Chapter 63
"If you piss your pants in hell, are you stuck in them forever, or…"
The Maestro's smile illuminated his dark eyes as he moved toward me. And I let him follow, step after step, as I backed toward Paesha, Hollis, and Ezra standing with my father at the edge of the Lake of Lost Souls.
"Aren't you the humorous one?" he asked, shifting away from the edge just as my back collided with Paesha's.
"Depends on who you ask, I guess. But about your request. I'm going to have to turn that down. I'm not here to play at being a god."
"What are you talking about?" my father demanded, slipping from Ezra's loosened grip as he spun, searching the fog resting above the silvery water. "Where's your mother?"
I narrowed my eyes but said nothing.
He stepped forward, the malice on his face something that had haunted me as a child. I'd mourned his death. Justified every hateful action he'd taken against me, and he still had the gall to look at me like that. I'd chosen peace with him relentlessly, but even I had my limits.
"Where is my wife?" he demanded again.
"Free."
Without warning, Drexel lunged, grabbing Hollis from my side, slipping his arm around his neck, and dragging him backward toward the edge of the lake.
"No," I screamed, but Ezra held me back, snatching Paesha, as well.
"Don't get close to the water," he growled, staring at Drexel, who'd taken my father's side.
Hollis squirmed, and I couldn't manage a single breath as my heart began to pound in my chest. I couldn't lose him twice.
Drexel's face twisted into something unhinged, desperate. Menacing eyes growing wide, he ran his fingers through his hair until it stood on end. "You think I like bargains, Deyanira? Death loves them more. He made me what I was, gave me power that wasn't owed to me for a night with my sister. I did his bidding and look where that got me. I'm done. I want to be freed from this purgatory, and I won't go back to that castle. I won't be locked in the pit again. You will free me, or you know what's coming."
I inched forward, yanking myself from Ezra's hold as I swiped two throwing knives from my chest. Drexel's laugh and his fucking smile as Hollis feared for his eternity ignited a torrent of fury within me.
"If you think the pit is bad, wait until you see what I have planned for you."
"You would never," he sang, the voice of a performer coming out. "You're too pure."
"Put the weapons down, Deyanira. They do you no good here," my father ordered before turning to Drexel. "I can promise you she's always been the thorn, never the rose. Don't hold her to standards. She'll only disappoint you."
I studied our surroundings for an answer. Help of any kind. But only the shadowed branches of dead, gnarled trees loomed above us. My shoulders fell as I looked to see Paesha struggling against Ezra while he hauled her backward.
"Let him go!" she screamed. "Take me this time, Maestro. Take me."
"Beautiful Huntress," he purred. "Happy reunions. How was our little Quill last you saw her?"
She froze, slowly standing upright. "Why?"
Drexel's grin became maniacal. "One doesn't make enemies of Death's Maiden without certain… safeguards in place."
"What did you do?" Ezra asked, the growl in his voice terrifying.
He lifted a shoulder. "It doesn't matter now, does it? We're here, and she isn't. Though I do hope to see her again in my next life. See how she fares with her new troubles. Don't you, Hollis?"
"Let him go," I warned, wondering what I truly would do if he didn't comply.
"Go ahead, Dey. Give him another chance at life so I can find a way to kill him slower next time," Paesha said through gritted teeth.
His doubt of my conviction to damn a life was twisted. The war within me had already ended. I was just like everyone else. Not all good, not all bad. Existence wasn't black and white. It was gray. I was gray because some deaths were warranted. Still, I took a step backward, and he followed, moving slightly away from the edge of the water. Another step, and again, he followed. Predictable.
"Throw your little knife, Maiden. It makes no difference to me. I'm already dead."
"Oh, this isn't for you." I lunged, snatching the front of Hollis's perfect white shirt, ripping him from Drexel grasp as I twisted and blasted the throwing knives into the branch of the dead tree now hanging above us. We tumbled to the ground the second the crack echoed through the night and the limb fell, crashing into the Maestro's stomach, where Hollis had been. He stumbled backward, sheer panic on his face as he reached the slippery edge of the Lake of Lost Souls.
He yelled, throwing his arms out to catch his balance. Only then did I notice how close he'd been to my father. The Maestro reached for him, scrambling, snatching his sleeve. I tried to get up. Tried to get to them. Even when neither deserved it, I still tried. But it was too late. In a breath, they both crashed into the murky water, though it didn't splash. Didn't ripple or wave. Simply… devoured them.
I held my breath, guarding my heart as I prepared for the guilt to break me. Nothing came. Only a calm numbing. Only a pulsing sense of justice.
Still, Hollis laid his hand on mine as we sat on the decayed ground. "I'm so sorry, Little Dove."
I shook my head. "Don't apologize for them. They made their own choices."
Ezra and Paesha came to help us up, but the color had completely washed from her face as she stared into the murky water.
"P?" I whispered.
"I'm fine."
"Hey." Ezra spun her until her back was to the water, holding the sides of her face tenderly as he forced her gaze to his. "It'll never be you, Kitten. I'd drain the fucking lake before I let that happen."
She smiled, nodding, though her fingers trembled along his. He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead before leading us away from the water.
"Do we sleep in hell?" Paesha asked, stepping around a fallen branch.
"We do whatever we want until he calls," her lover answered. "And he will."
"Apart from the lake and the pit, what else do we need to be aware of?" I asked.
"Death has had an eternity to twist this realm into a place of pure pleasure and unmatched torture. If I began to list them, we'd be here for hours. Just stay close until we can figure out a way to get you home."
I stopped, wondering if I should run. If I could trust Ezra as much as the others. Paesha tugged on his arm until all three paused.
"You don't know me, so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here. I'm not going back unless it's with Orin."
"Orin is gone," he shouted, throwing his hands up. "And each second you spend trying to free him, you're putting everyone around you in danger. Respectfully, you should have had a better plan before you got here, Maiden. Because the only thing you can do now is survive."
"He's still in there. You saw him in the hall."
Ezra rushed toward me, gripping the collar of my shirt, hauling me closer. "He's nothing more than Death's lackey, and you're fooling yourself if you think otherwise. His actions are demands of his father, and that's it. My brother is gone. That thing that looks out from his eyes ate away his soul. Orin would have never laid a hand on me."
"You have three seconds to get your fucking hands off of me or I'm going to make you wish you had the lake to escape to."
He growled, baring his teeth. "Your threats mean nothing here, Maiden."
I gripped his wrist, anger building.
"Dey," Paesha whispered.
"One."
He tugged me closer, hazel eyes nearly gleaming in the moonlight. "Two."
"Stop this," Hollis pleaded from Paesha's side as she ran forward, shoving herself between us until Ezra's grip faltered, and he let me go.
She kept her back to him, a plea in her eyes as she held her hands up. "He's only trying to keep me safe."
"I know," I roared. "What do you think I'm trying to do for Orin? He needs someone. He needs me to remind him who he is."
"Okay," she said softly, as if she were speaking to a wild animal. "We'll find him. We'll do it together."
"We won't," Ezra said with so much finality the twist in Paesha's heart showed on her face.
"I will," Hollis said, moving to my side. "I will stand beside you, come what may."
The Huntress turned, facing the love of her life. "I will, too," she breathed. "Because if it were me, Orin would come. He would crawl his way through any battleground for me." She stepped forward, placing a hand on Ezra's chest until heaving breaths turned steady. "And if it were you, I would be the one to start the battle."
"You don't know this place like I do," he said, shaking his head.
"No, my love. I don't. I know you, and I know your fear is warranted. But Deyanira is my family, too, and she needs us as much as he does."
His eyes shifted between hers, and I felt like an intruder on a pivotal, private moment. He practically shrank, leaning his forehead to hers. "Then I will follow you into the depths of hell and grow wings for your escape."
Ezra threw a halfhearted apology my way as we continued following whatever path he'd chosen. I didn't condemn him for putting her safety above everyone else. He'd lost her and was likely to do irrational things to keep her now that they were reunited. But that kind of love was dangerous to me. He was dangerous.
"If not the lake, then perhaps the grove?" Hollis asked, with a note of reservation in his tone.
"You of all people know why that's a bad idea, Hol," Ezra answered. "But I can't argue that it"s probably the best option for a single night."
"I'm fine with anywhere but the lake," Paesha said.
I leaned down, swiping a dead leaf from the ground to keep my hands busy. "What's the threat there?"
"It's best you see it for yourself," Hollis answered, a tiny skip to his step as he hustled forward, nearly overtaking Ezra's long strides.
Beyond the patch of trees bordering the Lake of Lost Souls, a glowing blue light shone in the distance. As we neared, though Ezra's steps had grown slower, the lights grew, until we were close enough to see them for what they truly were.
"What is this?" I asked, staring up at the silvery bark emitting that soft blue glow. I swiped my hand through the gentle mist that made the area feel almost dreamlike, immediately feeling a pull to step into the heart of the grove, as if I could feel the safety within, the promise of peace.
"The Whispering Grove," Hollis answered, leaving us all behind in a trance.
"It's a sanctuary amidst the horrors of Death's court for the spirits known as the Whispers," Ezra said, standing pointedly outside of the glow cast to the soft, mossy ground. "The Whispers are a collection of souls that found themselves so entranced by the grove's allure they became trapped within."
I tossed the remnants of the crumbled leaf I'd been picking at to the ground and stepped into the cool light, immediately feeling the pull, the cool brush of a calm promise. "So, they get to spend eternity in peace? Sounds terrible," I said with an eye roll, turning to follow Hollis.
Ezra's step within came with a gasp from Paesha. I whipped around to see him, half the form of a human and half luminescent spectral, his eyes growing sad as he moved backward. "I've spent my fair share of time in the grove, Maiden. Most of us have. There's a mask of peace, but this is Death's court, and the Whispers are trapped here. When he comes to play, it's absolute torture. He's peeled the skin from my body. Broken every bone. Made me watch as he murdered everyone I'd ever known in visions of torment. Death's single currency is fear, and he comes here to collect it."
Paesha joined him just outside of the barrier. "We'll, umm. We'll just be out here," she said.
"You're safe," he assured her, stepping back into the light. "I won't be taken overnight. And Death has been… extra vicious lately. Orin's massacre has given him a crop of new souls to torment. He only comes here when he has to. I think because something in the magic tortures him, too."
"But Hollis?" I pointed to where the old man was fading down a hill. "Why did he seem so eager?"
Ezra sighed, his hazel eyes darkening. "Because his wife is a Whisper, and if he spends much more time here with her, he will become one, too."
"Does he know?"
The giant man nodded. "He's made his choice. This will eventually become his eternity."
The edgeof the Whispering Grove was hard to step out of. Having spent hours there, waiting for them to fall asleep, each moment coaxing me to wait just a little longer and a little longer until the Whispers came. Like haunted ghosts, they circled, smiling, each face kind as they promised I could stay forever.
We will protect you,they'd said. Don't listen to the things you've heard, Maiden. The grove is safe. The grove is happiness and love. The grove is…
I'd had to cover my ears to block them out, and the moment I did, they vanished, content to let me feel the euphoria of the grove without the badgering.
Paesha fell asleep in Ezra's strong arms, his snoring never seeming to bother her. Together, they looked so peaceful and happy it made my heart ache, but it also solidified my decision. She'd come for Orin and for me. But if we dug deeper, I knew it was for Ezra, too. Even though it meant leaving Quill behind. Ezra was her eternity. And he was right. Every decision I made put her in more danger than she deserved.
She needed to get back to Quill, and I'd promised her a way. I couldn't let anything happen to her before it. So, I left her, wrapped in his strength, knowing that no one would protect her or love her as hard as he did. And that was the best thing I could ever wish for her. She needed these moments before they were gone. She'd earned them.
The trees beyond the Whispering Grove felt colder, darker than they had before. There were more people within the forest now, more souls really, though they were corporeal, like those in Death's throne room. Most faces seemed gaunt, most people keeping a distance, but not all were alone. They didn't speak, though. Not a single hushed tone crept along the cool breeze. They were scared. All of them. As I should have been.
Still, I followed the silhouette of the looming castle in the distance. Each moment that passed felt heavy, as if it would be the one that captured Orin fully, the moment he could no longer fight. There wasn't a part of me that could sleep in a mossy grove, knowing intimately the darkness that held my husband by the throat. I hadn't come here for safety. I'd come for him. He was mine. Fierce and merciless and unmoving. But mine.
I thought I'd have to search the entire castle to find him. I'd resolved to accept any form of torment along the way, but when he stepped out from behind a tree, cloaked in his father's black robes, shrouded in darkness, and eyes full of hatred, I found that perhaps I wasn't truly ready for torture.