Chapter 8
In the back of the temple, a garden path opened up to an impressive stadium that looked like a smaller version of the Colosseum in its prime. The stone benches quickly filled with Phanes’s guests as well as people who seemed to pour in from paths between the tall shrubs that surrounded the stadium.
Must be the occupants of the other temples on this cloud-strewn mountain. News about the challenge and subsequent trials had traveled, and it was obviously a not-to-be-missed event.
I felt sick when I heard people placing bets on who would survive: Naxos, or the unknown challenger. So far, everyone was betting on Naxos. I had to get Ian to drop out of this.
I pushed through the crowd, glancing behind me every so often. Yes, Phanes was still staring after me, even as he made his way to a private alcove three rows up in the stadium. Servants scurried behind Phanes, carrying kylixes of wine, silk cushions for him to sit on, and other luxuries.
Phanes didn’t want to let me out of his sight. Why?
I grabbed a woman by her arm as she tried to hurry past me into the stadium.
“Where’s the challenger?”
“Probably below the arena,” she replied, trying to pull away.
My grip didn’t loosen. “Take me there.”
She couldn’t have looked more shocked if I’d stabbed her. “I can’t. It’s forbidden!”
“Rules are made to be broken,” I insisted. “Come on.”
She screamed. Now I had the attention of everyone around us, too. I smiled through gritted teeth.
“Just a dispute between friends, people. Carry on.”
“Help me, she’s insane!” the woman shouted.
“I’m not. I just need to see the challenger—”
“Veritas.”
I whirled at my name. Ashael was several meters behind me, half hidden behind a thick stone pillar with a mural of Zeus painted on it.
I released her with a muttered, “Apologies,” before I strode over to my half brother.
“Take me to Ian,” I said as soon as I reached him. “I need to stop this. Do you know what will happen if he loses?”
“Yes,” Ashael said, yanking me behind the pillar. “And if I couldn’t talk him out of this, you won’t. Besides, if you’re caught interfering, it’ll be considered as cheating, and his life as well as yours will be forfeit.”
Anger and anxiety exploded in me. “Then why did you bring him here, let alone tell him how to issue a non-retractable, lethal challenge? I had the situation with Phanes handled!”
Ashael looked at me the way the screaming woman had: as if I were insane. “Handled? You’re choosing to be here?”
“For one night, yes! You couldn’t give me that before bringing Ian here so he could risk his life for me again?”
Ashael’s angry, defensive expression melted away. “One night. That’s how long you think you’ve been here?”
“Not even,” I began, and then stopped. “What do you mean, that’s how long I think I’ve been here?”
Ashael gave me a pitying look. “You don’t know where you are, do you?”
My hand sliced the air in an impatient wave. “On a magically hidden island, similar to the one you took Ian and me to when we were looking for Yonah.”
Ashael’s tight grip loosened. “No,” he said very softly. “You’re not on an island. You’re not in your world at all.”
“That’s impossible.”
His brows arched. “Didn’t you notice the celestial wormhole you had to enter to get here?”
Oh, shit.
Yes, I had noticed the strange, extended whirlwind of darkness when Phanes teleported us here. I’d also never before been to a place where mountains appeared to be held aloft by clouds, the temples were far larger than their exterior appearances accounted for, and creatures from different mythologies were real. I’d discounted the former as glamour and the latter as unusual, but maybe it was more than that.
I took in a breath that did nothing to ease the sudden tightening in my body. “If I’m not in ‘my world,’ where am I?”
Ashael patted me the way you’d soothe a startled beast.
“Some call these places fae worlds. Others call them the home of the gods. Some consider them purgatory. Technically, they’re all correct because no two bubble realms floating on the lip of the netherworld are the same. They become whatever their ruler designates them to be. Phanes modeled this one after the legends mortals told of him, but in all these realms, time passes differently because of their proximity to the netherworld. In some, it speeds up. In others, it slows down. I didn’t know which one this was until now.”
I’d been shaking my head as he spoke. Logic had nothing on denial. By the time he was done, I was fighting a shriek. Yes, I knew that time passed very differently in the netherworld. I’d been killed often enough to notice that the few minutes I spent in that dark void before my father resurrected me could equate to hours back in the living world. But I didn’t know that “bubble realms” like this existed, let alone that I was in one.
“So, how long have I been here, according to you and Ian?” I managed to ask through a new lump in my throat.
Ashael sighed. “A little over three weeks—”
My horrified scream cut him off.
Chapter 9
Ashael clapped a hand over my mouth, giving an alarmed look around before tightening his grip.
“In case Phanes’s reaction escaped you, my kind is hardly welcome here. If you scream again, someone will assume I am assaulting you, and it will not go well for me.”
I forced myself to stop. To take in a breath instead, and not think about how the whole time I’d been getting bathed, massaged, and then displayed like a trophy for this stupid feast, weeks had passed where Ian was. And he’d had no idea where I was, why I’d left him, or if I intended to come back.
No wonder he’d looked at me with such rage! He must’ve thought that I’d abandoned him just like I had after my father erased most of Ian’s memories of me.
I felt my back hit the wall behind me, and I leaned against it because I suddenly needed the support. Now, I didn’t feel like screaming. I felt like weeping.
A new thought shot anger through me, until I straightened as if I’d been yanked up by an invisible hand.
Phanes must have known. This wasn’t the first time he’d gone back and forth from my world to his. Oh, yes, he knew, and he’d insisted that I come here to “talk.” Once we were here, he’d stalled again, telling me that he needed a night of pretending before he’d reveal how to save my dad.
What would his excuse have been tomorrow? That he had to wait until after lunch before telling me how I could free my dad? How long would Phanes have put me off, knowing that every hour I spent in his world equated to being gone for days in mine?
“I’m going to kill him,” I ground out.
Ashael gave a wary look around. “Who?”
Phanes! both parts of me replied.
Neither of us said it out loud. Most people who noticed Ashael and me seemed too intent on reaching the stadium before all the good seats were taken, but a few of them had lingered because of my previous scream. I caught their eye and forced a smile as I patted Ashael’s arm to show that everything was okay.