When the commander had asked whether they would wait, she had bluntly told him that she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Thanatos needed her, and she had kept him waiting too long already. Faced with the problem of the forces he brought with him not knowing where to go, she had hit upon an idea.
Behind her, another black spike erupted from the ground. She summoned one every thirty feet, leaving a trail of them behind her to act as beacons, guiding the commander and the army he gathered to the castle where she desperately wanted to be already.
She focused on the earth beneath her feet, reached out with her senses ahead of her, seeking the point where she had stood with Thanatos outside the ruined fortress. Gods, she hoped he was there.
Calindria veered left, leaving another marker in her wake, and Calistos followed her. He glanced at her as she tugged at the clothing she wore, another thing he had insisted she do before he had allowed her to teleport to this place. He had taken her to the barracks and found her something to wear, something she could ‘fight in’ according to him.
The black buttery-soft leather trousers and shirt she wore felt very restrictive, and it was strange to be wearing shoes again. The knee-high polished onyx boots were a touch too large for her, but they certainly made it easier to walk. No more jabbing herself in the sole of her feet by stepping on pebbles.
She glanced down at herself. What would Thanatos make of her in this outfit?
He had seen her naked, seen her barely clothed in her sky-blue top and shorts, but for some reason the tight leather trousers and the shirt that stretched taut across her breasts felt very revealing.
“Slow down.” Calistos reached for her arm and she moved it away, even though she was wearing gloves now.
She hadn’t tested whether the thin gloves provided enough of a barrier between her skin and that of another, and she wasn’t going to risk him by touching him or letting him touch her.
“I cannot slow down.” She doubled her pace instead, her gaze fixed on the flat plain that stretched before her.
Thanatos felt as if he was far in the distance there, and gods, she hoped he wasn’t on the other side of a mountain. She would go out of her mind if she had to find a way through a mountain, or had to climb over it.
The sense of urgency she felt constantly built inside her, already felt as if it was ripping her apart. If she delayed any longer, even when she knew it was wise to wait for their forces to join them, she would go insane. She needed to reach Thanatos before it was too late.
Calistos glanced at the delicate blue script that ran down the inside of his forearm, a gift bestowed by Hermes at his birth. Her brother had tried to use that favour mark to create a portal, one that would take her wherever she wanted to go if she focused, but it hadn’t worked.
This wretched realm stopped it from functioning. Stopped her from teleporting. Stopped her from reaching Thanatos.
She hated it more now than ever.
Calindria broke into a run, unable to take it anymore. She had to reach Thanatos. She had to reach that tumbling ruin of a fortress before it was too late. Now that she knew the reason he hadn’t wanted to go near it, she felt terrible for making him touch it. He hadn’t wanted to dredge up his memories of that place.
Her heart ached.
She could only imagine how he felt now, as he was forced to relive those memories all over again. Worse, he had subjected himself to suffer the same awful abuse as he had before, all for her sake.
“Calindria—” Calistos started.
“No,” she snapped and threw a hard look at him. “I will not slow down! Thanatos needs me. He needs me.”
Calistos sobered, the hardness that had been entering his eyes turning to soft warmth as he looked at her, as he kept pace with her. His blond eyebrows furrowed and he nodded, and she could see in his blue eyes that he knew the reason she couldn’t wait, couldn’t slow down. He knew why she desperately needed to reach Thanatos.
He had saved her once, and now she would save him.
She would save him.
The connection she felt to Thanatos grew stronger and she spotted something in the distance, deep in the gloom.
“Is that it?” Calistos glanced at her and then stared at the faint shape.
She nodded and ran harder as it came into focus, the broken torch-lit black walls appearing from the gloom together with something else.
An army.
Calindria skidded to a halt. There were far more warriors than she and Thanatos had fought before, at least three times as many. Her hope wavered as she stared at them all.
They formed a wall around the fortress, a barrier she was going to have to break through in order to reach Thanatos. She wasn’t a fighter. Not really. She placed her hand on the short sword the commander had bestowed upon her, a weapon she wasn’t even sure how to use. Her brother had tried to teach her to fight when they were younger, but he hadn’t exactly known much about it himself at the time, and he’d had to do it in secret. Their father had wanted her far from battlefields, had coddled her and not allowed her to learn to fight as her brothers had.
She drew her sword and it felt heavy in her hands. She stared at it, trying to recall how Thanatos had wielded his, the actions he had made when they had been fighting together. Maybe she was better off relying on her power over nature than a blade. She would use it if anyone got too close to her.
“How are we going to get through all those warriors?” She tried to assess them all, but it was hard from this distance. Her senses said there were many people ahead of her, but she couldn’t tell how many. “I do not think they are an illusion. I can feel them.”
“Some of them might be. Won’t know until you stick them with a sword.” Calistos frowned at them, his pale eyebrows drawing down, and the tips of his ponytail fluttered gently in the breeze that began to build around them. “There’s only one good way to fight.”
He glanced at her.
“Together.”
He cracked a smile when she frowned at him.
“I do not think I will be good with this.” She pulled a face at the sword.
Calistos took it from her and inspected it, and then shoved the tip of it into the ground. “Forget the sword. You’re a kickass goddess. I’m guessing they’re regular folk. Steel is for them. You just hit them with everything you have.”
He had a strange way of speaking at times.
She had the feeling that by everything she had, he was talking about her death touch. That wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t know what would happen if she touched someone and they touched another while they were turning to ashes. It might spread to that person and so on, and so on.
And eventually it would reach her brother.
So no, she wouldn’t be hitting them with everything she had.
But she would hit them with half of what she had.
Her power over nature.
That would be her sword and her shield.
“Ready?” Calistos glanced at her and drew down a deep breath.
The breeze picked up.
Calindria nodded. “Ready.”
She wasn’t. She really wasn’t. The last fight she had been in against these warriors had been terrifying enough, but she had the feeling this one would be far worse. If all those males she could see weren’t illusions, something her connection to nature was telling her was true, then they had a real battle on their hands. She could only hope that the commander would bring the army they needed sooner rather than later, because there was no way in this world she could wait for him.