Page 151 of Cathmoir's Sons

“Kellan,” Arch huffs.

I shake my head at him. “Sorry but Jou’s the expert here. If he tells me the time for negotiation is over, then the time for negotiation is over. Val, how are you doing?”

Our ward-breaker nods. “Good.”

“Ready to suck the powers out of some demon lords?”

Val smiles wanly.

She keeps hold of my hand as we follow Jou and Gabe through the shattered, darkened chamber and into a blackness not even my Faesight can penetrate.

A low hiss fills my ears just before something hot and muscular wraps around my legs and up my torso, trapping my free arm against my body. It’s like having my consorts coil around me, only there’s nothing sexy about this.

I could fight. My Element tastes strange in Hell but the power is right there, ready to be shaped and used. Ready to grasp and tear. Rend and crush. Wild magic walks alongside it, fuel for the ancient spells that no one will condemn me for using in Hell, far from the mortal world.

But I tamp down the insistent power. Since realizing who might be Ulune’s Daughter’s keeper, I haven’t wanted to do her any harm. Even Luca’s warning that she’s likely gone insane during her long imprisonment doesn’t deter me from talking first.

“Charybdis,” I say softly. “Daughter of Gaia. Mistress of Wind and Tide. Do you sleep? Do you wake? Where do you lie? Do you rise? Do you rage? Have you been forgotten?”

A deep rattle reverberates around me. Another coil creeps around my ankles.

The wind’s howl answers me, “I have not slept in thousands of years, millions of days, uncounted seconds, but all the while I have dreamed. I have dreamed of men in furs and in linen and strange fabrics I have no names for. They come in vessels of wood and iron and strange, shiny metal. They feed my hunger but never sate it. Have you come to feed me, little bird queen?”

“No,” I say. “I’ve come to steal your greatest treasure.”

Rain whips across my face, sticking my hair to my cheeks.

“Treasure? I have no treasure. No gold, no jewels, no riches. Nothing but bones. Big bones. Small bones. Hundreds of skulls. Thousands of teeth. Bones, bones, bones.”

Something catches in my mind. Kindles. “May I have them?” I ask.

The wind squalls. “You want my bones?”

“If I do, will you give them to me freely?”

The wind gentles; rain slips over my cheeks and down my chin. “What will you do with them?”

“Return them to their mother.”

The wind dies. The rain dries. A hand, warm flesh and the prickle of a ragged nail, touches my cheek. “Who sent you, bird queen?”

“A woman who called me daughter.”

“My mother has not answered me in three thousand years. Since the Thunderer blinded me and threw me in this hole.”

My breath catches. Thunderer. Bromios. Zeus. How did I not make that connection?

“I helped turn the Thunderer away from this world again less than a month ago. I’ve freed the Graeae. There are no more jailors, Charybdis. But the Mother has never turned her face away. She still walks this world. Your mother. Quit this cage and find her.”

“Find her.” Warm breath brushes my cheeks. “How would you propose I find her, little queen?”

“Take the crown from my brow. It rode the brow of the king she crowned. Place it on yours and call her. There might still be a connection,” I offer, filled with a sense of rightness. This is what the Crown of the North was meant for. Not to garland me or the Holly King. Its purpose is and always has been to reunite mother and daughter.

A fingertip traces my forehead, where the crown’s cool metal edge manifests at my thought.

“You’d give me your crown?”

“Yes,” I say.

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