Page 3 of Salt & Blood

“I—What are we going to do?” Prue sputtered, looking to Gaia for help. “We need a plan.”

“I have no part in this,” Cyrus said. “When Apollo challenges, I will be unable to stop him. To fight would be useless.”

He walked away.

“Cyrus!” Prue called, her voice strained and desperate.

But Cyrus kept walking until he disappeared through the same doors Apollo had gone through. As her husband left, something in Prue’s chest shattered, leaving nothing but a hollow ache, an abyss that threatened to drown everything in its wake. When Cyrus left, a piece of her very soul seemed to go with him.

This was her fault. This division between them washerdoing. If she hadn’t been foolish enough to sacrifice her own life… If she had thought ofhimand what he might sacrifice to bring her back…

She should have found another way.

“Come, Prudence,” Gaia said, gently grasping her arm. “We must train.”

Prue blinked, and it took her mind a long moment to catch up to her mother’s words. “Train?”

“Your magic has been reborn. You are not yet powerful enough to face Apollo. But with some training, you can be. You are his daughter, after all. You have the potential to match his power and strength. Let me teach you.”

Prue was still staring after Cyrus, willing him to come back. But he didn’t. With a sigh, Prue met her mother’s gaze and nodded. “Very well.”

Gaia smiled, and Prue accepted this small mercy. At least the circumstances would bring her closer to her mother.

She only wished it was enough to heal the gaping hole in her chest from Cyrus’s absence.

HOME

MONA

Mona slammedinto something hard and unyielding, rock scraping against her skin. Darkness and dust crowded her, fogging her vision. She coughed, waving a hand in front of her face to clear the air. Goddess, the air here was sothin.She inhaled several gulps, trying to fill her lungs, but they strained with each breath.

“Evander?” she called out, her voice echoing in some vast space. She squinted but still couldn’t make out details. The throbbing cuts and scrapes on her arms led her to believe she was surrounded by some kind of mountainous rock, but when she glanced upward, she couldn’t see the stars or moon at all.

Was she in the Realm of Gaia? Or a different realm? This wasn’t the Underworld, and it certainly wasn’t Elysium…

The last thing she remembered was jumping through the portal in Elysium as the realm was destroyed by Pandora’s magic. Evander had been with her.

Then again, her experience traveling through portals told her how easy it was to be separated from other people. What if Evander had landed in a different realm?

“Evander!” Mona’s voice sharpened, piercing the air.

A low groan sounded nearby, and she followed it, stretching blindly toward it. Her feet connected with something solid, and she knelt, hands reaching.

She first felt his leather wings, tattered and sticky with what had to be blood.

“Oh, Goddess,” she breathed, running her fingers along the length of one of his wings until she found his shoulder. She squeezed it, then shuffled closer so she could nestle herself behind him, cradling his body. “Evander, it’s all right. It’s going to be fine.”

She had healed him once before. She could do it again. Ordinarily, as an earth witch, she would open her third eye and conjure roses from the ground.

But this was different. She no longer held the blood of a mortal, but the blood of a goddess.

With a deep breath, she conjured her magic, waiting for it to swell inside her.

Nothing happened.

Mona gritted her teeth, pressing her hands into Evander’s chest as she tried again. Her magic had come to her so effortlessly before… Why wasn’t it working?

After several moments, a faint stirring shifted within her, as if her magic was waking from a deep sleep. Her hands glowed, but it was feeble, and the light faded almost immediately.

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