Chapter Twenty-Four

Farren

I don't allow myself to feel any relief when his blood bleeds the right colour, I won't allow it until I'm certain that they all bleed the right colour. Just in case Hiromu has managed to train his gift even more and make them bleed the right colour, if he had, he wouldn't be able to do it with all of them.

Zev smiles, "Go ahead and test the rest. No one will do anything. I promise."

Call it stupid on my part, but now that I've seen him bleed the right colour, I trust him, just a little bit.

The thought of how Hiromu couldn't make them all bleed the right colour at the same time crosses my mind, and I glance away from Zev while I think about how to make sure that I can see them all bleed at the same time. What I see when I face the others has me once again questioning whether it really is an illusion; all of them have their arms held out, ready for me to slice them.

An illusion wouldn't do that.

"I need to see you all bleed at the same time, and I need to be the one to slice you," I tell them.

"We can use our magic to keep the wounds open longer so that you can see us all bleed at the same time," Mayhem suggests.

I nod.

Wasting no time at all, I quickly slice their arms, noticing that with each cut, my axes buzz with magic. When they all have a slice on their arms, I spin in a circle, looking at all of their blood.

"It's normal," I mutter.

"Yes," Kill says gently.

"It's real?" I ask, my voice small and vulnerable.

"Yes, Love. We're real." Loki replies.

The relief is overwhelming, crushing in a way that I didn't expect it to be, and my whole body is suddenly overtaken by heart-wrenching sobs. My knees buckle, but before I can hit the floor, I'm caught in a set of strong arms. I'm incapable of anything but trying to breathe through my sobs, but I am aware of each of my guys as they put their hands on me in comfort.

I gradually become more aware, even though my sobs haven't stopped, that I'm not the only one shedding tears, and a wave of guilt crashes over me that I've made them cry. I know that they'd chastise me for that, but I'm suddenly feeling all of the feels that I've repressed while I was captured and knowing that this is real and they are actually here, well, it's opened the floodgates, and I'm just going to have to ride it out.

It takes a long time before my tears calm down, and I fall into an exhausted sleep, surrounded by my men, all of them even H. My creatures are standing guard over all of us, and I know that I'm safer than I have been, maybe ever.

**********

I don't know how long we were all asleep, but I wake up surrounded by creatures and the sounds of the men bustling about the cabin.

"Morning, Love," Loki says as he hands me some jerky, a hunk of bread, and coffee.

"You have coffee?" I ask.

"Of course," he grins as he bends forward and kisses me softly on my cheek.

"Thank you," I reply. I watch as everyone moves about, and it's obvious just from their interactions with each other that they've gotten to know each other really well recently.

I am surprised to see how well H, or Khaos, is fitting in with them. It's like he's been with them for years. He keeps shooting me concerned looks and soft smiles, just like the rest of them.

"Farren," Grey says, coming to sit in front of me with his own drink.

"Yes?" I ask, with a smile when he doesn't immediately reply.

"Are you feeling okay today?"

I nod, aware that I'm now the centre of everyone's attention, "Yes, I think crying it out was more therapeutic than I realised it could be. Thank you for letting me do what I needed to in order to prove that you were real."

"No need to thank us," Storm replies, coming to sit down too and quickly followed by the others.

"He's right; you should know by now that whatever you need, we've got you," Zev adds.

Grey smirks at me, clearly sensing that I'm beginning to want to change the subject; I'm hoping he's not planning on bringing up the G-word thing again because I am in no way ready to deal with that and whatever it entails, not to mention that I think that it's impossible at best.

"Yesterday, you mentioned a couple of things that I was hoping that you could clarify?" he asks.

I nod, trying to remember what I could have said, "Sure."

"You mentioned that you liked my wings more, and that you'd seen me fight with my swords so that's why you picked them up, how did you know about them both?" he questions.

I frown, I was sure that I told them that part, "Oh, the story got all mixed up because you guys kept asking questions and so I ended up skipping bits."

Mayhem frowns, "So, something happened before you got to the vault?"

I nod, but I'm interrupted by Grey, "It didn't click yesterday, but in order for you to get to my vault, you had to go through the throne room."

"Yeah, they're all still there. On the floor where they fell," I reply, a wave of sadness flowing over me.

Grey swallows thickly, "They deserved so much better."

"I saw what happened to them," I reply, and he looks at me curiously; I save him from asking the question and explain all about the vision that I was shown and how I saw what happened. I also tell him about the gemstones that a god gave to the Princes. When it gets to telling them about how Azreal broke his stone, I tell them everything apart from how I helped destroy it; something stops me, although I don't know why.

"So, that's how they were keeping my power level low," Grey mutters as he thinks it over. "And why I suddenly got some back as we escaped the first time."

"Yes, so once I'd gotten the key fragment, I went back through the castle to check the princes and break the gems so that you'd get your magic back. They were all already broken; I thought it might be because they were dead, but knowing that you were in the Underworld all this time makes me think that they broke for a different reason."

"Yes, I'd imagine that they broke when I set my magic free," he replies thoughtfully, "You went back for me instead of just leaving?"

"Of course I did. I didn't know if I had really broken them or not, and I also didn't want to risk the god coming back and being able to restart the link to drain your magic. That's why I made sure that I picked them all up," I say as I move to where I dumped my stuff yesterday and pull the bracelets out of my trouser pocket. I then open up the pocket in the Void and pull out Hiromu's hand, "Of course, Hiromu had to go one step further, and he stitched the bracelet into his arm, so I had to take the whole thing."

"That's gross," Rival mutters as he looks down at the hand.

"Tell me about it," I say, "but as you can see, they're all broken."

"We'll have time to get a closer look at them, but we need to get going," Zev says.

"As in need to?" I ask, wanting clarification.

"Yeah, we need to head out. There's an urgency to leave that we need to listen to." He explains.

"Gotcha," I reply as I put all of the bracelets in the same pocket of the Void; since I had to put Hiromu's in there, it's probably going to have warned the god anyway, so putting in the rest won't do anything apart from make sure that they're safe. No one will be able to take them out of the Void except for me.

It doesn't take us very long to pack up and get everything ready to go, but as I'm looking around to make sure that we haven't left anything behind, I catch sight of Grey looking unsure.

"What's wrong?" I ask him.

Everyone stops what they're doing and turns to face Grey.

He frowns heavily, crossing his arms over his chest as he says, "I really should head up to the castle."

The implications of that statement fly through my mind, and I feel my heartbeat pick up; as selfish as it sounds, I don't want him to go; I don't want to be separated from any of them, and I have a feeling that I'm going to feel that way for a long time. Before I can say anything or suggest that we head up to the castle with him because I refuse to be separated from any of them, Zev interrupts.

"No," he replies, as his eyes flash white; this vision seems to last a lot longer than some of the flashes he's had more recently, but it is nowhere near as dramatic as when he had the vision back at Black Onyx Academy, that seems like so long ago now.

Grey's eyebrow raises, "No?"

"Sorry, I was trying to see if it would let me see any more," Zev replies.

Reaper smirks, "You were arguing with your magic?"

Zev shrugs, "Well yeah, it's frustrating as fuck that it won't let me see you guys."

"What do you mean no?" Grey asks again, hope flaring in his eyes.

"You need to come with us, and we need to leave," Zev replies. When we all look at him expectantly, he throws his hands up in the air in a very Loki move and adds, "I'm sorry guys, that's literally all I've got. It didn't show me anything else. I just know that you need to stay with us, and we all need to leave the Underworld; I think we're coming back at some point. That was all muddled and honestly is only a guess right now."

"But what about the realm, there's no one running it now," Grey asks with a heavy frown.

"Well, let's face it, the princes weren't running it anyway, and besides, all Underworders are terrified of the princes and the armies that they think are at the castle; no one is going to go up there," Khaos reminds him.

"He's right; I mean, from what Farren told us, everyone is avoiding the place as much as possible, so it's going to be a while before anyone realises that the princes are dead," Storm adds.

Khaos nods, "Exactly. Not only that, but the Underworld is going to be healing just by your presence in it, and we know that it can last a damn long time without your presence too. We're going to have to trust Zev's vision."

Grey is quiet for a moment as he thinks about what the guys have said. "Yes, you're right; if the vision says I need to come with you, then I'm going to come with you. I just hope none of the Helliers from training go up to the castle, while I'm gone, we're going to have to figure out a fix soon. I need to get my realm back on track."

"While I agree with you about coming back here, we're going to have to talk about that at some point because I'm not letting any of you out of my sight," I start honestly, making all of them grin. I don't allow them to comment as I move on, "I don't think you need to worry about them sending Helliers up to the castle; it would be a suicide mission. I'm sure that they sent them up regularly at one point, but there were a lot of dead Helliers on the side of the castle that belonged to Grey. Your beast took care of them and he now has the run of the whole castle."

Grey's eyes widen, "He's still there? After all this time?"

I nod, "Oh yeah, and he's done an amazing job of protecting your vault, the Helliers' last resting place in the throne room, and whatever else you've got back there."

"Wow, I honestly thought he would've moved on by now," Grey replies.

I don't bother to reply to him because I can feel magic growing in the air. Someone is coming.

"Shit, do you guys feel that?" I ask.

It takes them a moment, but they're quickly all nodding yes.

"We're sitting ducks in here. We need to see what's approaching." Storm says and then orders, "Everyone grab your weapons and get outside."

My axes are already in my hands as I stride toward the door; this is where I'm comfortable, attacking things that attack me. I'm a fighter, and it has been rather emotional in here, and while I've needed it, and it's had its place, I'm done now.

Everyone quickly exits the small cabin, my creatures running out ahead; as I spot Oryn, it occurs to me that we haven't really had a conversation about him, and I still don't know what he is. We can figure that out later though.

"I think that's a bit dramatic for little old me," Monty's voice echoes around the clearing before he appears directly in front of me.

Unlike his usual demeanour, his eyes are worried as he looks over me with concern; I've always felt comfortable with Monty, but for whatever reason, when he just silently opens his arms, I happily accept the comfort. He hugs me tightly, his hands soothing my back. It feels like when I hug my uncle, that similar familiar comfort.

"I'm so sorry, Farren," he whispers into my ear, quiet enough that I know the others can't hear him, "you have to believe me that if I could have helped you, I would've, but my hands were tied. It would've affected the outcome."

His words weirdly echo the goddess's, but honestly, I don't care. I need this familial hug more than I realised.

"I know, Mont, thank you," I reply.

He steps back and glances over me again as if to reassure himself that I'm really here.

"You know you did the impossible when you changed fate, and without even meaning to as well. It's quite impressive," Monty says proudly, this time loud enough for everyone to hear.

"How did you know?" Zev asks and then shakes his head, "Never mind, I know there's no point in asking since you won't answer us anyway."

Monty smiles widely as he spins a cane in his hands and points the end at Zev, "Ah, smart man, he's finally getting it."

I chuckle, "I assume that you're here for a reason, Monty?"

"What, I can't come and check in on my favourite after the ordeal that she's been through?" Monty asks, his lips smiling but a hint of seriousness in his eyes.

I soften, "Of course you can, but I know that you aren't here for just that reason. There wasn't nearly enough drama to your entrance."

"She's right, Monty, what's going on?" Grey asks.

Monty's look turns into a glare although even I can tell that it's not that serious as he replies, "Nope, I'm still not happy about you."

"What did I do?" Grey replies indignantly.

"Oh, you'll know Hades, my old friend," Monty says and then adds, "Just you wait until the others realise."

"Does anyone know what the hell they're talking about?" Rival asks, looking around at us all.

"At this point, I don't think even Grey knows what they're talking about," Reaper replies, watching them and looking completely confused.

"Knowing Monty, he probably only vaguely knows what is going on himself," Khaos said.

"I heard that," Monty calls, stopping the truly absurd conversation that has carried on between Grey and him while the rest of us were talking.

"Good," Khaos grins when he replies.

"Alright, seriously, this conversation isn't getting us anywhere," Storm interrupts loudly, and everyone looks at him, "Monty, why are you here?"

Monty rolls his eyes and jumps into the air, landing on the top of his cane and balancing perfectly, even though it appears to be impossible.

"Fine, you can't go through the exit that you came through," he starts looking at the guys, and then his gaze switches to me, "and you can't go through the one that you use either."

"The one that she uses?" Grey asks.

"I accidentally found a door here a while ago, I freaked out as soon as I realised where it led me and I left immediately," I explain. "It was through the Void."

"That's impossible; you shouldn't be able to access this realm through Void. I know we call it a realm, but it isn't, not really; it's a whole other plane of existence." Mayhem says, looking at me like he has thousands of questions that I simply can't answer.

"Yes, but Farren has those weapons, and according to Grey, only a G. . ." Kill starts.

I shake my head and raise my hand, "Nope, we're not going there. I'm not doing it; do not say another word."

Monty's eyebrows raise, "So, she knows then?"

"No, no more words from you either," I say, narrowing my eyes at Monty, who chuckles but nods his head.

"Fine, as I was saying, you can't go through any of the usual exits that any of you would use. Doing so will trigger alarms for the Helliers and that will trigger a whole host of events that we want to put off for as long as possible." Monty explains.

"Do we want to know what kind of events that it's going to trigger?" I ask.

Monty shakes his head, "No, and they're going to be triggered at some point. I'm just trying to put it off for as long as possible."