Ying shook her head, and the joy I’d felt just moments ago sizzled away like drops of water in a flame.
“No. They are not on Earth either. They exist in time,” she said stoically.
“What?”
Lifting her arms, Ying wiggled her fingers, and I gasped as a shimmering veil of phosphorescent blue rippled like a wave before us.
“What is that?” I asked in awe.
As she continued to wiggle her fingers, the ripple stretched bigger and wider, gleaming with shades of mother-of-pearl. It was so beautiful that tears filled my eyes.
“This is a ley line, a thread of time itself. Travel the threads, and you can see everything—future, past, present, even alternate realities.”
I gasped, reaching tentative fingers toward it, and when my hand brushed through the light, I felt a tingling warmth spread all the way through me and my head was bombarded by images of time—not just one or two, but many thousand variants of it, everything in every time happening all at once.
“It’s so beautiful,” I breathed, absorbed in memories that belonged to another and yet felt so real to me. Their pain was mine, their joy and anger and laughter too. In one ley line, I felt like I’d lived a thousand lives, and with the merest twitch of my fingers, I was able to focus on someone else or something else. I watched a world get birthed and that same world die too.
I had no idea what I was really experiencing. All I knew was that it was beautiful.
My eyes filled with heat, and I was shocked to find I was crying. I’d not realized that I’d lost all hope until suddenly I felt it burn through me. “They’re in there?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
Her word was soft, and goosebumps ran through me. I knew Ying well enough to know she wasn’t telling me everything.
“But aren’t the lines just full of memories of lives already lived?”
“Once upon a time, maybe. I’ll admit that I didn’t play around with the lines in my youth as I should have. But the curse has distorted the lines, altered them. They aren’t as they should be anymore. They’ve been fouled, polluted by the curse.”
I frowned, waiting for her to continue, but she was biting her bottom lip nervously, and a cold chill snaked down my spine. I’d never known Ying to tap dance around a subject unless she was very nervous. And if Ying was nervous, it was not a good sign.
She sighed. “Many of the people missing from our time aren’t actually missing at all. When the curse ripped through the fabric of our timeline, it caused a ripple to form in the ley matrix, as it were.”
I frowned and turned to stare at the wavering blue glow hovering in the air beside me. I swallowed hard, understanding her intrinsically, but having a difficult time accepting it.
“Ying? What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, turning toward her and watching her every movement like a keen-eyed hawk. “That they’re in there? Not just their memories, but them physically?”
She swallowed, looking at me miserably, but still she said nothing. So I talked to fill the silence because I’d never been good with quiet.
“So maybe all I have to do is go in there and bring them back.” My words came out in a breathless rush. “That shouldn’t be very difficult, right?”
She dropped her hands, but the shimmering wave of the ley line remained, trailing in a magnificent arc through the air and down, down, down into the trees of the haunted forest below.
“I suppose in a nutshell, that’s the gist of it, but there is more, Rayale. Ley lines are powerful magick, but not in the physical sense. They hold memories, and they are a conduit for time. But they were never intended to hold souls, let alone bodies. They aren’t substantive enough for that. And now, not just this one I’m showing you, but all the lines are growing weaker because it holds not only Ewan and Red, also known as Violet, but hundreds of others as well. The ley lines cannot hold up much longer under the strain of bearing so many physical bodies. Ley lines were only intended to be used by highly skilled travelers who knew they must get in and get out quickly. Ewan and Violet have been trapped so long that I fear exceedingly for their future well-being. From what I can gather, they are stuck in a time loop.”
All the talk of time loops and ley lines was making my head hurt. I rubbed at my aching temples and shook my head. “What does this mean, Ying? What exactly are you saying? Can they escape? Can they get out at all?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I shrugged, and she held up a hand.
“But only if they make the right choices. Ley lines have a unique set of rules that must be strictly adhered to, and Ewan and Violet have violated those rules. It’s not their fault, since they were thrust into the line without consent or knowledge, but the lines aren’t sentient, and the rules are the rules. Because they have been in there so long, the line they live in has grown more and more unstable over time and will soon fracture into oblivion. I’ve tested their line, and I fear they haven’t much time left.”
I wasn’t a stupid person. I’d always considered myself rational and of above-average intelligence. But Ying’s explanation was causing my head to reel. Taking a second to break down what she’d said to me, I thought slowly through her words.
Ewan and Violet were trapped in a loop of time called a ley line. That part was simple enough. Ley lines were pathways of time magick—that part was far less clear to me and didn’t seem pertinent at that moment, so I moved on—and they all followed a specific set of rules. Physical travelers had to get in and get out—the faster, the better. Ewan and Violet, however, had been thrust into their line without their consent when the curse had rolled through Kingdom. They’d been in far longer than they probably should have, and because of that, their line would soon be unable to support them and would disintegrate.
“So in order to get out of there,” I asked slowly, making direct eye contact so as not to miss a flinch or frown, “they must make the right choices?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head, still not sure what she was getting at. “Okay, and that means what, exactly? How do I make them make the right choices so they can leave?”
“You can’t.”
“Ying!” I gritted out, frustration making my voice sharper than I’d intended it to.
But she didn’t appear bothered by it. Her face was a composed mask. Rubbing the bridge of my nose in frustration, I forced myself to take three deep breaths before continuing.
“I’m sorry. I’m just… I’m not smart enough. I don’t bloody understand any of this. All I need to know is how to fix it. How do I bring them back?”
She rolled her wrists, and the movements were oddly graceful to watch. “They have to make the right choices, the choices that brought them to each other in the first place.”
I swallowed and held up a finger. “Are you implying that they’re reliving their history?”
“In a sense, yes.”
Frowning, I scanned the dirt at my feet with unseeing eyes. I knew of their courtship because of my time spent with Lleweyn, but only in the very vaguest sense. I wasn’t as intimate with their relationship and how it had blossomed as I suddenly wished I was. I frowned.
“What happens if they never make the right choices?”
“Then the line will end, and they will vanish into the River Lethe and simply cease to be.”
I grew cold all over, standing there on that plateau, finding it hard to breathe, to move, to even bloody think straight. “Wait. Wait. Wait. River Lethe? As in Hades’s domain? But why?”
She shook her head. “That particular line travels directly to the Underworld, so if they perish, they will become his responsibility.”
A sick, hot feeling squirmed through my gut like a hell worm. I grabbed at my stomach and squeezed hard with fingertips that felt cold and numb. “I know I already asked you this, but can you give me any kind of guess as to how much longer they’re looking at? Even in the most vague terms?”
She shrugged. “I wish I
could, Rayale, but I cannot. It could be days, it could be minutes. All I know is the line has grown dangerously weak.”
I swallowed hard. “Then, let me ask this. Can the damage that’s been done so far be reversed?”
She nodded, and the knot in my stomach eased a very little.
“It can. I hope.”
The knot tightened again with a quickness that stole the breath from my lungs and the strength from my legs. “You hope? You hope! That’s not good enough. This isn’t good enough. I… I can’t… how can I do this? It’s hopeless. I’ve lost them. I’ve lost him!”
She planted her hands on my shoulders, and I hissed as her fire curled like a venomous snake through my very bones. But again, the pain drove out the terror so I could breathe again.
“It is not hopeless.” Her pink eyes gleamed like a buffed gem. The pain of her touch was growing more painful, but I didn’t move. “Only once the line has ceased to be is there no hope left. But if you’re to do this, Bewitching, then you must do it now.”
She pulled her hands back, and I released a trembly, shuddery breath. It would be a miracle if I walked away from Ying without a few more scars to call my own. I gritted my teeth and curled my fingers by my legs so that I didn’t reach up and rub at the burns.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing. I… I don’t…”
“Do you love him?” she asked succinctly.
A full body spasm hit me, and I doubled over at the very idea of losing him. “I never got a chance to tell him. I was too proud, too full of hubris and righteous fury to even allow myself to… to… oh Ying, what if he dies never knowing how I truly feel?”
Her eyes burned like magma, and tiny fangs protruded from her lips as she said, “Then fight like the devil himself to bring him back, Rayale. You were always the strongest of us. You were always the fighter. The champion. Use your powers to make them remember. You can do this. The power has always been in you.”
I swallowed as fat tears streaked down my cheeks. “I can do this?”
“Yes, you can.” Then she pulled me into her arms and hugged me tight. Her arms were fire. My skin sizzled, and my blood boiled, but in her arms, I felt safe. I felt not so alone. So I held on just a little bit longer.
When she reluctantly stepped away, my skin still smoked, but the harm of her touch was starting to fade away. My flesh was smooth, polished ebony once more. Not even a mark remained. I trembled with relief as the pain slowly ebbed away like a rolling wave moving back toward deep waters. I wasn’t a super healer, and I didn’t know what she’d done, but I was grateful she’d not left me riddled through with burns to deal with on top of everything else.
“How will I know if it’s working? If they’re making the right choices? How?”
She smiled. “You will know. Believe me, sister, you will know. But if you are to do this then we must leave at once.”
“We?”
“I will fly you down to the entrance of the line. But I warn you, to bring them back, you will have to talk to the Death King himself.”
My eyes widened. “Hades? I have to go to the Underworld?”
My heart felt as though it was trying to jump out of the cage of my chest. I flattened a palm over it. My mouth felt dry, and my tongue felt swollen to twice its size. “I have to talk with the gods? I… I…”
“This will not be easy, Bewitching, but the very best things rarely are.”
“Hades,” I mumbled, remembering rumors of his madness and the loss of his own queen after the realms had fractured. How the blazes was I supposed to get through to him? I was nothing more than human, and he a god, why in the devil would he care one whit about what I had to say?
Ying took several steps back, and as she did, she transformed into the massive shape of her true form, the ivory-scaled dragon. Her long, sinuous neck curled down, down, down, and an enormous eye stared at me.
“Get on,” she said, causing the wind to shriek and the ground beneath my feet to rumble.
My entire body felt cold. I wasn’t sure I could do this. Wasn’t sure I was the hero she thought me to be. Ewan and Red hadn’t even known me that well. All they knew was that their son had stolen my soul and that I’d fought like the devil to get it back, doing all in my power to hurt him as badly as he’d hurt me in the process.
Why in the world would they trust me? They would have no reason to.
And then it hit me—maybe they didn’t know any of that. Maybe I’d meet a younger version of themselves. Or maybe in their new time, none of that history had ever happened. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but so long as I imagined that they didn’t know my own sins, I thought I would be okay. Maybe, just maybe I could actually save them.
“Oh gods,” I mumbled and lightly touched Ying’s scales, expecting to feel her burn. But her scales were cool to the touch, and I sighed with relief. At least the flight into hell wouldn’t hurt.
Trying not to think too hard about what I was doing, I climbed her scales and found just the right spot to wedge myself in tight.
Once I was safely seated, Ying took a running leap right off the vertical, several-thousand-foot drop.
“Dear goddess!” I screamed, clutching tight to the only thing that would ensure I’d not fall and become a bloody splat on the earthen floor beneath us—one single ivory scale with a notch in its side.
Ying laughed, and the rumble felt like thunder. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to the gods that I’d not just made the worst mistake of my life.
Ying stood just outside the rocky entrance of a cave that she said went down into the very depths of the Underworld itself.
“This is where we must part. I wish you much success in your journey, sister,” she said in the deeply accented voice of the beast.
I shivered, staring down into the yawning black maw of what was probably my doom.
“Thank you, Ying. For everything.”
She nodded and turned.
“If… if I survive this…”
Turning her massive head toward me, she grinned a toothy, reptilian grin. “We’ll have tea.”
I chuckled despite the very serious misgivings I was having that I’d survive even a minute past the point that she left me.
“Deal.”
With a bellowing roar of farewell, Ying pumped her massive wings and took to the sky. I watched her fly away until she was little more than a shadowy speck above me.
Only once I was truly alone in the forest of strange and otherworldly sounds did I turn on my heel. A winding stairway of stone beckoned me into the mouth of hell.
I shook my head and whispered. “Lleweyn, if you die on me now, I swear to the gods, I’ll haunt your afterlife myself.”
Then, taking one last gulp of fresh air, I took the first step toward my doom.
Two
Rayale
I was in hell.
Literally.
It was hot as Hades in here.
“Heh.” I chuckled beneath my breath at my unintended pun, but not because I found it particularly funny. I was standing at the end of a stairwell that felt like it’d taken an entire year of my life to descend.
For once, I’d love not to feel as though everything was designed to steal my years from me. Yet it seemed that, for better or worse, I was stuck on this path for the long and grueling foreseeable future. With a sigh, I plopped my hands on my hips and studied my surroundings.
Before me was a river with an empty rowboat full of holes, floating idly on the waves. I didn’t have much confidence that the blasted thing would see me safely across the water. The river teemed with glowing blue souls who wailed and moaned as they reached bony fingers out of the water, as though trying to escape anyway they could.
Poor bastards.
But crossing that river of death wasn’t the worst part. No, that would be the rocky outcroppings between me and the river that were burbling over with unbelievably bright magma.
I was dressed from head to toe in leather and fur, and I’d soake
d through my leathers hours ago. I was a vile, disgusting, sweaty, swamp thing, and I was thirsty. I would give almost anything for a drink—almost being the operative word.
I knew my stories. One did not take a thing from Hades or his Underworld realm, not even a drop of water, without the god’s consent first. Otherwise, there’d be a price to be paid, and I wasn’t willing to pay a pound of flesh more for anything. I’d already paid my fair share and then some, thanks to the bloody curse Blue had unwittingly unleashed upon Kingdom. Not that I blamed her, but I totally blamed her.
Scrubbing at my dripping wet brow, I wrinkled my nose and studied the path that led through the heart of the stony labyrinth that separated me from the river. There were at least twenty-six hundred feet or so between me and the relative safety of the rowboat. Biting my upper lip, I eyed the dirt trail.
One reason I’d managed to stay alive as long as I had, considering all the crap I’d gone through in life, was simple—I was cautious, maybe overly so, but being cautious had never killed anyone, so far as I knew. Plowing headlong into danger totally had, though.
This was the Underworld, and it couldn’t possibly be so easy to traipse on through it unless invited down by the Death King himself, which I hadn’t been.
Grasping my flute tightly, I looked at the dirt path, continuing to study it. It was covered with charred black dust, which had once possibly been rubble from the rocky magma vats surrounding me. There were no tracks, no footprints at all, but the trail was worn, signifying it was well used. So if there were no tracks, how had it gotten to be so smooth? That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
I frowned and looked at the rowboat again. There was nothing on the path between me and the boat, just smooth black sand as far as my eye could see. It appeared to be too easy. Nothing was ever that easy, unless it was a trap.