Soul Cursed, page 8
Whoever or whatever had kept them apart last time wasn’t going to succeed again. If they tried that shit again, they’d find out the hard way that this time he’d fight to the death to keep her with him.
Chapter
Eight
As they jogged, the screams of the inhabitants of the lower chambers became louder and louder. The map indicated the most direct route was through the Morningstar’s lands, the entrance to Tartarus currently closest to his kingdom than any other Hell Realm.
The faster they moved, the fewer the quakes around them.
“You get the feeling the Underworld still isn’t happy we’re here?” he said to Rinna, trying to make her laugh.
She just shot him a look. “Did you really think it was going to be easy?”
“No. Quite frankly, it’s same old same old. I’ve come to expect things to always be difficult.” Including, apparently, his relationship with her. At one time, it was one of the easiest things in his life; a blessing he’d never thought to have. Of course he should have expected it to get ripped away. He glanced at her as she jogged, a frown on her face once more. “What is it?”
Her shadowed gaze met his. “Has life really not been easy for you?”
“Why would it have been?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You always seemed so charmed. Everything came easy to you. And you know … you’re a cupid.”
“Are you kidding me? I had to fight every day not to be left behind. Everyone was better at everything than me. And there wasn’t a group I could truly belong to, not at the training camp and not outside of it.” He’d got used over the years to being called a mutt or a mongrel. “But at least at the camp I had you. When Eros took me, I had no one.”
“You had Eros.”
He snorted. “Eros might be my grandfather but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the other cupids or the job I had to do. He gave me the training the others get then left me on my own.”
“Isn’t that what happens to the other cupids?”
“Maybe. But they are made to be cupids – I’m not. Also, they don’t have to deal with having both cupid and warlock powers. And they certainly didn’t have the Gods and Goddesses interfering constantly; everyone always so interested in the cupid with a demi-God father and a reincarnating-witch mother tied to a curse. It felt like I was constantly under the microscope; everyone expecting me to fail or setting me up to fail.”
“Did you?”
He shook his head, jaw firmed. “Not once. I wouldn’t give those miserable sods the satisfaction.”
“I had no idea.”
“Why would you?”
They ran around a curve only to come upon another rockfall. “Damn it!” she said, instantly backing up while glancing at the map again. “That was the last path into the Morningstar’s lands.” They’d tried a dozen others before being turned around by rockfalls blocking the way or tunnels being cut in two by what looked like bottomless chasms. “Hades is going to be really pissed there’s this much damage.”
“This can’t be the first time this has happened.”
She shook her head. “No, but I can’t remember it ever being this bad.”
“Maybe the portents Persephone mentioned are causing even more havoc than we thought they would.”
“Or, maybe the Underworld – or something – doesn’t want us to get to Clodia.”
He groaned. “Why did you have to say that out loud? Now you’ve jinxed us.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I did not jinx us. There is no such thing.”
The ground rumbled again, bucking under their feet even though they were moving back up the tunnel. “You think?” he said.
She tried to look at the map as they jogged. “This way,” she said, indicating a tunnel she’d chosen not to go down earlier.
It was darker than the tunnel they’d been in, doors lining either side a few metres apart.
A hand shot out between the bars of the cell as Tamuel jogged past. He dodged it. Another hand tried a grab at him from the next cell, its bone-like fingers scraping his shoulder, trying to latch on.
“Watch out,” Rinna said, yanking him away. “You don’t want to let them touch you.”
“Why? What can they do?” He eyed the cell doors and the rickety-looking bars that didn’t seem secure at all. From further down, a pathetic wail started, picked up by another soul, and another, until the air was full of wailing.
“Nothing magical,” Rinna shouted over the din. “But they can tear at your flesh. And eat it.”
“Ew!”
She shrugged. “Well, cupid flesh wouldn’t sound so bad if you’ve not had anything to eat for thousands of years.”
He twisted to look at the bony arm still stretched out, reaching for him even though he was too far away. “They’ve been here for thousands of years?”
“Earthly Realm time. Here it’s far longer.”
“How can Hades stand having to come down here?”
Korinna bit her lip. “I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about it and I’ve never wanted to ask.” She’d always suspected it was torture for him, but it was a guess she didn’t want confirmed; she hated to think that the God who’d protected and cosseted her and let her hide away in his home for all these years was being tortured by the job he was forced to do.
“No. I suppose I don’t really want the answer to that question either,” Tam said, echoing her thoughts.
She glanced at him. He frowned into the dark of the tunnel – the narrowest they’d been through so far – eyeing the bars of the cells and the darkness that hid untold torture within.
“Come on, we need to keep moving. But keep to the middle of the tunnel.”
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
They trudged on, winding their way through the tunnels, keeping to a brisk pace, eating and drinking on the move.
They spoke of many things as they walked over the next few days – or what passed for days in the Underworld. It was often hard to tell given there was no day or night – but somehow, she managed to keep him from asking what he’d started to ask before the first earthquake hit. She knew she couldn’t keep his questions at bay forever, but she really didn’t want to see the look on his face when he found out – pity or disgust, equally bad – and she certainly didn’t want to have the conversation about what she’d vowed.
He didn’t need to know she planned to die to fulfil it. That was nobody’s business but her own. But she’d never been very good at lying to him. She rounded a corner. Maybe she could tell him the basics to stop him questioning further and—
She almost fell over the edge of a yawning chasm.
Tam’s arm slammed out in front of her. “Careful.”
“I see it as well as you,” she said, shaking her head at him, more annoyed with herself than him. She glanced down at the map. It shouldn’t have been there.
“This is ridiculous. We’ve been walking for two days. You need to rest. You’re exhausted.”
She glared at him, hating that aside from the few smudges of dirt on his face and the shoulder of his black tunic, he looked as fresh as when they started out. “I don’t need a rest.”
“Rinna. That is obviously untr—”
She held her hand up. “I don’t need you to protect me. I’ve been looking after myself for almost two thousand years.”
“Have you?”
The way his gaze flickered over her made her hyper-aware of the bagginess of her clothes, the shadows under cheeks and eyes, the paleness of her skin.
She bit the inside of her cheek as she backed away from the crumbling edge. “I can’t rest even if I wanted to. It’s not going to let us. We have to keep going.”
He stared at her for a long moment, but when the earth rumbled below them and more of the edge fell into the chasm, forcing them back, he simply said, “Where to?”
She glanced down at the map – it shifted and changed, changed again, and again before settling, indicating a passage they’d passed half a day ago. It led into a larger chamber, one that had a tunnel leading straight to the Gates of Tartarus. She bit her lip. “Is there another way,” she asked the map. It didn’t alter.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It should be fine. It’s just, I’ve heard it’s one of the worst parts of the Underworld tunnels.”
“Worse than what we’ve been through?”
“Much worse.”
He glanced back at the chasm. “We don’t really have a choice, do we?”
“No.”
The earth beneath them suddenly surged up, tossing them to the ceiling. Tam threw a shield bubble around them again before they hit the roof. He managed to right them as they bounced off the roof and keep them moving back from the chasm that widened with every rumble. The screams of the damned filled the air as one cell after another fell into the bottomless pit.
“Poor bastards.”
Korinna nodded – it didn’t matter that the souls here had deserved their incarceration and torture – being swallowed by the Underworld wasn’t a final death she would wish on anyone.
They bumped up the tunnel, Tam obviously doing everything he could to steady their progress, but they overshot the narrow entrance the map indicated they had to go down, the earth pushing them back and back.
“This is ridiculous,” Tam grumbled. “It’s like it’s trying to kill us now, not get rid of us.”
“Who’s jinxing us now?”
“It’s not a jinx if it’s actually happening to—”
She held up her hand as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and a chill ran over her body. “Shh.”
“What?”
She shushed him, listening. Then the sound she’d never wanted to hear again. “Hells, no. What are they doing here?”
“What?”
“Wraiths. Up ahead,” she whispered, pointing to the glow that shone from the tunnel she’d planned to go down. Not the reddish-orange glow that lit most of the passages, but a sickly green one that writhed and moved, tentacles of it reaching out as if probing the air, seeking, hunting. The sound that had caught her attention – harsh whispers filled with screams – drew closer.
“Quick, we have to hide.”
Chapter
Nine
Korinna rushed to the side of the tunnel, relieved to find that the fissure she’d noticed on the way down was still there despite all the earth’s movements. In fact, she thought it might have widened a little. They could both squeeze in and hide until the wraiths were past. “Come on,” she whispered over her shoulder.
Tam stood where he was in the centre of the tunnel, staring at her. “What are you worried about? Wraiths can’t kill us. Not while we’re wearing the Hells-Keys.”
“Shh,” she said, grabbing his arm to pull him into the mouth of the fissure. “They’ll hear you.”
“Still don’t see the problem,” he whispered loudly.
Of course he didn’t. “They can’t kill us down here like they can in the Earthly Realm,” she whispered as she pulled him closer, intent on squeezing into the small space. “But they can hurt us. Physically and spiritually.”
“Spiritually? I’ve never heard they could do that.”
Damn him for focusing on that part of what she’d said. “Yeah, they pull out your deepest secrets, your darkest emotions, and use them against you. But that’s not what I’m worried about.” She was, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him. “You think the earthquakes and tremblings have been bad? You don’t want to know what will happen if we spill blood down here. Now shut up and hide with me.” Her lips were almost against his ear now – she really didn’t want the wraiths to hear her. They were busy moaning – the shrieks of the stolen souls inside them coming out of their open maws – but if they stopped, they’d hear her and Tam clearly even if they were hidden by the crevice.
“What are they doing here?” he asked, finally using his inside whisper-voice. “With the veil fading tonight, I would have thought they’d have more auspicious places to be than down here.”
“They’ve still got days, remember? Plenty of time to power up – which they’ll need to do if they want to break through the veil and haunt more than these halls. Now shush and get in here. They’ll still be able to see you.” He nodded and pushed forward, crowding her. “Oof. When did you get so big?”
“Ms Korinna! Such a personal question,” he whispered, his lips touching her ear, making her shiver as frissons of electricity rode through her nerves. “But I’m glad you noticed.”
She would have smacked him for his teasing in the past – such a cupid thing to do – but she couldn’t seem to muster the ability, her entire body revelling in the sensation of his warm strength pushing up against her.
He pushed closer. Her back hit rock.
“Am I in?”
She ignored the sexually tinged words whispered against her ear and glanced over his shoulder to the nasty green glow lighting up the tunnel beyond. The lips of the crevice were just beyond his back. He really was very broad-shouldered. “No. The fissure isn’t deep enough for its shadows to hide you from the wraiths’ glow.”
If only she could take a chance and use her magic to protect him, but she couldn’t risk it getting out of her control once again. Couldn’t risk another mistake of judgement. Couldn’t risk another person she cared for being killed. But then magic tingled in the air around them; a cloud of darkness starting to cover the entrance behind him. He was trying to protect them, but she wasn’t sure it was going to be enough.
She opened her mouth to tell him he’d need to change his spell, but her jaw snapped shut as the wraiths’ ugly magic whispered along the walls, calling to her. Whispering voices urging her to unburden herself of every hidden thing inside her.
She firmed her mind’s shields against them but it wasn’t quite enough. Memories she never let in, except in nightmares, flooded into her mind: the volcanic rumblings; the ruling council of Pompeii coming to her, worried, seeking help; her calming response that made them ignore what was so obvious – that she didn’t have control over the sleeping volcanic God, Vesuvius, in the way she should. Instead of evacuating, they went about their business, trusting her; trusting her judgement.
That moment looped in her mind now as it did in her nightmares. So stupid and prideful to think she could handle it alone, that she didn’t need to call Seph or Demeter for instructions on what to do. She’d been so hurt by Tam’s leaving, his betrayal, that she was determined to prove she could do this without him or anyone.
She couldn’t stop the images from playing out; when she’d headed out from her temple, past the still-worried people, soothing their fear with waves of her magic, a stupid, beneficent smile on her face; she’d felt so pleased with herself as she’d left them behind, laughing and smiling and shouting after her their love and worship as they must have done for her mother when she was their Guardian, and headed up the volcano to soothe Vesuvius, to bind him with a spell of restful sleeping. But her magic faltered and instead of soothing Vesuvius into a peaceful, dreamless sleep, she woke him up. Her magic had worked fine as she’d transported herself back to Pompeii, her plan to get the people to evacuate. But even as the volcano belched more and more sulphuric clouds into the sky and the ground rumbled and cracked, the people went about their business, still somehow affected by her spell of calm even after she withdrew it.
Then before she could think what to do, the volcano erupted in a gush of fire and clouds of steam and poisonous gas. Her spell of calm finally broke, panic and confusion and terror tearing free. But as it did, she remembered a spell, one she’d read in a book that Tam had smuggled from the camp’s library – one they shouldn’t have had access to.
As the people started to run – too late. Far too late – and the deadly pyroclastic cloud swept towards them, she didn’t give a thought to if she could do such a powerful spell designed for two or more spellweavers; only the words Tam had whispered to her as she’d read the spell that first time – “You could do this. You’re powerful enough to do this alone.” He’d been so sure, had made her so sure in that moment of panic that she could save the people of Pompeii despite all the signs telling her it was a Fated event.
She attempted to fold space, to transport the entire city and its people elsewhere. But the greatest magic couldn’t fight Fate and the spell snapped back at her, the people of Pompeii paying for her hubris. Instead of transporting them and their city, it cut their souls from their bodies in one, horrifying instant and thrust them through the tear in space she’d created, sucking them instead into the Void that she’d accidentally ripped open with powers that were stronger than a witch should ever have.
They hadn’t been killed by the pyroclastic cloud of super-heated dust that enveloped the city a moment later as was told by historians. They’d been killed by her.
They should have all gone to Elysium. Instead, she’d thought to vanquish destiny and had instead forced on them a worse Fate than the one designed for them.
She’d thrown herself forward, screaming her pain, her guilt, her loss, willing to join those souls lost in the Void … and collided with the shield that sprang up around the temple, protecting it and her from the force of the volcanic explosion.
Even after the tear had snapped closed, her powers flamed out, she continued to throw herself against the shield until her arms and legs and body were bloody and bruised, her voice nothing but ragged gasps, the image of Pompeii as it was swallowed in the volcanic cloud imprinted on her mind for all eternity. She barely noticed Persephone and Demeter arrive until they picked her up and carried her away. She tried to stop them, to stay, to undo what had been done, but they were implacable and she was too weak in every way to fight them, the spell having drained everything from her except her life. She wished it had finished its job.
That feeling of helplessness, of being wrong, of choosing wrongly, had never left her. It pulled at her even now as the wraiths writhed their way forward, urging her to give up on a quest she was unlikely ever to finish. She wasn’t strong enough. The Fates weaving of their threads might have made her spellwork falter but they hadn’t affected her reason. She’d been prideful and selfish in thinking she could change what was meant to happen. She was a screw up. Why did she think she could make it right? Hadn’t she learned she couldn’t trust her decisions? Couldn’t trust her instincts? She really should give up. Should just go out there and let the wraiths have her pain, her guilt, her secret.
