The headless body ceased its searching and went still.
The second undead man had stopped in his tracks, watching her. His head lolled about on his shoulders, still attached but suddenly appearing too heavy for his neck—as if whatever puppet strings were controlling him had suddenly gone slack. His hooded grey eyes drifted over her, briefly locking on her face. On her eyes. Then his body slumped, and he dropped to his knees and fell forward onto the ground.
Cas heaved for breath as she stared at him.
What—or who— had given him life?
And what had killed him in the first place?
Chapter Two
Trembling slightly, Cas grabbed her bow, returned it to its place on her back, and then backed away from the still bodies. She didn’t want to ask any more questions, suddenly; she just wanted to keep going, to finish this job and get as far away from these strange mountains as she possibly could.
Still carrying her commandeered sword, she broke into a jog. She slowed down only once she’d caught sight of what appeared to be the open trail on the other side of the Bone God’s pass. She paused and took a diamond-shaped crystal from her coat pocket.
This particular crystal was embedded with Air-kind magic. It was cheaper and slightly easier to come by than Fire crystals—and it was also incredibly useful.
The lesser-spirit of Air had once been a messenger to the upper and middle-gods, and for her services, she had been granted magic that made her capable of moving both herself and her messages more easily through space. Now a tiny trace of that spirit’s magic resided in the translucent green stone resting against Cas’s palm.
A whisper of I’m almost to the gate against that crystal, and a bit of concentration on her part, and the spell activated and absorbed her words, her thoughts, her vision; Cas made sure to focus intently on all that she had seen and was seeing, so that the others might see it too. She pictured those undead monsters once more, even though she didn’t want to, so that her friends would be sufficiently warned about what they were walking into—though she also made a point to show them that the path to where she stood was more or less clear.
And it was, wasn’t it?
Those lone two men were still the only ones who had really attempted to stop her. She still felt as if she had chosen the right path—the one of least resistance—and that meant she’d won the bet she’d made with Zev. So he owed her a drink. And she made sure to include that in the message she was sending as well.
The thought of sharing a drink with her friends after this was over was comforting. It warmed her up considerably as she finished activating the Air-kind spell, even in spite of the rain that had thoroughly soaked and chilled her to the bone.
The Air crystal crumbled to dust in her hand, and a spark of celadon-colored energy flickered before her for an instant before disappearing and carrying her message off to the others.
Then she waited. She watched the path ahead, and the one behind, and five minutes passed. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes—
Where were they?
The storm picked up its intensity again. The adrenaline surge from her fight had faded, and now bad thoughts started to resurface in Cas’s mind. All those thoughts of the people and things she had lost on that stormy night just like this one, over thirteen years ago…
Suddenly restless, she continued through the remainder of the Bone God’s Pass on her own, ducking and weaving through those strange, protruding white formations. In the darkness lit only by flares of lightning it was even easier to believe that the crystal formations were skeletal hands grabbing at her hair, her coat, her weapons. Each flicker of light and peal of thunder made her heart slam a little harder against her chest.
Finally, she was back on a more open path, moving away from those skeleton fingers and away from the actual undead beings that she’d escaped in that pass. She was safe. She was okay. Her friends would be here soon, and she would be safe and okay—
She nearly convinced herself of this. But then thunder, thunder, more thunder pealed through the sky, bounced around the tall cliffs on either side of her, dove a vibrating, twisting path into her gut…
Cas leaned her back against the rock face rising to her right and slumped halfway down it. She could feel the anxiety clawing through her. Digging in. Threatening to become a full-blown attack.
Not here, she thought. Not now.
She tried to tell herself how ridiculous she was being. She had just fought off two undead monsters, and now she was letting nothing more than a storm trigger her? Letting it steal her breath? Letting it tie its weights to her hands and feet and hold her in place this way?
But her anxiety was like that, unfortunately; it didn’t always make sense, even to her, but that didn’t make it any less real.
“Get it together, you fool,” she chastised herself. And at least for the moment, both herself and the storm around her seemed to obey the growling tone of her voice. The wind briefly calmed. The rain slowly transitioned to a mere misting.
Cas managed to anchor herself further by tapping her fingers against the stone behind her. One, two, three…all the way to ten and then back down again. Her breathing settled. Her panic receded somewhat, and the world momentarily turned oddly silent and still.
More footsteps penetrated that silence.
She whipped toward the noise, lifting her new sword and pointing it at a target she couldn’t see.
Something small and quick startled her as it brushed against her leg—but then she looked down, glimpsed a black-tipped tail bouncing away, and she realized what had just weaved its way past her. She lifted her eyes expectantly back to that path behind her. Lightning flashed a moment later, illuminating a dark face that was framed by darker curls and half-hidden by a mask similar to the one Cas herself wore.
Rhea.
Cas let out a small sigh of relief as she lowered her weapon. She peered around Rhea’s shoulder, searching for Laurent and Zev. “Just you?”
“The guys are coming,” Rhea assured her. “They were investigating something first. Some more friends like the one you, um, relieved of his head back there.”
“More dead bodies, you mean?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Were they…”
“Alive? Yes. In a manner of speaking.”
“You think there’s a Bone-kind around here somewhere, pulling the strings?”
“An incredibly powerful one, maybe. Or maybe it’s just the odd energy of these mountains, and the residue of whatever strange magic has gone on here… All I know is that this is an exceptionally neat place, and I’m really enjoying myself and all, but Cas?”
“Yes?”
“Next time I’m choosing the mission.”
Cas huffed out a breath, too distracted to manage the laugh she usually did at Rhea’s dry and occasionally morbid sense of humor.
“…You okay, by the way?”
“Fine,” Cas replied in a cheerful tone that likely would have convinced anyone but Rhea.
Rhea was almost completely blind—had been, for over a decade now—and she always said the loss of her sight had made her ears more attuned to bullshit.
Another crackle of thunder and lightning made Cas shiver. She started to walk before Rhea could question her further. Up ahead, she spied a shallow cave—an opportunity to get out of the rain for a moment—and she decided to wait there for the rest of their party.