Shadows Before the Sun

knew it was wrong, he didn’t correct her assumption. “Yes. They swore it, and once sworn are bound by their words.”

He could feel her mind working, calculating, already wondering if she could figure out how to translate the text in order to free him. He hated himself. If she knew the truth, that his freedom meant his much desired death, she would not be so eager to help him.

“I’ll figure it out,” she was saying. “I’ll tap into my power. I’ll try again. Maybe it just takes practice and then maybe I can read what it says.”

He moved his hand from her throat and with his other hand, he cradled her face. “Stop, Charlie. Just . . . stop.”

Her big eyes turned up at him, glassy, confused, and hurt. Her hands curled around his forearms. “Tell me what to do.” A tear slipped from her eye. “Tell me how to help you.”

“Set me free.”

14

Set me free.

Those words had no sooner been uttered than the door opened and a guard removed me from the room. Hank hadn’t even looked at me; he simply stepped away, turned his back, and that was it.

The short minutes we had were intense, confusing, and hurtful. I wanted to help him, to read that damned tablet and secure his freedom. The Circe had used him to convince me to do just that, had obviously screwed with his mind, but why did it feel so . . . final? I couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was wrong, and quite frankly, it felt like I’d been hit by a rogue wave and was still sputtering up salt water on the shore.

“You can tell the Circe I’m ready to cooperate,” I told the guard before entering my cell.

I was left alone for all of ten minutes before being retrieved again and taken to the massive cave opening to the sea. Hank was there, which surprised me. He stood rigid, a stone sentinel staring out at the water with flat, cold eyes. The neck manacle was back, chaining him to the wall behind him. They’re that afraid of him, I thought.

I approached the altar and picked up the stone tablet. It looked so innocuous and yet the small piece of clay was the key to my sister’s freedom and Hank’s freedom. To hell with Leander and his doom-and-gloom diagnosis about the NecroNaMoria. Hank would recover. And the first step to recovery was freedom from the Circe.

If I could translate it.

Of course, passing along the knowledge written on the tablet to the Circe was one hell of a gamble, but I’d come this far. Sandra was gone, kind of, and I wasn’t going to fail or abandon my partner; he’d had enough of that in his life already. I’d come here to find him and return him home. That goal hadn’t changed.

And, besides, if the words did end up making sense to me, who said I had to tell them the truth? This was simply an exercise in buying time.

I mustered my determination and turned my attention to the tablet. The symbols and slashes did, in fact, resemble the markings on my arm. But just looking at them didn’t tell me a damned thing. “If I’m able to translate this,” I said, eyeing all three and pulling up my shield against their voices, “you’ll free him.”

“Of course,” Arethusa said.

“We have already sworn this to him.”

“Our word, once given, cannot be broken.”

“And if I can’t translate it, then what?” I asked.

Electricity snapped in the air. Metal and magic sparked against stone. I turned slowly to see a male siren striding across the floor, dragging a whip behind him. A metal, spiked barb was tied to the end of the whip and it glowed with some kind of arcane energy.

My gut tightened. I flicked a glance to Hank, it all making sense now why he’d been brought here. “That whip touches his back and I won’t translate a word.”

“You will translate it.”

“The tablet’s meaning has eluded us from the beginning.”

“We’d all but forgotten about it until you came along.”

“And now we know”—Ephyra glanced at my right arm—“there is power in the symbols.”

“The deity has brought you to us.”

“A gift of power, surely.”

I frowned. “Like you don’t have enough already?” Three pairs of eyes stared back at me blankly, as though the idea of it was incomprehensible. “Right,” I muttered, returning my focus to the tablet, holding it in both hands, and closing my eyes.

With Sachâth threatening any power move, and life being in virtual overdrive the last few months, I hadn’t really practiced calling up my power at will. Sure, it rose like gangbusters with my emotions, but standing here like this, with the whip sparking, the Circe’s eyes on me, and a translation to make instead of a fight . . . my power didn’t rise quickly, let’s just put it that way.

But with enough concentration . . . there. There it was . . . pooling slowly in my center. A quiet kind of event. I heard the Circe whispering in that strange singsong way of theirs, which was a little distracting.

Finally, I felt the familiar tingle, the hot and cold, the hum that bled into every part of my body. I looked at the tablet, seeing the symbols through a filter of energy. The language flowed into my mind, and I could speak the writing as naturally as breathing . . . but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make the connection between this ancient language and my own.

Damn it all to hell. I kept trying, but it was a lost cause.

I finally gave up, releasing the mental hold I had, and felt the energy drain away into a dormant state. Weariness replaced the void. “I’m sorry,” I said, breathing heavily. “I can say the words—I just don’t know that they mean.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat, hesitant to look at Hank, and my fear spiking. I’d failed to do the one thing needed to set him free. When I did glance at him, he stood stock-still. I’m sorry.

My fingers curled into tight fists against the altar. “It’s not his fault.” I tried to reason with them. I’d seen what that whip could do. “Please don’t hurt him.” If that barb struck his skin, all bets were off. I knew I’d lose it.

“You will try again,” Ephyra demanded. She nodded to the whip master. He grabbed Hank and turned him around to face the wall.

I cursed Sachâth, cursed Fate for having given me great power and then tying my hands behind my back. What was the point? Frustrated, I grabbed the tablet with both hands and tried again . . .

And failed again. I glanced up at the Circe, intent on making them understand. “It’s not—”

The whip cracked.

I flinched. The sound reverberated through the chamber. The barb sliced through Hank’s shirt at the shoulder, leaving a long tear. At first there was nothing, a delayed reaction. And then the blood came.

Hank remained silent, but his body was taut, the muscles on his arms tight, the cords on his neck standing out. The whip sliced through the air with the backlash, creating a distinct sound, and the barb skittered across the stone, snapping and sparking as it came to rest.

Panic and fear ballooned, reawakening all the power I’d just drawn. My pulse began a frantic dance. I felt trapped, with no way out, no way to help Hank, no way to stop the whip or the Circe.

A hand on my arm pulled my attention back to the Circe. Arethusa had me and was leaning over, peering at the symbols on my arm, which had begun to glow brightly. I jerked against her. “Get off me.”

Rage clouded my thinking. I wanted to kill her, right then and there. I was pretty sure I would, but Sachâth lurked in the back of my mind. While I might be able to kill one, the other two would have me at their mercy if Death came and knocked me out.