1
Bella
Adrenaline tingled through my body as the portal closed behind me, taking the light of Erimos with it. I blinked into the dimness, my sword raised and every muscle in my body tense and alert.
The stone tables that I had seen Joshua’s body on stood foreboding and empty in uniform rows, lit by candles set in iron sconces on the walls. I scanned the cavernous space fast, counting five tables across the width of the room, and too many to keep track of stretching the length. I stood as still as I could, ears straining for the sound of anyone else in the windowless space with me but I was sure the room was as empty as the tables were. Reaching out to the closest tentatively, I touched the dark stain I’d seen from the other side of the portal.
Blood.
More tension gripped me, and I felt Ischyros heat in my hand. I clutched the weapon tighter, the sensation lessening how alone I felt.
You had to leave Ares, I told myself. You owe him nothing.
The rage he had caused by betraying my trust surged in me, steeling my determination. I didn’t need to feel guilty. The backstabbing god had brought this on himself. I was here to save my friend, and that’s what I would do.
But the ache in my chest didn’t lessen as I shoved the feeling of loss as deep down as I could.
I moved forward, purposefully. There were no exits where I was standing, so I needed to find one.
Checking everything around me carefully as I walked, I made my way through the tables. Any clue could be useful. I noticed that the walls seemed to be paneled in dark wood, but I saw nothing else but tables and flickering candles.
My mind raced, trying to work out how so many bodies could have been moved from this room, and where they might be now. With magic in the equation, I supposed anything was possible. Why would the Lords send me here if there was nothing to be found?
Part of me knew for certain that they didn’t want to help me. This was a trap, for sure. But was their intention to kill me so that I couldn’t help Ares? Or was it to give me what I wanted so that I wouldn’t help Ares?
The former seemed the most likely, I realized, and my steps quickened at the thought. I didn’t regret my decision though. If there was a possibility of finding Joshua here, wherever here was, then I had no choice but to take it.
Joshua was someone I did owe something to. He may not have been honest with me during the time we’d spent together, but he had spent all of it trying to help me. Not just using me like that giant asshole had.
I quickened my pace further. I knew I was taking less care to check my surroundings for anything other than a door or window but I didn’t want to be in the grim room anymore. I wanted light, and air. I wanted to know where I was, and why. I wanted to find Joshua.
Relief washed through me when after another few minutes, the end of the room finally appeared in the gloom. I half-jogged to a dark archway set in the middle of the wall. It led to a narrow and equally dim spiral stairway, leading up and I took the stairs two at a time, the faint hope that Joshua might be at the top spurring me on faster.
I was not expecting what I saw when I burst through the wooden door at the top of the stairway.
At all.
I was on a ship. A colossal ship, with shiny wooden planks, masts like giant tree trunks, and sails...
My breath caught as I stared up at the sails that were hanging from three masts. They looked like they were made from liquid gold, sparkling metallic colors shimmering across them as the fabric rippled. As if responding to me noticing them, a huge gust of wind blew across the deck, whipping my hair up and causing them to snap taut. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anything so beautiful.
Something was wrong though, something fundamental, and it pulled me from my awe. I blinked around myself. There were clouds floating by on either side of the ship. Colored clouds, pastel pinks and purples, with glittering dust corkscrewing through them.
There was a distinct lack of salty ocean scent in the air, and my pulse quickened. I took a slow step out of the doorway, glancing back to see that it was set in the raised back end of the ship, a spoked wheel atop the platform above it. A vague memory of pirate movies told me that was the quarterdeck. I glanced toward the other end of the ship, some distance away but close enough to see that there was an identical quarterdeck at that end too. That was definitely different to the pirate ships from the movies.
I walked carefully, knowing it wasn’t normal for a ship this size to be apparently devoid of crew. But I saw nobody as I approached the high railings, and tentatively peered over.
My stomach lurched, my heart starting a small stampede in my chest as I stared down at nothing but clouds. We were flying. The fucking ship was flying. Zeeva’s words about flying ships pricked at my memory, and exhilaration filled me.
A flying pirate ship.
“No freaking way,” I breathed, my words lost to the clouds whizzing past us.
A cold feeling blew over me, and at first I thought it was the wind generated by the ship soaring through the skies. But as my hair stood on end, and an icy trickle snaked down my spine, I realized it was something else. Something magic. Almost relieved that I wasn’t alone on the ship, that there was something there that might help me find Joshua, I raised my weapon and turned around.
Shadows that hadn’t been there a moment before were crawling down the central mast, and dark smoke seemed to be seeping up out of the wooden planks of the deck. A tangy smell that made me think instantly of blood rose with the misty smoke.
“Show yourself!” I called out, as red seeped down over my vision. A low, keening wail started up, distant at first, but growing in volume fast. It set my teeth on edge and made me want to cover my ears, but I kept my stance as it was, moving slowly away from the railings. I wasn’t stupid enough to keep my back to a fall that high. “You don’t scare me! I just want to talk.”
“Talk?” A voice replaced the wail, hissing and high-pitched and seriously unpleasant to listen to. “Nobody ever wants to talk to me.”
“Well, I do. Show yourself.”
“You really do not have any fear of me?”
“I don’t know what or who you are. So no.” I was lying. I feared the unknown far more than I feared foes I could see. If this smoke creature was the Underworld demon, then I would rather it were standing in front of me, giving me a damn clue as to how I could fight it.
The pulsing smoke and shadows whipped up suddenly, drawing together in front of the mast, twenty feet from me. I tried to keep both the awe and fear I was feeling from showing on my face as the keening started again, pitched higher, almost a shriek. The sound filled my mind with images of grief, loved ones hysterical as they wailed over corpses. A surety that I would soon become one those corpses clawed at me. There would be no one wailing with grief over my body though. I was alone. I was always alone.
A sickening desolation took me, and I almost lowered my sword arm when Ischyros fired to life. Warmth pulsed from the hilt of my sword through my whole being, forcing out the darkness bleeding through me. It was the thing’s power causing my fear; I had to be stronger than it was.
But knowing that what I was feeling was being instilled in me by magic made it no less terrifying.
Wings stretched slowly from the dark mass before me, huge and dark and leathery. I focused on them, seeing that they were torn and jagged, the arches at weird and broken angles. Then the rest of the blackness melted away, leaving me a clear view of what I was facing.