window that looked out on the woodland around the Temple of New Olympus. “Possibly.” She turned, leaning her back against the glass. “Make no mistake, Fury. We’re on our own. You might have thought the tsunami and quakes eight years ago were the turning point, but my visions tell me a deadly force is on the move and we’re about to plunge deep into the darkness. Winter is on the way, and I just hope we can ride it out to see the spring.”
Chapter 3
EVERYWHERE I TURNED, the World Shifted and quaked under my feet. I tried to stand, but the land had melted under my feet into a shifting whirlpool of color and texture. Dizzy, I felt myself being sucked into the center. I struggled to steady myself, but the moment I was stable and standing, the land shifted again. Gaia was turning in her sleep, I thought, shifting under her covers, and every time she moved, the land moved with her.
I righted myself again, trying to figure out where I was. Nothing looked familiar, and yet everywhere I looked, the sense of déjà vu followed me. I set my gaze on a pile of rocks in the middle of the stark, neon landscape, and just as soon as they began to come into focus, their shapes began to run, melting into drops that danced and skittered across the landscape.
Where the hell was I?
Queet? Queet? Are you there? But there was no answer.
I began to walk, to try to get away from the whirlpool behind me, and then I began to run, but the harder I ran, the slower I went. Finally I came to a halt, and the land folded beneath my feet and I suddenly found myself where I had been attempting to go.
The sky was overcast, clouds boiling. Thunder rocked the air, and lighting forked from cloud to cloud, creating a spiderweb of brilliant threads. Part of me wanted to reach up and touch one, to feel the current race through my body. The desire was so strong I almost brought Xan up into the air to attract the shimmering forks that danced scattershot through the clouds. But as I lifted up my sword, I realized what I was doing and quickly pulled myself back into check.
“You can’t reach the sky,” I told myself, even though right now it looked possible. I really didn’t have a death wish. Riding the lightning wasn’t my idea of the way I wanted to go out, and the urgency—the push—began to fade.
But that left the question of Where was I?
I turned around, trying to find something that would allow me to get my bearings.
To the north, dunes rolled by in an unending stretch of sands containing rogue magic—you could tell by the rust grains that sparkled among the mounds of pale yellow sand.
As I watched, a large mound at least fifteen feet high shook and twisted, rising to reveal a sand creature. Bipedal, its back curved, and like the Sp
hinx, it was smooth and weathered, with no discernible features. It began to stride across the horizon, the ground shaking under the weight of its feet as it lumbered past me.
I watched it, unable to pull my gaze away. The creature was mesmerizing in its beauty, and yet, it could have crushed me with one finger. But it didn’t even seem to notice me, and went on its way across the barren landscape until it disappeared into a dust devil that rose.
Fury? Fury, are you there? The voice echoed around me, caught on the wind, faint as if from a great distance away.
I turned, trying to discern what direction it was coming from before I answered. Tam had taught me to be cautious, to wait before answering, to consider the options. Perhaps it was a friend, but it could just as easily be an enemy.
Fury? I need to talk to you. Again, the voice rippled past. I need to tell you something.
And then, I was moving—swept along on a current of air that billowed up behind me. I stretched my arms out, reveling in the raging wind. It held me aloft like a skater held his partner, and I went gliding over the sands, my feet not touching the ground. The wind buoyed me up, twisting and spinning me as though I were an autumn leaf, and I spiraled up and then down, carried by the force. I laughed, feeling raw and wild and as I held out my hands to the side, globes of fire emerging from the palms, and I left a trail of flames in my wake.
I don’t know how long I traveled, but after a time, the winds began lowering me to the sand again, and then, set me down. I was no longer in a desert, but in a rocky landscape, filled with twisted heaps of metal. And then I knew where I was. For the sculptures made no sense, angles intersecting in ways they should not. Curves turned into angles turned into fronds that feathered out like no metal ever should. The only place I had ever been that defied the laws of physics, logic, and gravity was the Tremble.
I was out on the Tremble, in an oasis of chaos.
The Tremble was to the land what the Broken were to humans. Whatever connection it had once had with the reality that we knew had long vanished, leaving in its place a surreal and terrifying landscape. Nothing was how it should be. Nothing stayed the same. Forever morphing and shifting, Gaia had left behind a garden of madness, a desert of desolation. Anyone who journeyed out on the Tremble for long risked losing their grasp on reality. None were spared.
When Tam had been cast out on the Tremble by the Devani—the enforcers who had been the Conglomerate’s ruthless agents of order, but now who had vanished into the mists—Jason and I had gone after him. And we had learned just how powerful and brutal the Tremble could be. But we had also found allies who lived beneath the ground, safe from the ravages of the surface. And then—I knew.
I knew whose voice I had been hearing.
“Rasheya? Where are you? I hear you!”
The wind swept up my words, tumbling them away before they were even out of my mouth. I shivered, feeling stripped of my thoughts. There was no answer, save for the constant susurration of the breezes that continually swept past. I began to walk, wondering how I had come to be here. But the wind seemed to sweep away my thoughts as well, and I found myself wondering if I had really heard her calling.
A large statue of twisted metal rose in front of me and I gazed up at it, trying to figure out what it had been. It looped and curled in and around itself, with long tentacles of metal coiling off of the center core, and a large bulbous oval, dented and rusted, that must have at one time been a sphere in the center. I was still trying to puzzle it out when a long echoing scream rippled across the barren landscape.
A slow swish-swish sound alerted me and I whirled around. Behind me, walking toward me but showing no recognition, was a tall beautiful man wearing a gray duster and gray jeans. His boots looked to be soft leather, also gray, and over his back he wore a scabbard and sword. His hair was long, bound back into a ponytail, sparkling silver but it didn’t look like it had aged that way. His face was angular and craggy, his cheekbones accentuated, and he kept his eyes straight ahead. They were the color of rich soil, with flecks of gold. It was then that I realized he was almost upon me. He had gone from being a great distance away to being right in front of me in the blink of an eye. But he didn’t even seem to notice me, for which I was grateful.
I held my breath as he came face-to-face with me, but the next moment he was gone and I turned to see he had walked right through me. Shivering, I glanced over my shoulder to see four wolves, larger than any wolves I had ever seen, racing along the desert floor to catch up with him. They flanked his sides, and he didn’t seem to notice them, but they kept the pace as though he were their leader.
There was something about him that terrified me, and I found myself praying that he would continue on his way, not noticing me. The next moment, I heard Rasheya crying again as a dark cloud began to form overhead. The man was gone, and I turned, trying to find Rasheya, but the land was gone. Everything had vanished except for the clouds around me. And all I could hear was, He is coming.
“FURY? FURY, WAKE up, love!”
I blinked, shaking my head as I realized I was under the covers, in my own bed. I pushed myself up, scooting so I was leaning back against the headboard. Tam was bending over me, a worried look in his eyes.
“Are you all right? I heard you crying.” He stroked my face, scooting onto the bed beside me. “What is it, love? Did something frighten you?”
I nodded, trying to figure out what it happened. “I’m not sure if I had a dream or I was actually out of my body. But I was out on the Tremble and I kept hearing Rasheya calling for me. I was trying to find my way to her when I saw a tall man accompanied by wolves. He walked through me, and I don’t think he saw me. But he was frightening, Tam. Something about him scared the hell out of me, and I don’t know why.”
“Did you recognize him? Do you think it was Lyon?”
Lyon had been the leader of the Order of the Black Mist, and he had placed a bounty on my head. Jason had helped me trap him out on the realm of Chaos, but whether he still lived or not, I didn’t know. Jason had been trapped there as well, and it’d taken him months to find his way into Limbo, from where Hecate and I had rescued him.
“No,” I said slowly. “I would have known Lyon by his energy, as well as his looks. This wasn’t him. In fact, I didn’t get the same sort of energy off of him at all. Lyon was crazypants scary. This man… There was a focus and determination about him that unnerved me. Something about his eyes—there was a danger in his eyes that looked deliberate.”
“You should talk to one of our artists. See if they can draw a sketch of him. It couldn’t hurt, although it may have just been a dream. Meanwhile, we have visitors from Seattle. I want you to come talk to them. They made a discovery that may make it worth a trip to the ghost city.”
He kissed me gently, holding me for a moment until I felt safe and secure again. I tried to clear my head of the dream, although even in sleep, the Tremble left me feeling upside down and inside out.
“Take your bath and dress and have some breakfast. Meet me in the throne room in an hour.” Tam kissed me again, then strode back out of the bedroom.
Patrice was waiting for me. She had filled the tub with warm soapy bubbles, and gratefully, I stepped into the water. I sank down, feeling chilled from my nightmare.
“What would you like to wear today, milady?”
“Apparently we’re holding audience in the throne room, so it had better be something official. How about my Harvest dress?”
When we greeted new visitors coming into the village, I had acquiesced to Damh Varias’s requests that I dress more formally. We had found an acceptable compromise. As long as I wore my crown, at other times I was free to wear jeans and whatever top I wanted. But for formal functions and greeting visitors, I dressed like the queen was expected to dress.
Patrice smiled, saying nothing as she went over to my wardrobe. She liked it when it was time to doll up, and I didn’t blame her. It gave her more leeway to get creati
ve with my makeup and clothing, and also, she was born to UnderBarrow. These formalities and traditions were part of her upbringing.
I scrubbed my skin with a sponge, leaning back to let the warm water soak into my muscles. The dream had bothered me more than I had let on, but I was well aware that sometimes, as Tam said, a dream was just a dream.
As soon as I finished bathing, Patrice toweled me dry and held out my dress for me to step into. Made from a print of scattered harvest leaves against a pale background, the dress had a fitted bodice, and an attached waistband that tied in a bow in back. It had a low V neck, and a slit running up the right side so that I could grab my whip if need be.
“What shoes would you like, milady?”
I thought about it for a moment. “The black ankle boots with stiletto heels. The ones with silver buckles.” She fetched them from my wardrobe and then guided my feet into them, zipping them up the side. Afterward, I took my place at the vanity and she set a plate of bread and cheese in front of me, along with a large mug filled with tea. As I ate my breakfast, she brushed my hair, braiding two thin braids, one to each side, then drew them back, fastening them around the rest of my hair with a silver barrette. She placed my crown on my head and then began handing me makeup as I quickly applied shadow and liner, mascara and lipstick. Finally, I straightened and stared at myself. The crown shimmered with jewels and silver.
“I suppose I’m about as ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Earrings? And how about a necklace?” She opened my jewel case.
I nodded. Might as well make a good impression. “The carnelian necklace, and the smoky quartz earrings.”
Patrice draped the necklace over my head, cautiously skimming the crown. She then handed me the earrings and I slipped them through the holes in my ears.
“There, you look properly attired to receive an audience, milady.”
There was a faint sense of scolding in her voice, and I pressed my lips together, trying not to smile. In some ways, Patrice was better suited for her station than I was for mine. But we got along well, and Tam liked her, and I had come to think of her as a friend.
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