Page 22 of Divine Fate (Cursed Legacies #4)

21

CRYPT

When Maven sees me fall to my knees, she pauses the ritual and moves to my side. Her perfect fingers gently trace the markings on my neck.

“Crypt?”

Gods above, her voice.

When I was numbed, it was just another noise—but now I shudder as rivulets of feelings continue to bathe my monstrous soul. It’s a baptism of previously detained human emotions that quickly suffocates me.

The lifelessness on Maven’s beautiful face as Frost wept over her. The psyches I demolished to drown out the loss. The terrified victims who ripped each other apart as I watched. Feeling dead inside while I took vengeance on the gods who dared allow my darling to be separated from me.

I try to inhale, but it’s too much. I’m asphyxiating on emotions.

“Breathe,” my keeper murmurs, holding one of my hands as I finally start to catch my breath.

“Promise me,” I begin raggedly once I can look her in the eye as myself. “Promise that you will never again go where I can’t follow.”

Maven’s gaze is unexpectedly soft compared to her words. “Fuck promises. I’ll make you a godsdamned vow. From here on out, I’ll be your muse. No matter what fate has in store, you won’t be able to escape me this time.”

Gods above.

Yes.

Despite the emotions still stifling my every thought, I rise to my feet to stand across from the stunning demigoddess I ache to belong to. She picks up where she left off, using bronze dust to finish the complex runes surrounding the holy symbol on the altar.

She holds her hands out for mine.

I have no clue if this ritual will work within a memory, but I’d gladly sell my soul to find out.

Taking Maven’s hands, I watch, transfixed, as she utters words I don’t understand. She’s hell-bent on getting this right as she recites from her memory. Towards the end, she switches to English.

“This I vow in all dreams pure

Muse-marked soul forevermore

Bind to me his consciousness

Life or death, this union bless.”

Glowing light surrounds us, soft and warm as ardor burns in my chest. For a moment, it becomes painless heat until my subconscious ripples around us.

I feel the unseen change. It’s a sudden completion of my soul, a connection to something so powerful, dark, and lovely that for a moment, I can only gaze at Maven with profound obsession closing up my throat.

My love.

We’re not bound again—not yet—but I don't need to hear her thoughts to see everything I’m feeling reflected on her face.

My muse smiles at me.

That's it. I can’t stand not touching her for another second, so I vault over the bronze-dusted altar to dip Maven, kissing her deeply as her fingers tangle eagerly in my hair.

The moment her hands are on me, a new, strange feeling buzzes pleasantly through me.

Peace, I believe they call it.

Her tongue teases mine as my heart pounds. I nip her lower lip before straightening to rest my forehead against hers.

“Do you have any idea the things you did to me without even a pulse in your pretty neck?" I demand breathlessly, reaching up to cradle her face.

“If it’s any consolation, I loved you just as obsessively from Paradise.”

I freeze, trapped in her eyes as a dangerous dose of obsession spikes my blood pressure. “Repeat that for me, love.”

“When my purpose was fulfilled, I went to Para?—”

“Not that. The other thing.”

The far more important thing.

Maven knows what I want. She has the same slightly uncomfortable expression she used to get whenever people became too emotional around her, but she meets my gaze, understanding how important this is to me.

“I love you,” she whispers. “In life or death or in between, you're all mine.”

“Oh, my dark, twisted, darling,” I laugh darkly, nearly swaying from the elation of those pretty words. “Brace yourself. You’ve no idea the monster you just created.”

She grins as if that’s the best news she’s had all day, kisses my chin, and takes a deep breath as if to brace herself.

“Time to get out of here. I’m shit at holy magic so far, so hold on.”

Holding on to her will never be an issue again.

A moment later, glowing light floods my mind, I can sense something shatter, and we’re both suddenly yanked out of the nightmarish spell I’ve been tangled in for what feels like years.

I wake up.

The only times I’ve woken up in the past happened after getting knocked unconscious. I’ll certainly be waking up this peacefully more often now that I have the option to sleep whenever Maven is resting. Shaking off slumber is a foreign feeling, and it takes me a moment to find that I’m flat on my back on a marble floor, staring up at the ceiling of the high temple of Arati.

“She better be right behind you,” Frost’s voice warns crisply nearby.

Sitting upright despite the weakness in my limbs, I frown at the way my head feels. Is waking up always this…cloudy?

Taking in my surroundings, I see that Maven is unmoving beside me. Limbo is weighted down so heavily around her that I tense, checking her pulse.

My muse is breathing, but she's in one of the deepest sleeps I've ever seen. Exhaustion from whatever she just did to free me has her practically anesthetized.

Crane sits in the closest pew, head down between his hands as he mutters at the voices he hears. Still, he's far more coherent than the last time I saw him in his iron enclosure.

Frost moves from leaning against the temple wall to adjusting the collar of his coat six times as he watches Maven with growing concern. I grew accustomed to his notable scar in the months following the Upheaval, but I was extremely numbed then. It certainly makes for an impression now.

I’m distracted from his face by nearby growling. Leaning back and squinting, I get a better view of Decimus chewing on the arm of a wooden pew. He’s not himself, but seeing him here and shifted out of dragon form is a relief.

Hang on. A relief?

How worrisome. Since when did I get so invested in the welfare of these pricks?

“ Fuck. She's bleeding. Why is she bleeding, and why the hell isn't she waking up?” Frost demands as ice spreads across the floor toward Maven and me on the marble ground.

Damn it all, he’s right. Blood drips steadily from our keeper's nose, rolling over her cheek to drip onto the temple floor. I've seen that strain before in other casters who pushed themselves too far—Crane in particular.

Looking pointedly at the encroaching cold, I pull Maven’s siren-like unconscious body into my arms and off the cold ground.

“Keep that away from our goddess. She’s overdone it and desperately needs rest, not frostbite.”

Frost’s attention flicks from Maven to me briefly, scrutinizing. “Look who finally checked back in. Good timing, because I need at least one semi-functional psychopath to help me get us out of here. Those two deadweights don’t qualify at the moment,” he tips his head toward Crane and Decimus.

Decimus is prowling toward a statue of Arati as if about to attack it, wholly animalistic in his blissful ignorance of this conversation.

Crane, however, grips the blood amulet around his neck and glares at us. “I heard that.”

“Good,” Frost and I say at the same time.

“A few more just arrived,” a voice calls down from one of the vaulted windows high in the temple. “Two Voids are with them.”

I realize the redheaded mercenary who Frost hired months ago has climbed up to sit in the stone sill of one of the ornate windows, using a gun to scope through a crack in the stained glass. Whatever he’s seeing out there, it makes Frost swear and drag his hands over his scarred face.

“What mess are we in now?” I demand, gently adjusting Maven’s oversized dark clothing in hopes that she’ll be less cold.

Agony flares through my limbs as my markings light up several times, but I ignore it. That’s been happening long before Syntyche got to me. With Limbo in tatters, my body is paying the price.

“Hostiles are outside waiting to capture us,” Frost replies. “Meaning, my family knows we’re here.”

I narrow my gaze at him. “It was here in New York all along?”

“Apparently,” he grumbles, cranky. “Wouldn't be surprised if they've been moving the damn thing now and then.”

I wasn’t paying much attention to anything beyond the urge to kill in the months before I wound up trapped in my dark memories. However, Frost made me aware that one of the etherium stones Maven used to trap the life forces of the Immortal Quintet went missing just after they figured out how to use them for powerful shielding spells.

Since his entire elite family of pompous pricks also vanished during the Upheaval, along with much of the former Legacy Council and a few dozen other “high society” legacy families, he theorized that they were all together in a secret safe haven for the cowardliest of cowards, so to speak.

Finding it months ago would have been a treat. Even now, the thought of slipping into the minds of those spineless prats and flooding their pampered safe haven with mania is tempting. I’ve no doubt they’ve been sipping champagne while the rest of the world has gone to shit.

But if we’ve accidentally drawn their attention…

I look at my muse, resting deeply in my arms. Her bloody nose has slowed, so I use the corner of my ripped T-shirt to carefully wipe her face as well as I can.

She never minded blood, but I can't stop touching her even for a moment.

“Tell me who knows,” I mutter.

“Us, the Baird quintet, Douglas…and the fae who got away and informed my family that she’s back and she’s here.” Frost begins to pace, glowering at the double doors at the end of this temple. “The muscle they sent can’t get in, so they’re just waiting. Maven sealed this damn place with holy magic, and transportation magic doesn’t work on hallowed ground, which means we can’t get out.”

“Douglas can help with that,” Crane slurs, having to correct a couple of words mid-sentence.

“Shut up,” the redhead snaps from up above.

“That scútráche is either a saint or highly fabhar – blessed ,” Crane corrects. “Whatever rare circumstance, he uses holy maghikae.”

Frost pauses, figuring out the last word before calling up, “Wait. You can use holy magic, and didn’t tell me? What the fuck have I been paying you for this whole time?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me. Your quintet is a fucking pain in the ass, you know that?” the mercenary gripes as he climbs back down from his perch. Once he’s down, he casts me the quintessential look of disgust before squinting accusingly at Maven. “Your weirdo-ass girlfriend ratted on me, didn’t she?”

A muscle nearly pops in my jaw as I remind myself we might need him alive, for now.

“Mind how you speak about her or I’ll feed your dismembered prick to your hellhound while the other tidbits of you rot here.”

The redhead has the good sense to step back as he realizes I’m no longer the passive, numb phantom drifting in and out of Limbo that he previously witnessed.

“She said nothing,” Crane mutters, flinching away from something in his mind before focusing on us again. “I’m the one saying it. If you can unseal the doors, perhaps we can unleash Bael on those waiting outside.”

“No dice,” Frost shakes his head. “Only Maven can remove his collar. Besides, there’s no way in hell I’m about to watch that asshole dragon snatch her away again. He’s staying exactly like that until we snap him out of it.”

He snatched her away as a fucking dragon?

Gods above, it’s a good thing they have me back. That would never have happened on my watch.

Douglas stretches one of his arms. “Fine. I’ll open the fucking door, but it’s up to you three to have a game plan once they’re open. Last I saw, there were thirty, maybe forty seasoned legacies ready for a fight.”

We’re all quiet in the chilled silence for a moment, considering our options for getting our keeper far away from Frost’s family.

“I heard that, too,” Crane suddenly snaps, glaring at the nearby pulpit.

I fight back an unexpected laugh, egging him on. “You tell them, Crane.”

“Scratch that. It’s up to us two, since he’s not playing with a full deck,” Frost mutters, brushing frost off his hands.

The fae rubs his forehead. “ Quid a tha tem’ah chehn?”

None of us knows what that means, but I finally get to my feet, still cradling Maven. It’s mortifying to realize just how weak I am right now when I stumble slightly on the way to get her to Frost’s arms.

“Your one and only job is to make sure she doesn’t come to harm when we step outside. Don’t dare fuck it up like you did last time.”

The elemental flinches, grief crossing his scarred face, and for the first time in my entire life, I decide I should have tempered my tongue.

Whatever or whomever caused Maven’s purpose to be fulfilled— that carries the blame. Not him. Considering that Frost kicked me out on my ass the one time I came to him asking to put me out of my misery, and the fact that he kept the rest of us alive against all odds…

In a bizarre twist of fate, I owe him my thanks.

Later. I’ll thank him later, when our miraculous keeper is safely out of harm’s way.

“I’ll unleash as much mania as I can. That should eliminate most of them, and then we’ll pick off the stragglers. Have a transportation spell ready, bounty hunter,” I say, looking at the double doors.

But I can’t seem to make myself move. I look back at Maven. Leaving my darling muse’s side after just barely getting her back feels impossible.

When Frost catches my eye, there’s an understanding on his scarred face. He nods, appearing sympathetic.

How utterly unaccountable.

“I won’t fuck it up this time,” he promises quietly. “I’ve got her.”

I believe him.

Taking one step away is laborious, but I force myself to keep moving until I stand at the double doors, rolling my shoulders back and preparing for the pain that will come from slipping into Limbo, which is something I can’t do inside the walls of a temple. The mercenary stops beside me, resting his hands on the door and concentrating.

“Damn it. This was a hell of a lot easier with Oakley helping,” he grits.

“Amato.”

Glowing light washes over the now-unsealed doors before he drops his hands, puzzled. “What did you just say?”

“My keeper’s real surname is Amato.”

The bulky caster looks far more stunned than I feel is warranted before I push the doors open enough to slip outside, simultaneously slipping into the dream plane of existence.

What’s left of it, anyway.

Limbo fragmented six months ago, the turbulence becoming lethal as pieces of it fell out of place, drifting about the mortal realm. Wisps and shades have accumulated at a staggering rate, using Limbo zones to escape and feast on anything that wanders into those areas. The rest of them still roam Limbo, ready to kill.

There are a few nearby—but far more worrying are the ten or so incubi who are already here, waiting with bronze weapons in hand. These wankers came prepared for me.

We’re too cursed and weak for a fight like this, and they know it.

Fucking Frosts.