“Almost,” I laughed. “That’s how Mom’s house appeared to me on the Fortunate Isle. One minute there was a field of wildflowers, the next - lightning struck the field and a house magically appeared. Now that was intense.”
“You presence must have woken the house up.” She grinned at me wickedly and I got the feeling I wasn’t going to like what she said next. “The same will happen with you. The goddess inside you must be...woken up. Lightning tends to be the way it happens.”
My jaw hit the floor and I had trouble picking it back up in order to speak. “Lightning?
Couldn’t they just use an alarm clock?”
“I’m afraid ‘they’ are not able to choose. Just as weather creates lightning when two forces within the atmosphere collide, your essence will create it when your own internal forces collide.”
“And who’s to say I won’t be burnt to a crisp?” I stared wide eyed at her as her face crumpled into laughter.
“I can promise you that will not happen. You may not feel a thing.”
“May not feel a thing?!” I gasped. “So there’s a chance I will feel the twenty thousand volts of electricity as it fries my insides?”
“It’s only a slight chance,” she mused, as if I was being ridiculous. She didn’t hold back her laughter as I chunked a pillow at her.
“I’m glad that you find it so hilarious that I’m going to be an extra-crispy-fried-Stasia in a month. Don’t forget to bring the honey mustard sauce to dip me in!” I fell backward in a cloud of disbelief and stuffed a pillow over my face.
“I like barbeque sauce myself.” I heard her laugh again, and felt her attempt to pull the pillow off. I held on as tight as I could. Death by smothering sounded much better than death by electric shock at this point. Her voice trailed away as she left the room, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the lightning strike…”
“Go ahead…laugh it up…” came my muffled threat through the pillow. When I heard the light switch and the click of the lock on the front door, I knew that Zara had left the guest house to return to her home up the path. I lay there like that for some time before the whirling sound of the ceiling fan faded and I drifted off to sleep.
I vaulted off of my bed when an explosion erupted beside me and my hearing blinked in and out. That’s when I noticed I wasn’t on the bed anymore. By some small miracle, I hadn’t catapulted myself right off of the cliff that I now found myself poised at the edge of. A couple chunks of limestone flaked off; falling fifty to sixty feet to their death into the angry water below. Vertigo spun my world around, and I closed my eyes tight in an effort to right my equilibrium before I fell to my own death.
“Afraid of heights, are we?”
Every time I heard that blood curdling voice, it seemed like an emery board was being dragged across my eardrum. If I had my way she’d never speak again. Unfortunately, at the moment my way wasn’t an option. I spun around to face my mortal enemy, whom I already knew was standing behind me. With her golden hair piled on top of her head and her off-the-shoulder bronze sweater bringing out the golden specks in her skin, she looked radiant in the setting sun. By the looks of the cliff we now stood on, I deduced that we were back in Cyprus.
“What do you want, Nadia?” I met her gaze with impatience. It was a rhetorical question, but somehow I knew I would get an actual answer. I was right.
“To kill you,” she smirked at me.
“How’s that working out for you?” I asked with heavy sarcasm.
“All in due time, love,” she chuckled. “All in due time. Right now, we need to talk. You need to know something.”
I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows. “Enlighten me.”
“I really don’t want any hard feelings. Killing you is nothing personal. Strictly business.”
“Comforting.”
“Keto wants you dead because she wants your position, and therefore your power - not to mention, leverage over the Nereids. But I digress.” She began to pace. “Selene wants you dead because your father betrayed her. You are the product of that betrayal…and a mutt. I want you -”
“What does my father have to do with any of this?”
“Stop interrupting!” she snapped at me. “As I was saying…I want you dead because Keto owes me. So you see; it’s simple math, really. Either way…you die.”
“I really don’t care about the corrupted deals you’ve conspired. And I hate to bust your bubble, but I’ll be around for a very, very long time.”
“Which brings me to my next point.” She stepped towards me, and I waited for the red devil horns to pop up on her head. “I deserve to be Queen of the Underworld, not my mother. If you help me get rid of her…I’ll make sure you don’t die.”
“As tempting as that offer sounds,” I pinched my nose in annoyance. “Not only no, but hell no.”
“Whatever,” she shrugged.”It’s your funeral.” She twitched away, but stopped mid-step and twisted around with a sneer. “And just to warn you…your helpful, accommodating new Maven Zara is anything but. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her. But that’s just me.”
“Have you been spying on me?”
“What kind of Underworld princess would I be, if I didn’t have a pair of eyes watching you?”
She cackled at me and slid within inches of my face. I stood my ground.
“We’ll be coming for you. Soon.” She looked thoughtful for a moment before her golden eyes hardened again. “It’s a pity you’re paying for the decisions of your parents. But, as you’ll learn, dear Anastasia: Karma’s a bitch.”
With a wink, black smoke shot out from her hands, pushing me right off the cliff before I knew what was happening. As the ocean below raced up towards me, I hastily concentrated on getting my soul back to my body. As I continued to fall and the rocks below became larger and larger, I began to panic. I did the first thing I could think of…I shot my energy out to the sea and summoned it back to me with as much force as possible. I closed my eyes and braced for the excruciating impact of hitting very large and very solid boulders.
Instead of breaking every bone in my body, I landed with an immense splash several yards above the rocks. I had done it! As the water rushed back out, it swept me with it. I held on for the ride and easily lost myself in the arms of the sea. Nadia’s warnings wrapped around my mind and refused to release it until I regarded them with rigor. Could I trust Zara? And if she wasn’t who I thought she was…then who was she? The fact that they would be coming for me was no surprise. That did little to calm my nerves, however. The last thing I wanted to be was a sitting duck. Luckily, I felt somewhat safe in the cottage. I would just have to hole up there until the rest of eternity. I could live with that.
And why had she mentioned my father? He had betrayed Selene? I had no idea what was true and what wasn’t, but I was sure of one thing...I didn’t trust Nadia. She was only messing with my mind, and I couldn’t afford to let her get into my head. That would be the fastest way to get myself killed. As my thoughts continued to go in circles, I sank deeper and deeper. The ocean got darker and the fish got larger, but I simply closed my eyes and gave my body over to the currents. I was tired of thinking. I was tired of fighting. I was tired of looking over my shoulder. For a little while, all I wanted to do was sink.
What must have been hours later, I felt a warm darkness in the distance. Not just any warm darkness. Finn’s darkness. Knowing that he wasn’t swimming in the endless abyss I was floating in, I relaxed and concentrated on my bedroom.
Once back in my bed, I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t. As I fought to catch my breath, I realized something was very, very wrong.
