by Jayne Hawke
I remembered her threat of what would happen if I failed, was surprised she didn’t repeat it. Perhaps she couldn’t even think of it after all we’d seen, perhaps the thought of becoming one of them after a thousand lifetimes in this arena had made her realize that no threat she could issue would change the fact that she had more to lose here than I had to wager.
I truly wanted to succeed, was willing to let her have her power and pride back. Whatever she had done to me or anyone, this place was too great a punishment. I shadowstepped through the portcullis that marked the barrier to the arena and was greeted by emptiness. It had looked empty from the outside, but somehow I’d expected to take that final step and have it come alive with proud, dangerous gods and cheering fans. It was just the sort of place where things like that should happen.
Instead, there was just empty dirt. Nothing but space for an epic battle that didn’t exist. The goddess voice screamed in my ear.
“Go! Go now! This isn’t a boxing match, you stupid girl, there’s not a bell to wait for!”
I realized she was right and shadowstepped forward as far as my magic would take me, leaping again and again across the massive arena. I managed to cross half of it, what must have been a mile of territory, but as I crossed the centre the walls dropped. Out of them poured a dozen vibrant deities whose colours were so perfect that they breathed life into the ground and the air around them, then a dozen greyer, deader gods, and within moments the arena was filled with deadly warriors. Even the deadest, most battered of them looked formidable, carrying only a little of the grisly horrors of the prison tombs I’d crossed through.
From the corner of my eye I saw a familiar movement. Castor had just appeared in the box closest to me, a distance at once tremendously distant and intimately close. He gave me a nod and a sad smile. Perhaps those boxes weren’t for the gods. Though, if they weren’t, I couldn’t imagine what else could – or would – come here to witness this ugly spectacle. Perhaps there was something above and beyond the gods of man who looked on their antics with gruff laughter and ebullient self-certainty just as the gods looked on us. Perhaps Castor himself was a god and had merely taken his appointed seat to see me play my part.
A wall of fallen gods had filled the area around me, their weapons ranging from the familiar swords and bows to the absurd, the fantastical, and the incomprehensible. They were letting me make the first move. The time for contemplating Castor’s nature was gone, but the curiosity was still a fluttery, squirmy thing that the magic of the arena readily adhered to. I released the spell and it slipped outwards at eye level, splashing to the ground and rushing in every direction, coating everything it found and eating away at it with a fizzing acid.
Curiosity is a voracious master. I didn’t wait for the spell to finish its work. I used the familiar excitement of the battle to form another spell, one that drew itself into my core and sped me into a frenzy. I barely had time to draw a shadowy sword and armour before my body had swept into the crowd of its own volition, crashing against shields and slipping the blade beneath breastplates. The blades penetrated the gods easily and I wondered whether they would heal or just live on with debilitating wounds. Perhaps healing again and again was what caused that final stage of decay. The thrill of battle rose and I pressed it into the spell, my speed and strength rocketing beyond my ability to perceive even as my control slipped away entirely to leave my body under the control of the spell’s own sentience. My body began to ache, the strain of the enhanced movement taking its toll, and I let the spell begin to fade, slowing and regaining control of a body that screamed with wear and tear that would have to be weighed in the balance against the carnage I’d caused. A final flying spin kick caught an impossibly tall, doll-like goddess across the chin and sent her flying back into the crowd where she fell into shreds, the pieces coating her fellows.
There was disgust, and as the excitement spell stilled, I created a spell of that disgust. A black haze spread in every direction, obscuring everything. Not as useful as I’d hoped. The gods seemed far less fazed by the sudden drop in visibility than I was. Their weapons struck out with deadly precision, leaving great slashes in my shadowy armour as the haze made it almost impossible to see them coming.
Overwhelmed, I fell back on instinct. I drew on the air around me to create a great wind that would clear my sight, but of course there was no air magic here. The strength of my intent created a gentle breeze, but it was little more than a consolation prize and did nothing of use. Embarrassment and fear mingled. Neither seemed like a useful emotion, but they were what I had so I used them.
Ducking under the wide strike of a pinwheel-like weapon only to hear one of the bearer’s fellow gods cry out in pain when the weapon found another home, I drew up another handful of magic and cast the spell of fear and embarrassment. As I did, a lightning bolt from somewhere behind me struck my spine... and passed through. I had gained an ethereal aspect, partially dropped from the plane. Not stopping to question what connection that had to the emotions I’d used, I sprinted through the crowd, passing through gods and goddesses, trying to remember where the exit was. The goddess tried to give directions, but they were contradictory, and it was obvious she didn’t know any better than I did.
I felt the spell fade and tried to replenish it, but embarrassment just didn’t come naturally to me. I couldn’t exactly fail spells until I developed the feeling, and there were no memories that evoked it strongly enough to power a spell. I drew on what I had the most of, the ghastly, disgusted numbness I’d felt so constantly as I came here. All around me, gods turned to stone. One to my right, a huge flightless bird, was one of the initial wave that had carried the colours of their former life with them still, and even it fell prey to the spell.
The rest turned to me, at least forty still standing, though many weren’t quite fighting fit. I expected fear, but that was foolish. These things had been trapped in the nothing for so long that the idea of becoming statues could hold no more horror for them than the simple concept of existence. I felt pity, pity that mirrored and evoked the feelings I’d had when I stood over the first battered god here, and made a spell of it. Spears flew in all directions, and though massive they were slow and quickly fell to the ground. Few even made it to the enemy, and those that did were dodged easily.
I didn’t dare try for a spell from disappointment after what the spells of disgust and pity had made. I thought about getting home, about Elijah and the pack and the real world. Joy. The spell was a blinding flash of light, pure white against the grey of the world, and it drove the gods there mad. They clawed at each other, and as they did my joy grew. This was a spell that could get me where I needed to go. I gripped onto the joy and cast the spell again and again until the mental assault was too much and the entire group fell to the ground, their bodies still twitching and struggling with no will to guide them.
I looked to the hall, the open path out, and sprinted for it, shadowstepping with every breath. Nothing could keep a god down forever, that much was certain. I wasn’t going to be the idiot who celebrated too soon. The goddess was hopeful, then gleeful, then blissful as we made our way to the exit. When we reached the hall, she seemed to break free of me and was running on her own.
When we reached the far end, I realized what it was that wasn’t quite a door on the far side. It was a toe, the massive stone toe of a giant too massive to comprehend. As we approached it rose up along with the foot behind it.
“This is where you make your great sacrifice, champion. One mortal must be willing to pay the final price, one great champion must believe in what I am.” She almost sounded sad. I didn’t believe her. Chose not to believe her.
“You mean I just die for you, let the damn toe have me so you can go be a goddess and I can get a constellation named after me? I won the war! I shouldn’t have to win and die!”
“I shouldn’t have been dropped on your world like an unwanted toy, but I was. You’re going to be the most famous mortal of your age. You think that’s wo
rse than being stuck here? Forever?”
It wasn’t. It really wasn’t. I thought about the god we’d first seen and the ones I’d turned to stone or smashed to shreds. I stared at the sacrifice I would have to make and made a decision. I could die to keep even one imperfect bitch of a goddess from being there. From becoming that.
I took a step forward, but I was immediately pulled back again. I looked at the goddess, the only other person there, and saw her looking to our right where something passed through the wall. The rope... the glowing rope. How long had I been here to have forgotten it even existed? It tugged again and I was pressed against the wall, the rope still pulling even though there was nowhere for me to go but straight through the skin of the world.
The pack was saving me. They didn’t know it was too late. The goddess grabbed me, dragged at me until I could no longer feel the stone against my back. She tugged me forward towards the foot which still waited to take its toll in blood.
“Wait, stop. The rope can take us both. Feel the magic of it! The god who made this artifact has the power to bring you back to the earth plane, to let me live and keep you from becoming one of them,” I said, gesturing back to the arena which was once again vacant. “If you stop fighting your fate, you can live forever on the Earth Plane. I was willing to sacrifice everything for you. You can sacrifice a little for me. We could be friends, even. There’s bliss there, I promise.”
She was still dragging me, even as I spoke. I was all but babbling, trying to show her that this solution was best for everyone in time to hold Elijah and my pack in my arms again. It wasn’t working. I had let myself believe there was good in her, had let myself choose to believe the same thing so many mortals had chosen to believe about so many gods – that she cared about me and only asked of me what she must ask. Now she was wrenching that away with the strength of desperation, wrenching my very life away to get what she wanted. I took the sword still in my hand and began to stab her, tears running down my face at what I had to do.
I drove the blade into her again and again and again, but her will was too strong. The shadows would not harm her, not then or there, whatever they lacked in intelligence made up for in sheer loyalty to their divine. I had no other weapon on me, my steel blades having never come through with me. I began a spell, complex and painful, the amalgamation of emotions clutching at my breast so massive that I couldn’t even tell what they really were. Whatever the spell did, it had to fix this.
Before I could finish the spell, she tore Infinity from my eyes, and I was again in the endless world of sensation I had first seen, the real truth of this place. I could almost see the arena where I’d fought, could see the goddess herself, but it was all too much for me to keep track of my spell. My mind was overwritten by sensation, the magical focus that I used to do magic filled to bursting, and the spell faded. I could not stop her. The pack was being dragged along, her power getting stronger with every step towards her plane as theirs got weaker with every moment of struggle.
“Shadow whore. Let her go. I will be your sacrifice.” It was Castor’s voice, unmissable, and though I couldn’t see him I knew that he was standing beneath the last monster he would ever see. “I tried so hard for you, Lily, tried to prepare you or find you a workaround. You were my reason for coming to your plane, my reason for helping the shadow whore, and I’m happy to let you be the reason my life ends here. Goodbye, darling.”
I felt him die with every sense, saw his magic dissipate, heard his body collapse, smelled the blood and the peace. I reached out to his body. I couldn’t let him die there. When the goddess was sure the sacrifice had settled the giant’s price, she let me go and rushed to the destiny she had made for herself. As she did, I felt Infinity return, Castor’s remains in his amorphous clutches, and with no time left to spare he pressed himself to me. Within a moment’s span I was back on the Earth Plane, my body sitting on a huge pile of fur, Castor in my arms. I thought I had dog piled the pack like some cartoon tug of war, but as I regained my senses I realized I was sitting on top of the multi-headed Cerberus, who had grown to impossible proportions and was eating from a ten-foot-high pile of corpses, my rope tied around one of its paws. Infinity was flying around my head at impossible speed, and the pack was standing far below me looking up in confusion.
“Dog seems bigger,” I said, because what else was there to say?
“Yeah, I gave him the death magic I’d been gathering to bind the goddess once she was gone. Seemed like the quickest way to get rid of angry cultists without having to let go of that rope.” Niles was untying the rope with clear difficulty, whatever knot had been tied clearly over his head.
I climbed down gingerly, only then realizing what I was carrying.
Twenty-Two
I cradled Castor's dead body in my arms and wept. The battle was over. The goddess was defeated, but my dear fox was still gone. He'd been there for me through thick and thin. He'd remained true to me even after I'd chosen the pack over him. Tears streamed down my cheeks as my chest clenched and the emotion of it all crashed over me.
The pack gathered around me, Elijah's strong arm around my shoulders, Liam's gentle hand on mine. Rex and Jess stood guard as we took this agonising moment for ourselves. There were always casualties of war, but I'd quietly hoped he would come out of it and return to me to steal my ice-cream. The mornings hadn't been the same without him, and now they never would be.
I felt the bastard, his magic, before I saw or heard him. Pulling myself together I knew that we would give Castor the send-off he deserved once whatever bullshit was dealt with. He'd be given one last goodbye.
Standing, I lifted my chin and dried my eyes preparing to go toe to toe with the lord of the lands. Elijah stood tall at my side, my co-alpha. My life partner. Jess, Rex, and Liam were spread out at our sides, ready to take on the world for us. This was pack. This was what we did for each other.
Ryn strolled across the space that had been our back garden but was now a pitted mess of a battlefield. The bodies were slowly disappearing courtesy of Niles and Cerberus, which was something I was eternally grateful for. Trying to get rid of that number of bodies would take forever, cost a fortune, and bring in fuck knows how many carrion eaters. It would have been a cluster fuck of epic precautions.
The tall elf walked with the grace only elves had. It put some feline shifters to shame, their fluid efficiency as they covered the ground. Ryn had earnt his place as head fae of all the fae territories, the lord of lords. The fae didn't fuck around when it came to their hierarchy. Every single of them had to fight for their position, their territory and power. This was a man that in all reality I should fear.
Yet all I wanted was to be left the fuck alone and to grieve. So I stared him down and dared him to start some shit.
Ryn stopped some ten feet in front of us, his hands tucked in the pockets of his twenty-grand suit, and a small sharp smile upon his pretty features.
"I heard about what you did for the Isles. How you handled the fallen."
I exhaled slowly, feeling Elijah tense next to me preparing to hold me back. A fallen was one thing, Ryn was a whole other ball game.
"I'm here to offer you a job."
I narrowed my eyes. On one hand, working for him would give us a lot of money and immunity. On the other, the politics were bound to be a nightmare.
"Go on," Elijah said flatly.
"Are you familiar with what fixers do?"
Fixers were people who kept things hidden, those who fixed the problems of the very rich and powerful. They made people and problems disappear all while ensuring that word of said things never made it out to the public. It was rumoured to be a very difficult job.
"We're familiar," Elijah said.
Ryn gave a small nod.
"As I'm sure you're aware, I am slowly expanding the fae territories out into what are currently god-touched territories. That means that I am currently looking for one more fixer, or in this case, pack of fixers, to help make sure that go
es smoothly."
He spoke in such honeyed tones, the charm of a professional politician. I wondered how many people fell for that and forgot that he was a skilled assassin and warrior? All elves grew up in the Wilds, where they became the most feared warriors and hunters to walk the planes. There was no such thing as a weak or useless elf.
"The conditions?" Elijah asked.
I could feel Rex desperately holding back a snarl and Jess a bright giggle of enthusiasm. This was the cougar's dreams come true all wrapped in a pretty elf-shaped bow.
"You'll work for me, and only me. You'll continue to hold your territory here and receive immunity. You will travel the world going where I send you, fixing problems I send you after. You'll be paid far more than you've ever earnt with your current business. If anyone asks, you decided to get into international business. No mention of me will ever be made."
I had to admit the idea of travelling the world and having that much money did have a great appeal to it.
"We're in!" Jess said with great enthusiasm.
Elijah have her a very dark glare and a soft growl.
"We will consider it," he said to Ryn.
Ryn's smile sharpened showing the tips of very sharp teeth.
"You have until dawn tomorrow. A person will be at your door to take your answer."
He turned and began walking away before he looked over his shoulder and said, "I look forward to working with you."
We had given Castor the best send-off we could manage. My heart broke as I watched his lifeless form go up in flames upon a great pyre. There were many different funerial rituals around the world, but that was one that had always felt right to me. Let him go up in a great fire of glory. Tears streaked my cheeks as my throat closed up while I whispered one final goodbye.
Elijah held me close and kissed my temple. I wasn't alone in the world, not anymore. I had my pack. Together, we would build a new life. Something full of thrills, excitement, and freedom unlike anything I'd ever experienced before. Turning my head upwards to the night sky, it finally sank in.
