The next thing I saw was the underside of the stone bench, followed by a close-up view of Phanes’s sandals. Above, I heard Phanes shouting, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Why did he suddenly sound so far away? Why couldn’t I move? And the pain, gods, what was this pain—?
“Don’t touch her!”
Ian’s voice, cracking like a whip. Then his face, right up next to mine, brows drawn so tightly together, they resembled a dark slash above his glittering green eyes.
“Don’t move,” he said, gripping me to his chest with one arm. Then another splash of acid tore into my back.
I screamed, twisting in mindless, instinctive need to escape. He held me with brutal strength as that agony dug deeper. Soon, I couldn’t hear anything above my screams. My darkness spilled out in liquid form, coating both of us while I writhed in a frenzy of pain. Still, Ian didn’t let me go.
Why was he doing this? Couldn’t he see that he was killing me? Why wouldn’t he stop, stop, stop—
Ice kissed my back and the pain vanished. I sagged, all my strength fleeing along with the pain. Ian pulled back enough for me to see his face. Liquid darkness still clung to him as if he’d fallen into a pit of crude oil, making his smile a white slash against it.
“It’s all right. I got it out.”
“What . . . out?” I croaked, trying to pull that darkness back inside me. It should have returned instantly, but instead, it moved at a crawl, as if reluctant to leave Ian.
Ian’s mouth crushed mine. I only had a second to savor his kiss before that wonderful, bruising pressure was gone. Then his arms were gone, too, as was the rest of him. But when he stood up so abruptly that I had to grip the bench to keep from slumping over, not a drop of my darkness remained on him. I looked down. It was gone from me, too, leaving me in my lovely, diaphanous dress that now dripped with my own blood.
“Who is that bitch?” Ian asked in a deadly tone.
“Helena is my servant.”
Hearing Phanes’s voice jerked my attention up to him. He was standing on the bench in front of me and Ian, his wings arced on either side like golden curtains, his body and their span keeping everything else from my view.
Or, I realized as my sluggish brain caught up, not keeping me from seeing the rest of the stadium. Keeping all the people in the stadium from seeing me and Ian.
“Helena?” I murmured. “What did she have to do with anything?”
Ian gave me a look I would have called amused, except his jaw was clenched and his eyes were flashing with rage.
“She’s the bitch who just tried to murder you by stabbing you in the heart with silver.”
What?
Before I could say it out loud, something large and dark flashed in my peripheral vision. Then the ground shook and earth puffed up around a hole in the arena.
Phanes’s mouth closed with a click while Ian gave the new crater a single, unconcerned glance.
“Naxos just landed.”
Chapter 12
I pushed myself onto the stone bench, ignoring the hands that both Ian and Phanes extended to help me.
Maybe I shouldn’t have. For a second, my vision swam. Dammit, I felt so weak! The reason why was at my feet, its blood-coated blade looking too small and innocuous to have caused such damage. But small blade or no, the only reason I was still alive was that Helena hadn’t gotten the chance to twist the knife. A heart pierced with silver would weaken me for a few hours. A heart destroyed by silver would’ve killed me.
No need to guess why Helena hadn’t made that final, lethal twist. An arrow through her right eye pinned her to the back wall of Phanes’s private alcove.
“Nice shot,” I murmured, still feeling dazed.
Ian’s flash of teeth was too fierce to be a smile. “I know. What I don’t know is why she tried to kill you. Any ideas?”
I let out a puff of laughter. “Guess she really didn’t like me clapping my hands at her.”
“. . . ’s not why,” Helena hissed, her single eye opening. Good gods, she was still alive? “Can’t let you—”
Phanes’s wing shot out sideways. Helena’s body dropped from the neck down, arms flailing for a second before her headless body collapsed over the same bench that I sat on. Her head stayed pinned to the wall, mouth opening and closing as if she were still trying to speak.
I saw the flash of metal before Phanes’s wing folded back up and his outer feathers concealed it. Razors? I wasn’t sure, but he had something very sharp lining his wings, turning the gold-colored feathers into multiple deadly weapons.
Clever, my other half noted coolly.
“Why the bloody hell did you do that?” Ian snapped.
“Because she tried to slaughter my intended,” Phanes thundered back. “Had you not saved her, you would be next, for your impertinence in questioning how I punish traitors.”
His wrath frightened the people nearest our alcove. They quit staring back and forth between us and the hole that marked Naxos’s reentry into the arena and started to leave.
“I believe I earned safe passage in your lands,” Ian replied with an edge to his tone.
Phanes’s chest swelled as he took a step forward. “Technically, you did not complete the trials—”
Before I knew it, Ian had ripped the arrow out of Helena’s eye and hurled it at the dangling pomegranate. The fruit exploded, and the arrow kept going until it drove into the stadium’s uppermost stone rim so deeply, only the end feathers remained visible.
Phanes looked like he’d swallowed something foul.
I stared at the arrow before looking back at Ian. He’d hardly glanced at the target before hurling that arrow with sniperlike accuracy. He’d also barely had time to aim before drilling Helena’s eye at fifty meters. Had Ian been holding back his true abilities the entire time I’d known him? Or was something else going on?
“There.” Ian’s tone was light, but his gaze told a different story. A neon sign flashing “Danger!” would’ve been less threatening. “Trials complete.”
Applause swelled across the stadium. It grew until all the onlookers were whooping, clapping, and chanting a new name.
Ian . . . Ian . . . Ian!
Ian’s gaze slanted to the crowd before returning to Phanes. His brow arched as if to say, Hear that?
Phanes’s mouth curled into a sardonic smile. Then, he spread his arms and wings in a gesture that was both magnanimous and commanding as he turned and faced the crowd.
“The challenger has triumphed!”
Ian took the crescendo of applause as his due. He even descended a few steps and stripped the last of his shredded garb from his torso. He tossed it to the spectators at his right, who snatched up the torn remnants as if they were jewels.
I didn’t realize I was smiling until I caught Phanes’s contemplative look. “I can see why you’re taken with him,” he murmured. “He is . . . surprising.”
He didn’t know the half of it. Then again, maybe I didn’t, either. Ian had surprised both of us tonight.
“I have to talk to him. Alone,” I stressed.
Phanes gave me a hard look. “Unless you’re breaking our agreement, allow me to arrange the proper cover for it first.”
Stalling me again? I didn’t think so. “Fine, as long as you arrange for that cover now.”
Ian came back up the private staircase. “She sounds testy. Best to acquiesce. Happy wife, happy life, right, mate?”
Dear gods, I needed to speak to Ian now!
“Impertinent mortal,” Phanes muttered, but louder, he said, “You are welcome in my lands by right of combat, Sir Ian! More importantly, you are welcome in my home for saving my intended. As for the rest of you”—Phanes shouted so everyone could hear—“if there’s a drop of wine or morsel of food left in my home at dawn, I shall consider you poor revelers indeed!”
Once again, the stadium shook with cheers. Phanes gave me a challenging look, and then held out his arm to me.
I glanced at Ian, my g
aze urging him to understand all the things I couldn’t say yet. If I scorned Phanes now, I abandoned the chance to save my father plus undo this unwanted engagement. Then, everything that had happened to Ian these past three weeks, let alone his death-defying fight with Naxos, would have been for nothing.
One more act. Just one.
I took Phanes’s arm, and at once held out my free one to Ian. “My rescuer deserves a formal escort, too,” I said loudly.
Phanes looked annoyed, but Ian’s gaze gleamed.
“Inviting me to a threesome? How gracious of you.”
Ian’s tone might fool Phanes, but it sent a shiver through me. He always sounded cheerful right before he engaged in a deadly fight. But where was his ire directed? At me, or Phanes?
We couldn’t get alone to talk soon enough.
“You forgot this,” Ian said, bending. Then, he held out the ancient, curved horn to me.
I glared at him. We both knew that if I tried to take Cain’s horn, the same powerful magic that had “chosen” Ian as its new owner would blow the back of my head off. Guess it was me he was pissed off at after all.
“No thank you,” I said curtly. “Besides, that’s yours.”
A challenging grin curled Ian’s mouth. “And now I’m giving it to you, so take it.”
What was he doing? If I took that and my head blew apart, Phanes would kill Ian! Or try to. Maybe he couldn’t, after what I’d seen. Either way, Ian needed to stop with the games and come with me, so I could explain everything.
“Ian,” I tried again.
“Enough,” Phanes snapped, and grabbed the horn.
My breath sucked in—and exploded out with disbelief when nothing happened. Phanes tucked the horn under his arm, and the ancient, deadly weapon did absolutely nothing.
What? How? How?
Ian grinned at my sagging jaw. Then, he slid his arm into mine as casually as if we were going for a garden stroll.
“You mentioned a party. By all means, lead the way.”
Chapter 13
Phanes led us through the temple to a section that appeared to be way off the main, showy path. Once there, stairs seemed to appear in the floor out of nowhere, leading into the darkness.
“How mysterious,” Ian said in a mocking tone.
“You’ll want to see this,” Phanes replied. “It’s why she left you to come here with me.”
With that blunt statement, Phanes descended the stairs, not waiting to see if we would follow him.
I seized my chance. “Ian, I didn’t know I’d been gone so long! I thought it was only one night, not even that—”
“I heard,” he said, something hard glittering in his gaze. “We’ll discuss it later. Now, I want to see what’s in there.”
With that, he jumped down into the stairwell, leaving me no choice except to stand there or follow after him.
I followed. The narrow hallway looked different from the rest of the temple. No fancy lights in the floor, no ornate decorations. Nothing but cold, hard stone the color of black glass. It ended in a torch-lit room with more stark black walls. Statues of underworld gods from various belief systems lined the small, rectangular space, and some kind of indoor pool ran down the center of it. It ended in a waterfall that fell from the ceiling as well as the floor, concealing whatever lay beyond it.
As soon as I crossed the room’s threshold, I felt a magic barrier pop, and then my senses exploded. The netherworld throbbed around me, so tangible I could have been swimming in it. That feeling pulled me toward the wall of water on the other side of the room. I went, reaching out for the final veil that was the only barrier between me and the world beckoning beyond . . .
Ian snatched my hand back. “Veritas!”
Not now, sorcerer, my other half thought irritably.
The rest of me pulled back at Ian’s voice, sharp though it was. It took a moment, but I wrestled free from the drowning pull of power that was only a touch away.
“Oh,” I said, surprised to see his face now highlighted by silvery-colored beams. I hadn’t summoned that otherworldly power, but it was there, lighting up my gaze with silver.
“Your father is on the other side of that wall,” Phanes said, gesturing at the waterfall.
Ian’s grip on my hand tightened. “Is he? And where’s that?”
“The netherworld.” Phanes’s tone turned silky as one wing extended toward the watery wall. “This waterfall hides a secret entrance to its prison section. If she goes through here, she can rescue her father with none the wiser. That’s why I insisted you come with me,” he added with a glance my way. “You must feel how thin the veil is here, so you know that I speak the truth.”
I did feel the netherworld so acutely that it reminded me of when I had ripped it open to drop Dagon’s soul into it. Ashael had also confirmed that Phanes’s realm floated on top of it, so it wasn’t inconceivable that Phanes had stumbled across a weak spot in the veil separating the land of the dead from this world.
“Why does your father need to be rescued? He’s the bloody warden of the place,” Ian said.
Phanes’s mouth quirked. “Not anymore, and I confess to being curious as to how he ended up as an inmate. My sources only knew about his new status. Not how he acquired it.”
I wasn’t about to tell Phanes anything he could use against me. So, I just said, “You know why” to Ian very quietly.
“Ah,” he said after a pause.
Did he understand now why I’d had to come? I hoped so.
“So,” Ian said, glancing from me to Phanes. “You found her and told her that her da’s now locked in his own prison, and offer to help get him out. She required that you heal me first, which you did. Now, you want her to storm your secret entrance into death’s gates. That about it?”
“No,” Phanes said before I could reply. “She also seeks an annulment of our betrothal, which only her father can do.” His mouth turned down. “She still favors you over me, though why, I have no idea.”
“You should be glad of it,” Ian said at once. “Saves you worlds of trouble. I’ve had enemies cause me less stress, and that’s on a good day of being with her.”
“Should I leave you two alone?” I asked in an acerbic tone. “Maybe you’d enjoy discussing me more if I weren’t here.”
Ian’s wrist flicked in an indulgent gesture. “You can stay. Most time I’ve spent with you in weeks, after all.”
So he’d decided on emotional retribution. I wished we could just brawl it out. That would have been quicker.
“I wasn’t aware of the time difference until recently,” I replied, then shot a hard look at Phanes. “You didn’t tell me that when you had me come with you.”
“And I should have?” he said with open disbelief. “The difference between our worlds is negligible even to the human race. He’s a vampire. I’m surprised he even noticed.”
Gods, that man! “Even if you didn’t deem it important, you still should have mentioned it,” I said curtly.
Ian snorted. “You’re one to talk. You’ve made it quite the habit to make up my mind for me, haven’t you?”
I gave the wall of water a longing look. Flinging myself headlong into the netherworld had never felt more tempting.
“There is one thing I’m unclear on,” Ian said, turning his gaze to Phanes now. “Why would you help her storm death’s punishment playground? You gain nothing. In fact, you lose a powerful fiancée. What’s your real angle here?”
Phanes’s wings fluffed, reminding me of an angry swan. “I need not explain myself to you—”
“Did you think I wasn’t going to ask the same thing?” I interrupted. “And you do need to explain yourself to me, or I’m not going near that watery gateway, let alone through it.”
His golden eyes fixed on mine.
“I already told you that I, too, did not want this betrothal, and that was before we met. Now that we have, I know we are not a compatible match.” He shrugged. “You are very beautiful, but you argue wit
h my every command, question me in front of my people, constantly make unreasonable demands—”
“Welcome to my world,” Ian muttered.
“—and most insulting of all, prefer another to me,” Phanes said, with an imperious wing flap at Ian, who winked at him.
“Still, I would have married you if you were willing,” Phanes went on in a more reluctant tone. “In your world, you have many chances to elevate your status beyond what you are born with. In mine, there are few. Marriage is one, and you are the daughter of one of the higher gods. In lieu of that . . . alliances are another.”
A gleam lit Ian’s eyes. “And a higher god would owe you quite the alliance if you were instrumental in his escape.”
Phanes tipped his head in acknowledgement. “I would have all the power that a marriage to her promised me, with none of the drawbacks of actually being married to her.”
I’m going to freeze his innards and stab him with them, my other half thought. My sorcerer’s, too, if his lips keep twitching.
“Now we all know our motivations,” I said through gritted teeth. “But you left out the most important part, Phanes. How am I supposed to raid the prison section of the netherworld to free my father when only the dead can enter?”
Phanes gave me his sunniest smile. “By being dead, of course.”
Chapter 14
Ian, shockingly, didn’t seem to have the same objection to this notion that I did.
“How dead are we talking?” he asked in a casual tone.
“Only a little.” Phanes gave me a slanted look. “You didn’t think I meant permanently dead, did you? Even humans know that there’s more than one form of death, with how many of them have flatlined and then been brought back.”
Yes, but unlike humans, vampires didn’t have a heartbeat that could be restored. Our form of death was much more limited, and my father was no longer in a position to resurrect me.
Besides, even if I could pull off only being a little dead, I didn’t trust Phanes enough to do it.
“And I’m supposed to, what? Wander around the netherworld yelling ‘Dad!’ until he answers me?” I let out a short laugh. “If that’s all you’ve got, Phanes, it sounds like a terrible rescue plan.”