Black Widow Demon (28 page)

No
, he thought.
Not sky
.

Water. What he saw was the sea. He had dreamed of it for years. He had come here to find it. The temptation was overwhelming.

He stood and took a few steps toward it. And then he remembered Raven and paused, turning back.

His eyes met the goddess’s. “I won’t go without her.”

“Why not? You can’t save her,” the goddess said. “If the Godseekers don’t kill her, then the demons will claim her. You’re going to fail.”

Again, fear for her clawed itself free. He did not want to fail her.

He remembered how Raven had warned him not to show fear in the demon boundary because they would know and use it against him. This goddess tried to do the same. His bigger failure would be in walking away and not trying to save Raven at all.

“I won’t go without her,” he said again.

The mist began to slide back into place, swallowing the patch of blue, but in a tantalizingly slow manner. He could not tear his eyes from it.

“Even if you do manage to save her life, she can never be yours,” the goddess said. “Think of what the future would bring you. Imagine any children you might have together, the potential danger they create. You would never be able to teach them compassion or mercy or how to survive in a mortal world.”

In his head he knew he should not listen to her. This was another of his fears that she had managed to capture. But in his heart, he also knew that while demons used lies to get what they wanted, goddesses spoke truth. Raven deserved a future and he had nothing to offer her.

He glanced at the blue on the far side of the mist, then back to where the Godseeker Mountains should be. Somewhere, Raven was lost in this. She had not abandoned him in the demon boundary, and he would not walk away from her in this one.

Raven’s future was the one that mattered. If she were gone, his would have no meaning. He could not go forward and wonder, for the rest of his life, what had become of her, if he had failed her. He did not look again to the vanishing sea but turned in the direction of the mountain.

“I won’t go without her,” he said, for the third and final time.

The goddess vanished and the mist thinned.

Raven was deeper into the boundary than he would have thought possible, and he had to shout to get her attention. She ran to him, her pack jostling between her shoulders and hampering her stride, but a path cleared for her and she was soon in his arms. He buried his face in her hair, reassuring himself she was safe.

But there was no time to do more than that. The thickening mist crept upward, forcing them to move back or become buried, and he was not willing to take any more risks with her life.

He grasped her hand in his, careful of her singed palm, and guided her over uneven earth, out of the forest and toward the safety of higher ground. They climbed steadily for another half hour until Blade was certain the boundary was well behind them.

He helped remove Raven’s pack and set it alongside his own, amid broken chunks of sandstone and spindly, naked elder bushes, then listened quietly as she told him what the goddess had said to her.

Anger and defiance sparkled in her eyes as she finished. “I won’t be judged by them, and I won’t let them condemn others like me either. It’s not their right. To them, we’re something even less than mortal. We’re nothing.” Her expression grew more determined. “None of us asked to be born. We should be given a chance to prove our value, not discarded as worthless.”

He did not respond right away. With the mountain at his back he gazed across the boundary toward the unattainable horizon. Although the sun battered hot against its surface, the blanket of mist did not dissipate. The wind, despite the deceptive heat of the sun’s rays, held an unmistakable chill that warned days such as this would soon be over for another season. Logically, Blade knew that time had run out and his options were now restricted.

There would be no new life for either one of them in the Old World.

In the eyes of the goddesses Raven was a demon, but if they could not see that she was so much more, then Hunter was right—they might be immortals, but were undeserving of worship or respect.

At the same time, the goddesses were not wrong to maintain their boundary. There were spawn at large in the world more closely resembling their demon fathers than their mortal mothers. More would likely be born.

The goddess who had spoken to him was correct when she said he was not the man to teach compassion or mercy. He had none of those things left in him.

Raven came to stand beside him, placing a hand on the small of his back. “Tell me what’s wrong,” she said.

“I know of several small mountain villages within a week’s walk of here. We’ll find one that’s abandoned and suitably secure, and we’ll spend the winter there.”

Above them, a hawk tipped its wings and curled around in a circle, tracking some small animal on the ground not too far away. Blade lifted her pack and held it out so she could slip her arms through the straps.

She did not move. “Should we try to find Roam, or Laurel and the others?”

“No.” He was honest with himself. He resented—just a little—that he’d had to give up his dream. He did not have it in him to become involved in the problems of any more people. He should never have interfered in hers in the first place, but for her sake, not his.

He took her wrist, gently because of the burns to her hand, and slid one of the straps up her arm to settle the pack into position between her shoulders. He turned her away from him so that he could secure it, and did not have to look at her face as he spoke. He did not want to see her disappointment in him.

“They’re on their own.”

…

Siege, his trim figure clad head to toe in black, nocked an arrow, drew back on the taut bowstring, then raised and released it in a smooth, practiced movement. The arrowhead embedded into the center of the target from an impressive range.

“What makes you believe the Godseeker assassins are defense enough against spawn that can lure men into demon fire to their deaths?” Siege asked Justice.

Under his orders, Willow had been sequestered in one of the private rooms, away from the men. While the action relieved Justice in that it meant he did not have to keep as close an eye on her, it chafed that Siege had taken it upon himself to exert his authority in such a matter.

They stood at the far end of the courtyard, in the temple’s shooting range, so they could hold this conversation in private. No one would approach them here. It was considered poor manners, as well as dangerous, to disturb an archer’s concentration.

The sun continued to shine in an endless blue sky, and the days remained warm after the recent blizzard, but the air held the unmistakable promise of winter. Time was passing too quickly and with no signs of Raven.

Justice splayed his booted feet and took care with his own aim, refusing to be bested by an old man. He did not rush, but drew the arrow steadily so that his thumb brushed his cheek before he sent it singing into the target. It struck to the left of Siege’s, but close enough to the center to be considered equal.

He lowered his bow. The old man’s question was a fair one. “Surely you aren’t suggesting the goddesses’ defenders can’t resist a demon’s spawn?”

“What I’m suggesting,” Siege said, his gaze both direct and stony, “is that they are men. If you found it difficult to resist your stepdaughter, and you were once a goddess’s favorite, then why would they be any different?”

Justice ignored the jibe, although it rankled. “They know what she is and will be prepared. Willow says Raven tricked those villagers by pretending to be a goddess, and they had no reason not to believe her. They didn’t know that spawn can be female. None of us knew.” Justice reached into his quiver, selecting a second smooth shaft. “Now we do.”

Siege nocked another arrow but held the point steady toward the ground and did not draw. He continued to examine Justice as if searching for fault in his logic. “Why should we accept the word of this Willow when she could be demon spawn, too?”

Justice hid his impatience behind a careful scrutiny of the target. “You spoke with Willow. Did you find anything demon about her beyond a subtle allure—that you said yourself all women possess—which would warrant a testing by fire?”

“No.” Siege frowned and sent his second arrow into the circle next to the first. Although the old man’s aim remained true, Justice noticed his hands had developed an unmistakable shake. “But she has an air about her I don’t like.”

“She has no significant demon traits,” Justice said. “I assure you, Raven does. Willow is trying to warn us that Raven is building an army of demon spawn.”

Siege continued to frown. “But there’s nowhere in the mountains for your stepdaughter to build such an army undetected. The number of spawn here can’t possibly be significant enough to use for such a purpose. It’s far more likely she’s already gone to the desert in search of others.”

“She’s proven herself to be overly confident already by coming so close to the temple,” Justice said. “The desert is the first place she’d expect you to look for her, and that’s precisely where Creed went. What if she isn’t searching for others, but instead, is summoning them to her? Where would be the last place to look for them?”

“The goddess boundary,” Siege said. “They wouldn’t be able to cross it, but the unconsecrated ground above it would make a good gathering place.”

It would. While it had been many years since Justice had been to the boundary himself— and his memories were not fond ones—at some point in their youth, all Godseekers congregated there. It was considered a rite of passage, a baptism of sorts. A young Godseeker, freshly bathed, would strip off all clothing and enter the consecrated mist. If a goddess desired him, he would then be seduced and initiated by her—and gifted with an amulet to warn other immortals that he’d been claimed.

Most of those men had been too young and ignorant to understand that the initiation led them into nothing more than slavery. Sometimes it was years before the goddesses tired of them and found other, younger replacements. Justice, however, had never been replaced. His goddess had been forced from the world by the Demon Lord’s fire while he was still young. That was when his devotion to her had begun a slow shift from passion to loathing and hate.

He drew his arrow too hastily and it spun wide of its mark, tagging the edge of the target and knocking it askew. Angry with the poor shot, he clamped his fingers around the limb of his bow. He had to struggle to keep from cracking it over his knee but would not give Siege the satisfaction of seeing him lose his self-control.

“The advantage is yours,” Justice said. “Best two out of three.”

He adjusted the brace strapped around the heavy linen of his right sleeve and strode across the field to realign the round board. When he returned, he waited in silence until after Siege took his final shot, which was unerring.

Justice had no hope now of winning this match and it irritated him to lose, but he intended to have the assassins he wanted. It was in his best interests to be gracious. He released his last arrow with more precision this time. It nestled amongst the others, not quite as close to the center as Siege’s third shot but respectable nonetheless.

He congratulated the older man on his win. Then, he returned to the business under discussion. “I will need at least ten of your best men,” he said. “I don’t want to risk confronting her with less than that in the event she has found more of her kind.”

Siege inspected the string on his bow. “We’ll wait a few more days before taking any action,” he said. “I sent a runner to request that Godseekers from two nearby villages come here to help determine the best way forward.”

This would never do. In another day, Willow would not be able to hide the demon in her. Already, Siege had noticed she was not precisely what Justice had tried to portray her to be. But he did not dare argue the matter further. Siege was suspicious enough already and not inclined to do favors for Justice at the best of times.

He had to come up with another plan. He wondered how true those rumors of Siege’s weakening heart might be.

…

That night, buttressed against a rock wall and sheltered from the wind, Raven helped Blade unroll their bedding beneath a blanket of stars. Wolven could be heard not too far off, signaling back and forth to each other through a series of yips and howls that rang off the cliffs. Blade had said he did not want to be enclosed inside a flimsy shelter.

She sat next to him on a fallen log across from their small fire. He had one leg extended so that the sole of his boot faced the flames, steam curling from the damp leather. The other leg was bent, and he had one of his wrists resting on his knee. A skinned rabbit cooked on a spit between them, the smell making her conscious of how hungry she was.

His thoughts were engaged elsewhere. She folded her legs beneath her to ward off the chill night draft and drew her coat tighter around her shoulders, playing idly with one of its buttons. She did not press him to talk, but allowed him to puzzle through whatever it was on his own. She, too, had thoughts that kept her occupied.

She did not want him to regret staying the winter with her and would try to be as little trouble to him as possible. But that did not mean she intended to renege on her promise to the goddesses. Bad things were happening in the world, and while she might not be to blame for instigating them, to sit back and do nothing now, knowing the potential dangers some half demons posed, increased her culpability for them.

And if he did not want to be involved in any of it, he would not. Come spring, if she could not change his mind, she would be forced to let him go. The possibility left her breathless and threw her demon into fits of rebellion.

Blade spoke, breaking the silence.