Promise of Shadows (23 page)

“I can’t ask you to do that. She’s your grandmother.”
“She’s an insane goddess bent on once again ruling the Mortal Realm, Zeph. Besides, she’s never even sent me a birthday card.” His grin is slow and wicked, and sadness floods me.
I’m going to miss him most of all.
I clear the lump from my throat. “I need you to throw me into the air. If I can get high enough, I think I can dive at her. Can you do that?”
He nods and moves behind me, his hands on my waist. I draw as much of my darkness to me as I can. His breath is warm on my ear. “I’m going to lift you onto my shoulders, and then launch you from there. Just like the old days. Okay?” I nod. We used to do something similar back in the Aerie when I was small, before I could take off on my own. It was one of my favorite games.
I brace myself, but I’m still not ready for the pain that knifes through me when he lifts me up. Still, my feet manage to find his shoulders without kicking him in the face.
“On the count of three,” he yells. His hands are under my feet, ready to throw me. Hera is only a few feet away from us, completely absorbed in whatever she’s doing. I can do this. I can stop her.
“One, two, THREE!”
I crouch and jump at the same time that Tallon pushes up on the bottom of my feet. The result is that I’m airborne, but falling too quickly to reach Hera.
Wings. I need wings,
I think. And like before, the darkness obliges.
There’s a tingling along my spine, and then upward movement. A coordinated flapping of wings behind me, and I’m soaring. It’s feels like coming home, gliding through the sky again. But I don’t have time to savor the feeling. I have a prophecy to fulfill.
The pain in my middle fades a little as I focus on Hera. I climb a little higher. Up high, the ruins of the old fort are clear, as is the darkness pulsing along the lines of the old walls. It radiates off into the night. From here it’s easy to see how this place could be more than what it seems. Each of the corners of the fort terminates in a diamond shape instead of a normal corner. It’s unusual and beautiful.
I take a deep breath. I don’t have time to admire ancient architecture. Holding my hand out, I ask the darkness for a short sword, the kind we train with in the Aerie.It’s slow to respond,and instead a long, slender knife made of midnight appears in my hand. The darkness is fading, pulled down to whatever Hera is doing below. That’s my cue.
The wings ride the currents as I seek the best place to strike. The magic is stirring up the winds now, and Hera stands in the calm center of a storm of erebos. A thin layer of bright æther protects her from the dark magic, which is probably why I wasn’t able to hurt her before.
But my talons were able to strike her just fine.
I loosen my grip on the long knife and angle my shadow wings into a dive. Hera doesn’t move, but her magic senses the impending attack. The bright reaches out for me, but a bit of the dark magic swirling around Hera detaches itself and intercepts the bright. I swerve to avoid the next missile, and then I’m beside Hera.
Æther leaks from the Exalted’s eyes, the only sign of the amount of energy she’s expending. “They are coming. And they will bring every last dark creature with them.”
“Let them come,” I grit out. Hera still grips the sword she buried in the ground. It must be her link to the spell she’s casting. I slice at her arm with my talons. The æther pulls back, revealing the pale skin of her arm and a thin bloody cut. Before the æther can recover I plunge the dark knife into the gash.
Hera’s scream of pain rips through me like a sonic boom. My shadow wings disintegrate at the same moment that she lets go of the sword. She clutches at the knife in her arm, but already the darkness is devouring her from the inside out. Dark lines run up her white arms and the column of her throat. She turns wide eyes on me.
“No. It cannot be. You . . .” She never finishes, stumbling backward into a bright column of æther and disappearing.
That’s when all the hells break loose.
The rushing sound of a freight train approaching echoes around me. The erebos has been let loose, the magic wild without Hera to control it. The ground vibrates. Tallon runs up next to me, his eyes wide. “You have to take control,” he says, yelling to be heard over the noise.
I groan. I just want to lie on the ground and die in peace. “What?”
“Look!” He points behind me, and I slowly turn. A dark cloud spirals into the sky like a tornado. Only the cloud has faces. The thing shifts, and I get a glimpse of Cass before she’s sucked back into the maelstrom.
A funnel cloud of the dead is about to destroy Pittsburgh.
“I got it,” I say. Pain radiates through my middle again, and I moan. Tallon starts to move toward me, and I shake my head. “I have to do this myself.” He nods and takes a step back. I close the distance to the sword without a backward glance.
The swirling mass of shades is anchored to the sword, courtesy of my blood and Hera’s spell. The sword is no longer bright, but blackest night. It oozes erebos, and the thing calls to me like a piece of unattended chocolate cake. I limp toward it. But it takes me years to reach it. The bright æther in my middle is spreading throughout my body. My leg has gone numb, and the side of my face tingles. I’m going to die from this.
I hope Hera is going through the same hell.
I tentatively touch the sword, and the darkness leaps for me. My arms are bare, silver lines arching across them from the poisonous æther. The erebos doesn’t seem to mind, and dark lines form right next to the bright. I take a deep breath and put my other hand on the sword. I gasp as the dark rushes toward me, fast and hard.
I am drowning in a sea of shadows.
It’s just like when Hades sent his dark after me, but worse. There’s no violence this time, no intent to punish. There is only the dark’s willingness to serve. It wants what I want. It wants me to be happy.
Right now it thinks that means pulling every shadow vættir in the world down the Paths and straight into the Node.
I try to tell the darkness to stop. But it’s too loud. It’s like shouting at a crowd of screaming fans. Telling the darkness not to pull in the shadow vættir isn’t going to work.
I have a moment of despair before I take a deep breath, and I close my eyes. I think about Whisper and Cass and all of the other shades swirling overhead. I think about Alora lying facedown in the grass and Blue gorging his dragon form on kobaloi. I even think of Tallon, waiting to catch me like he always did when I was little.
He won’t get the chance. This time I’m going to save everybody else.
The darkness is so close, and I reach for it. It comes like an eager puppy. It wants to heal me, but the bright is too far entrenched. I know there’s no use in worrying about that, so I try to clear my mind of all my doubts, all my worries. I send the darkness one final, crystal clear thought.
Home, please. Send everyone home.
The shadows hesitate for a second, trying to interpret what I mean. Then the dark storm of shades slowly stops swirling. The column of them stretches and narrows, before shattering into a flurry of dark butterflies. They flutter and flit for a second before winking out one by one.
One of the shades brushes against my cheek before it goes. I want to think it was Whisper, but I know it’s more likely it was Cass. She always believed in me.
The shades fade away, and so does the darkness. My legs go numb, and as I collapse, Tallon is there to catch me.
Just as I knew he would.
“Peep, what did you do?”
I can’t breathe, the æther moving through me faster and faster. I try to force a smile, but instead a sob tears through me. It hurts so bad. Now that I know I’ve stopped Hera, it’s hard to focus on anything else. “I told the darkness to send everyone home. I’m sorry.” I say it because I don’t know what else to say. Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes.
“Not yet, Zeph. Not yet,” Tallon says, but I can’t answer him. I look up, surprised to see the darkness hovering above us. Tallon’s right. I can’t die yet. That much darkness let loose in the Mortal Realm will upset the balance. There’s too much. If I try to take it all, it will kill me.
But I’m already dead. The bright will see to that. I can’t just leave the shadows here for Tallon and everyone else to deal with.
“Go. I have to take the darkness from the Paths,” I tell Tallon. This close he’ll be hurt if something goes wrong. But he doesn’t listen.
“I’m not leaving you. We need to get you to a healer,” he says, his jaw set. I reach behind him for the sword, connecting with the darkness that way. Then I use the dark power to shove him away and copy Hera’s barrier move from earlier. It’s easier than I thought it would be. He yells at me, but I’m not listening. I’m focused on the darkness still pulsing down the Paths.
“Come here,” I say, calling to it. I use the sword to haul myself to my knees. It’s the best I can do.The darkness moves along it and into me, healing me and battling the æther in my veins. But there’s too much bright.
More. I need more.
I’m not trying to heal myself. I’m just trying to soak up as much of the erebos as I can before the bright wins out. Hopefully when I die, the erebos will be carried to the Underworld with me. The darkness floods through me, and the black lines on my arms grow thicker, the shadows deeper. I take in more. I’m bloated with the energy. My heart thrums, loud in my ears, and the pain of the æther is sharper, closer.
I close my eyes, pull in more erebos. More and more. For a single brilliant moment the pain fades away, and I open my eyes. On the other side of the barrier Tallon, Blue, and Alora watch me, their mouths hanging open. I smile, feeling truly wonderful for the first time in a very long while.
This is what it’s like to win.
It’s the last thought I have before the darkness overwhelms me.
I break into a million pieces.

I sit on a grassy mound above a gently sloping field. It’s skirmish time, and far below, my mother and Whisper lead a contingent of shadow vættir against a horde of Hera’s Acolytes. It’s all in good fun, since there are no grudges in the Elysian Fields. Memory is a tricky thing when you’re dead. No one remembers the petty arguments that were so important in the Mortal Realm.

That’s a good thing, since a lot of the Acolytes down below were sent here by me.
Someone blows a horn, and the two sides run screaming toward each other. I catch a glimpse of Cass and Elias throwing spears alongside a score of Amazons, their aim deadly true.
The two of them cheer as their spears bury themselves in a couple of satyrs. Elias, the dark champion, looks nothing like I thought he would. His hair is the orangey red of the setting sun, and his skin is covered with freckles. But Cass is crazy about him, and even death hasn’t erased their love for each other.
On the other side of the field the goat men go down, writhing around in their death throes. Then after a few minutes they jump up, pull out the spears, and chase after a couple of nearby nymphs. I can hear their laughs all the way up on my hill.
Skirmishes in the afterlife are just to pass the time. What’s the point? Everyone’s already dead.
I look away from the battle, which will go on until it’s time to eat again. It’s hard not to appreciate the view. Every day is perfect, the sky a shade of blue that makes my chest ache. Time actually seems to exist here, although it’s a lie. But there’s a day and a night. We sleep under the stars when the sky darkens or in one of the cottages that spring up at a thought. In the morning we’re greeted by a perfect sunrise. Everyone’s dead down here, so I’m not plagued with the stink of emotions. Although I suspect that if I was, it would be the smell of never-ending birthday-cake happiness.
I don’t know if I could handle all that joy when I’m as angry as a hornet’s nest.
I watch as Cass picks up a set of bolas and swings them above her head before releasing them. They tangle around the legs of the satyr chasing a nymph, and he goes down. Elias high-fives Cass, a move she taught him. I sigh.
“What, don’t they let you play?”
The voice strikes a chord deep in my belly, and I hate the way my breath catches. This is the third time he’s found me, but not the third time he’s come looking. He’s been down in the Elysian Fields so much that the dead have given him a nickname. The Dark One. It’s fitting.
Every time I see him, it’s the same nervous flutter of hope and excitement. I swallow the ache that blooms in my chest. I will not do this to myself.
“No. I’m not allowed to participate in the battles. The last time I fought alongside them, I changed the entire landscape. Hades said that until I learn to control my powers, I’m not allowed to use them anywhere but Tartarus. He doesn’t like cleaning up my messes.”
Tallon collapses on the ground next to me with a sigh. It’s an exhalation of pain, and I can’t help myself. I look at him.
“Oh my gods, what happened to you?” He looks like he was beaten with a sock full of quarters. His face is scraped up, and his lower lip is swollen. He moves like he’s in agony, slow and stiff. He isn’t healing, which is unusual.
“I had to cross the river Styx to get here this time. And, you know, a few other choice places. You ever fight a hydra? Yeah. Me neither. I got my ass kicked.”
He looks so sad that before I can help myself, I reach out and touch his lip, using my darkness to lower the swelling and ease his pain. He could’ve healed it himself, but instead he made me do it.
“Why aren’t you healing?”
He grins. “I was hoping maybe it would make you feel sorry for me.” I pull my hand back, but he catches it and places it against his cheek, his eyes closing. I let myself enjoy the contact for a second before pulling my hand back.
“Why are you here, Tallon?”
He grins. Just the tiniest bit of power, and already his face is knitting back together. In a few seconds he’ll be flawless once again. Either way, he still looks wonderful to me. “I’m here to take you home, Peep.”
I shake my head and put a few inches between us. “I am home.”
He snorts.“You aren’t dead.You don’t belong in the Underworld. You belong with me. In the Mortal Realm.”
I look away from him toward the battle going on in the field below. I don’t want his words to make me feel as happy as they do. I want to be numb inside. I want to feel like I deserve to be exiled to this place of endless boredom.
I should be dead, even though I’m not. The erebos saved me. And like everyone else, it sent me home. To the Underworld.
Whisper’s team has started to mop up the remainder of Hera’s forces, who are now running back to their base with whoops and laughter. I smile as Mom raises her sword in the air and screams out her victory, the sound echoing like that of a falcon. Whisper is right next to her, and they put their arms around each other and laugh. It’s been a good series for them. Their team is three for four.
Not too far away, Hermes waits for my sister. He sees me looking at him and waves. I do the same. Whisper sees him and runs over, a wide grin on her face. I’m starting to think he really did care for her. Especially since Hermes travels down here to see her all the time.
I think I’ve been wrong about Æthereals. I think they can feel. It’s just easier for them to deny their emotions than to live with the messy consequences of feelings.
Maybe one day I’ll ask Hades about him and my mom again. I wonder if he’ll tell me the truth this time.
“Zephyr.”
I turn to Tallon, to the raw emotion in his voice. “What?”
“Please say you’ll come back with me. You’ve had enough time to recover. Blue misses you, Nanda keeps making food that no one eats, and the entire neighborhood is looking for you. We need you. All of Ulysses’s Glen needs you.”There’s an edge of desperation in his voice.
“Tallon, I can’t go back; you know that.” The darkness is a part of me, but there’s more of it now. After that last battle with Hera I took in so much power that I can no longer keep it contained. It flares around my head like a dark aura. Even Hades doesn’t know what will happen if I go back to the Mortal Realm. It could be dangerous.
He shakes his head and grabs for my hand. Our fingers tangle together, but I don’t pull away this time.Tallon takes a deep breath. “Say you’ll at least think about coming back.”
I am thinking about it, damn him. And now that I am, I desperately want to see my friends again. Maybe even give school and all that a chance. I don’t know that a normal life will ever be mine, but I’d like to at least try.
I glance down at my arms, and the darkness holding the bright æther at bay. The deadly power still moves through my body, the shadows holding it in check. Here in the Underworld the effects are barely noticeable. But what happens if I go back? “I don’t even know if I can go to the Mortal Realm, Tallon.”
Something in my voice must give him hope. “We can try. Besides, it’s not just me that needs you. Hera’s gone, but her Acolytes are beginning to gather again. It’s just a matter of time before they try something new. And there are other problems. The entire vættir community is in chaos. You’re the Nyx.The vættir will need you to lead them, and you need to be ready.” He kisses my knuckles, and I can’t help but remember those lips in the hollow of my neck. The memory makes me feel flushed. Tallon raises his head and smiles at me. Such a simple thing, that smile. And yet it undoes all of my resolve. “Come back with me. The world’s better with you.”
I think of the possibilities, of all the things that wait for me if I go back. Danger, definitely. But also friends. And maybe . . .
Maybe love?
I take a deep breath and let it out. “What did you mean, back in the hotel room? When you said you didn’t want to ruin me?”
Tallon swallows and sighs. “I’m a monster, Zephyr. My father is a monster and one of the dark lords. One day I’ll be a dark lord as well. I’m of the dark, and I didn’t want to hurt you by pulling you into my world.” He looks away, his gaze far-off. “I may live in Ulysses’s Glen, but it’s not the vættir that I belong to. I’m an Æthereal, and one day I’ll have to answer that call. I know what happens to those who make the mistake of falling for one of my kind.”
I shake my head and look out at the few vættir left on the battlefield, some of them chatting, others wrestling or joking around. “What does that have to do with anything, Tallon?”
“I remember what you were like as a kid, Peep. I didn’t know if you were strong enough to handle the complications of being with me. I didn’t want to put you through that if I could help it, even if it killed me to push you away.”
I turn to study him, my heart in my throat. “And now?”
He laughs. “If anyone is strong enough to stand with me, it’s you. You stopped Hera and saved the shadow vættir. You can handle my darkness.”
I don’t tell him that’s because I am the dark. The shadows course through my veins, whispering to me as they move through my body. The dark is a living thing within me, and I think I like it. It’s something I’m still getting used to.
Besides, a girl has to have some secrets.
I grin at him.“Maybe I’ve changed my mind. Maybe I don’t like you anymore.”
He pushes me so I fall over, just like he used to when we were kids. “Well, maybe I don’t like you, either. Do you think Whisper would make out with me if I asked her?”
I sit up with a snort. “I think you’d have to fight Hermes first.”
“I could take him.”
I shove him. “Jerk.” Before I know it we’re wrestling, and then he’s tickling me, and I’m laughing so hard that my middle hurts.
“Stop, stop!”
“Admit you still like me,” Tallon says, finding the ticklish spot in my side.
“Okay, I admit it. I still like you.” He stops tickling me, but his hand is still splayed across my middle.
He grins down at me. He knows the battle’s almost won. “So, are you going to come back to Ulysses’s Glen with me?”
I push him over so we’re lying side by side in the tall grass, the too-blue sky above us. I rest my head against his shoulder, and his arms wrap around me. Right now I refuse to think about anything but how good it feels to be in the circle of his arms. I won’t think about the future, or about all the things people will want from me if I go back to the Mortal Realm. I refuse to think of anything but the boy who crossed the Rift to save me, the boy who was there for me when I was small. The one I hope will be there for me in the future.
So I don’t answer Tallon’s question. Instead I just enjoy the moment.
And for now, it’s enough.