“The challenger has triumphed!”
Ian took the crescendo of applause as his due. He even descended a few steps and stripped the last of his shredded garb from his torso. He tossed it to the spectators at his right, who snatched up the torn remnants as if they were jewels.
I didn’t realize I was smiling until I caught Phanes’s contemplative look. “I can see why you’re taken with him,” he murmured. “He is . . . surprising.”
He didn’t know the half of it. Then again, maybe I didn’t, either. Ian had surprised both of us tonight.
“I have to talk to him. Alone,” I stressed.
Phanes gave me a hard look. “Unless you’re breaking our agreement, allow me to arrange the proper cover for it first.”
Stalling me again? I didn’t think so. “Fine, as long as you arrange for that cover now.”
Ian came back up the private staircase. “She sounds testy. Best to acquiesce. Happy wife, happy life, right, mate?”
Dear gods, I needed to speak to Ian now!
“Impertinent mortal,” Phanes muttered, but louder, he said, “You are welcome in my lands by right of combat, Sir Ian! More importantly, you are welcome in my home for saving my intended. As for the rest of you”—Phanes shouted so everyone could hear—“if there’s a drop of wine or morsel of food left in my home at dawn, I shall consider you poor revelers indeed!”
Once again, the stadium shook with cheers. Phanes gave me a challenging look, and then held out his arm to me.
I glanced at Ian, my gaze urging him to understand all the things I couldn’t say yet. If I scorned Phanes now, I abandoned the chance to save my father plus undo this unwanted engagement. Then, everything that had happened to Ian these past three weeks, let alone his death-defying fight with Naxos, would have been for nothing.
One more act. Just one.
I took Phanes’s arm, and at once held out my free one to Ian. “My rescuer deserves a formal escort, too,” I said loudly.
Phanes looked annoyed, but Ian’s gaze gleamed.
“Inviting me to a threesome? How gracious of you.”
Ian’s tone might fool Phanes, but it sent a shiver through me. He always sounded cheerful right before he engaged in a deadly fight. But where was his ire directed? At me, or Phanes?
We couldn’t get alone to talk soon enough.
“You forgot this,” Ian said, bending. Then, he held out the ancient, curved horn to me.
I glared at him. We both knew that if I tried to take Cain’s horn, the same powerful magic that had “chosen” Ian as its new owner would blow the back of my head off. Guess it was me he was pissed off at after all.
“No thank you,” I said curtly. “Besides, that’s yours.”
A challenging grin curled Ian’s mouth. “And now I’m giving it to you, so take it.”
What was he doing? If I took that and my head blew apart, Phanes would kill Ian! Or try to. Maybe he couldn’t, after what I’d seen. Either way, Ian needed to stop with the games and come with me, so I could explain everything.
“Ian,” I tried again.
“Enough,” Phanes snapped, and grabbed the horn.
My breath sucked in—and exploded out with disbelief when nothing happened. Phanes tucked the horn under his arm, and the ancient, deadly weapon did absolutely nothing.
What? How? How?
Ian grinned at my sagging jaw. Then, he slid his arm into mine as casually as if we were going for a garden stroll.
“You mentioned a party. By all means, lead the way.”
Chapter 13
Phanes led us through the temple to a section that appeared to be way off the main, showy path. Once there, stairs seemed to appear in the floor out of nowhere, leading into the darkness.
“How mysterious,” Ian said in a mocking tone.
“You’ll want to see this,” Phanes replied. “It’s why she left you to come here with me.”
With that blunt statement, Phanes descended the stairs, not waiting to see if we would follow him.
I seized my chance. “Ian, I didn’t know I’d been gone so long! I thought it was only one night, not even that—”
“I heard,” he said, something hard glittering in his gaze. “We’ll discuss it later. Now, I want to see what’s in there.”
With that, he jumped down into the stairwell, leaving me no choice except to stand there or follow after him.
I followed. The narrow hallway looked different from the rest of the temple. No fancy lights in the floor, no ornate decorations. Nothing but cold, hard stone the color of black glass. It ended in a torch-lit room with more stark black walls. Statues of underworld gods from various belief systems lined the small, rectangular space, and some kind of indoor pool ran down the center of it. It ended in a waterfall that fell from the ceiling as well as the floor, concealing whatever lay beyond it.
As soon as I crossed the room’s threshold, I felt a magic barrier pop, and then my senses exploded. The netherworld throbbed around me, so tangible I could have been swimming in it. That feeling pulled me toward the wall of water on the other side of the room. I went, reaching out for the final veil that was the only barrier between me and the world beckoning beyond . . .
Ian snatched my hand back. “Veritas!”
Not now, sorcerer, my other half thought irritably.
The rest of me pulled back at Ian’s voice, sharp though it was. It took a moment, but I wrestled free from the drowning pull of power that was only a touch away.
“Oh,” I said, surprised to see his face now highlighted by silvery-colored beams. I hadn’t summoned that otherworldly power, but it was there, lighting up my gaze with silver.
“Your father is on the other side of that wall,” Phanes said, gesturing at the waterfall.
Ian’s grip on my hand tightened. “Is he? And where’s that?”
“The netherworld.” Phanes’s tone turned silky as one wing extended toward the watery wall. “This waterfall hides a secret entrance to its prison section. If she goes through here, she can rescue her father with none the wiser. That’s why I insisted you come with me,” he added with a glance my way. “You must feel how thin the veil is here, so you know that I speak the truth.”
I did feel the netherworld so acutely that it reminded me of when I had ripped it open to drop Dagon’s soul into it. Ashael had also confirmed that Phanes’s realm floated on top of it, so it wasn’t inconceivable that Phanes had stumbled across a weak spot in the veil separating the land of the dead from this world.
“Why does your father need to be rescued? He’s the bloody warden of the place,” Ian said.
Phanes’s mouth quirked. “Not anymore, and I confess to being curious as to how he ended up as an inmate. My sources only knew about his new status. Not how he acquired it.”
I wasn’t about to tell Phanes anything he could use against me. So, I just said, “You know why” to Ian very quietly.
“Ah,” he said after a pause.
Did he understand now why I’d had to come? I hoped so.
“So,” Ian said, glancing from me to Phanes. “You found her and told her that her da’s now locked in his own prison, and offer to help get him out. She required that you heal me first, which you did. Now, you want her to storm your secret entrance into death’s gates. That about it?”