“I don’t feel as I used to.” My admission was whispered so only the demon prince could hear me. “I’m happy to have my full power back, my memories. But… inspiring such fear, it’s not what I desire. I don’t want to walk into a room and have it go silent. Watchful. I don’t want to feel that level of fear directed my way. I’d forgotten how lonely I’d been before I met you. How cold it had made me, bringing fear and chaos with me in place of warmth and love.”
Wrath was quiet for a moment. “What do you want?”
I thought about the prophecy, and while it might not have been solely about us, I felt one aspect of it acutely. As above, so below. Balance. Now that I was fairly confident Vesta was alive and hiding of her own accord, I had a new goal to focus on entirely.
“I want to right this wrong. I don’t just want to break the curse, I want to give all of us a true chance at coexisting peacefully.”
“Peace might not be possible.”
“I know. But I want to at least do something right. There’s been too much anger and resentment. I want to wake up and not worry about who might attack that day. Out of jealousy, or anger, or greed—I want to focus on the good. I want to surround myself with love. And that will never be possible if we’re all cursed.” I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I want to go to the Well of Memory. And I want to end this endless cycle tonight.”
Wrath leaned forward and pressed a chaste kiss to my lips. “Hold on tight, my lady.”
Without saying good-bye to his brother or any member of Greed’s court, Wrath magicked us away in the middle of the dance floor, earning a few shouted curses we both ignored.
TWENTY-ONE
“You must pay the goddess a tithe to enter the Well of Memory’s chamber.” I recited Fauna’s earlier instruction as I studied the statue of the goddess and serpent in Wrath’s gardens.
There were no features carved onto her face, but she had flowers in her hair, much like how I used to wear mine. Her curved blades looked sharp enough to draw blood, so I climbed up on the edge of the pool and pressed my fingertip on one. A single drop of blood welled up before the wound healed, leaving no indication it had just been injured. It was now odd to recall this immediate healing ability hadn’t been the case just two evenings ago. The spell-lock had well and truly changed me. But I would not dwell on that now.
I surveyed the statue for any hint of a change from the blood offering. None occurred. It would have been far too convenient for the statue to magically come to life and reveal that the curved dagger in its fist was the missing Blade of Ruination. But it certainly would have been nice. Wrath had warned me before I left that the statue wasn’t hiding the legendary blade to his knowledge. Part of me had believed my goddess blood would unlock some spell on the statue that even the demons hadn’t known about. Alas, that wasn’t the case.
I held my hand over the still water of the reflecting pool, watching as the solitary drop of blood fell into it. In theory, the blood drop should have dispersed once it joined the rest of the water, but there was magic at play. The single drop of blood expanded and grew. It cycled around the pool, spiraling tighter together as it wound its way toward the center.
Ruby-colored stairs formed within the spiral, disappearing into a yawning darkness that dropped below ground level. Just as Wrath had explained would happen. He couldn’t come with me—this was something I needed to do on my own—but that hadn’t stopped him from divulging everything he knew, like a general preparing a solider for battle.
I gathered my skirts with one hand and stepped onto the crimson stairs. I followed them without fear as I traveled underground. No water from the reflecting pool touched me; it parted with each step I took deeper into the earth. Once I’d fully submerged myself, leaving the cool winter night behind, I descended for a few minutes, the air turning crisper the farther down I went. The temperature didn’t bother me as it once would have. It wasn’t comfortable, but I did not experience any teeth-chattering or rising goose bumps along my flesh.
There was no light, only endless dark that seemed to get thicker, more pervasive with each meter I traveled. But, with my immortal body and senses, I could see almost as clearly as if it were a sunny afternoon near the shore. After a few minutes of moving at a brisk speed, the stairs abruptly ended. I stood on rocky soil and glanced around the small cavern.
A shaft of unnatural bluish light illuminated a well made of what appeared to be bricks of rose quartz that sat just off center from the base of the stairs. The Well of Memory. I moved closer, noting arcane symbols and Latin had been carved into some gemstones on its edge. I ran a finger over the indentations, feeling the power contained within the well hum against my skin.
I peered into the magical well; the water was crystal clear, showing off what had to be thousands of crystals all along its bottom. Each gemstone represented a memory or a nightmare. Something terrible enough that whoever had let the memory go would not miss it.
I wondered if Wrath had come to find a memory or to lose one. It wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered now was finding out as much as possible about this blade that, according to Fauna’s research, could end my husband’s curse. I could not lose sight of that, or I had no hope of succeeding.
I climbed over the small wall and submerged myself in the water, ignoring the slight nip of coldness that seeped into my clothing. “Where is the Blade of Ruination?”
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the well, allowing my mind to focus solely on the answer I was searching for. My fingers skimmed over several crystals before I paused on one that felt slightly warmer. Fauna hadn’t mentioned anything like that, but maybe it was a positive sign that I’d attracted the correct memory. There was only one way to find out. My fingers closed around the crystal, and I drew the memory into me, taking it on as if it were mine.
Fear clawed at the young wolf, tearing screams from its already torn-apart throat. It was just a pup, but it sensed the dark magic of the man. Demon. His cruel slash of a mouth pressed into a thin line when his coin-colored gaze drifted back to her. She’d heard him enter their home, heard the hushed words he’d spoken with her papa, and immediately shifted. Something her papa told her wasn’t supposed to be possible. And a mistake she’d immediately regretted once the demon had scruffed her up by the neck and held her up.
“This is your firstborn? The hybrid warrior?”
His tone hinted at disbelief. The pup growled, baring her small canines.
Papa’s eyes widened. “Yes, your highness. Her very name means ‘dedicated to Mars,’ the god of war, as you—”
“I care nothing for mortal gods. She will be given a proper demon name once we’re back in my court.”
The pup wriggled in the stranger’s grip, panicked. She didn’t know what court was and didn’t wish to find out. Papa’s throat bobbed; the wolf pup pleaded wordlessly for him to take her back, take her from this stranger’s grip. Her mother, the woman who never loved her for some reason, had already gone to bed. If Papa didn’t save her, no one would.
“Your highness”—Papa squared his shoulders, and hope surged in the young pup—“perhaps there is something else I can give you to clear my debt. She is but a pup. Scraggly and unremarkable. Let me raise enough coin instead. Or perhaps… perhaps I will succeed in finding the Blade of Ruination.”
“You haven’t found the blade yet and likely never will.” The stranger held the pup up to his face again, inspecting her closely. “She shifted, about twenty years early, according to your own history. That seems fairly remarkable to me. And what of her demon abilities? What sort of magic does she possess on that end?”
“I… I’m unsure, your highness.”
The demon narrowed his eyes. “Lie to me again and I will remove that troublesome tongue.”
“Please.” Papa’s voice was barely a whisper, a broken plea spoken from a broken man. Even though she’d been warned not to, the wolf pup used a bit of her magic to soothe him. “Please, your highness. Ask me for anything else. Please don’t take my daughter.”
“How does your wife feel, raising the by-blow of a demon you bedded?”
“She will grow to love the child. My daughter shouldn’t pay the price for my sins. Please. Please strike another bargain.”
The demon’s mouth pressed into a displeased line as her baby brother cried out from his crib. “Has your son shifted early, too?”
Papa glanced at the cradle, swallowing hard. “No, your highness. He shows no signs of shifting early.”
“Then our business concludes here. Hand over your daughter and stand down.”
The stranger jerked his chin, and a man with deer fur and liquid brown eyes stepped from the shadows. The pup whined as the monster—demon—reached out and took her. Her whines turned to shrieks as he shoved her into a sack and cinched it closed. Through her earsplitting howls, she heard the stranger say, “You were foolish enough to bargain with House Greed. I suggest you think about the consequences the next time you gamble something so valuable away.”
Tears streamed down my face, and I gritted my teeth against the mournful howls I still heard as the young wolf had been taken from her family. I felt the sorrow, the despair, the terror she’d experienced, but there was nothing I could do to help that pup. I desperately searched for a clue from the memory to guide me to her, to seek her out once I’d accomplished my task here.
The father seemed almost familiar, but his features had been obscured by both the darkness of the room and the tears of the wolf pup. I was almost certain his accent had been from my version of the Shifting Isles, but there was nothing to indicate how long ago that memory had been purged. It could have been months, or decades. Perhaps even a hundred years. Still, I felt helpless. And I hated Greed a little more.