Ares snorted.
"Duty, huh?" he said. "Seems like we're picking and choosing which duties we care about these days."
"Excuse me?" I snapped, rising to my feet.
But Ares stood too. He towered over me. I wasn't afraid. He had his powers. I had mine. But it wouldn't come to that. This was a different kind of fight.
But Ares didn't back down like I'd expected. He didn't fight with me either. He just opened the door and left.
"Where are you going?" Demeter called after him.
The front door slammed hard enough to make the walls quiver. Then, there was only dreadful silence.
Justin was the first in the room. "Are you..."
I raised a hand to cut him off. I was not in a talking place, not even to him. He and Demeter waited helplessly as I brought myself under control.
"The others are ready?" I asked, once I was sure my voice was steady.
"Yes, but Ares..." Demeter began.
"We go now," I said.
"Without him?" Justin asked.
"Yes," I said. "We need everyone to be focused. At their best. And Ares ... that's not Ares yet."
Demeter didn't seem convinced. But at least I could count on her to keep her doubts to herself. She left the room and returned with the Heroes.
I was surprised to see Carson with them. She was still frighteningly pale, but she was standing on her own, and her eyes were tired but clear. I wished I could let her rest. She needed it. We both did. But no one was getting what they needed right now.
"This him?" Darren asked, nodding in Justin's direction. "He's got the power to take us to the Elemental Realms?"
"Yes," Justin replied. "Among other things."
They locked eyes. Their faces were set. They were in some kind of macho pissing contest that I didn't understand. More importantly, I didn't care.
"We go to the Element of Air first," I said.
"Why?" Morgan asked.
"The Elements aren't physical," I explained. "They're spiritual. They represent qualities."
"So Air means what exactly?" Jason asked.
"Intelligence," I answered. "Like the air, thoughts are invisible but powerful and incredibly fast. Air should be simple to deal with because we can reason with Air. What Ekhidna's planning is madness. Air will understand that."
"Which means it's the easiest power to get," Demeter finished.
"And once we get the power of Air, Ekhidna can't get it?" Jason guessed.
"Right," I nodded. "And then she won't have what she needs to summon Typhon. After that, all we'll have to worry about is getting the other Elements back where they belong."
"We can nip this all in the bud!" he said excitedly.
"That's the plan," I agreed.
I turned to Justin. He automatically looked back at me, his unspoken battle with Darren forgotten.
"This is where you come in, Justin," I told him. "We need you to take us to the realm of Air."
"Just tell me how," he said.
"I wish I could," I admitted. "But there's only one person who can do that."
My eyes flicked to Darren.
"Of course," Justin muttered.
I turned my attention to Darren, who was still sulkily glaring at Justin.
"Darren, you've memorized the spellbook I gave you," I said. "There must be something in there about the Realm of Air, something that can help Justin take us there."
"It's going to take power," Darren warned. "A lot of it."
He eyed Justin meaningfully.
"I have the power," Justin replied. "Trust me."
"Just tell him what he needs to do," I said.
"Basically, we just reverse what witches do," Darren explained. "They call the Elements here. We want the Elements to call us there."
"But we can't do magick," Jason pointed out. "Can you, Justin?"
"No," he admitted. "I shape dreams."
He gestured to the ruby torque around his neck. Like the divine amulets of the Heroes, it was what had awakened his powers. It was a part of him now, a part of him forever. "And this lets me shape things in this reality too."
"We don't need anyone to do magick," Darren interrupted. "The book has what we need. But it's not a spell. It's a meditation. To attune to the Elements."
"You think if Justin attunes to the right Element, his powers will take us there automatically, instead of to the Dreamlands," Demeter guessed.
"Worth a shot," Darren shrugged.
"I don't know how many shots we have at this," I admitted. "I'd rather be sure."
"I don't think 'sure' is on the table," Darren replied. "This is the best we've got."
"Alright," I said. "What do we need?"
"Just me," Darren answered.
"And me," Justin added.
I rolled my eyes.
"Let's get started," I ordered. "Everyone else, stay quiet and stay close. We don't want Justin to have to reach out with his powers to find you. He's got enough to worry about."
"Don't worry about me," Justin said.
He took my hand, and I squeezed it. He'd been through too much lately. Asking him to draw on his powers like this, when he'd been no more than a dying shadow minutes ago, felt like a death sentence.
We both knew the risk. But we both pretended otherwise. Hope made us into liars. To each other, and worse yet, to ourselves.
"Lie down on the bed," Darren instructed.
I knelt beside Justin as he obediently lay down. I leaned in until I was sure only he could hear me.
"Tell me you can do this," I whispered.
"I can do this," he replied. But there was the slightest hesitation before he answered.
"We can find another way," I told him.
"No, we can't," he replied, "because there isn't one."
"You don't know that. And you don't have to do this," I said. "You died once to save existence. You've done enough."
"You know duty isn't a one-time thing," Justin replied. "You don't just do your time and move on. It's sacrificing over and over again. You taught me that."
Seeing I wasn't going to change his mind, I kissed him softly on the cheek. Then I stood. "Begin the meditation."
Darren sat by the bed.
"Close your eyes," he said. "Breathe deeply. All you see is darkness. It's everywhere. All around you. Let it fill you. Become nothing."
He paused. He waited until Justin's face and body relaxed. Then he continued. "Something brushes against your face. Something light and warm. You smell trees and flowers. When you open your eyes, you see mountains below you. You realize you are on the highest mountain of all, higher than you've ever been in your life. Clouds drift below you. In the distance, you see a flash. You hear a rumble. But you're not afraid. You know that the storm can't hurt you."
I watched Justin intently for some sign that the meditation was working, but there was nothing.
Darren continued. "You turn around, and you see an enormous temple with tall columns bigger than the biggest trees you've ever seen. People walk in and out of the temple, dressed in flowing white robes. They're all carrying books and scrolls. Most of them are reading as they walk. They don't even notice you."
Darren took a deep breath. This was the difficult part. "But you have a nagging feeling that you should be doing something. Almost like you have a test you forgot to study for. You're running out of time. You need to study. Now. You need to find your books, and you need to find somewhere you can study."
"The temple," Justin murmured, as he shifted restlessly.
"Yes," Darren agreed. "Only you can't study alone. It's too late. You need help."
"You can help," Justin said dreamily.
"Yes," Darren said. "We can all help you. Bring us with you. Bring us to the temple. Do it. Do it now!"
We all waited breathlessly. We were trembling with anticipation.
Around me, everything started to waver like a road baking in the heat. The wavering grew stronger and stronger. I realized it wasn't the roo
m wavering: it was me. I was disappearing.
The meditation had worked.
CHAPTER FORTY
When the wavering stopped, I was staring at a dark sky full of stars, more stars than I'd ever seen in one place before. It was breathtaking.
My head pounded painfully. I looked around. Darren and Morgan were groggily getting to their feet, but there was no sign of Demeter, Jason, or Carson. I forced myself to stay calm. Maybe they were still back in the mortal world. I had to believe that. I couldn't bring myself to believe that they were lost, scattered across any number of different worlds.
I spotted Justin still lying on the ground. His face was streaked with blood. I rushed over and gently shook him. I almost cried with relief when he opened his eyes.
"How are you?" I asked.
"I...whoa," he said, as he tried to sit up and failed.
I waved Darren over. He knelt by Justin and examined him, carefully probing his stomach.
"No internal injuries," Darren said. "If something's wrong, I don't think it's physical."
"I'm fine," Justin insisted, doing his best to shake off Darren.
He tried to sit up again. I reached out, and he grudgingly let me help him up. He moved slowly and painfully.
"I think I just overdid it," he said.
I almost didn't want to ask. But I had to. "The others? The ones who aren't here?"
"I couldn't grab everyone," Justin admitted. "I didn't have enough power, so I left them behind."
"They're fine then," I breathed.
"They're fine," he promised.
We all took a moment to drink in our surroundings.
"So this is Air, huh?" Darren said.
He stared at the massive, marble temple behind us. It gleamed, even in the dim starlight.
"It's beautiful," he admitted.
"Something's wrong," Morgan whispered.
We all looked at her. She didn't say anything: she just pointed at the temple.
She was right. Something was wrong. Very wrong. The temple was crumbling. Small pieces were breaking off and falling to the ground. And that wasn't all.
Even as we watched, the people walking in and out of the temple were vanishing. It was too subtle to notice until Morgan pointed it out. One moment, a person would be walking, their arms stacked high with books. Then, they'd disappear for a second behind someone else, and they'd never reappear again. They were just there, and then gone.
"We're too late," I realized with horror. "Ekhidna's taken the Power of Air. All of it. This world is collapsing."
"What do we do now?" Justin asked.
"We talk to Paralda, the King of Air," I said. "Hopefully he can point us in the right direction. If we hurry, we can restore the power of Air and save this world."
I ran into the temple with the others close behind me. We forced our way past the endless tables, littered with piles of books. Everywhere, people were studying, thinking, totally oblivious to the fact their world was dying all around them. Or maybe they did know, and they just didn't care.
A large, ornate wooden chair towered over the rest of the room from a high dais. But Paralda wasn't sitting on it like usual. He was lying on a table that had been cleared of books. Around him, a few people stood, faces drawn, solemnly flipping through tomes. Several glanced at Paralda now and then, scribbling down notes.
As we approached, I could see Paralda's thin, wrinkled face, even more gaunt than usual. His wiry frame had melted away to almost nothing. He was drowning in the folds of his voluminous white robe. But the worst part were his eyes. Normally a brilliant, piercing amber, like staring at the sun, these eyes were dim and sad, getting darker by the second.
"She took his blade," one of the people standing by Paralda informed me.
I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. The spirits here were androgynous. What disturbed me was how neutral the voice was, how dispassionate.
Paralda was no warrior. His blade was nothing more than a topaz letter opener that he used to break the seals on the scrolls he read. But that humble knife contained all the power of thought in all the worlds. It was the heart and soul of this place. Now that it was gone, this world was caving in on itself.
"How long ago?" I demanded.
The spirits around Paralda conferred briefly in hushed tones.
"Difficult to say," one finally admitted. "Time here isn't like in other worlds. But less than a mortal day."
We were further behind than I'd thought.
"Can anything be done for him?" Justin asked.
More whispers from the air spirits.
"No," one of them replied. "Paralda is the Air. Only the blade can restore him."
"And if he dies?" Darren asked.
Silence.
"Well?" I said.
"We don't know," they admitted in unison.
"How did Ekhidna do this?" Justin protested. "Look at this place. It's full of people. But there's no sign of a fight."
The spirits just stared at him.
"They're sylphs," I sighed. "Air spirits. They don't fight. They just think."
"Did Ekhidna mention where she was going next?" I asked.
"No," one of them replied.
"Then how do we know where to go next?" I fumed.
"You," Morgan answered simply.
They all turned to look at me. Even the sylphs cocked their heads and stared.
My powers. There was no other way. I had to try. The future was in motion. All I had to do was catch a glimpse of it.
Images flew before my eyes. Then they stopped. And more images flew by. Different than the ones before.
"Breathe," Justin whispered. He took my hand and squeezed it.
I wanted to scream. I didn't have time to breathe. We could have failed already. Everything we loved could already be lost.
But I knew he was right. And feeling him there, with me, I felt calmer. So I breathed.
The images slowed. Cleared. Steadied.
"Earth," I answered. "She's going to Queen Ghobe."
"Which means we can cut her off if we skip Earth and head to either Fire or Water," Darren pointed out.
I turned to Justin regretfully. "Are you ready to take us again?"
"I'll try," he promised.
But he was pale. Not as bad as Paralda of course, but not that much better either.
"Is there anything you can do to help us?" Morgan asked, looking at the sylphs.
After another hushed conversation, one spoke. "There is a secret way from here to the Realm of Fire. Follow me."
I was stunned. I would never have thought to ask the sylphs for help. For one, I wasn't used to asking anyone for anything, but more importantly, I didn't consider sylphs particularly good for anything anyway.
One of the sylphs was already speeding away from us. They didn't look very fast in their billowing robes, but they glided along the ground like they were skating on ice. We ran to catch up.
At the back of the temple, one of the sylphs pressed an enormous scalloped column. A rectangular section slid back, revealing a spiral staircase that led upwards.
The sylph gestured inside.
"Go up," it said. "It leads to the roof, the highest point in the Realm of Air. That's where the power still left here is strongest. Think hard about the Realm of Fire, and it will take you there."
I walked up the stairs. They seemed to go on forever. My legs began to burn. I struggled to breathe. Still the stairs went on and on. Finally, when I was about to stop to rest, I saw the starlit sky through a doorway. I had reached the top.
I walked out onto a terrace. The view was magnificent. Even I had rarely seen such majesty. Bleak, jagged mountains, some emerald with trees, others gleaming white with snow, still others black with obsidian stone. Sapphire lakes shimmered in the starlight. And above us, galaxies whirled in a cosmic array of glory.
I closed my eyes. I concentrated. I pictured fire. Blazing red. Scorching gold. Searing white. Volcanoes. Deserts. Dry, cracked badlands.
>
I felt Justin reach for my hand. I took it. It felt good, better than I ever imagined something so simple could feel.
"Fire," I whispered.
I felt myself thrown violently off the terrace.
I screamed as I hurtled toward the hard ground below, but no sound came out.
Then everything went black.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
My head throbbed as my vision slowly cleared. The jumps between worlds were taking their toll. Around me, the others were already getting to their feet. Justin helped me up.
"It's friggin' hot!" Darren grumbled.
We'd only been in the realm of Fire for a few minutes, and our clothes were already soaked with sweat. Darren peeled off his shirt. I couldn't blame him.
Justin tensed immediately. Darren had a spectacular body. I wanted to tell Justin he didn't need to be jealous, but drawing more attention to it would only make things worse.
Morgan seemed completely oblivious to Darren and to the heat. That mesmerized me far more than Darren's body ever could. She was a walking puzzle, one I was determined to unravel.
"Welcome to Fire," I said.
The heat was everywhere, coming from all directions: the sun broiling us from above; the sand scorching us from underfoot; the hot, dry breeze blowing around us. There was no relief in sight. No shade. No water. Just an endless sea of sand dunes.
"At least there's a road," Morgan said.
A rough, beaten track led through the dunes. In the mortal world, the cracked stone road would've been swallowed long ago by the desert, but something in the Fire realm was keeping this road clear.
"He wants us to follow," I realized.
"Who?" Justin asked.
"Djin," I answered.
"The King of Fire," Darren guessed.
"I thought djinn was just another name for genies," Morgan said. It wasn't a question. She wasn't looking for an answer. It was just another one of her curious statements.
"Djinn - genies - are fire spirits," I agreed. "They're named after him. The first and most powerful of their kind."
"So, we follow the yellow brick road?" Darren asked.
I smiled. "By all means."
The road was no less scorching than the sand surrounding it. It wound through the dunes like a searing snake. We walked. And walked. And walked. Soon, we were parched. Every step in the oppressive heat felt like climbing a mountain.
Hera, Queen of Mortals (Goddess Unbound) Page 22
