Page 8 of Up from the Earth (Equinox Seasons Duet #1)

Seven

Eating Food From The Realm Of Souls Binds You To It.

W ind colder than earthly possible tore through me, howling wildly out into the expansive terrain around me. A dark castle loomed on the horizon—close or far, I could not tell. Strings of massive webbing dripped from the stone pillars and arches surrounding the enormous palace, and the echoing screech of some strange creature offered the building a tense backdrop.

I’d know the castle anywhere, even if I was not inside it.

I was back.

At the front steps, a gargantuan obsidian figure formed the central structure of a twin set of stairs leading to the manse. Arches—formed from the figure’s outstretched wings—curved over the steps as fog rolled down them from above.

There was hardly any light in the space either, only the sporadic stream of pale white light that cut through the ever-rolling clouds above. When I turned back toward where I’d landed, The Beast King stood at the edge of a lake. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the way it looked behind the shifting, black shape of The King sent an errant chill down my spine—though that could have been the cold…or the terror.

“The Bride Trials.”

Only three words to explain whatever the hell was going on, and they did nothing to aid me. I glanced back at The King toward the lake. It was ice-still and silver, the dim illumination reflecting off its surface like mercury glass.

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.” Immediately, I noted the irritation behind my tone, and fear rumbled through my empty stomach; I hadn’t intended to be so coarse, but confusion was hardly a state I enjoyed. “Please, what are the Bride Trials? Why am I here?”

It was like looking into the face of the stone sculpture, talking to this ancient, enormous being that transcended rational thought. My mind wanted to snap, to fray at the edges, and take the time to readjust. But I could hardly do that now. There was no time, and I knew that down to the marrow of my bones. However, the source of the information was unknown.

“They are trials designed and meant entirely for you and no one else. Should you fail them, this realm is surely over. There is no one else.”

My mouth dropped open, indignation firing in my veins. “You can’t be serious. You have no backup plan, no one else that you can call on to step in if I’m not able to do this?”

“No.”

It was simple and direct. Something I was learning was the default for this version of The Beast King. There were no soft edges here or masked seduction intent on swallowing down all I had to offer. There was only command—and expected obedience.

“I am just twenty-one years old. I haven’t completed my formal training, as I told the other you, and yet you still expect me to do this. Can’t you see the insanity of that faith in my abilities?”

“What is sane to the spider is chaos to the fly.” I’d heard the idiom before but never spoken by a being who I was unshakably sure was always the spider. “What may seem outlandish or impossible to you—Cerridwen Adaire Locke—is simply the promised acts of fate coming into fruition for me.”

My bones radiated as he spoke my name. I could sense that reverberating magic, the same magic I’d felt as a child, singing through my blood, my soul.

The Beast King turned from me, his hooded face directed to the serene lake behind him. He stepped up to the edge of the bank, the waters lapping at the trailing fabric of his robes. They barely made a sound. Nothing seemed to be here, and even our voices seemed flat and utterly lacking any echo or resonance.

He said nothing else, and just as I was about to ask for still more clarification, he disappeared beneath the water. I could sense the pull to go to him, to find him beneath the waves, as sure as a physical tug on my sternum. It was ludicrous. I was mortal, nothing more than a fragile human, and I would surely drown.

As I stood there, my heart too loud in my ears, a skeletal hand slipped free of the silvery lake, hooking a finger to beckon me forward.

Dammit. I’m really supposed to follow him?

There was no response save for the continued gesture from The Beast King. I stepped forward until I reached the shoreline, the freezing waters rushing over my bare feet, still as quiet as ever. I wasn’t a strong swimmer, and something told me that turning over onto my back—like I did when I was enjoying the warm spring sun in the river near the coven house—would not be acceptable.

Sucking in a lungful of air, I pushed my foot along the sand. Icy water reached me up to the ankle, and I hissed. The cold was enough to be painful, and it doubled, tripled, as I stuck the other foot into the sand. I was immediately racked with shakes, trembling so much that my teeth knocked together. My muscles seized up, squeezing down on my bones in protest.

I had to force myself to keep going, the stubborn image of a sunny day my only focus. As the waves grew more substantial, more of the frigid water slipped over me, reaching up to my calves, then knees, then thighs. The flimsy nightdress I wore did nothing to insulate my body from the cold, and it tangled between my legs.

“Useless thing.”

Gripping the floating hem of my dress, I yanked it over my head. There was no point in being bashful. Soaked with water, the fabric would reveal me anyhow, so I pitched the nightgown over my shoulder and forced myself to sink deeper into the water.

The new depths were a shock, the water sloshing up to my hips and belly now. I was wrong to expect a perfectly graded slope, and with one more step, I slipped, the lake swallowing me up. Fighting to swim, the aching cold left my movements uncoordinated and sloppy. It felt like hundreds of needles were being jabbed into my flesh.

There were too many floundering attempts to keep my head above water stacked up, one after the other. My head sank beneath the freezing lake, plunging the world into darkness. The pain in my eyes was immediate and intense. Some innate instinct to survive encouraged my legs to kick faster and my arms to stroke quicker.

No, not like this.

Oxygen filled my lungs once more as my face finally breached the surface. However, this short-lived ecstasy was over too quickly, and the buoyancy I felt in leaping through the waves sputtered. The water overtook me again, and I sank further, deeper .

Do something, Cerri. Do something.

But more of the world was drifting away above me, and the cold was sapping the strength from my muscles. All there was to do was sink. I would not go out that way. I did everything I could to propel myself back up to the surface, but the burn in my lungs from holding my breath crescendoed.

When I could no longer stand it, when my body took over, I opened my mouth, breathing in the black liquid of this underworld lake. That was all it took. Sensations of horrible fire coating the inside of my lungs became my universe. My body spasmed, and the seconds dragged on.

I would die like this. I would drown.

Let go.

The voice filled my mind like hot tea filling a cup. It was not The Beast King’s. It was not my own. Though, there was something of me in it, something I could not place and did not recognize.

Let go, Cerridwen.

What choice did I truly have? There was nothing to be done about losing myself to these murky depths. Still, perhaps the embrace of the waters would shepherd me into a better place. Of all things in this world, it was the green things, the changing things, the things that poked up through the snow to prove the changing of the seasons that I loved most.

So…I let go. I stopped fighting against the waves that sought to pull me to the bottom of this never-ending lake. I stopped resisting the burn in my lungs and merely accepted it. If this was my time, my steps on the path, then so be it.

The world dripped away, everything going still and quiet. After several long moments—or perhaps eternities—I opened my eyes.

At once, I realized that a hard marble floor lay beneath my feet. I was standing. The water was gone. There was no trace of it: no puddle on the ground, no tangled, water-logged strands of hair clinging to my face and arms.

“Where…”

But the questions slipped away, lost to the depths of my surroundings. I stood in the castle, the black columns and arched stained glass windows proof of it, though this room was not familiar to me. I was also clothed in a slim, featherlight white dress draped over my shoulders, nearly identical to the one I’d worn before.

This gown, however, was clearly not a night dress. It was sewn to sit flush with my ribs, corseting me somewhat. The low neckline almost revealed my breasts entirely, and the ruffles ran across the sensitive skin just above my nipples. The gown reached the floor, trailing after me as I turned in a circle.

My perception was like being in a dream. I could not remember how I’d gotten to the room, and as I looked up, more of it came into existence as if it was waiting for my eyes to find it, my awareness of the castle beyond myself to be acknowledged. As I did, I realized that I stood in a massive dining room, a long table in the center stretching off into infinity if I tried to glance down to the other end.

When I stepped forward, looking directly at the center of the table, all I could really see were the numerous plates containing mounds and mounds of food. An immense banquet had been set up on the table—fruits, meats, greens, and wine all tumbling over each other as they consumed the surface they were placed on.

“Eat.”

I spun around, finding the ominous form of The Beast King standing there in the shadows. I still couldn’t quite make out his shape, this shape at least. And then it hit me what he had said.

Imperceptible but felt, The King’s stare focused on me and then on the feast. I turned toward it once more, running my eyes over the food that looked so incredibly appetizing. Hunger roared through me like a sickness, and my mouth filled with saliva. I was famished beyond reason, as if I was truly on the edge of starvation.

But I was also still me. And I remembered the warning whispered in the most ancient of tomes.

Not bothering to ask anything of The King, I merely walked closer still to the table. The glistening fruit looked ripe and plump, the bread hearty, and the wine indulgent and as red as blood. It was all so beautiful, but none so much as the broken open pomegranate that sat directly before me, nestled between a bunch of grapes and a long shank of some sort.

Eating the food of the dead binds you to their realm. Eating the food of the fae binds you to their realm.

Wherever and whatever I was encountering, taking even a single bite of this feast would ensure that The King’s hooks were always within me. I knew it in my bones as surely as I did my own spirit.

“Eat, Cerridwen.”

The command was as soft as silk and as hard as iron steel. I shifted forward as if propelled by the words. My hand began to reach out shakily as if I had no control over the appendage. But the ancient words had also promised something else—that this choice must always be mine.

I could not be forced to consume this feast, but I could be tempted. And gods above and below, I was so very, very tempted.

The hungry roiling in my belly was profound, and stranger still was the desire and need that coursed through my veins in equal measure with it. Since the moment I’d run into the wolf, I had felt…drawn. I’d not experienced that part of life. I had never thought to avoid it; it had simply not come up. I never felt compelled.

I was compelled now.

The Beast King of the World of Below was a part of my story, a permanent figure along my path. There was no escaping it. And the longer I examined that, the more I realized that I didn’t truly want to. I would miss my mother, of course; that separation, as necessary as it was, still cut like a knife. But at the heart of my being was the connection to this ancient figure that I had never been able to deny.

As a young child and even teenager, I could not put words to it. But now, presented with the appearance of The Wolf, The Queen, and The King, I understood that this was indeed fate coming to pass.

This had always been where I would end up. Yet still, it was my choice.

My stomach pinched, growling like a wild beast, and suddenly, The King was at my back. I could feel his presence even as I dared not turn around. Warm breath tickled over the back of my neck, as much a shock as the cold had been. And there, in the darkness of the eternal feast of the dead, he spoke to me.

“What do you want, Cerri? What have you always wanted but been too afraid to seek out?”

Thoughts churned in my mind like choppy waves in the ocean. I didn’t speak, but somehow knew The King could sense them all the same.

“What would you take, my little beast? What will you use to start your life anew?”

It was as if the decision had already been made, and indeed, though I may have tried to deny it, it had. I knew precisely what I would do. I’d seen it in my dreams, and The King was right. I had been too afraid to seize it.

No more.

Without a word, I jabbed my hand forward, rough and almost violent. My fingers sunk deep into the succulent core of the wine-colored fruit. Juice erupted over my hand, and as I pulled the pomegranate toward me, I let the potent liquid drip down the pale flesh of my arm.

“Yesss…”

His voice was pure lust, and power filled me like nothing before. The intricate patterns of magic that had been woven into my soul finally unlocked. In a moment, the years of feeling stagnant and useless disintegrated.

I cared nothing for the white of my dress or the civility demanded of me in the world above. This was the darkest realm. This was my new home. This was a place where carnality was embraced and lavished. I was changing. I had changed.

And I would not deny myself anymore.

Sinking my teeth into the flesh of the fruit, pomegranate seeds burst open into my mouth. The red blood of the harvest was sweet on my tongue, biting and potent. In raw savagery, I tore into it, swallowing down the little pearls and even the flesh that had held them like a cradle. The gnawing hunger in my belly subsided with each decadent mouthful, and I kept going, taking handful after handful of the marvelous fruit until I was sated.

“Perfect, little beast.” The King’s voice changed as I felt his presence slip away from me. “Your next trial begins now.”

By the time he’d spoken the last word, the dark tone of The King was gone, replaced with the growl of The Wolf. He’d changed, shifted into his other form. I spun around, pomegranate stains coating my skin and clothes. The massive creature stood on all fours in front of me, and behind it, a looming forest materialized out of the darkness.

“Run, little bloom. Run .”