The Eternity Key

by Bree Despain

  She holds the bident upright and marches toward the far end of the grove. “Now, where is that pesky gate?” She holds her hand out in front of her as if searching for some kind of energy signature.

  “Terresa, stop!” I shout.

  “Or you’ll do what?”

  I scramble after her, trying to grab her arm. She pushes me away. Hard. I fall back in a sitting position on the ground.

  “You’re nothing but a worthless human again.” She takes another few steps. “Here we go,” she says, standing in front of the archway created by two curved trees that cloak the gate. “Hmm, do you think I just jab it in?”

  I rock forward on my knees. “I mean it, Terresa. Don’t do this.”

  She thrusts the pitchforklike end of the bident into the archway and turns the handle as if twisting a key in a lock. A green light as brilliant as emeralds ripples out from the bident’s prongs. Energy surges as the gate pulses to life. Terresa croons with arrogant joy, stomping her feet on the low, flat rock she’s standing on.

  “Terresa! Turn it off!” I demand, standing now.

  She turns toward me. “Watcha going to do, sing at me?”

  “Exactly.” I let a low hum out of my lips and then direct all my attention to the rock she stands on. “Move,” I command it, using that same low tone.

  “Um, what?” Terresa starts to say, but then the rock flies out from under her feet. She falls sideways and hits one of the trees that forms the archway. The hand that holds the bident ricochets off the green light of the gate. She screams, snatching her hand away as if it were burned, and drops the bident in front of her.

  I scramble for the bident. She makes a move toward me, but I command another rock to fly. This one hits her in the chest, knocking the wind out of her. I grab the bident, pulling it out of her reach, just as a motorcycle bursts into the grove.

  chapter fifty-one

  HADEN

  A shrieking scream echoes from the grove. I pound across the bridge, knowing I’m only seconds away—and possibly seconds too late. My feet hit the gravel path again when an even more terrible noise fills my ears. The roar of a motorcycle. Coming from the other side of the island. Rowan must have ridden his bike around the lake and come over the footbridge on the other side. That way would have been too far on foot, but Rowan wouldn’t even begin to care about the “no motorized vehicles on the footpaths” law.

  He’s going to beat me to Daphne.

  I charge into the grove, just in time to see Rowan, dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet, discard his motorcycle in the trees and charge at Daphne. She’s holding a golden bident, the gate pulsing green behind her. Rocks fly through the air, seemingly flinging themselves at him. Then I realize that Daphne is using her voice to throw the rocks. A large one cracks against Rowan’s helmet. It would have been a good blow if his head weren’t protected. He keeps advancing on her.

  “Stop!” I demand.

  When he doesn’t, I fling a lightning bolt at him. It narrowly misses and hits a tree branch above him. The branch explodes, sending shards of splintered wood raining down on both Rowan and Daphne. I shudder, realizing my mistake, but Daphne holds up her hand, and the shards stop midair right in front of her face, and then fall softly to the ground.

  Rowan, probably shocked by what he’s just witnessed, hesitates for a moment. That’s when I make my move. Not wanting to risk possibly hurting Daphne with another stray bolt, I throw myself at Rowan, knocking him to the ground. I’m on top of him, pinning him to the ground with my knees.

  I slam my fist against the face visor of his helmet. The plastic cracks. My knuckles scream with pain. I slam it again. Another crack. That’s taking too long. I grab the bottom of his helmet and start wrenching it from his head. He screams in pain as I finally rip it loose. Blood oozes from one of his earlobes and from a cut just under his lip, where the cracked plastic must have caught his face. A surge of electricity shudders up my body, swirling in my chest and then exploding into my arm and hand. I’d had Rowan in this position once before. Only hours before leaving on my quest.

  “Get back,” I shout at Daphne.

  She scrambles away, the Key in hand, to the other side of the grove. Well out of range of a blast.

  “What are you going to do?” she asks.

  “If he invokes elios—begs for mercy—I will only incapacitate him so he cannot follow us,” I say. “If not … then I’ll make sure he can’t interfere in another way.”

  Rowan had called my bluff when I’d had him in this position before, but I hope to Hades he doesn’t do it now. Maybe my emotions have softened me, but I don’t like the idea of killing someone in front of Daphne. However, after witnessing him attack her and reflecting on his words about how he’d find a way to trick Daphne into giving him the Key, I fear I will have no other choice if he will not relent on his own mission.

  “You don’t have what it takes, little brother,” Rowan snarls at me.

  I raise my electrified fist, ready to show that I do, when a shout from somewhere else stops me.

  “Help!” Tobin cries. I’d all but forgotten that he’d followed me into the grove. I search for the origin of his voice and find him lying on his side in the grass, only about twenty feet away. Terresa is crouched over him, her knee pinning down his shoulder, and an electrified knife held just in front of his throat. I had barely noticed her slumped against the archway when I tore into the grove. It is my failure not realizing she is still a threat.

  “Give me the Key, Daphne, or your friend here loses his face,” Terresa says.

  Daphne takes a step toward them. “Leave him alone.”

  “Key first. Demands later.”

  Daphne moves closer. I can see her eyeing her surroundings, trying to find a way to attack Terresa without causing Tobin harm.

  I want to tell her not to give the Key to Terresa, but there’s no way I can ask that of her. Not when it’s Tobin.

  “Take it,” Daphne says, holding the Key out in front of her.

  chapter fifty-two

  DAPHNE

  I hold the Key out in front of me, offering it to Terresa. She will have to let go of Tobin if she wants it.

  “Stop,” I hear Garrick say. I’d almost forgotten he was here. “They’re working together. Tobin and Terresa.”

  “What?” Tobin says, his eyes wide, looking up at me. “That’s not true.”

  “She said she was working with someone,” Garrick says, pushing himself up to standing. “She said someone in our group had told her in exchange for something he wanted. Tobin must’ve tipped her off about us coming for the Key tonight in exchange for information about Abbie.”

  “What? No,” Tobin protests.

  “How else did she get here so quickly?” Garrick says. “Unless she was tipped off?”

  “No! I wouldn’t betray you for her!”

  “Oh, Toby,” Terresa says in a saccharine voice. “Don’t hurt my feelings. Didn’t you enjoy our little date at the gelato shop? I thought you liked me, with all those notes you’ve been passing me at school. I especially liked the one where you wrote down the time and place I should be tonight if I wanted the Key. But maybe that’s not the kind of affection we share. Maybe it’s because I remind you too much of our sister?”

  Our sister. I see it now. Terresa and Tobin have Abbie in common.

  “I didn’t tell her to be here!” Tobin cries.

  “Oh, you know you left me a note. I could pull it out of my pocket right now, but you see, I’ve got this big old knife in one hand, and your life in the other.”

  “Let him go!” I shout at her.

  “You going to throw another rock at me? I’m pretty sure I’m faster.” She pulls the knife closer to Tobin’s throat. He screams, and I can smell his burning flesh as her lightning sizzles against his neck.

  At that moment, I don’t care if Tobin is lying or not.

  “Just take it, damn it!” I say, holding out the Key.

  Terresa pulls the knife away f
rom Tobin and reaches for the bident. Then she jerks suddenly, as if something hit her in the back. Her mouth forms the shape of pain, and then she topples forward over Tobin. What looks like a golden arrow protrudes from her back, just between her shoulder blades.

  I look up to see where this arrow could have possibly come from, only to see the very last person in all of the world I expected to walk through the trees—a very large man with a very large bow, wearing a look that I can only describe as absolutely fierce, which contorts his normally jovial face.

  I almost drop the Key in my utter shock.

  “Jonathan?” I gasp.

  “Actually, honey, I prefer the name Eros,” he says.

  Eros. Cupid.

  Uncle Jonathan—who isn’t really my uncle—is freaking Cupid?

  This revelation should rock my world, but at the same time, it kind of actually makes a lot of sense.

  Jonathan reaches over his shoulder and pulls another arrow from his quiver. This one is jet-black instead of gold like the one that juts out of Terresa’s back.

  “Holy crap, did you just kill Terresa?”

  “Not with that arrow.” He looks down at Tobin as he tries to push Terresa off him. “Be careful, son. She’s going to fall madly in love with whomever she sees first when she wakes up.”

  Tobin stops shoving Terresa and raises his hands as if he’s afraid to touch her again.

  “Now tell me,” Jonathan says, nocking the black arrow into his bow and then aiming it in the direction of Haden and Rowan. “Which one of these bastards is trying to steal my favorite niece into the Underrealm?”

  “Whoa,” I say, raising my hands. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “I know this Lord family, Daphne. I know what they do to girls like you.” Jonathan looks at me, that fierce expression still on his face. He catches sight of the bident in my raised hand. Recognition fills his eyes. “Where did you get that?”

  “Like I said, what’s happening here isn’t what it looks like.”

  He lowers his bow slightly. “Then you’d better start explaining, Daph.”

  But before I get the chance, I catch a swift movement out of the corner of my eye. I turn just as Rowan smashes a tree branch against the side of Haden’s head.

  chapter fifty-three

  HADEN

  Terresa’s threatening Tobin had pulled my attention away from blasting Rowan, although I’d managed to keep him pinned down. But Daphne’s uncle’s revealing himself as the god of love and pointing a black arrow in my direction is downright distracting.

  When I get hit, I know it’s my own damn fault for loosening my grip on Rowan just long enough for him to grab a fallen tree branch and swing it at my face.

  I turn my head a split second before impact, so it’s not a knockout blow, but it’s still enough to throw me off him, disoriented.

  Rowan lunges at me as I try to shake off the blow, and before I can stop him, he clasps his hands against the sides of my face, pressing his fingers into my throat and my temples.

  No, no, no, I think, but it’s too late. I try to push him away, but I feel my body going limp. No, I think once more as darkness fills my brain. The last thing I see before my eyes slide shut is Daphne screaming my name.

  chapter fifty-four

  DAPHNE

  I watch as Haden’s body goes limp, and I know what Rowan has done. He’s put him in a black sleep. A trick the Underlords use for rendering their opponents unconscious. I’d seen Haden do it once to Garrick. The boy had been unconscious for hours.

  Rowan hauls Haden’s body up with him as he stands in front of the pulsing green light of the open gate. He wraps his arm around Haden’s throat in a stranglehold, even though I know Haden can’t fight back at the moment.

  “What do you want?” I ask him, using every ounce of my strength to stay calm instead of screaming.

  Jonathan raises his bow, aiming the black arrow at Rowan’s bloodied face. “Answer that question wisely, boy. I never miss my mark.”

  “Your love arrows don’t scare me, you overgrown man baby,” he sneers at Jonathan.

  “Oh, this isn’t a love arrow,” Jonathan says, with a threatening yet cautionary tone. “This arrow will make you lose your capacity to love or feel love ever again. It will suck your happiness from your soul like a hydra would suck the marrow from your bones. You won’t be able to experience pleasure to the point that you will seek out pain, just to be able to feel something. In a week, you’ll go mad; in two, you’ll be begging me to kill you; in a month, you’ll do it yourself.”

  Rowan stammers. I blink at Jonathan. Ethan was right—Cupid isn’t a baby.

  He’s a badass.

  “Like I said, I never miss my mark, and since my niece seems to have some misguided affection for your captive, I suggest letting him go and running home, you—what is it they say in the Underrealm? Oh yes. I suggest you go running home—you overgrown nursling.”

  “I am a Champion of the Underrealm,” Rowan says.

  “And I’m a god,” Jonathan says. “Your point being?”

  “I was sent here with the sole purpose of making sure the Cypher returned to the Underrealm. My father wants the Key of Hades, but,” Rowan says, turning his attention on me, “he also wants you delivered to him. Unlike my brother, I refuse to fail in my quest. However, I know you’re not going to hand the Key over to me, and I know I can’t physically force you through this gate without causing our own deaths. But that rule only applies to non-Underlords, which means I can drag Haden through. And you know how happy my father is going to be to see him. I’m sure he’s got his execution party already planned.”

  “Don’t you dare—” I start to say.

  “Bring the Key to the Underrealm palace before the equinox is over, and you might be able to save him.” Rowan hurls a bolt of lightning in our direction, almost as if having a tantrum, and takes a step backward, pulling Haden with him into the light. The archway pulses, sending a nearly blinding green flash.

  I hear Jonathan’s black arrow fly before I see it. It sails toward the green light just as Rowan twists and ducks, using Haden as his human shield. With another pulse of light, they vanish completely, arrow and all.

  “No!” I scream, running toward the gate.

  But someone stops me. Hands grab at me, pulling me back. It’s not just Jonathan but Tobin, too. “You can’t just run through the gate under duress, Daphne. It could kill you.”

  I’m so frantic that I’m not sure which one of them even said it. But I know he’s right. I think of Terresa’s burned hand from touching the gate when she wasn’t ready. “Tell me you missed your mark,” I beg Jonathan. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know, honey,” he says, holding me to his chest. “They crossed through before it struck. It depends on if the arrow went with them.”

  Tobin releases me and searches the ground in front of the gate, but he confirms only what I already fear. “No arrow.”

  I breathe deep, trying to keep from losing it. Just because the arrow went through, it doesn’t mean that it struck Haden. But deep down, I fear that isn’t true. I feel something building inside of me, an emotion I can’t quite explain, but I feel as though I am about to be torn in half. A sob escapes my lips.

  Had I finally realized my love for Haden only to have his ripped away from me? If I found him and told him how I feel, would my words fall on deaf ears?

  “Tell me there’s an antidote,” I beg Jonathan. “Please tell me.”

  “Not exactly …,” he starts to say, but a rolling clap of thunder cuts him off as swirling clouds blot out the stars above us. Another near-deafening clap follows.

  “Skylords,” I say. “Terresa said there was a whole legion of Skylords waiting for her call.”

  “I’m beginning to really hate Skylords,” Tobin mutters. I glance at him, but there’s no time to ask him the truth about him and Terresa.

  A bolt of lightning streaks from above. It crashes in the middle of the grove. I close
my eyes against the light, and when I open them, a man is standing in front of us. Jonathan lets go of me. He draws another black arrow in his bow and aims it at Ethan’s heart.

  Electricity pulses in the air as Ethan raises his hands. “I am friend, not foe.”

  “Do you know this man?” Jonathan asks, his bow pulled taut.

  “He’s one of my teachers, but I wouldn’t call him a friend, necessarily. He’s a Skylord Prince.”

  “Prince?” Jonathan asks.

  “You don’t want to shoot me with that,” Ethan says, taking a step toward us.

  Jonathan adjusts his aim to compensate for Ethan’s movement. “And why is that?”

  “Firstly, because there’s an army of Skylords headed this way, and I am one of the few people in this world who might be able to get them to stand down. Secondly, because you’re injured, and I can see your arm trembling.”

  I look at Jonathan and see for the first time that his shoulder looks as though it has been badly burned. His arm shakes, and I can tell now he’s having a hard time keeping his bow aloft. That bolt of lightning Rowan had thrown just before he stepped into the gate—it must have hit Jonathan. Is that why he let the arrow fly?

  “And, thirdly, Eros,” Ethan says, stepping even closer, “because I am your son.”

  “Whoa, what?” I ask.

  “I told you my father was from the Metarealm,” Ethan says. “My mother, a Sky Princess, fell for Eros, the embodiment of love itself—only to be punished greatly for it—and her lover driven into hiding by the wrath of the Sky King. I’ve spent the last five years searching for him in the mortal world, because I knew he was living as a human after having his godhood stripped.”

  Jonathan’s bow lowers, as if he can’t hold it up much longer.

  “Are you okay?” I ask him, but what I mean is does Ethan speak the truth?

  He winces with pain. “I was bluffing earlier when I told Rowan that I’m a god. I may still have a few of my arrows, but my wings have been clipped, so to speak.” He drops his bow and falls to his knees, gripping his shoulder just under the seared wound. He looks up at the Skylord. “You’re Psyche’s son? You’re our child?”