Page 48 of Fated In Forever
I love you both so much, I sent the thought out into the world, hoping wherever Riordan and Blake were, they might hear me.Don’t come down here. Go back to Ireland and lock the castle down, keep everyone safe. And tell my sister she’ll be a great mother, I’m only sorry I won’t be there to help her.
In the split second it took to fly across the threshold, the wall where the archway had been exploded inwards in a shower of dust and stone, Ravok screaming?—
But I was already inside the vortex, caught in the chaotic maelstrom of shadow and shrieking wind that separated the mortal realm from the Underworld. The darkness closed around me like a fist, and suddenly I was thrown down, into an endless void where up and down had no meaning.
The transition was a violent rush of opposing forces, and I was caught in the middle.
Even the tunnels felt warm compared to this devouring coldness, the way icy darkness flooded my veins, my lungsswamped with frost as I tumbled—up, down, sideways—legs and arms twisting. This was like existing everywhere and nowhere, ears popping, muscles groaning, that fucking knife branding itself into my palm.
I landed hard on what felt like solid ground, though the surface shifted, living shadows writhing around me, making it impossible to get my bearings in a sea of endless black. I held my breath until my lungs ached, then sucked in a quick inhale, expecting the worst. The air was thick with the eggy taste of sulfur…but not instantly poisonous.
I cracked open one eye. I had actually survived.
My vision eventually adjusted to the murk; my head stopped spinning.
Struggling to my feet, I looked around at the hideous landscape, a twisted parody of whatshouldbe physically possible. Shining black stones emerged from the ground like enormous teeth, the tips disappearing into the roiling black clouds, reflecting occasional flashes of crimson lightning splitting the sky.
But I hadn't come here to sightsee.
I climbed to my feet and peered at my scorched palm, at the markings branded into my skin. Every rune on the hilt of that blade was there, in perfect relief. Backwards of course, but I was already healing over. I nudged the dropped knife with my boot.
Ravok had given this knife a name…cold iron.
The weapon was clearly dangerous, but was also my one and only means of defense.
I tore a strip of fabric off the bottom of my shirt and wrapped the hilt, covering every bit of exposed metal, burning my fingertips plenty in the process, then stuffed the blade into my back pocket.
I checked The Book and the key, making sure they weresecure. Behind me, the portal shrank, reality bending around its edges as that hole closed, until only a sliver of light leaked through.
I had no food. No water. Nothing on but my once-again soaked clothes. A Book, a key, a rusty knife and no idea what to do next.
The Underworld stretched out before me, vast and terrible and probably full of horrors that mortal minds weren't designed to comprehend. But somewhere in that infinite darkness was the male I loved, fighting to hold onto his humanity against forces that had been ancient when the Earth was young.
I took another step forward, then another, toward whatever future awaited us both.
21
MALACHI
The moment my feet touched the obsidian ground of the Underworld, I knew there was no going back.
That I was finallyhome.
I stalked across a vast plain of black volcanic glass, stretching endlessly in all directions. The sky above was not truly sky at all, but a writhing canopy of darkness punctuated by veins of crimson light that pulsed like a heartbeat. The cutting wind whispered with the voices of the damned, and I resisted the urge to cover my ears.
Above me, glowing souls drifted like luminescent moths through a perpetual twilight. They moved without purpose, without hope, lost in this sea of darkness, cursed, perhaps, to wander this realm forever.
Like me.
Orcus. The title sat heavy on my tongue, foreign and final.
What a fuckup. In the history of fuckups, this one was…epic, as Vicious would say. I shook my head, replaying the series of events that put me here and finding no one at fault except for myself.
With every step I took, I was being torn apart from the inside, those golden chains ripping and tearing through my heart, the further I got from the portal.From her. In themoments after I’d passed through, I’d tried clawing my way back, tearing at the portal with claws and teeth….to no avail.
My efforts had nearly destroyed me.
I couldn’t go back through, but I had seen everything happening on the other side.
