Page 79 of From the Myths of Kings

And then suddenly, his hands went limp.

Saoirse stared at him for several long moments. Numbing silence filled the small cave in the absence of his ragged breathing. The taste of salty tears and metallic blood mingled on her tongue. She felt her limbs stiffen against the floor. She was so physically and emotionally drained that all she wanted to do was sink into the cave walls and become petrified into stone.

She looked down at herself, taking in the crimson soaking through her ripped tunic. She couldn’t tell where her blood ended and Tezrus’s began. A fresh crest of nausea broke over her. The vial thrummed against her palm as though it sensed her horror. She couldn’t do this. She wasn’t strong enough.

My brave girl. I love you.

As Saoirse stared at Tezrus’s lifeless body, she thought of all the people Selussa had killed in her frantic quest for vengeance. She’d murdered Yrsa and Lorsan a hundred years ago, inadvertently unleashing a brutal war in the wake of their deaths, killing thousands in the process. She’d destroyed Kellam Keep and released hundreds of bloodthirsty monsters into the Maeral Sea. Her people were fleeing for their lives even now. She’d killed Sloane and Tezrus. She’d almost killed Rook. He was alive thanks to Hasana, but he still bore the festering mark of her attempt and he was running out of time.

Blinding anger flooded her veins as she sat in the heavy silence. Her skin flushed with rage. Selussa would pay for her crimes. She would not withstand Saoirse’s fury.

Saoirse laid Tezrus on the ground as gently as she could. She kissed his forehead and prayed he finally found peace within the rock. She rose to her feet and swallowed her tears, clutching the vial of blood in her hand like a sword.

The Sea Witch would break beneath Saoirse’s storm.

33

SAOIRSE

Saoirse tore through the tunnels searching for Rook, Hasana, and Neia. Every looming shadow appeared menacing as she ran through the Garden of Gods, sharpened like blades in every corner. She braced herself for another confrontation with Selussa, but it never came. Instead, the interconnected caves were deathly silent and eerily still. No threads of shadow lashed out at her. No peels of wicked laughter chased her through the winding passageways.

Tezrus had done his job well, it seemed.

She had no idea which direction she was running, only that she followed the inclined paths upward. All she knew was that Tezrus found a vein of Bloodstone running through one of the upper chambers of the Garden of Gods. She had to find it. She clutched the vial of blood even tighter, sweat slicking her palms.

She rounded the corner and stopped to catch her breath. Her chest was burning. As she swallowed lungfuls of air, a horrifying realization dawned. She hadn’t drunk any titansblood in over two hours. She had no extra stores on her and she wouldn’t be returning to that cold cell to replenish her latest dose. Even if she managed to escape the Under Kingdom and create a Blood Gate into the Underworld, she only had a few hours left until she could no longer breathe the surface air. Dread coiled in her stomach as reality hit her.

She would suffocate if there was no water in the Underworld.

Even thinking about the mythical realm sent a chill up her spine. Of all the Myths of Old, the Underworld was probably the most mysterious facet of ancient lore. She knew virtually nothing about the shadowy plane of existence. It was said to have been abandoned by the Titans when they crawled up to the surface and created Revelore at the dawn of time. Whispers of the Underworld being the realm of the dead persisted, but it sounded like a physical reality just like the Under Kingdom or the Shujaa Desert. Was it a spectral plane of the afterlife, or a forsaken land just like the Northern Wastes, the ruins of a destroyed ancient kingdom? Or was it simply an all-consuming void where a soul could be suspended in unending darkness for all eternity?

Saoirse wiped the sweat and blood from her brow. She would find out soon enough.

Distantly, she heard a voice calling her name. It was so far away that it was only a faint echo down the tunnel. Was it Selussa posing as someone she trusted?

“Saoirse!” The voice grew louder in the tunnel and her heart skipped a beat.

Rook.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she heard his familiar timbre. Had Selussa somehow found him before she had? Her nails bit into her palms as she resisted the urge to cry out. She needed to know it was really him before she exposed her location.

“Saoirse!” another voice called. Hasana.

It couldn’t be Selussa, then. She couldn’t pose as two people at once, and she knew Rook and Hasana wouldn’t have left each other’s sides while they searched for her through the Garden of Gods.

“Over here!” Saoirse cried out, stepping around the corner.

She almost melted with relief as Rook and Hasana sprinted over to her, appearing relatively unharmed. To her pleasant surprise, Neia was also with them. It felt like a lifetime had passed since she had last seen all three of them shackled outside the Garden of the Gods. Rook’s relieved face quickly twisted into horror as he took in her torn clothing and blood-stained limbs.

“Hel’s teeth, Saoirse!” He closed the distance between them, a surveying gaze flitting over every inch of her. He gently touched the tender skin of her throat, finding the mottled bruising left behind by Selussa’s shadows. His jaw clenched. “What happened?”

“Thank the stars you’re alive,” Hasana breathed. Her palms were already glowing with golden light, veins shimmering under her brown skin. Her eyes beamed with molten gold as she placed her hands upon the gash sliced across Saoirse’s chest.

“What happened, Saoirse?” Neia asked. “When you fell through that hole in the ground, I thought we’d never see you again. Rook almost killed me when I found them without you.”

“I don’t know,” Saoirse answered, closing her eyes underneath the warmth of Hasana’s healing magic. She could feel the torn flesh mending back together, being pulled taut by golden threads of light deep within the sinew. “I fell through the cave floor and landed in a lower chamber several feet below.”

She felt Hasana’s gentle hands settle across her neck. Hasana sent pulses of magic into her bruised throat, bringing instant relief to her aching flesh. Slowly, the tension gradually left her shoulders, and her fatigued mind began to clear. Some of the physical pain had dulled the emotional whiplash of the last hour, and a surge of sorrow pooled in her stomach at the thought of Tezrus’s sacrifice.

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