“Yes, I do operate very well in the world of the dead,” Mormo answered her, his voice still echoing loudly through the hot canyon. “And speaking of the dead, I have someone with me whom you might recognize, daughter.”
At his words, someone tumbled into the emptiness in front of us. I squinted to get a better look and gasped as recognition struck me. Gaia was tattered and torn, her hair unkempt and dirty, her gowns ragged and ripped.
“Gaia!” I gasped. Brennan was staring at her in horror and fascination.
“I can see her,” he said in amazement. “I am looking at a ghost.”
“It’s my blood,” I told him quickly. “You drank my blood, remember? You can share my gifts until the effects wear off.” He nodded quickly as I turned back toward Gaia, preparing to run to her, but my mother held out a hand.
“No, don’t,” she cautioned. “He won’t let you near her.”
My gaze met my best friend’s and hers was panicked. “Empusa, don’t!” she cried. “He’s using me to get to you. Don’t let him.”
At her words, Gaia went flying across the canyon and collided into a mound of rocks as though a giant had kicked her. I sucked my breath in. She was lying motionless in the dirt.
“She’s already dead,” my mother reminded me. “He can’t really hurt her.”
Blood trickled from Gaia’s mouth and her hand twitched. I flinched.
“Are you certain?” I asked my mother. She nodded. “He can’t truly hurt her,” she amended. “He can cause her pain, but it won’t be lasting. She’ll be fine. Don’t let him control you with this.”
“Your mother doesn’t always know as much as she thinks,” Mormo boomed. “I will arrange for Gaia’s soul to be imprisoned in Tartara, the very blackest of places in the Underworld. She’ll be sentenced to spending eternity with the most heinous of souls. Is that how you want your friend to exist?”
I gulped hard. Gaia was terrified of the Underworld and I had always told her that parts of it were wonderful, which was true. Her soul was good and I had known that she wouldn’t be sent to Tartara. But I had never considered that my father might arrange for just such a thing to be so.
“Don’t let him manipulate you,” my mother warned again. “He would need Hades’ permission for such a thing. I don’t see that happening. I will intervene—“
“Mother, we can’t trust anyone anymore,” I told her in frustration. “Especially not Hades. Why don’t you understand that?”
“Why can’t you understand that this is a trick?” she beseeched me. “It won’t matter what you do here for Gaia. His plans have already been laid.”
“What about Zeus?” I asked quickly as I remembered that my mother had gone to speak with him. “What did he say? Will he help me? Maybe he would intervene for Gaia!”
My mother’s face clouded over. “I am not sure of Zeus’ intentions,” she admitted. “I fear that he might wish to allow events to play out as they will simply so that he can see Hades’ true intentions for himself. I doubt he will intervene on your behalf until such things have been made clear. He will want to know for certain.”
At her words, Mormo laughed, a chilling and terrifying sound. Out of my periphery, I saw Gaia stand up shakily, her back to the rocks. She perched there uncertainly, not sure of what to do.
“Run!” I implored her. She turned and met my gaze, her eyes frozen on mine. “Run,” I told her again. She nodded, her face pale. She closed her eyes briefly and then was gone.
“Did you really think that Zeus would help?” Mormo asked, his voice amused as it came from nowhere. “Zeus only helps when it benefits him. You should know that by now.”
It was true. I did know that and I felt my shoulders drop slightly.
“Do not listen to him!” my mother hissed as she raised the dagger threateningly at the empty air in front of us. “That is not true and even if it were, there are ways around everything, Empusa. I have thought of a way that we might separate your soul from your moonstone. We may only need for Hades to reverse the curse…something that he has already pledged to do. Zeus has sworn that he will force Hades to uphold his word.”
At her words, Mormo suddenly appeared in the canyon in front of us, a swirling mass of black material as his cloak twisted violently about him like a tornado. When the dust around him settled, I stared into the eyes of my father for the first time in a long time...the eyes that were so like mine, yet still so different.
“It matters not!” he roared, his face contorting violently. “I will prevail. This will end today, woman!”
My mother stepped forward, her beautiful face a determined mask. She almost seemed to relish this moment and I realized that she probably did. She had been frustrated by her love for Mormo for a very long time. Perhaps she secretly wanted to end it. If he were to die, she would no longer be tortured by her conflicting feelings.
They marched toward each other, quickly closing the distance between them. I sucked in my breath. Somehow I knew that this wouldn’t end well. They couldn’t go head to head. Not right now.
“Brennan,” I murmured quietly. “Hold tight to my hand. We need to channel our energy. Focus. I want to create a geyser between them, one like we created earlier.” He nodded and we both closed our eyes in unison. I imagined the thick earth breaking apart and erupting into a liquid explosion.
The strength of our energy pulsed in my veins, flowing from me to Brennan and back again in a continuous circle. Everyone had been correct. Our energy was powerful. The sensations that it created were almost too strong to bear, too overwhelming. But they were effective.
As my mother strode toward my father, the ground in front of her broke into pieces, shooting toward the sky and throwing her backward. She watched in amazement as the earth continued to crack in a deafening, splitting sound.
“We need to stop,” I said frantically, yanking my hand away. The cracking ceased, but not before it had broken apart in a trench that was miles long. Pieces of earth and gravel fell into the deep crevice. Beneath my feet, the earth started to shake and my eyes flew to Brennan’s.
“Earthquake,” he said unnecessarily. “We must have disturbed a fault line.”
I stared helplessly at him as we both recalled our visions. In each of our nightmarish prophecies, we had seen that everything had started with a massive earthquake. My heart started pounding.
“We can’t let this happen,” I murmured, reaching out for him once again. But before our fingers could touch, I was wrenched away and thrown across the canyon by an unseen force. Momentum carried me farther than I would have liked and I dug my feet into the hard ground to try and stop. But it was no avail, I skidded right over the edge of the newly formed deep crevice. I threw my hands up and grabbed the edge, my fingernails digging into the packed sand.
I glanced below me and saw that the crevice in the earth was deeper than I had even imagined. I could see thick, flowing hot magma beneath me and I cringed. This did not bode well.
“Hold on, Empusa,” Gaia implored me. She had appeared at my side in a flash, her ghostly face glowing against the dark, jagged cliff. “Don’t let him win, Empusa. Don’t let it happen. I know you’re tired, but you are strong enough. Pull yourself up.”
She floated beside me in the air, her ghostly feet dangling.
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered as my arms began to shake. She grinned an eerie grin.
“Just do it,” she implored. “Pull up every ounce of strength that you’ve got and use it right now.”
Out of my vision range, I heard Brennan shouting for me. I gritted my teeth and focused. I didn’t have enough mental strength to simply materialize elsewhere, so I would have to use physical strength. My arms ached and trembled and I expelled my breath slowly, allowing it to slide over my teeth. I didn’t know if I could do this. I didn’t know if I was strong enough.
You are strong enough, I heard in my head. Brennan. The only voice that mattered right now. Hold on. I’ll be right there.
I focused, staring at the way my fingers were digging into the hardened clay high above me. I focused on the red hot pain in my shoulders as the muscle pulled away from the bone.
And then Brennan’s face appeared above me, as beautiful as anything I’d ever seen. He grasped my wrists and within a second, he had pulled me up and out of harm’s way. I clutched him to me and he scooped me into his arms. I barely even felt the pain from my dislocated shoulders. I knew I would heal. All that mattered was that I was here… with Brennan.
“We’ve got to go,” he breathed as he began to run with me in his arms. I stared around him to see my mother fighting Mormo in hand to hand combat. Her dagger whizzed past his head as her leg swung around and kicked his own from beneath him. The Amazons were quickly approaching them to assist.
My mother met my gaze. “Run,” she said. “I’ll find you. Brennan knows where. Stay safe.”
“I love you,” I mouthed to her.
“I love you, too,” she replied, before Mormo slammed into her with full strength. She returned her attention to him, holding him at bay while the Amazons closed in around them. Geysers shot from the ground around them as she threw Mormo off with supernatural power. Her eyes shifted from blue to silver as she concentrated and I knew she would be alright.
“Where are we going?” I asked Brennan as he moved even faster, carrying us away from Mormo and the danger surrounding us.
Brennan readjusted my weight to hand me a small velvet bag. I peered inside it as he continued running and found a little pile of stone squares.
“Runes?”
He nodded as the countryside around us blurred into nothingness. “Your mother said you could read them… and they would tell us where to go.”
I blinked. “It’s not so much of a where as a when. Brennan, do you trust me?”
He gazed down at me, his eyes a dark butterscotch. “Em, I trust you with my life. Whatever happens, I want it to happen with you at my side. We can handle it. We can handle anything.”
“Truly?”I asked softly, tracing the outline of his handsome face with my fingers.
“Truly,” he confirmed. “I am nothing without you, Emmie. That’s something that I know now.”
“No,” I argued softly, snuggling against his hard chest, relaxing as he ran. “You are everything. Time is nothing. You’re about to find that out firsthand, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” he said firmly and his tone warmed my heart. “If I’m with you, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Being away from you is the only real fear that I have.”
I closed my eyes as I pressed my ear to his heart, listening to its powerful beat. “Me too,” I admitted softly. “Me too.”
But as I allowed his strong legs to carry both of us toward our future, I knew that we didn’t need to fear it. We’d never be apart again, no matter what our future held. We were together now and that was how it was going to stay.