blood. My feet were bare, the soles leaving bloody prints as I edged around the vast room.
Power pulsated strong and loud, mingling with the eerie echo of chanting. Ephyra stood in front of the strange glassy statue, which I realized was a cage imprisoning the deity and her power. The bridges were gone. The last Circe was completely out of reach, and was glowing with gold radiance.
Hank faced off with his tormentor, the siren with the whip, as Ephyra watched. They circled each other as I continued to edge my way around the room. The smaller room off the main chamber came into view and beyond it the pedestal with Sandra’s head. I froze. Her eyes were open and glowing green. Her voice was the source of the eerie chanting, her mouth moving fast and possessed, spouting off strange lines and rhymes, increasing in magnitude. The power was so thick in the air that I wondered if it had set the oracle off.
The sound of the whip made me flinch. The siren arced it over his head and aimed for Hank. No longer shackled to a wall, Hank could move. And he was fast, just rolling out of the barb’s touch. A crack filled the room and then the whip sailed again, this time Hank didn’t dodge, but spun, and snatched the barb. It sliced his hand, but he held on, using his other hand to grab the leather and yank the whip from the siren.
The siren advanced, but Hank was ready. They met in a brief but brutal hand-to-hand, Hank never letting go of the whip and finally wrapping it around the siren’s waist. With a hand on each end, Hank pulled, using all of his brute force. The whip tightened around the siren until it cut into him, severing him to the spine. Hank shoved him off the chasm ledge as his body broke in two pieces.
And Ephyra watched the entire thing. She never lifted a finger to help the siren, and she didn’t seem surprised or upset that her last defender was dead.
Hank stood in front of her, chest heaving, gripping the handle of the whip. Ephyra looked strong and so sure of herself. She didn’t need any guards, I realized. Whatever power was contained in that statue, she had tapped into it. That’s why she glowed; that’s why she looked smug. She was also holding the stone tablet in her hand.
I squeezed the jewels tightly in my fist, considering my options.
A chill crept up my spine. Her head turned toward me. I straightened. “Ah, so you survived,” she said in a voice magnified and so powerful that my eardrums rang. Before I could cover them with my hands I was picked up and tossed with a word. I experienced two seconds of weightlessness before slamming into the far wall. My skull, which was already bruised and battered, hit hard and something cracked in my back.
I slid to the floor, the movement agonizing to my back, neck, and head. My lung wasn’t working right. I was numb on the left side and knew I must’ve broken a rib, one that had punctured my lung. There was so much pain that I was too afraid to move. One tiny shift would intensify the hurt, and might make me pass out.
But I had to move, had to—
My vision swam. Heat radiated in me as my body tried to heal itself, but there just wasn’t enough time. Using my forearms, I began dragging my broken body ever so slowly—ever so excruciatingly—over the floor. Keeping my head up was like trying to lift a bowling ball. Blood filled my mouth. I spit it onto the floor.
“Hurt much?” I heard Ephyra say, before I was jerked by an unseen force and swept along the floor. I screamed, holding tightly to the Source Words.
I didn’t stop sliding until I came to the ledge, one hand dangling over and feeling the cool air rushing up from the depths below.
“You do the honors, Niérian. Whip her.”
Had I been able to laugh I would have. Sick bitch. Hank stood over me with that evil whip in his hand. Sweat and blood covered him. His eyes were flat and his jaw was tight and grim. He shook all over and I realized that he was trying to disobey her.
“Do it,” she commanded, using all of the power at her disposal. His aura was still blank, but now I could see faint grayish words and symbols around him.
His hand lifted and a frown began to crease his forehead. His breathing became even more pronounced, as though he fought his greatest battle right then and there.
“Remember our deal, Niérian,” she said, her voice trembling with power. “The NecroNaMoria still binds your soul. Only I can release it. You have two choices. Honor your word and I’ll lift the spell. Or try to kill me to end it. I know you’d rather kill me, but really . . . look at me. I have more power than you can ever imagine. My sisters’ power is now my own.” She glanced up at the energy flowing upward. “And the deity’s and the Malakim’s . . . You can’t kill me. And when you fail, you will face the next thousand years wishing for a death I will not grant you. Your soul will never find freedom, never find that peace you’re so desperate for.” She glanced at me and smiled. “You follow this one order, and I will lift the NecroNaMoria.”
Hank glanced to the chasm. Ephyra laughed. “Killing yourself won’t release you. The spell does have certain safeguards. No, Niérian. You are mine. Mine until I release you. Whip her until she dies.”
He looked wild, feral, and I knew he couldn’t fight her. “And let’s not forget,” Ephyra added, “that she lies. She thinks you nothing more than a simpleton. She never really cared for you. Never loved you.”
“That’s not true.” Blood spilled out with my words. “Hank, you know she’s lying.”
Ephyra laughed again. “Peace, Niérian. I offer you a swift death and a soul free to enter the Afterlife.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Oh, didn’t he tell you? He gets the death he longs for in return for following my orders.”
That couldn’t be right. Hank would never wish for death. He was a fighter to the end. And he sure as hell would never wish it if it meant harming someone else. Like me. “That true?” I asked him. “You’d rather die than fight?”
“If he continues to fight and loses, his soul is forever tied to his body, his bones . . . It is a hell, a torture you cannot possibly fathom, human,” Ephyra answered for him. “He can’t risk that. He knows he can’t defeat me. So, what will it be, Niérian? Rest and peace, or everlasting torment?”
Our eyes met, mine and Hank’s. There was no emotion there. They’d hurt him so badly that all he wanted was to die. I swallowed, wondering if he’d do it, if he’d kill me—part of me not blaming him if he tried.
The only way to free him and leave him alive was to take out Ephyra before she killed him. And from where I was lying, she sure as hell had the upper hand. I coughed up blood and a spasm of pain ripped through my side. Cold sweat broke out.
Unable to keep my head turned anymore, I let it fall back on my arm. I felt Hank over me, heard the spark of the whip as he withdrew it off the floor in a slow arc, heard the sigh as it went airborne.
My fists tightened around the jewels. Under Ephyra’s spell, giving it to him now could be a monumental mistake. I didn’t know what to do. But I did know if he did this, if he killed me, it would destroy whatever thread of sanity he had left.
And then the barb struck.
A shocked gasp robbed me of breath and filled me with a sting, a burn so harsh it felt like someone held me down and poured boiling water over my skin. Then I was crying out loud. How had he endured this?
The barb had torn my gown to my waist, baring my back. Then Hank’s knee touched my side as he knelt beside me.
“What is this?” His question came out very low, guttural, angry as his fingertips brushed my mark. He was silent for a moment. “Truth mark,” he whispered to himself, remembering.
All he had to do was ask, ask if the lies the Circe had told him were true. The mark prevented me from lying in response to a direct question. “Ask me,” I forced out.
“Finish her,” Ephyra commanded.
Before he could rise, I braced myself for the pain and rolled onto my back, just praying I would have enough time before I passed out.
I grabbed his left hand, as his right still held the whip, and pressed the pearls into his bloody palm. I wanted him to ask me to tell the truth. If he did, he’d know everything Ephyra said about me was a lie. But he didn’t ask me, he just stared at me coldly and then opened his hand to look at what lay there. “They’re Source Words,” I bit out, holding on to consciousness. “Yours. Your family’s . . .”
He didn’t respond. His hand closed over the pearls. There wasn’t a flicker of anything, and I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to reach up and touch him. His hair, dark and wet with sweat hanging over his brow, his blood-streaked warrior’s face, the small lines around his eyes that used to deepen when he grinned, the strength in every breath he took . . .
