He felt a terrible dread. He remembered his father’s warning, that being bound to a single woman could only lead to sorrow and a loss of powers. He thought of the prophecy he’d just been given, the one that said much the same thing. And he feared that Drake’s summons to serve was offering him an escape just in time.
If that.
“What’s an Earthdaughter?” he asked, trying to keep his voice level. If she’d turned the villagers to stone, there was no reason she couldn’t do the same to him.
And make the prophecy come true. What of the rest of it? Would it all come true? Damien had tried to dismiss the dire prediction, but now he couldn’t.
“You’re not the only one with powers in this household, Damien.” Petra spoke in a practical tone, as if they discussed the weather. She smiled at him slightly. “I wish I could have found another way to tell you, but in the end, there was no choice.” She shrugged and made to ladle out some stew for him. “It was really only a matter of time before you knew and now you do.”
Damien wanted her to say it aloud. “You did this to them?”
“Yes.” She was unrepentant, which angered Damien as little else could have done.
“How could you do such a thing? And why? There is nothing they could have done to you to merit such treatment...”
“Nothing?” she asked, lifting her chin with a familiar defiance.
“Nothing!” Damien replied. “Don’t you think I deserved to know about your powers before we conceived my son?”
She folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. “I didn’t know about all of your powers before that happy deed was done.”
“It’s not the same!”
“It’s exactly the same. You’re more than human and so am I. Frankly, I thought that we’d understand each other as a result.”
“No!” Damien paced the central courtyard of the house. “This is all wrong.” He paced the courtyard, then pivoted to face her. “You might as well know. I have to leave and I might not be back.”
Petra looked shaken. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve been called to duty.” Damien didn’t feel as much regret as he had just moments ago. He knew that Petra saw the truth in his eyes. “I have to go.”
Her lips set. “And when will you be back?”
“I don’t know.” He swallowed then said it. “Maybe never.”
She held his gaze for a long potent moment, then spun away. “You’re just fabricating an excuse, because you’re afraid of what I can do.”
Damien didn’t know what to say to that, but Petra didn’t give him much time to think.
“Did you get your prophecy, at least?” she asked.
Damien took a deep breath and recited the oracle’s pronouncement:
A lost child mourned for many years
A mother who will shed no tears
A dragon warrior turned to stone
A woman abandoned, all alone.
Firestorm’s promise will fade to naught
Until stone and fire pay death’s cost.
After a Pyr sacrifice is made
Destiny’s promise can be claimed.
“Cheerful,” Petra said tightly. Her displeasure was a palpable force. “So, you’re leaving, because I obviously am the person who can turn you to stone and your son isn’t going to survive anyway.”
“I don’t want it to be true, Petra.”
She gave him a hot look. “Then you could ask some questions. You could try to find the hidden truth of the prophecy. They often have double meanings, as I’m sure you know.”
“No,” Damien said, shaking his head. “No. This time, the prophecy is as clear as can be. I’m sorry, Petra. I wanted to believe in the firestorm.”
“Not enough to fight for it,” she replied, her tone hard.
He knew she was right. He also knew that given his upbringing and his father’s end, the prophecy and his call to duty, that there was no other answer. He’d been honest with her, but felt she’d deceived him. Repairing the damage would take time, time they didn’t have, and a sacrifice he was unwilling to make.
Their gazes locked and held for a charged moment, and Damien noted the slightly rounding of Petra’s belly with the child. He couldn’t believe that she would lose their son, not when she looked so healthy in her pregnancy, but he couldn’t accept what she had done. If he remained with her, even for one night, it would be an endorsement of her deed.
“What will you do?” he asked.
She shrugged, pretending to be indifferent when he knew she wasn’t. “I can’t imagine you care.” Her tone was hurt and he felt guilt at his role in that.
“I do.”
She turned away then took the pot off the tripod over the fire. He’d never seen her cry and that convinced him that she was the mother of the prophecy.
“I’ll go to the Mothers if I need to,” she said, surprising him. He’d never heard her refer to a home or a family.
“But the prophecy...”
She turned on him, her eyes blazing, and he took a step back at the sign of her anger. She seemed to be more than a woman in this moment, and he was sure he felt the ground quaking beneath his feet.
What was an Earthdaughter?
“I don’t believe your prophecy,” Petra declared. “I refuse to believe that my son is as good as dead just because some woman in a grotto uttered a verse.” She jabbed her finger at her own chest. “I will believe in his safe arrival. I will believe in his good health. And I will do everything in my power to give him exactly what he needs.”
Damien might have been chastened, but those people turned to stone just steps away couldn’t be forgotten. Petra’s stern tone and his uncertainty about her powers made him fear the mother of his child. “I don’t think I want to know what ‘everything in your power’ might mean.”
She smiled coolly. “No, you’re just a dragon. Run away, Pyr warrior, if that’s so much easier than trusting in me.”
Damien was offended. “It’s not easy to trust someone with hidden powers...”
“And it’s not easy to believe in love. I thought you were more than a man, not less than one, but you’re afraid.” Petra straightened and glared at him, her expression filled with challenge.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Then stay and see what I am.” Her eyes were bright with challenge and there was a rosy glow surrounding her body. Damien wanted to stay and see her truth, just to prove her expectation wrong.
But when the ground rumbled beneath his feet, he shifted shape intuitively, taking flight in his dragon form. He hovered in the courtyard, but Petra stopped her humming and shook her head. She spat on the ground beneath him, her disgust clear. “Run away, dragon. I’ll wait for a man bold enough to love me.”
Damien knew he could have melted Petra’s resistance with a touch, but he didn’t want to reconcile. The idea that he could be mated with the woman who would destroy him was too real a possibility for him to try to stay. He’d watched his father’s powers ebb away to nothing, leaving him a shell of a dragon. And there hadn’t been a prophecy. He’d never be able to sleep again in Petra’s presence.
He gave her one last look, yearning for what he had believed to be true of her, then flew high in the sky. He flew over the strange frozen company of villagers with a horror that told him he was right, then beat his wings hard to ascend over the hills.
He’d always said he’d never fall in love. He’d always said he’d never surrender his future to one woman. He’d fulfilled his firestorm and very nearly succumbed, but had escaped the consequences in time. Damien told himself that he had done the right thing, that his son couldn’t be saved, that the oracle was right.
But Petra’s disgust echoed in his ears and his heart.
Little did he know then that it always would.
Damien came to a breathless halt in the endless forest of the underworld. He was panting and winded, feeling an exhaustion that wasn’t characteristic of him. He looked down at th
e wound on his leg and his leg was turning black. His toes were numb. The rest of his skin was becoming pale.
Petra was right. Time was running out.
He spun to examine the grey trees. They were just trees now, trees without human faces or captives, and he wondered if his eyes had deceived him.
He swallowed, knowing the prophecy had deceived him. There had never been a woman who had made him feel as powerful and alive as Petra, never a woman who surprised him and captivated as she had done.
He realized then that even though he’d left her, against every inclination of his heart, he’d still been turned to stone.
Damien gone on that mission with Drake and the others, the quest to oust one of their own kind. They’d followed a dark trail into the depths of the earth, the evil spell of the viper winding into their ears. Many had their hearts turned against their true intention. Many fell back, unable to continue. The trail had led those who could endure the viper’s chant to one of their own.
Cadmus.
And in the battle to defeat him, those who fought at Drake’s back had been enchanted.
Turned to stone.
And trapped for centuries.
The prophecy had come true, but not due to Petra’s powers. Damien was ashamed that he had assumed the worst of her on that day, that he hadn’t asked for an explanation or given her a chance. He’d acted foolishly and couldn’t blame Petra for her anger.
But according to that same prophecy, once each obstacle was confronted, their firestorm would have a chance of a future.
He had to find Petra and change her mind.
At the very least, he owed her an apology.
To his relief, he saw a woman’s silhouette ahead. She was standing on the periphery of the strange forest, her back turned to him. He shouted Petra’s name, but she didn’t seem to hear him. She didn’t turn around, even when he ran toward her. He called her name repeatedly as he ran closer, then touched her shoulder.
When the woman turned, Damien realized he’d made a mistake.
It wasn’t Petra.
This woman was hideously ugly, and an ancient crone, as well. Her face was lined and cracked, like an exposed rock. Her long dark hair turned to hundreds of small black snakes, their eyes bright and their tongues flicking. Bat wings stretched high behind her back and she bared her teeth, showing her fangs. Worse, blood ran from her eyes in a stream of red tears, sliding into the crevasses in her skin.
He tried to shift, again without success.
The monster lunged for Damien, her nails like yellowed talons. She screamed, and made a cry like a bird being strangled. Damien saw her forked tongue and smelled her foul breath as she fell against him. She was heavy and strong, intent upon attacking him.
Damien pulled his dagger and buried it in her chest without hesitation. She fell back with a cry, her blood flowing from the wound, then attacked again. Was she immortal? Or dead already? Damien feared the odds were in her favor, especially as he felt his own strength fading. He knew he was fighting for his life, and he was determined to win.
Being trapped in the underworld forever wasn’t the future he envisioned with Petra and his son.
The fight was vicious and seemed to last a lifetime.
Finally, the monster was motionless on the ground, lying in a pool of her own blood. Damien stood over her, watching for her to make another move, his heart racing. He was bleeding from a dozen wounds, exhausted and hungry. He stared down at the fallen creature until he felt someone’s presence behind him.
He spun, his dagger at the ready, only to find Petra behind him.
“For the love of Zeus,” she whispered, her horror clear as she looked at the corpse. “What have you done?”
Chapter Four
Petra couldn’t believe her eyes.
The creature at Damien’s feet was clearly dead.
He couldn’t possibly have made a worse choice. Petra rubbed her forehead, knowing that the chances of either of them escaping the underworld had just diminished to less than nothing.
Damien read her reaction well. “What was she?”
“One of the Erinyes,” Petra admitted, then gave Damien a look.
He had paled. “The Kindly Ones?”
The sight of him frightened her, for he looked more dead than she was. “They aren’t kindly and you know it. That’s just flattery, to keep them from doing their worst.”
Damien eyed the fallen creature and shuddered.
“You couldn’t have just scared her off, could you?” Petra asked, worry sharpening her tone. “You couldn’t have just injured her a little, instead of killing her outright?”
“She attacked me! I didn’t have time to think or consider. It was her or me.”
He was probably right about that.
Damien fixed Petra with a look, then frowned. “But everyone in the underworld is dead already, except me. How could I kill anyone here?”
“The Erinyes are half-divine.”
“So, anything is possible.” Damien winced before she could say more. He passed a hand over his forehead, swore, then sank to his knees beside the fallen monster. “Of course, the Erinyes have a connection with Hades.”
“They work for him, doing his will in tormenting the dead who don’t deserve to rest.” Petra glanced about them. “This must be Tartarus.”
“It doesn’t look any different from the rest.”
“No, but the Erinyes are said to guard its gates and punish its occupants for Hades.”
“Then where are the occupants?”
Petra heaved a sigh. “I think we should be glad to be unable to see them. Maybe we’re only half-dead now.”
“I feel half-dead,” he muttered, then surveyed the corpse again. Damien’s disgust with himself was clear—and a perfect echo of Petra’s own. “I had no idea what she was.”
“Stories,” Petra reminded him, unable to resist.
“I never had much opportunity to listen to stories, even when I was a boy.”
“Why not?”
His frown deepened. “My father was consumed with serving my mother’s will. She kept him drunk, hungry, and a slave to the pleasures of her bedchamber. She liked having a pet dragon.” He shook his head. “There were no stories in our home.”
“I’m sorry.”
He continued, his tone so matter-of-fact that she knew he was still pained by the memory. “My father said I should be sent to train as soon as my powers were noted. I was eleven years of age when I was sent to Delphi.”
Delphi. He’d gone to Delphi for that prophecy.
“My mother didn’t want me to go. She would have kept me back, just to have another dragon at the ready. My father defied her for the first time ever.”
“He must have won,” Petra said.
He met her gaze steadily. “She had been giving him a potion for years. It was from the east and intended to weaken him. He was a slave to pleasure with no thoughts of his own. His defiance over my fate surprised her and angered her. He roused himself, what was left of him, and commanded me to run. It was the only order he’d ever given me and I didn’t dare to disobey.”
“She didn’t kill him,” Petra asked.
Damien nodded. “I prefer to think that he let her win.”
Petra stared at the ground, realizing why Damien had been afraid to trust her with his survival. She considered him now, and feared that he too would be destroyed by a determination to save his son.
“Could you tell me the prophecy again?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I don’t have a dragon’s memory.” Their gazes locked and held for a hot moment, then Damien spoke softly, reciting the verse.
“A lost child mourned for many years
A mother who will shed no tears
A dragon warrior turned to stone
A woman abandoned, all alone.
Firestorm’s promise will fade to naught
Until stone and fire pay death’s cost.
After a Py
r sacrifice is made
Destiny’s promise can be claimed.
He looked at her hard. “There’s a promise in it, a chance if its conditions are fulfilled. At the time, I heard only the warning.”
“And you were sure that I’d be the one who turned you to stone.”
Damien looked embarrassed. “I didn’t even know that such a thing was possible. I was surprised, Petra, and reacted badly.” He stood up and came to her, taking her hand in his. She didn’t dare meet his gaze, not when he ran his thumb across her hand and bent his attention on her as he did now. He was trying to convince her of something and Petra knew his task was half won. “I didn’t tell you what happened to my company of warriors, or where I’ve been.”
His words surprised her into looking up, and then she was snared by the intensity of his gaze.
“We went to hunt a viper, which is what we call one of our kind turned bad. This one was enchanting men in his vicinity, turning their thoughts to wickedness. He was inciting war and hardship. He turned his spell on us.”
Petra caught her breath. “He turned you to stone.”
“To teeth, actually. Warriors defeated by him were turned to dragon teeth, used by him in attacking others. But when he died and his remains became part of the earth, the teeth turned to stone.”
“That would have taken a long time.”
“Centuries.” Damien’s lips tightened and his thumb stilled against her skin. “We were enchanted for almost two thousand years, Petra, until another Pyr guessed how to break the spell.”
“By planting the teeth, sowing them like seeds,” Petra guessed.
Damien looked up in surprise.
“It’s in a story,” she explained with a smile and he shook his head. “But two thousand years?”
He nodded. “I have seen the future. I thought this world lost to us.” He sighed. “We all thought ourselves adrift, until the darkfire was released.”
“Released from what?”
“It was trapped in a stone by some sorcery. Actually, there were said to be three darkfire crystals, according to the Pyr of future times, and one of them was broken, setting the force of darkfire loose in the world.” He frowned. “Everything can change when the darkfire burns.”