by Linsey Hall
Andrasta wasn’t finished. “Because of the strength of your soul, upon your death your soul will continue to be reborn to earth, most probably with your memories intact. Or…” She paused. “You can choose to remain with this body forever.”
“You’d make me a Mythean?” Diana’s heart clutched.
“We wouldn’t make you anything,” the goddess corrected her gently. “You’ve made yourself what you are. We would just give you the opportunity to choose this body and this consciousness to house your soul as long as it should exist.”
Diana’s mind reeled. To be on earth for hundreds, maybe thousands of years? Did she want that?
Yes. She could be with Cadan. Never to sicken and die, to stay young and strong as he had. If her soul was going to be reborn anyway, wouldn’t it be better to stay intact as she was?
“Yes. I want that.” The words came in a rush. “Wait. Could I ever die?”
The idea of living forever with no escape was terrifying. She assumed it would be a good life, but shouldn’t she know all the details first?
“Your body would be made strong in the way of the Mythean Guardians. Only incredibly grievous injury could kill you. But you would be reborn as if you had died of old age. There’s no getting around that part. It’s the nature of your soul.”
Diana felt as if she were about to step off a precipice. Dare she? There really was only one choice. “All right. This is what I want.”
Andrasta nodded. “Wise. I’d take it if I were in your position.”
“Really?” How surprising. “But you’re a goddess.”
“I was mortal first. I miss earth.” She looked younger then, lonely in a way that a goddess shouldn’t be. Diana wanted to ask, but more than anything she wanted to get out of Erebus.
She ignored her guilt, and instead asked, “How will I get home?”
“I’ll see to it.” Andrasta gave a small smile and reached out to touch her shoulder.
~~~
Vivienne was floating in the sea. Or in the clouds. She wasn’t sure. Her body felt both weightless and heavy, her mind a calm, joyful serenity. Had she died? The horror of the past few days or months or years—she had no idea how long it had been—was a distant, foggy memory.
But Diana. Where was Diana? Vivienne could only hold onto the thought for the barest second before the calm joy replaced it. She stared into the whiteness above her, wondering if it was made of clouds.
“Vivienne.” A sweet voice echoed from behind her.
Weightlessly, Vivienne shifted to find the voice. A woman stood behind her, tall and dark-haired. She looked vaguely familiar. “Am I in heaven?”
“No.” The figure laughed lightly.
“You’re not God, then?”
“No, certainly not. I’m your mother.”
Vivienne would have been shocked if she hadn’t been riding this false morphine high. Instead, she felt the purest quiet joy.
“You’re dead. You died giving birth to me.”
“No. I’m a Sila. We’re a type of Jinn, an Arabic spirit that’s unusually intelligent and can shapeshift. My body can’t stay on earth for extended periods of time, which is why I had to leave you when you were a baby. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.” Her dark eyes were heavy with sadness.
“Wait, what?”
“I would have stayed, if I could. But you had your father.”
“He’s dead now.” The piercing sensation she’d normally get when she thought of her father was dulled by the morphine feeling of being in this white cloud.
“I know he’s gone from earth. I see him, now that he’s on the other side.”
“He’s happy?”
“Oh, yes.”
Vivienne smiled, calmly packing that little tidbit away. “If I’m not in heaven, where am I?”
“The aether. It connects the here and nowhere, the earth and the afterworlds. Your soul just escaped Erebus. It returned to your body as soon it escaped. You’ll wake up soon, once your body readjusts to housing your soul. As long as you are in the aether, I can visit with you.”
“Will I ever see you again?”
“Probably. You’re part Sila. If you were full-blood, you’d have grown up with our characteristics. As a half-blood, you adopted them in adulthood. The change was probably spurred on by your proximity to Diana when she went through her own change, and completed when you were dragged to Erebus. All that magical energy gave you a jumpstart. Because you’re a half-blood, I don’t know if you are immortal like other Mytheans. But when you die—if you die—your soul will probably join your father and me in our afterworld.”
Vivienne smiled. This really was the loveliest place and the loveliest news.
And her mother was the loveliest woman.
CHAPTER FORTY
Diana opened her eyes to the chaos of Warren’s office. They’d appeared in the corner of the room, Andrasta’s arm wrapped around her waist for support.
“Can you no’ create another portal or something?” Warren asked Esha, who paced back and forth in front of the fireplace. Her hair was askew and her cat was striding closely behind her.
“No! Damn it, Warren, I’ve already told you that. If I could do something, I would have.”
“Are they always like this?” Andrasta asked out of the side of her mouth as she glanced at Diana. She’d removed her arm once she’d realized Diana could support herself and they watched the room’s occupants argue. It was like watching a hurricane, but the undercurrents of tension suggested there was more than just a storm brewing between Esha and Warren.
“No. Where’s Cadan?” He was the first person she’d looked for and he was nowhere to be found.
“I don’t know. I thought this was your headquarters of sorts so I brought you here.” Andrasta had eyes only for the fight raging in front of them. “Nothing so passionate ever occurs in Otherworld. I wish—”
“Diana! Oh, thank gods, you’re back.” Esha rushed toward her and gripped her in a tight hug. The cat lay down in front of the fire as Warren relaxed against the desk on which he was leaning. The tension leaving the room was almost palpable. Esha spun toward the goddess. “Ana! You saved her!”
“Where is Cadan? Did Vivienne make it?” Diana asked.
Esha drew back. “Ah, well.” She hesitated. “He’s still in the chamber. We couldn’t get him to leave. But Vivienne is fine.”
Relief rushed through her at the news that Vivienne was fine, but something in Esha’s expression made Diana’s insides cramp. “Why? How bad is that? Why’d you leave him?”
“It’s been almost a week, Diana.”
“A week?” The breath whooshed out of Diana’s lungs. “What do you mean? A week since we went in?”
“No, more than a month since you first went in.” Esha tried to push her down into a chair, but Diana resisted. There wasn’t time to be sitting if Cadan was in that chamber. “Time passes much more quickly in Erebus. It didn’t affect us when we were only looking in. But when you went in fully, you became subject to it. Warren and I left the chamber once you went in, since I can feel when the energy of the portal changes. When it was about to close, Warren and I went back. But only Cadan, Vivienne, and the boy came out.”
Diana’s mind reeled. To lose weeks when it only felt like hours? What was Cadan doing there? She felt Andrasta rub her shoulder to comfort her, but the gesture was awkward, as if she knew why one would do such a thing, but not how.
“Diana?” Vivienne’s voice sounded from the doorway. “You’re back!”
Her friend ran to her and threw her arms about her.
“Vi! You’re alive! I didn’t know if it would work! How?” Her eyes raced over her friend, thrilled to see that she looked normal.
“I’m not totally human, apparently,” Vivienne said. “You remember me talking about my mom? Apparently she was a Sila, an Arabic spirit. Like a Jinn. My parents met when my father was working in Egypt.”
Diana’s mouth dropped open.
“Wow.” Elation and confusion buzzed through Diana. “I’m so happy for you. You’re going to have to tell me all about it. But now, I have to go find Cadan.”
Vivienne nodded.
Esha said, “I’ll take you.”
Diana nodded gratefully and squeezed Vivienne’s hand. She turned to Andrasta and said, “Thank you, Andrasta. For everything.”
“It was a pleasure. Thank you for calling on me. I don’t get requests to come out of Otherworld often.” She beamed and Diana smiled back.
Diana turned back to Esha. “Okay, let’s go.”
~~~
Warren watched with relief as Esha and Diana disappeared. Damn, it had been a long month. The last two weeks of fighting with Esha on top of everything else hadn’t done him any good.
He looked up at the woman standing in the corner. She didn’t look nearly as goddess-like as Aerten. Her clothes were less ethereal and more like those of a field soldier from long ago. Her breastplate was leather rather than metal. He was relatively young compared to others in this world. This woman looked like she had been around a lot longer, despite the fact that she physically looked to be in her mid-twenties.
Since it didn’t seem like she had plans to disappear anytime soon and she was looking vaguely ill, he figured he’d better offer her something.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?”
She nodded eagerly. “Absolutely. I love tea. We don’t have it in Otherworld.”
“Vivienne?” he asked.
“Sure,” Vivienne said. She walked over to the couch and sat.
“Where is the boy?” Andrasta asked.
“Maximus? He’s at the orphanage.” Warren handed her a cup of tea and gave another to Vivienne.
“Not a mortal one?” Andrasta said, aghast.
“Nay, he would no’ do well there.” They still had no idea what the kid could do, if anything. “We have a small one here at the university that will raise the children of Mytheans who are killed.” There were a couple dozen kids in all, but he never really went over to that side of campus.
“Is he doing all right?” Andrasta asked.
“Hasn’t spoken. They think he may be in shock.”
“Well, he’s been in hell for millennia. He also just lost his father.”
Warren grimaced. That had been the downside of Diana’s plan, though he’d agreed that she had to kill that bastard Paulinus. And bringing the boy back had been the right thing to do.
“Do you have any idea what he might be now that he’s out of hell? Mortal? Mythean?” He hadn’t really had time to ask around much, but anybody he’d spoken to hadn’t known. Hell, she was a goddess, so maybe she had an idea.
“No, I’m sorry,” Andrasta said. “My powers are really only limited to the Celtic faith. I don’t know much outside of that.”
Her fingers whitened where she gripped the arm of the chair. Her pallor was more pronounced than it had been just moments ago.
“Hey, are you sure I can’t get you something? You’re not looking very well.” He reached out.
“No, I—” She gasped. “Camulos.” She swayed, then disappeared.
Well, hell. That couldn’t be good.
CHAPTER FORTY ONE
Diana squinted as her eyes adjusted to the gloom of the chamber below the city. It was as dank and dark as ever, with water dripping from the ceiling in disconsolate drops. She shuddered. The chill crept not only over her skin, but inside her as well. The smear of evil left behind by the portal seemed to linger.
There. She spotted Cadan at the far end of the chamber where the portal had been. He sat on a ragged outcropping of stone, his head in his hands. She could swear there was more stone scattered around the chamber. More giant holes in the walls, as if he’d torn at them.
“He’s been like this,” Esha whispered. “We can’t get him to leave. It’s the last place he saw you and he’s convinced that this is where you’ll return.”
“Can you keep your phone on you? If we need to get out of here quick, I’ll call you. Otherwise, we’ll get ourselves out.”
“Soulceress taxi, at your service.” Esha saluted before she disappeared.
Diana might have smiled if the situation hadn’t been so miserable. She walked toward Cadan.
“Cadan? It’s me, Diana. Are you all right?”
His head whipped up and her heart broke at the sight of his gaunt face. He’d clearly neither eaten nor drank anything since she’d seen him last. Being immortal might keep him alive, but it didn’t necessarily keep him healthy. Her heart clutched at the sight of his bloodied hands. He had been clawing at the walls.
“Diana.” His voice was hoarse from disuse.
He stood slowly, as if unable to believe his eyes, and she couldn’t stop herself from running to him. He caught her up in his arms. His hand fisted in her hair as she clung to him.
“Are you real?” His gaze burned into her.
“Yes.”
“You’re no’ a ghost.” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.
“No, I’m me.”
He held her face and looked into her eyes. “Then I’ve died as well?”
“No, Cadan. I’m alive, you’re alive. We’re still in Edinburgh.”
He shook his head, clearly still disbelieving. “Nay.” His voice was hoarse. “Nay, it’s been weeks since I left you in Erebus. You’re just another vision.”
He’d had visions of her?
“I left you. A mortal couldn’t survive in Erebus that long.” Guilt was etched into his face and his arms tightened.
“You didn’t leave me. You had no choice.”
“There’s always a choice.” He bowed his head until his forehead touched hers.
“No, sometimes there isn’t. And I’m fine. Andrasta came to get me. I’m here now.”
He shook his head.
“Cadan, you believe in nothing. If you’d died, we wouldn’t be together here.”
“I believe in you. You are my heaven.” He looked at her fiercely.
That punched the breath right out of her and the words followed. “I love you.” She did. Forever loved him. What had been an inkling before was now a full-fledged storm within her. “I love you.”
~~~
Cadan stared down at the vision in front of him. It was the most realistic yet. And she loved him. It was a dream, as the others had been.
The last days had passed in a blur as he’d searched for her in the tunnels, out of his mind with grief. To have her here, now, after he’d thought her dead for so long was too much to believe.
But even his fevered imagination couldn’t conjure her love for him. And she felt warm under his hands, and real. As solid and alive as she had before they’d gone into Erebus.
“Diana,” he whispered, and searched her eyes for the truth. She was everything that was strong and beautiful and good in the world, and she loved him?
He felt her hands slide up his back and around to his front. She gripped his face gently and drew it down to hers. “I’m real, Cadan, and alive. And so are you. And I love you.” She crushed her mouth to his and he finally believed her. Even he couldn’t come up with a vision this realistic.
“Diana. I love you. More than you’ll ever know.”
She broke away from him and reached for one of his bloodied hands. It had long since healed, but it bore the evidence of his first crazed attempts to reach the portal to Erebus again.
She kissed his hands. She looked up at him, her expression vulnerable. “You love me, right? Not Boudica? I couldn’t bear to fight for a love I can’t get.”
She thought she was unloved? “Diana, you are loved. I love you, more than I ever loved anyone else, more than my own soul.” He pressed one hard kiss to her mouth. “She was special to me, and she brought me to you. But I didn’t know what love was then. You t
aught me that.”
She smiled up at him, the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“You were right,” he said. “What we had then was strong, but neither of us was ready to truly love. She, because of her daughters and her cause, and I, because I hadn’t met you yet.”
The smile she gave him was brilliant. When he looked down at her, he saw a future that he’d never known to hope for. But an errant thought sucked the breath from him. She was mortal. How long could she possibly live? He couldn’t survive losing her again.
“Diana, doona worry, we’ll find a way to make you immortal like me. And if no’, when you die, so will I.”
She looked at him quizzically. “When I die, you will, too?”
“I’ll find a way.” That, he was absolutely certain of. There would be no more penance with the Mythean Guard, and there would be no more life without her. It would be with her, or it wouldn’t be at all.
“You won’t have to.” She reached up to stroke his cheek and he leaned into her hand. “Because of the strength of my soul, Andrasta gave me the option of the same type of immortality that you have. I want to be with you, so I took it.”
Hope blossomed within him, a light that he hadn’t felt in millennia. “Really?”
“Of course. It was no decision at all.”
A grin spread across his face. It had been an impossible situation, yet Diana had managed it. “All right, then—let’s get out of here. We’ve got some living to do.”
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Boudica is the historical figure who most captivated me from a young age. She was brave, strong, and she fought against incredible odds. Her story stuck in my mind for years. It was only natural that she become the heroine of Braving Fate. I wanted to create a world where Boudica could have a happy ending. The only way to do that without messing with history too much was to bring her back through reincarnation and give her the life she deserved. If you’re interested in learning which history I portrayed accurately and where I outright lied to improve the story, please read on…
Boudica was one of Britain’s greatest warriors. Most of what I said about her is true according to archaeology and history (take this with a grain of salt—scholars do their best to learn the truth about the past, but some of it is always shrouded in fog). One place that I fudged a bit was the fate of her daughters. According to the Roman historian Tacitus, when the Romans attacked Boudica’s kingdom following the death of her husband Prasutagus, they whipped Boudica and raped her daughters. This does not happen to her daughters in Braving Fate. Instead, I had the Romans killed them outright. I made this decision because it suited the story better. Also, I invented the names of her daughters, as they were not recorded by history. Aela and Calea, however, are Celtic names.
