Page 60 of Fate Promised

Juri nodded. “Yes. One of them is the guardian of the junction in Ryba. She lives in the Shaking Mountain. I’ve seen her create a storm like this before, only she didn’t hide amid the clouds that time. Koschei was a guardian, too. He must know her.”

Koschei’s lips pinched together, and he drew back. Two spots of color appeared high on his cheeks. “Are you sure you saw Calista—the ala?”

“I saw massive raven wings,” Juri said. “But she’s never roamed far from her mountain before.”

“You must have been mistaken. It can’t have been her. I told you before, as a guardian, we are bound physically to our junction. She can’t leave her mountain.” Rohant, where Juri had said the Shaking Mountain junction stood, was leagues away. At least a week-long journey from Ryba.

Juri frowned. “Why doesn’t anyone cross between Peklo and Ulterra? Aren’t the guardians supposed to allow the crossing between the realms? One of my packmates, Zann, fell through a rift into Peklo. We thought him dead, but he was actually stuck down there. He didn’t cross back up to Ulterra to return.”

Koschei’s brows drew together. “A guardian can see who belongs where, usually. And part of our magic allows us to sense intentions as well. Your friend should have been allowed to return home.”

“He wasn’t.” Juri’s hands fisted. “I don’t know why I never asked him. If the ala helped Hoyt, do you think she’s going to let us cross at the junction she guards? Of course, we’d have to get there first, and if Peklo has the same kind of landscape as Ulterra, it’s at least a week’s walk away.”

Koschei’s gaze grew distant, and he rubbed his chin. “Has anything changed with the vulk? Are you the same as always?”

Juri’s brow furrowed. “Yes,” he said slowly.

Koschei’s grim expression smoothed. “Good.”

“Why do you ask?”

Koschei didn’t respond.

Juri stalked to the front door and the wide, arching windows along either side. He opened the double doors and peered up at the sky. “If we can’t use a junction, we need to figure out another way to get back to Hoyt.” Triska joined him at the door, but he didn’t put his arm around her.

Before her stretched Peklo. The underworld. She gulped. “Wow.” The palace sat along a coast, a short walk from the beach. No suns beat down overhead, only a blanket of gray clouds, and a general reddish-tinged light. Remnants of a marble path snaked up to the front door, framed by fanning palm trees, but the long fronds were a deep olive green with magenta tips. Large, hanging, yellow fruit pulled the branches down with their weight.

Juri still glowered, and his words carried a hint of a growl as he said, “Even with Fergal’s help, Hoyt’s blast left a permanent mark on your skin.”

She placed a hand on her chest. “I’m fine.”

He turned away. “You shouldn’t have been near Hoyt to get zapped in the first place.”

“But—”

“Arrow, wait,” Koschei shouted, but Arrow galloped through the double doors, brushing her and Juri out of the way. She jogged forward after him, leaving the palace.

Arrow charged down the sloping front path to the beach and leaped into the ocean. Triska stared at the vast swath of water. It stretched out to the horizon, a cobalt blue color never seen in the Great Sea of Ulterra.

Come. Play. Find your true home.

An arm snagged around her waist, pulling her backward, and she flailed. She needed to get to the water. To feel it. Let it roll over her skin. Follow its slope below the waves and discover all that lay in its depths.

“Triska, what are you doing?” Juri’s voice cut through the whispers of the ocean, and she jerked. She stood on the beach, a couple of feet from the water’s edge.

She didn’t remember walking forward. “I don’t know.”

He tugged her gently. “We don’t know if it’s safe out here. Come back.” His ring around her neck pulsed.

As it always did, it grounded her. Helped her shake off the pull of the sea. But this time, in Peklo, the pull was much harder to resist.

Thank the heavens her pelt was locked in a chest in her bedroom, far, far away. But the urge to walk into the sea, human form or not, remained.

A chill slid down her spine.

She followed Juri back to the palace doorway, turning her head away from the ocean and toward the landscape. “It’s not as desolate as I expected. And I thought there’d be spawn everywhere.” She shaded her eyes with her hand. “Should we call Arrow back?”

Juri tucked her against his side. “Look at him.” He pointed, and slowly, steeling herself against its pull, Triska turned to view the sea again.

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