House of Gods, page 37
“I have long been able to get around that ridiculous binding,” Keres snapped back at him. “I am tired of playing the submissive wife to your rage, husband.”
“You will come to heel.”
“Like an animal?” Keres said with a shake of her head. “No. I am the daughter of He Who Reigns. Finding mercy did not sully me. Discovering the meaning of living in this world and not just conquering it does not make me less than. I am still who I ever was. You will have to face the true might of my power to get past me now.”
“For the girl?” Vulsan asked in disgust. “All this for a bastard?”
“You are here for her, are you not? Then, it is all I must protect.”
Vulsan charged at her, and Keres blocked him in perfect rhythm. There wasn’t even a place for Kerrigan or Fordham to interject in their fight. They were moving at a blinding speed. Keres had clearly been waiting for this moment. No matter that the blood bind held her to him. Perhaps the blood of her blood was more important than that ever could be. And she’d finally broken free from the cruel trick he’d played on her.
“Go, Kerrigan!” Keres called as she held Vulsan back from the portal.
“She has him.” Fordham took her hand. “We should make a break for it.”
“I won’t leave you,” Kerrigan insisted.
Kerrigan wasn’t sure that her mother had Vulsan under control. They were still tangled. Blood flowing freely from open wounds they’d inflicted on one another. Then, Vulsan reared back and got one good punch into Keres’s face. Her mother went down in a heap.
Kerrigan used all of her power at once to blast Vulsan backward. She ran for her mother. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Keres said, coming shakily back to her feet. “I’ll be fine.”
But she didn’t look fine. The portal had taken so much of her magic. She didn’t appear to be able to even stand fully on her own. As if the longer this fight dragged out between her and Vulsan, the worse off she was going to be. And Kerrigan couldn’t leave under those circumstances.
Vulsan was back on his feet, stalking toward them. “You will pay for that, you bitch.”
Kerrigan rolled her eyes. “Real creative. Petty insults seem beneath you.”
Vulsan whipped flame toward them at lightning speed. Kerrigan gasped, raising her hands to block it. But she wasn’t fast enough. It glanced off of her shoulder, and Kerrigan screamed.
Fordham was there then. His shadows curling around Kerrigan and Keres. A moment later, they were farther away from Vulsan, back before the portal.
“We’re leaving. This is over,” Fordham told them. “Keres, you’re coming with us.”
Keres was getting to her feet, ignoring Fordham entirely. Fordham put a hand on her, and she struck him to remove it.
“He will never stop.”
“We have to go,” Kerrigan said, holding her bleeding shoulder. “All of us.”
“Go, Keres!” Vulsan said with a sadistic laugh. “There is nowhere I cannot find you.”
Keres’s face went stony. She pulled up her hands for another counterattack. Anything to keep him from them, but Kerrigan refused to budge. She wouldn’t let him do this to her mother. She had just gotten her back.
Then, directly between Vulsan and Keres, a bright blast of white light shattered their vision. Keres cried out, shielding her eyes. Kerrigan was seeing double, blinking back stars. It was like looking into the sun, but somehow worse. So much more direct.
“No,” Keres moaned. She turned then, blinded by the bright light that had formed between them. “Forgive me.”
Kerrigan blinked away the worst of the light, trying to figure out what her mother meant. Then, the bangle was yanked off of Keres’s arm and slid effortlessly onto Kerrigan’s own wrist. With all of her might, she shoved.
Kerrigan fell backward. Fordham taking her weight as they both tumbled into the iridescent portal. Just as the light materialized into a man. No, a god.
“Daughter,” the god said.
He Who Reigns had appeared.
53
The Contact
Kerrigan screamed as she plummeted through the portal. Her mother was still on the other side, facing off with Vulsan and He Who Reigns. Her own father. A god. A legitimate god. Who had appeared in a shower of light. With all the power of that world at his disposal. And Keres had sent them through rather than risk her father’s notice.
She landed on her knees in a field.
“Oof,” she groaned as she fell forward, barely catching herself from face-planting. “Scales.”
A moment later, Fordham hit hard on his back beside her. All the air whooshed out of his lungs, and he rolled over, coughing from the impact. “We made it.”
Kerrigan jerked upward. The portal still stood between them. An iridescent, shimmering archway in the middle of a Bryonican field. She could go back through. She could try to help her mom. She could make this right.
“Close it,” Fordham said. He grabbed her arm, as if seeing the moment when she might try to dart back through it. “We can’t help her. Use the bangle and close it.”
Fordham was right. They had barely been able to hold off Vulsan. He Who Reigns was so reviled that Doma in the afterlife were still fearful of him. What could they do against that power? Was this what Keres had feared from the start? Not that Vulsan would show up, but her father. Her worst fear come to life.
“Kerrigan,” Fordham pleaded.
She closed her eyes, held her hand out, and let the portal collapse. The rush of power at its release shoved them both back a few feet. Kerrigan coughed as she got dust in her mouth and eyes. But when she looked up again, the way back to Domara was gone.
She slammed her fists into the ground. Fury and regret ripped through her in equal measure. It didn’t help that she knew that she couldn’t have fought him off. That her mother coming with them hadn’t even been an option. And yet it was just another loss. Another loss with no way to know if her mother was even okay.
Fordham waited for her to run her anger out and then took her now-bloody fists into his hands. He brushed the dirt off of them, exposing the torn knuckles. Then, he brought each to his lips and kissed them. “I wish there were a way to make this better for you.”
“There isn’t.”
He kissed another knuckle. “I know there’s nothing that can be done, but this is what your mother wanted. She wanted you safe most of all.”
“I know,” she said through a sniffle.
“And she wanted you to complete your mission.”
“I wish she were here.”
“As do I,” he said. “She loves you, and you are strong, just like her. You will endure this.”
He didn’t say it would be okay. Because it couldn’t possibly. Just like all the deaths he had seen before him when he believed himself to be cursed. All of his family, aside from Wynter, was gone. He understood the sacrifice better than anyone. And he continued moving forward. That was all she could do.
“Thank you,” she whispered and let him draw her to her feet.
She placed a kiss on his lips before turning to see exactly where they were. They were in Corsica Forest, the land for the House of Cruse. The small village of Lillington was a short distance away, and farther away, she could see the manor estate, Waisley. It had stood for thousands of years, and yet she doubted very much that it was in friendly hands at present.
She had no idea whether her father was alive, and Kerrigan was the only holder of the house. Likely, Bastian had given the house to someone else, or the Bryonican crown had confiscated it for themselves. Either way, to go there would be tantamount to turning herself in. As much as it pained her.
“Too dangerous,” Fordham said, mirroring her thoughts. “We should find cover and then reach out to our allies.”
Kerrigan nodded. “Agreed.”
The last thing she wanted to do was walk away from her home and leave it in a usurper’s hands, but she had bigger problems right now. The bangle felt heavy on her wrist as they walked as one out of the empty field and into the Corsica Forest for better cover while they regrouped.
“We need to find a way to figure out what happened in our absence,” Fordham said.
“Yes,” she said wearily. “Find out … who is still alive.”
“I’m going to reach out to Netta.” He was almost eager when he said it. Though he was clearly trying to hide it.
“You’ve missed her,” Kerrigan said.
“Very much. I knew she was alive. Or else … I would be dead.”
Kerrigan winced. “Right.”
She had gotten so used to the idea that she and Tieran weren’t bonded that she had forgotten Fordham and Netta still were. She couldn’t reach out to Tieran, except on the spirit plane, and she wasn’t sure she had the energy while steeped in grief.
Her mother had made it seem like she would be able to get that bond back, but Kerrigan couldn’t imagine doing it without being in his presence. And she had no idea if he was alive. Just because she was … didn’t mean Tieran was, unlike Fordham and Netta.
Fordham’s eyes went distant. Netta could be anywhere on the entire continent of Alandria. Their connection had a limit. The more they were connected, the easier it was to speak across distances, but at large distances, he might only have a vague sense of where she was.
“She’s … north,” Fordham said. He frowned. “Near the House of Shadows.”
“Did you speak to her?”
“It’s too far to get more than a vague understanding from her. She wants to meet. I showed her where we were, but she seemed adamant against coming into Bryonica.”
Fordham’s and Kerrigan’s eyes met. That meant they were in danger every second they remained in enemy territory.
“Suggest somewhere near the city. We’ll need to find out what’s been happening in Kinkadia and with the Society. We should get as near as we can without being seen.”
Fordham nodded, and his eyes went very far away again. His brow furrowed in concentration. “I think she understood,” he said, panting as he let the connection go. “We should head in that direction, and then I should be close enough to have a real conversation with her.”
There was only one problem. How were they going to get to Kinkadia without being noticed?
“Ford,” she muttered, “how will we make this work? We can’t go on foot. I’m too recognizable by a long shot.”
His eyes glanced to the bangle on her wrist. “We could …”
“No,” she cut him off before he could finish that thought. “This thing is one of seven. It depleted my own mother, and she’s a full-blooded Doma, daughter of He Who Reigns. Imagine what it could do to me.”
“She was trying to go between worlds. We’re staying within Alandria and to a location you’ve been to many times before.”
“Do you really want to risk it?”
The bangle made her uncomfortable. It was as if she had a beacon on her wrist and any second He Who Reigns might pop up out of nowhere and claim the thing for his own. The way he’d appeared before her mother. She didn’t know if that was how the thing worked, but the possibility was there.
Fordham sighed heavily through his nose. “Fine. We’ll save it. I can jump us.”
“All the way to Kinkadia?” Kerrigan asked in disbelief.
“Keres was … training me,” he said as if the very idea was distasteful. “To draw on her power and expand my awareness so that I could jump farther distances.”
“That’s why you were disappearing all the time.”
“Partly.” He shrugged. “I still don’t think I could get us there in one jump. I wasn’t doing more than a couple of miles with Keres’s magic to bolster me.”
“And I’m not my mother.”
His storm-cloud eyes met hers. “It’s the opposite.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am more connected to you. Our magic is not a tragic circumstance that I’m fighting against. I feel … whole with you.” He drew her closer. “If we worked together, I think I could jump farther. Maybe not all the way to Kinkadia, but greater than what I could do alone.”
“You trust me that much?”
“I trust you with my life.”
“And did you mean it?” She looked down before glancing hesitantly up again. “When you asked for my mother’s blessing?”
He cracked an easy smile. “I have been trying to do things the right way from the start, and all along, you worked your way into my life until I could do nothing but have you. Yes, Kerrigan, I want you to be my wife. I want to share my entire world with you. If you’ll have me.”
“Oh, I’ll have you.”
Then, she rose on her tiptoes and pressed their lips firmly together. He wrapped his arms tightly around her. As their passion kindled, their magic mingled. Fordham’s shadows coiled around them both. He reached for her power, and instead of balking at the contact, she let him in. Let him draw on her.
One minute, they were standing in the Corsica Forest, and the next, his shadows deposited them on the banks of the mountains outside of Kinkadia. He gasped, releasing her and dropping to a knee.
“Ford!”
She reached for him, panicked at the thought that he’d gone too far. Much too far. Farther than even she had imagined possible.
“I’m all right,” he assured her. “It was a big jump.”
“Yes. I can’t believe you did it.”
He grinned. “I can’t believe it either. I was sort of bluffing.”
She laughed. “Of course you were. I’m rubbing off on you.”
He rose smoothly back to his feet. “I don’t know how often I could do it, but we made it. That’s what matters.”
“Can you call Netta from here? She could pick us up, and we could find a place to camp out until we decide our next move.”
Fordham was silent a moment, and then a smile spread across his hard features. “I can reach her. She’s with Tieran.”
“Oh my gods!” Kerrigan whispered, tears coming to her eyes. “Tieran is alive.”
A weight lifted from her shoulders at the news.
“Yes. She gave me a destination. It’s not far from where we are now. She said it’s not safe for her to be out in the open. The Society has been searching for her and Tieran.”
That made sense. It wasn’t safe for her to be out in the open either. Their strange togas would draw notice, and her red hair was a dead giveaway. It wasn’t a positive thing here in her world, as it had been in Domara. Nothing about her was special here.
“We can head in that direction, and then when I can jump again, we’ll use the shadows,” Fordham told her. “She’ll catch us up once we’re all together.”
It took a long stretch of empty road and two smaller jumps before Kerrigan and Fordham made it to Netta’s destination. It was a hidden outcropping of rocks, tucked into the mountainside. Far enough away from Kinkadia to not draw attention or accidentally have Red Masks stumble upon them, but close enough that they could find out what was happening in the city.
When they stepped up to the hidden entrance, Kerrigan wasn’t sure what to expect. Netta had been sparse with details.
But a figure with white hair dashed out of the soft glow of the interior. “You’re alive!”
Kerrigan had to blink twice before she realized it was Fordham’s sister. “Oh my gods, Wynter!”
Fordham stood stiff. “Sister?”
Wynter stopped just before she reached them. She seemed … different. More put together, even stabler than when they’d last seen her. She’d been in the arena when the Red Masks attacked, but she’d fled to the Wastes to try to save who she could.
And there, striding out in her wake, was Dozan Rook.
Kerrigan took one step toward him. Her heart pounding. “Dozan,” she whispered.
“What? Didn’t think a little demolition could keep me down, did you, princess?”
She actually laughed. In a few strides, she was in his arms again. She felt a tug down the bond from Fordham. Warmth and understanding. None of the jealousy that had plagued them all those times they met Dozan before. He wasn’t the King of the Wastes here. He was one of her oldest friends, and he had survived a massacre that should have been his undoing. But of course, he had gotten out. With Wynter’s help, apparently.
Wynter looked torn between embracing her brother and pulling Kerrigan bodily away from Dozan. Huh. Interesting.
Kerrigan drew back. “I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Same, princess. Same. Where exactly have you been off adventuring?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Dozan grinned. The clever fox he was. “I very much doubt that.”
“How did you end up here?” Fordham asked.
Wynter quickly recounted how she and Dozan’s men had returned to the House of Shadows to reclaim the throne for him.
“For me?” he asked in surprise.
“I have no need of a throne,” Wynter said imperiously. “It’s yours to command. I just held it together while you were gone.”
“And we went after your dragons,” Dozan explained. “Found them trying to recruit other Society dragons to their side. Might I add, learning to fly on that thing is a lot worse than you ever made it out to be?”
Kerrigan’s eyes widened. “You’re riding a dragon?”
“We both are,” Wynter said. “Well, Netta and Tieran are letting us ride with them. We’re not bound.”
That was a lot to process.
“And where are they?” Kerrigan asked.
“They just got here,” Fordham said and was already turning and hurrying back out of the mountain crevice.
Kerrigan followed after him in a rush. Her heart was in her throat as she saw their two large shapes come out of the sky and land near them. Kerrigan couldn’t hold back now. She dashed down the mountainside and flung herself against Tieran.
“What took you so long?” she gasped.
Tieran rumbled a laugh. I could ask you the same thing.
“I missed you so much. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
As am I. As am I.
