Page 28 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

More tears threaten to fall, but I refuse to let them. Not for him. Never for him.

Another step and another and another. A man's scream in the distance echoes back to me. Frowning, I lift my head and sniff the air. The scent of pine and smoke lingers on the wind. My heart thunders inside my breast and I reach out, throwing an invisible field of power around me and catching many spider minds. I send them along, flying on their strings of silk and silver to find what I cannot yet see.

My thighs ache from the physical labor, and my lungs are as raw as my throat as I suck in another breath of frosted air. I race forward, waiting all the while for what my spiders see. Images cascade into my mind, drawing me to an immediate halt as horror pours through me. In the next instant, I'm running—sprinting—towards the rise of the next hill. Not caring about the noise I'm now making, I hurry and nearly careen over the edge of a cliffside that overlooks a small valley with a plume of smoke rising high into the star-dotted sky.

I might have lost my footing were it not for an arm coming around my midsection and lifting me away from the drop that would most assuredly send me falling right down into the center of the bloody fight set before the burning cabin. "Stay quiet, Ari."

Utter. Fucking. Silence.Despite his warning, I throw myself forward and out of his grasp. The second my feet hit firm ground again though, I'm on the move. Twisting, I throw the first punch, catching Caedmon in the side of his face and letting my knuckles slice up to his eye socket. I connect with an audible thump and his responding curse echoes into the cold night air.

Rage pours into me. My old friend—at one time, myonlyfriend—stumbles back, his booted feet making a hard crunch of sound in the snow. I crouch into a fighting stance and ready myself for the next attack. He’s not getting away from me. Not this time.

"Ari, please!" He holds one hand up and the other over his eye.

My body slams into his, a tangle of limbs and wrath. The snow is packed so tightly that it’s become a block of ice. Cold seeps past the layers of clothing and into my bones, but I don’t feel it. Warmth floods my veins as rage keeps me moving.

Landing squarely atop Caedmon’s lean frame, I rear back and punch him again. His handsome face crashes back against the ground. His left eye is already swollen, but I don’t let that deter me. What friendship and kinship we might have had is shredded to pieces and it drifts down like the snow that covers our bodies, falling gently from the sky.

Over and over again, I slam my fist into him as my anger fills my lungs and threatens to scream out. I don’t stop, not even when his legs lock around my body and twist, turning the both of us. Caedmon was never much of a fighter in the first place, so the movement sends both of us rolling down a dusty white-covered embankment. The crunch of ice and snow beneath us as well as the curses that slip free are the only sounds in the nearby vicinity. We’re far enough away from the cabin now, that the distant echo of male grunts and the crack of burning wood is hardly there anymore. Sticks and stones stab at my sides and my temple collides with a rather sharp branch. It rips across my forehead, cutting open a harsh wound. Blood spills into my eyes. The second my body comes to a stop, I stumble to my feet, turning to face my opponent once more.

"Bastard!" I hiss.

Splayed out, blood coating his face and a bruise already swelling in one eye socket, Caedmon coughs and huffs out cloudy puffs of air as he gathers himself. I don't give him the chance as I take a step forward and kick the one arm holding him aloft out from under him before delivering a second kick to his abdomen. "You traitorous"—kick—"piece of"—kick—"shit!"

He captures my foot on the next swing and twists. My back collides with a snow mound, the flurries raining down over myface as I sputter and try to sit up. "Listen to me, damn it!" Caedmon barks. "I didn't take the child to hurt you, Ari!"

"Bullshit!" I snap back.

He climbs over me and grabs my arms, pinning them on either side of my face.

I pull the darkness to me, shadows upon shadows coming at my call, wrapping around us in long phantom tendrils. They encircle his throat and wrists, pulling against him, choking the life from him. "You weremy friend!" I scream. The harsh shout is swallowed by the wind, ripping away the last vestiges of civility, of sanity, and taking it to the wind. "I trusted you!" My throat chokes on the last three words, my voice cracking under the strain.

The image of him wavers and grows blurry. It's like I'm suddenly looking up at him from the bottom of a deep lake.

Fuck me, I'm crying.Again.

Crying as I choke my best friend to death.

A flash of gold appears in my periphery and then wraps long ribbons around my form. I grit my teeth, fighting against them as I hold on to Caedmon’s throat, squeezing tighter and tighter until I threaten to break my own fingers as well as his neck.

The ribbons go from caressing and sweet, trying to tenderly urge me to release my prey, to hard and tenacious as they wrap around my limbs, my arms, my wrists, my own throat. They separate and slip into the non-space between my hands and Caedmon’s neck.

When he’s released—against my will—he chokes for breath, gasping and clawing at his ravaged throat. I reach for him again and the ribbons become chains, pulling me back further and dragging me through the upper layer of snow until I’m a good several feet away from the man that I once considered my closest ally.

Hatred burns through me.

One of the ribbons slithers up to my cheek much like my own power had and presses against me. Jerking, I snap my teeth at the evidence of physical power. It evaporates, disappearing in an instant, and I sag against the crushed snow, gasping for breath of my own.

“While I understand your rage, Ariadne,” a softly feminine, yet all too familiar voice murmurs, “I would prefer if you didn’t kill our friend. It would be difficult to explain his disappearance.”

I close my eyes and let my head drop back against the icy ground.

“Makeda.” The Goddess’ name escapes my torn throat with a rasp.

“Yes, child.”

I want to laugh at the endearment, but truth be told, to Makeda, ‘Goddess of Knowledge,’ I am a child. She’s nearly as old as my father, and would be nearly as powerful too were it not for certain effects of her gifts. A fact, I’m sure, that both annoys and amuses Tryphone.

Opening my eyes, I try to sit up and find the small area swirling with the golden threads of power and more snow. Caedmon is hunched over, hacking and coughing as he struggles through his crushed windpipe. It will heal—much to my disappointment.

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