Page 19

I held Walter’s stare. “Even with my powers as a SunTamer and Mendax’s as a Smoke Slayer, they are no match for a regular Artemi, let alone the daughter of the Titan Artemi.

If she wanted to hurt them, there’s not much that could stop her.

” I readjusted, checking to make sure Thistle wasn’t having any trouble carrying me.

She wasn’t. She was a beautiful little brick house.

Had my legs not been so long, we wouldn’t have had any issues.

“That’s why we have to stop her before she has her full powers.

” It pained me more than I could admit, but there was no other way around it. Anna couldn’t get the pendant.

Walter shook his head absently. “I still can’t believe she is Caly’s sister.

I have a hard time believing her to be evil though.

Granted, her powers are already pretty strong and terrifying, but she has always flown under the radar here.

No one even knows she’s Artemi. She’s always been pretty nice. ”

I glared at him as we moved into the small practice arena. “No offense, but you are Unseelie, and this is your prized resting place. You’re not exactly an angel either. You’re just biased because she’s Eletha’s sister and the Shepherd of Tartarus has you begging like a puppy.”

To my surprise, he didn’t argue but instead nodded slowly.

“You know, I’ll never stop wanting her, but with you being here, it’s becoming more and more obvious that she’s never going to forget what happened between us and let us move on.

It feels like since I arrived here, she only pushes me farther away, no matter how gentle and patient I am with her.

” He closed the large doors to the arena.

“Circle each barrel once.” I nodded, directing Thistle toward the row of five barrels and braced myself on her, attempting to lift my legs to lighten her load and prepare for the speed I knew she kept hidden.

“Maybe you two are different people now? You said it happened years and years ago. People change. Maybe you’re in love with what you used to have, you know?

” My body was seesawing on the saddle as I tried to balance my weight and not weigh her down before her sprint.

I know it looked ten times more stupid than it felt, and it felt really stupid .

“Yeah, maybe.” Walter’s jaw clenched, and a coldness overcast his features. It was so easy to forget he came from darkness sometimes until flashes like that appeared.

About ten minutes into our practice, I began to really worry.

“Come on! Move, please,” I begged the stubborn mare for the thousandth time. She had refused to move two steps toward the barrels since we had entered, instead choosing to put her ears back and not budge in any direction. Panic and frustration overtook me as I jumped from her back.

Or I would have had my ankles not still been tied together. The sound of the barn door opening was salt in my wound.

“Son of a bitch!” My back was on the dirt floor of the arena, my pelvis raised because my legs were still wrapped around the thick floricorn’s neck.

She snorted a laugh at my expense. “Oh, fuck me,” I said to her from the ground as my back began to slide against the loose dirt as she moved.

At least she had the decency to move her neck to the left, so my torso dragged across the ground, keeping her from trampling me.

Though at this point, hearing the titters of laughter behind me, a good trampling held more appeal than it ought to.

The mare continued her slow circles of each barrel until all five showed the skid marks of my body in the dirt surrounding them.

As she dragged me back to the starting mark, Walter graciously interrupted his wheezing laughter to untie my legs.

I stood and my eyelids dropped closed, hearing metal and leather clank together behind me.

“You don’t have to play, you know. Hand over my pendant and I’ll make sure you get a nice, cozy, permanent room in Eromreven,” said Anna atop her veiny ox of a horse.

Her voice forced a wave of silky discomfort through my chest and into my pelvis. Nothing that evil had any right to possess a voice that sounded like that.

“Yes, I’d just love a permanent—” I turned to her, ready to let some of my frustrations out on the witch, but like any witch worth her weight, the sight of her knocked the breath from my lungs.

She sat atop the dark beast of a horse in a full suit of dark metallic armor, completely at ease.

The armor looked several sizes too big and bulky for her small frame; however, it somehow also looked perfect on her.

Anna’s delicate face was the only thing sticking out from the chain mail hood aside from a small piece of pink hair.

“Spot here,” I finished. Her cheeks held a dewy, rosy glow that seemed to speak directly to my heroic tendencies because all I wanted to do was talk her out of playing this game so she would be safe, which was stupid on so many levels, mostly because I was attempting to kill her.

Her cheeks brightened. “Shame this is your last day here. You would have been an interesting one to watch. I love watching the Seelies turn just as wicked as everyone else here. Especially the judgy ones who think they are better than everyone else. It’s like watching a baby take its first steps.

” Little did she know that it had already started with me about to murder her.

“I think you and I could have been friends—maybe more, in another world.” She spoke the words so earnestly, I almost believed she found truth in them.

“I doubt we would have been friends, but you’re right: it is a shame.

A terrible shame that you have let the corrupt darkness of this place taint you when you could have been something so good in a world already full of evil.

I will ask you one more time, Adrianna: Will you not take on your duty to the Fates and Artemi in Moirai? ”

Her dark brows lowered as her mouth clenched. “Perhaps you are right; we wouldn’t have been friends. You are stupid and righteous in your beliefs of what is right and wrong. Who are you to decide whether or not I am worthy of my powers?”

“All right, let’s keep this?—”

“Stay out of this Walter. This doesn’t concern you,” she said to him, her eyes remained locked to mine.

“Actually, it does, Anna. Eli is my friend and—” he began.

“And what?” Eletha’s sharp voice cracked like a whip as she walked inside the arena.

“Pray tell me why having a friend like you matters? You know nothing about having a friend’s back.

You only know about leaving them when they need you the most.”

Hurt lashed across Walter’s face. “I didn’t leave you, Eletha.

You returned here, and I do have his back.

You act like you have Anna’s back, but you don’t.

How many times have you sent Mendax back and not once did you ever get his help for her?

He bonded to Calypso when she held Anna’s powers inside of her. He could have helped.”

“I didn’t think about it,” she growled.

Walter shook his head, turning away from her. “I’ll grab your armor. I can’t do this anymore,” he said as he walked out of the doors.

“What? You’re leaving when someone needs you?

Shocking,” Eletha called before storming out after him.

“I must admit, the idea of killing a woman repulses me,” I told Anna.

“Oh, how chivalrous you are,” she quipped. She was really starting to annoy me. “Are you a man of your word?”

I patted Thistle as I watched her. She appeared to be right- handed, but I couldn’t be sure without watching her move more. “Of course I am a man of my word. I wouldn’t be playing this stupid game right now if I weren’t.”

All humor left her face. “Then promise me that if I go to key you—you do know what that is, don’t you?”

“When an opponent removes the red key from its box on their saddle and proceeds to stab the other man”—I nodded snidely—“or woman”—she glowered—“in the forehead, thus taking their memento and destroying their soul.”

She looked furious. “So kind of Walter to tutor you. Though, if he were a real friend, I doubt he’d let you ride that toy pony into the game. If you hope to elicit sympathy from anyone riding that thing, then you are mistaken. I’ll have them supply you with a worthy steed before game time.”

This puzzled me more than I would like to admit.

Why was she offering to help get me a horse?

She should want me at a disadvantage. “No, this is my friend. I believe in what she and I can do together.” I’m not going to lie, the words, though I meant them, were much harder to say after being dragged around by the little unicorn.

I was having serious doubts, but I wasn’t going to give up on her.

“Suit yourself,” she said with a frustrated huff of air. “I would like your word that when I go to key you, you will hand over the pendant to me.”

“What? No way. Why would I do that? Just because I’m about to die?” I laughed at her.

“You’re already dead. You’re about to cease to exist in anyone’s mind forever.

Your mother? She’ll never remember you. Calypso, Mendax?

You won’t exist to them. You will not be remembered as the hero you so obviously and desperately need to be.

Your good deeds will go unremembered and your grand morals will be nonexistent. ”

I hated the chord her words struck with me, but even more, I hated that I was that easy for her to see through.

“But if you give me the pendant and restore my full powers, I can promise you that I will leave enough of your memento intact that those in the other realms will remember you just as they do now,” she offered.

I removed my shirt and shook the dirt off it. Some part of me swelled with pride when I saw her eyes cling to my bare chest before her cheeks turned rosy and she looked away. “No deal,” I stated, pulling my shirt back over my head.

“What?” Her eyes snapped to mine with shock.

“I don’t believe you and I don’t make deals with cretins who have no morals and steal from people. Besides, my mother is dead in the Elysian Fields and she never thought that much of me anyway.” I moved to collect Thistle’s reins.

“What do you know of my morals?” she laughed.

“I know that you are Artemi, yet I’ve already watched you kill several creatures in a tantrum. I know that you want to rule the Underworld and I know that my mother is the one who killed you, so there is no possible way you would pass up the opportunity to revenge kill me. ”

She looked stunned for a moment. “Your mother was the woman who killed me?” Her face turned nearly as pink as her strands of hair. “That was your mother? I kissed you. You were probably in on the scheme with her.”

I scowled at her words and just how wrong she was, but then realization hit me. “You don’t know anything, do you? About what happened after your death?”

She looked uncomfortable and her steed must have sensed it, for it began shifting uncomfortably as well, eager to leave. “Apparently not, but I will. Once I get my powers, Calypso is first on my list to visit.”

I paled. I knew it—I couldn’t let her hurt Cal.

As much as I wanted to believe I could win this game and defeat Anna, the odds weren’t in my favor.

If she was willing to bargain, I needed to use it to my advantage.

“You can’t hurt her. Give me your word that you will never hurt Calypso and I will give you the pendant if you are able to key me. ”

She frowned and opened her mouth to say something but stalled, closing it again. “Fine. I won’t hurt precious Calypso if you give me the pendant.” She thrust her palm out.

“No, I’m not just giving it to you. That’s only if you key me. You forget that I’m going to kill you and then get out of here. Is there anything you’d like me to tell Cal?” I said with mock confidence.

Anna looked as though she might burst into tears at my words, whether it was from anger or sadness I would never know. I did know that I hated it…and I hated that I hated it. Fuck.

“You ought to count your blessings, Aurelius, because when I kill you and take over Tartarus, the first thing I’m going to do is make certain every person you’ve ever loved, dead or alive, remembers you just enough that when I send them to the first tier, they’ll rot in agony for eternity knowing you failed them and caused them that pain,” she said in a low tone that was only made more sinister by her gentle, almost-sweet-sounding voice. “Shake on the deal. ”

I wanted to throw up. “Thank you,” I responded, taking her hand and giving it one good firm shake.

I held it in my grip even after she tried to remove it.

“Thank you for giving me all the motivation I need to make certain you never touch this pendant. You will die today, Anna. I wish more than anything that it hadn’t come to this, but it has.

” I released her small hand and turned to walk Thistle out of the barn.

“I’m sorry again,” I said as I left Cal’s sister.

I was almost overcome with anxiety at the thought of Cal having heard any of that interaction.

I still couldn’t believe I could speak to both her and Mendax, and though it was a relief, it also brought about an entirely different set of worries.

What if Cal felt me kill her sister? She would hate me.

I hadn’t been given the opportunity to tell her about everything that had transpired.

I didn’t know how to open up the bond to speak with them and I didn’t know how to close it.

If she showed up in my head during the match, it could not only be a fatal distraction but possibly worse—if Cal sensed me kill her sister without context, it wouldn’t matter that I’d done it to save her and the rest of the realms.

“I’ll see you on the field, martyr,” she said from behind me.