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Oh, God.
My grief was suffocating and too heavy to bear. This was one loss too many. I lay still as Myra’s copy murmured words over my body and then lifted the sword over me. So, she had been using the Raven Mockers over the past several weeks to test my strength. Would she kill me the same way I’d killed her pets? Would she run the blade through my heart? Could Collin bring me back from that?
Instead, she grabbed my arm and ran the tip of the blade down my forearm, pressing it deep. I expected pain, but there was nothing, only blissful numbness as Myra, the woman who’d held me when I was frightened and wiped my tears, the woman who knew my greatest fears and greatest triumphs, bent over and began to lap up my blood.
“Ellie!” David screamed.
Tears slipped out of my eyes and down my cheeks, drenching my hair. I’d failed her too.
Maybe I deserved to die.
I saw a flash and heard shouting close to the tree. A tiny streak shot toward David. Tsagasi and his warriors were saving him.
Myra grunted her frustration and untied my restraints, lifting my arm higher so she didn’t have to bend at an awkward angle. The blade had dug deep and I was losing blood at an alarming rate. If I was going to use the ring to save David and Collin, I needed to do it soon.
I bent my left arm, pulled it back, and smashed my elbow into the demon’s nose. She cried out in pain as I reached over to my right hand, the fingers pulling off the ring and enclosing it in my fist, the band exactly in the middle of the circle and square.
An eerie sound filled the air, alternating between harmony and discord. It grew louder and louder, with an ear-piercing hum. The white-clad figures dropped to their knees and covered their ears, releasing shrieks of their own.
Myra’s eyes burned bright red and anger contorted her face. She dropped her hands from her bloody nose and reached for my right hand, but I clenched my fist tight. She used her demon strength to try and tear my fingers away from the ring. I resisted, but I’d already lost a lot of blood. Again. I was weakening fast.
Digging deep inside myself, I tapped into my power as a witness to creation and focused all of it on my hand.
The music grew louder and faster. The notes filled my head, and I was spinning and spinning until I was transported to the field where I’d seen Daddy and Okeus. The sky was the same gray and the field was dead and trampled, only this time there were two thrones on opposite sides. Okeus sat on one side in a dark suit, his hair slightly mussed in a sexy way. Ahone sat on the other. His clothes looked like something straight out of a Bible adaptation. His long white hair and beard added to the look.
“You must choose, Ellie,” Okeus said, rapping his impatience with his fingers on the wooden chair. “It is time.”
I turned slowly, from Okeus to Ahone. “No persuasive speech from you, Ahone?” I asked.
“I do what is best for my children,” was his reply.
I was so fucking tired of gods and their bullshit answers. I wanted some real information.
I looked into Ahone’s eyes. “The ring. What does it do? Does it seal the gate? Why does the Great One want it?”
Okeus snorted derisively. “The Great One.” There was obviously no love lost between Okeus and his offspring.
Ahone sighed. “The purpose of the ring was to give you an advantage over Okeus’s children. So you can defeat them on your own without the other Keeper. No more. No less. It was designed for you and you alone.”
He sounded convincing, but I had a feeling he wasn’t telling me everything. “But it’s not doing any harm to the Great One right now beyond pissing her off. Am I doing something wrong?”
A smile spread across Ahone’s face, the first I’d ever seen from him. “Choose me and I’ll give you the answer.” He shifted in his seat. “Besides, you’ve already chosen. You wear my symbol on your back. This is a mere formality to appease my brother.”
Why would I expect direct answers from a god? Everything came at a price. “So I make my choice and that’s it? You’ll both leave me alone?”
Okeus stood but didn’t stray from his throne. “Ellie, you know there’s really no choice here. Come with me now and I will save the men you love, who are fighting for their lives right now—who are fighting to saveyou.”
But it wasn’t that simple. I knew I could never give Okeus what he wanted.
“I make my choice and you will honor it?” I repeated. I wanted confirmation before I played my hand. I turned to look at Ahone. “I want you both to agree to leave me unharmed if you aren’t my choice.”
“I will honor it for one year,” Okeus said, his voice cold. He knew I was up to something. “Ahone,” he called past me. “Do you accept this amendment?”
“I do.”
Freaking gods. But that meant I’d have a year before I had to deal with them again. “Agreed.”
“Enough of the drama, witness to creation. Tell us your choice.”
