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The caves were pitch-black. Our gifted vision could only do so much. I summoned a ball of light like Hecate had tried to teach me. When she had first shown me, I’d tried and failed to replicate it. Yet the magic didn’t hesitate to unfurl in my desired shape. Since claiming the mantle, there was a whole world of magic that was now possible for me.
“How far do these caves go?” I asked.
I wanted to rush through, but the caves were a labyrinth of forking tunnels. Without Xander’s guidance, we’d be lost.
“The elders have said they go everywhere. Under all Wind-Blood pack territory, to the moon rock and beyond. Even reaching to other dimensions.” He slid his green-eyed glance my way. “I’d thought it was just a myth, but apparently it’s true.”
“Myths are truths diluted by time,” Hector said.
Like the Moon Goddess. What had been the center of shifter religion was actually my enemy.
There was no way to go any faster, so the four of us spoke to pass the time.
“So how did you die?” Xander asked Daphne.
“I didn’t.”
He frowned. “Didn’t Avery say you all came from the land of the dead?”
“Hell,not to put too fine a point on it,” she replied.
“Hell.” He snorted. “Does it live up to the name?”
“Absolutely.”
I nearly stumbled. I expected Daphne to say no. After all, it was a place of relative safety over pack life, plentiful food, a city to explore.
“The people are violent, there’s no end to the magical horrors and curses you encounter, including star-skinned, pompous demons. People try to poison you if they don’t like you; it’s not like in a pack where you can just challenge someone. And the air… there’s like this miasma, some foul energy that clings to my skin and enters my lungs with every breath. I can’t shift when I’m there. My wolf can’t break out of my skin.”
How bizarre. I’d never felt any evil in the air. But then again, I had died. Daphne existing there as a living creature who didn’t belong was unlikely to be welcome.
“But,” she continued, “it’s a thousand times better than living among people who would let you be caged like an animal for protesting some psychotic wolves killing your best friend.”
Xander looked at me for a long moment, then back at Daphne, putting the pieces together. “You’re the wolf Avery was looking for two seasons ago.”
I nodded in confirmation, even as my stomach clenched at the reminder. Cole had been in the pits for months.
“If you were in Hell, how did you know she was imprisoned?”
I explained how scrying worked. That led to questions on the rest of my magic, but I didn’t have much in the way of answers to offer. The magic simplywas, just like shiftingwas.
“They talked about the red wolf presiding over plants and life, butobviously there’s a lot beyond that.”
There was.
I hoped it would be enough to let me do what Hecate had deemed impossible.
“And the black wolf, is he as powerful as you?”
“More.”
“And he rules over death.”
It wasn’t a question, so I kept walking.
“Are you sure we should be rescuing him then?”
My fingers twitched at my sides, green sparks flaring. I bit down on the urge to slam him against the cave wall for even implying leaving Cole to his fate could be an acceptable option. But we needed Xander, and he didn’t mean any harm.
