Page 6

Chapter 5

NOTE TO SELF: DO NOT BACKCHAT THE NATIVES

W e rushed at Rathor in unison.

A crackling sound assaulted my ears, and an icy band of pain shot up my arm, morphing into a fist that slammed into my chest. I flew back and hit the ground on my ass.

Dharma, Remi, and Priti were in similar positions, looking as stunned as I felt.

Rathor studied us from the bottom of the stairs, his red eyes catching the lamplight so that they glinted like gems. “We’re almost at shore,” he said impassive and unaffected by our attempted attack. “It’s a great view. Be a shame to miss it.” He clomped back up the steps, leaving us to figure out what the fuck had just happened.

I pulled myself up off the ground. “Tell me I didn’t just imagine that. ”

“You didn’t,” Dharma said. “I think he’s done something to stop us hurting him.”

Remi rubbed the small of her back. “Well, whatever he’s done, it works.”

“Look!” Priti held up her wrist where a slender copper band was pressed to her skin. It gleamed once before vanishing.

I glanced down at my wrist in time to see a similar band sink into my skin. “Well, that explains it.” Herbs and amulets and magical bands. Was this my new reality now?

“Attack is off the table then.” Dharma exhaled through her nose. “But I’m still getting answers.”

“Me too.” This Rathor guy had to know about the shadow monster. My gut told me the two were somehow connected.

Dharma led the way up the wooden steps, where the air smelled of salt and brine. Bright light stung my eyes as she pushed open the cabin door to the deck and slipped through.

I followed her onto wooden planks awash in colors from the tunnel of rainbows we were hurtling through.

“What the…” Remi turned on the spot, staring at the miasma of colors around us. “Where in the world are we?”

“Nowhere in any world,” Rathor said from his position mid deck, his back to us. “This is the ether. But we won’t be in it for much longer.”

Beyond the prow, the end of the rainbow tunnel opened onto a bruised purple sky that bled to gold in the distance, where it sat above a strip of gray land.

The ship shuddered.

“Brace for exit!” Rathor cried out. “Feet flat on the deck and lock in.” He planted his feet shoulder-width apart and slightly bent his knees. “Do it!” he ordered us.

I fell into the stance demonstrated a moment before the ship shot forward. My body jerked, but the deck seemed to grip my boots, holding me in place even as my arms windmilled.

Someone squealed, and the next moment we were out of the rainbow and sailing through the sky.

“Hold!” Rathor bellowed.

Hold what?

My stomach shot up into my chest as we dropped. A loud crack filled the air, and water splashed across the deck, drops spattering my skin like icy pellets.

Rathor’s crew cheered and hopped around as I peeled my boots off the deck, pulse hammering in my veins because the air smelled different in a way that I didn’t have the words to describe. It felt different too.

This wasn’t my world. Of course it wasn’t.

The ship bobbed for a moment before the wind caught the sails, blowing us toward the distant shore.

Mountains wreathed in clouds jutted up from the expanse, and birds circled the sky at the coast. They had to be huge to be visible from this distance.

“What are the flying things?” Remi pointed .

Rathor smirked. “Thunderbird sentinels.”

But I didn’t give a shit about the birds or the pretty view that seemed to have enraptured everyone else. I needed answers.

Dharma beat me to it, storming up to Rathor to demand, “Where are you taking us?”

He raised both eyebrows with a slight smirk. “Now, now, there’s no need for that tone, but I appreciate why you might be riled up. Your little ambush plan failed.”

“Can you blame us for trying?” Priti asked.

“No. I suppose not.”

Remi and I joined the trio. In daylight, there was a green tinge to Rathor’s skin. It shimmered as if it was imbedded with tiny specks of glitter. He was taller than I remembered too. At least a head and a half taller than me.

“We just want answers,” Priti said.

“I’m afraid I can’t give them to you,” he replied. “My role is to deliver the cargo.”

“We’re not fucking cargo,” Dharma snapped.

The look of pity he gave us made my stomach contract. “What can you tell us?”

His shoulders dropped slightly. “You’re no longer in the mortal world but in one of the many divine realms of the gods. This one is called Svargana. You all have divine blood, strong enough to warrant attention. My role is to collect you and transport you safely into the hands of the mage sent to collect you.”

Dharma swallowed hard. “What if we want to go back home?”

“Then you’d have to fight me.” His smile was mirthless because he knew that we couldn’t hurt him. “My advice to you is to accept your fate. It doesn’t have to be an awful one. The spelled shackle that I’ve applied will dissipate once I hand you over.”

Dharma’s eyes gleamed at the thought, probably planning a second ambush attempt.

Rathor tutted. “Bad idea. The mage and guard will pulverize you if you attempt an attack. The loss of one potential won’t cripple them.”

So that was it. We were stuck. No way back, only forward. Fine, if that was the case then so be it. I’d adjust and survive, because that’s what I did best, and when the time was right, I’d find a way home. But for now, in this moment, there was one piece of information I needed more than air itself. “What do you know about the shadow monster who killed my grandmother?”

A wrinkle formed between Rathor’s eyebrows. “Shadow monster? I have no idea. We come for the marked. We reap and we leave. Shadow monsters? Not in our remit.”

He strode away, done with the conversation. “Sprigg, hoist the sail!”

“Wait a—" I let out a squeak as Sprigg loped past, long thin arms swinging against his ankles.

He leapt at the mast, then scrambled up to release a purple sail that billowed and snapped. The boat picked up speed, and the land took shape. Cliffsides and rocky formations curved outward on fingers of land that seemed to reach for the sea to create a neat bay.

The closer we got, the larger the birds grew. We were still too far to make out much detail, but it was now clear to see they were circling the bay where we would undoubtedly be throwing down anchor.

There was truly no going back. The finality of that thought spawned claws of panic in my chest. This was bullshit. All of it. Rathor had to know more than he was letting on.

I stormed up to him again. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” He didn’t even bother to look at me, and anger licked at my chest.

“Something killed my grandmother the same night that you kidnapped me, and they’re related. I know it, and I believe you know it too. You know what that creature was. Please…” I blinked back the threat of tears and watched his hawkish profile for a reaction, anything that would tell me that I’d hit the nail on the head.

He sighed. “Look, I’m sorry for your loss, truly. But I have no idea what the shadow monster could be. We come for the marked, but it is never our intention to hurt them.”

“No, your intention is kidnapping. Tell me, do you enjoy taking humans from their homes by force? ”

His mouth turned down slightly. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never taken a human.”

“What the?—"

“There are many monstrous creatures where I’m taking you.” He canted his head. “Maybe you’ll find the answers you seek at your final destination.”

“Oh my god,” Remi said.

I tore my attention from Rathor and followed Remi’s gaze to where the sky was eclipsed by the mammoth birds, white and black with viciously curved bright orange beaks and dark flashing eyes. They flew soundlessly, around and around, but their attention was on us. On the approaching ship.

Teeny figures appeared against the cliffside. There must be a path there. They were headed to the beach.

“Your welcoming party has arrived,” Rathor said with a roll of his shoulders.

“Ah, fuck,” Sprigg said. “I spy Lomis.” He pointed out to sea where another ship had appeared out of nowhere.

“Who’s Lomis?” Dharma asked.

“The other transport.”

Other transport? Which meant…“There are more of us?”

Rathor’s gaze flicked to me, alight with amusement. “You’re not the only special ones.”

“How many more?” Priti asked.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. As long as I get paid. ”

“Then we get sleep,” Sprigg said in his soft, sibilant voice.

“Yes, Sprigg, once our cargo has disembarked, sleep it is.”

The other ship’s sail billowed, and it sped up, cutting us off and entering the bay first.

The birds dipped low, then rose again, and on the shore, several figures waited.

As we entered the bay, a smaller boat detached from Lomis’s ship and drifted to shore. We drew closer, and I got a better look at it—larger, fancier, and in better condition than this one.

There was a splash behind us and the rattle of chains, followed by another splash.

“Follow me.” Rathor led us starboard and swung his body over the side, vanishing from view.

I peered down in time to see him leap from a rope ladder onto a rowboat. “Hurry up,” he called out to us.

“There’s no going back now, is there?” Remi’s voice quivered.

I put an arm around her shoulder. “No, not today, but if there is a way back, then I’m sure we’ll find it soon.”

We clambered off the ship one by one, stepping onto a boat that rocked dangerously and looked as if it had taken more than a few knocks in its time.

“Is this thing safe?” Remi asked.

“Of course, she is,” Rathor snapped. “Now sit down. Don’t try to stand until I tell you to. ”

We obliged, sitting with our backs to the shore but facing him as he rowed with strong, powerful strokes that drew us closer and closer to an unknown fate.

Dark wings of panic spawned in my belly, but I closed my eyes and breathed in through my mouth and out through my nose until the need to scream dissipated.

I was here, and there was no escape. Not yet anyway. And that was fine. I needed to find out what had killed Nani, and I had no doubt someone here knew the answer. Nani had given me herbs, and I was certain those herbs had somehow revealed my mark…A mark that had somehow been hidden… The herbal tea maybe? Shit. Okay. So she’d hidden me from…what? Rathor or the shadow monster or…maybe both? Urgh.

“Do as you’re told,” Rathor said to us, interrupting my thoughts. “Don’t be stupid and you’ll live. Now get out of my boat.”

Were we in the shallows already?

Dharma leapt out with a splash and began wading to shore. From what I’d seen of her, she seemed like a woman who took no shit and got things done. And despite her less than empathetic attitude toward me to start with, I liked her.

I gathered up my skirt and climbed out after her, sucking in a sharp breath as the cold seeped into my boots and up my bare legs.

Another rowboat was moored several feet to our left, and I spotted a stocky male wading toward it. Lomis. It had to be.

He’d dropped off his cargo—frightened faces that watched us from shore, flanked by tall males wearing green and gold uniforms.

But my attention was drawn to the woman standing in their midst. Dressed in black and silver, dark hair piled high on her head, dark eyes fixed on us as we waded closer, she had an air of authority that told me she was in charge. Her brown skin seemed to glow with inner light, a contrast to the paler-skinned guards at her side. She was smaller than the males by a good foot and a half but had a commanding presence that radiated across the waves. She held a staff with a twisty design at the top that looked like a wooden engraving of a flame.

“Who do you think she is?” Remi asked.

Rathor replied from behind us. “That’s Umbra. She’s a mage, not someone you want to upset. She’s responsible for keeping you alive until you get to Aakaash Sansaar.”

“Small haul there, Rathor,” Lomis called out as we passed him.

“Yes, it is,” Rathor called back. “But I’m not trying to compensate for my lack of girthy manhood.”

“Fuck you, Rathor.”

“Not with that worm!”

Remi giggled, and for a moment, the tension lifted, but only a moment because there was no mistaking the fact that we were wading to the shore of another world, with no assurance that we’d ever be able to go home.

We hit the beach a few moments later, sopping boots sinking into dry sand. At least my skirt was mostly dry. My wrist tingled, and I looked down in time to see the copper shackle lift away from my skin and disperse, releasing me from Rathor’s spell.

The liveried guards surrounded us, and Umbra’s gaze swept over us, assessing.

“Only four?” she said to Rathor.

Rathor shrugged one shoulder, his attention on his nails. “Maybe you’d like to take a boat to the human world and navigate the ether to find more.”

Umbra’s eyes narrowed. “And maybe you’d like to be relived of your duties.”

Rathor snort-laughed. “Whatever. Umbra, you have no power over me, and you know it.”

Umbra’s gaze flicked to the guard to her left. “Pay him.”

The guard threw a pouch at Rathor, who snatched it neatly out of the air before giving Umbra a flourishing bow that was almost mocking. “Until next time.”

He spun on his heel and went back to the water.

One of the women in the other party began to cry, and Umbra’s jaw flexed. “I do not have the patience for tears. Cowards and whiners will not be tolerated. Stop wailing at once!”

The admonished woman slapped a hand over her mouth to quell her sobs but continued to leak tears, face reddening as she battled to contain her emotions.

We’d been torn from our world, from our families and brought here, wherever here was. The whole experience was terrifying, and dammit, I wanted to cry too, but all this stick up the ass, staff-wielding cow could say was shut up ?

The impotent rage that had been simmering inside me ever since I’d hit the forest on my knees finally boiled over. “Who the fuck are you to tell her how to feel? She was just kidnapped and brought to another world, for fucksake. Being scared is normal. Don’t you have emotions in this world, or does that staff have a twin that’s stuck up your ass?”

Umbra fixed her cold brown eyes on me. “There’s always one who thinks they can challenge the status quo.”

I held her gaze. “It would help if we knew what the status quo was. It would help if we’d been given a choice instead of being dragged here based on some divine seed bullshit.” I blurted out the words, ears hot with anger even as my inner voice urged me to shut up, that this was not the way to get the answers I wanted and needed, but my temper, once roused, wasn’t easily extinguished. “None of us want to be here, and if you think you’re going to get us to fall in line without some seriously compelling incentives, then you’ve got another think coming.”

Umbra slow-blinked, her face like stone, and the hot rage fueling me fizzled out, taking the foundations of my indignation with it.

“Put her in solitude,” Umbra ordered a guard. “The promise of companionship might provide her incentive enough to keep her mouth shut in future.”

Wait, what?

The guards moved fast to grab me, and a black hood was placed over my head.

“Let her go!” Dharma cried.

“Don’t,” Priti said, whether to Dharma or to the guards I wasn’t sure, because panic had me by the throat. I couldn’t breathe past the fist of terror around my heart. I thrashed and flailed, desperate to be free.

A sharp blow introduced me to stars, and then the world went dark.