Hearts of Chaos Page 11

“Ideas that have died. Inventions that are obsolete. Abandoned plans and paths and beliefs. The discarded flotsam and jetsam of the Living World.”

  “The forest feels dead. Nothing moves. It’s creepy.”

  “A dead forest in the Land of the Dead? Imagine that.”

  He didn’t have to sound so patronizing. “But it doesn’t feel right,” she insisted. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

  Corbette crooked an eyebrow at her. “And why do you think that, fair Lucia? Dreams are the province of the Harbinger. You never told me you dreamed of this place.”

  “I didn’t.” But she’d dreamed of deaths. During the worst of the Kivati-Drekar war, the nightmares had been so bad she’d become an insomniac for fear of sleep. “I just have this strange feeling. Like I’ve been here before.” Beneath the junk, the swamp whispered to her. If she concentrated very hard, she could almost sense a heartbeat within the thick twisting bark of the mangrove. The forest wasn’t completely dead after all, but the pulse was so faint. Just the barest flicker of life, like an ancient crone waiting for the dark.

  Corbette pushed on ahead. “We need to keep moving. If what you say is true, the Enkidu has a good lead on us.”

  Bristling, she followed. “So where does Ereshkigal live?”

  “The Lady of Death lives in a palace, but I don’t know what it looks like. The legends say there are seven gates to pass through before you reach her, but myths are rarely clear. Those gates could be physical or metaphorical.”

  “Tests,” she said. “The gods always test the hero to see if he is worthy of entrance.”

  Corbette’s shoulders stiffened, but he pressed on. What was it she had said that bothered him? Was it fear that they might not pass, or fear that they might be found lacking?

  “The Kivati haven’t trespassed into the spirit realm in recent memory,” he said. “Think of your legends, then. They might give us some hint of the tasks to come.”

  Their passage was labored. Gnarled roots snagged their feet. Massive trunks of trees that had grown together blocked the path for what seemed like miles. The discarded metal made every step hazardous. Lucia still wore her slippers, but they were made for dancing. The thin soles tore easily and let her feel every sharp rock.

  The long roots of the giant mangrovelike trees grew one on top of another, raised from the earth, almost like small, forgotten cages that the forest had reclaimed. Every so often she thought she heard someone crying.

  Neither of them were used to scraping in the mud like this. Only Kivati children and the non-winged had to walk. The Raven would never stoop to trudge in the mud when the air was so much faster, cleaner. She’d had more practice walking because of her weak grasp of her totem. But here they were without totem or Aether. Stripped down to their single components. Simple and ordinary and altogether unremarkable.

  Not the infamous Raven Lord.

  Not the anticipated Crane Wife.

  Corbette offered his hand to help her over the next hurdle. She placed her hand in his, and the spark of skin on skin shocked her. Stumbling, she landed against his hard chest; her breasts flattened against him, her lips parted as she found herself inches from his mouth. He smelled like dirt and sweat and wet linen, but in an earthy, wild sort of way that agitated her senses. She’d been trying not to touch him. Trying hard to be good and give him the space he so obviously wanted. But her body had other plans. He didn’t push her away. Pressed against him like this, she could feel his shallow breathing and raised heartbeat and all that lean muscle. With her history, it was amazing so much testosterone and power didn’t make her run screaming into the night.

  Quite the opposite. He was primal and male, and the thought of moving against him, of closing that small gap between their lips, sent heat twirling low in her belly to the crux of her thighs.

  “Lucia,” he said in a hushed breath.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re not making this easy for me.”

  Well then. She stepped back. “I tripped.”

  He made a low noise in the back of his throat. Frustrated? She’d show him frustrated.

  And why was she trying to behave around him? After all her pep talks about being herself, around Corbette she went right back to trying to please him. Trying to be some perfect, proper lady. To make this easier for him.

  Why in the name of the four sacred winds would she do that? Easy! She’d never had it easy. If all this time he had been able to smother the spark between them, certainly he didn’t need help now. She raised her chin and gave him a perfectly normal, innocent smile.

  His eyes widened.

  Perfect.

  “Carry on then,” she said and turned to climb over the next hurdle in her path. The whisper of a cry came again from the direction they were heading. She pulled herself up the next mass of tangled wood that had grown over a horse-driven plow and a Roman chariot, but couldn’t quite make it over the top. She was stuck half dangling from a tree, giving Corbette an excellent eye-level view of her barely dressed ass. He let her struggle for a long moment. Lady be. A blush stained across her cheeks. “A little help please?”

  “Lucia—” he growled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” His hands descended on her rear end and gave her a hearty push. Hello, big, hot hands! He could brand things with those weapons. He launched her over the offending barrier, but she could still feel a handprint on either cheek.

  She slid face-first down the steep embankment. Her fingers grasped for purchase. She caught herself just in time before she connected with one of the giant root balls.

  On the far side, Corbette gave a muffled oath. “Are you all right? Answer me!”

  Let him stew, she thought. Her nose landed an inch from the latticework of the roots. Air whooshed through the spaces between. Up close it looked even more cage-like. And there it was again—the little cry, almost human. It was a bird, she was sure of it.

  Inside the root ball, something moved.

  She jerked back. “Corbette?”

  “On my way,” he grunted. She could see one of his hands over the top of the barrier.

  The thing in the root cage moved again. A little bird chirruped. Was it trapped, or did it live in that dank hole? She pushed to her feet and peered inside. A blue bird shivered in the narrow dark. It didn’t have enough space to open its wings. “How did you get in there?” she asked it. The bird tilted its head and gave her another sorrowful chirrew.

  She dug her fingers between the slats in the roots, planted her feet, and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Lucia!” Corbette came over the top of the slope. “What are you doing?”

  Ignoring him, she searched the nearby forest for a tool of some kind. She found rusted blades and steel chains and shards of glass buried in the mud. A scythe poked out from between two roots. Lady of Luck. Pulling it out, she returned to the cage and set about hacking it with the rusted blade. When she’d loosened the bars enough, she took one in each hand and yanked. The wood gave way in her hands, and she tumbled backward into the mud. She’d ripped a sizable hole between the root bars of the cell.

  The bird hopped to the edge and flew out. It landed on a branch in front of her and stretched its wings. It was really a beautiful shade of blue. Not anything local to the Pacific Northwest. Yellow feathers were nestled between the royal blue on its wings. It looked at her, black eyes piercing, and launched off the branch right at her face. She screamed and covered herself, but the bird Changed in midflight. Aether swirled around the small body, and then a handsome blond woman in a gorgeous blue cloak stood in front of her.

  The woman took Lucia’s hand and fell to her knees, sobbing. “I’d almost lost hope.” Her voice was the same pitch as the chirrew of the bird. “You came—”

  Lucia tried to pull her hand away. “You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  “No. No, the Crane would come. I’ve been lost and locked there for eighty years. But the others said you would come a
nd lead me out of the darkness.”

  Lucia went still. It was her vision quest all over again—returning from the woods to find great expectations and impossible hopes. “You are mistaken. I’ve led a whole world to ruin.”

  “You have changed my world.” The woman rose. “Sometimes one needs only light a single match to vanquish the darkness.”

  Corbette came over the top of the root wall and slid down to meet her. “Madam,” he said, giving the woman a polite bow. He deftly took Lucia’s place, so fast and so smooth that she didn’t realize he’d blocked her until she was staring at his back. “Gentle lady, how did you get here?” he asked in a voice of midnight silk. His dangerous voice, the seductive croon hid the viper within.

  He saw danger. Maybe she shouldn’t have freed the lady bird. Maybe the woman was trapped here for a good reason. Damn it. Lucia was always rushing in without thinking things through.

  The blue lady wasn’t fooled. She tilted her head so she could see around Corbette and spoke directly to Lucia. “How can I repay your kindness?”

  “Nothing,” Corbette said. “She needs no reward.”

  “Right,” Lucia said. Did he think she was an idiot? She knew better than to accept a favor from a spirit.

  The lady paid no attention to Corbette. She simply walked right through him like he didn’t exist. The light of the forest showed through her, but when she put her cold hands on Lucia’s cheeks, they felt very solid. “Ask me a question.”

  “No—” Corbette said.

  But Lucia couldn’t look away from the woman’s pale blue eyes. The cold hands on her cheeks anchored her head in a strange embrace. “Where will you go now?”

  A thin smile streaked across the woman’s face. She dropped her hands. “You don’t judge my past, only my future.” She held up a finger when Lucia would protest. “I follow the shining path to join the spirits of my ancestors. Don’t be afraid. I’ll give you a gift for your kindness.” Corbette moved to stop her, and the lady’s smile slid off. Her eyes shone with a cold light. “Don’t insult me. The dead are not powerless.” The blue cloak slid from her shoulders. It solidified into rich wool with a trim of brocade. Beneath the wool, the woman was naked. She picked up the cloak and spun it out and around Lucia before she could protest. The wool embraced her with the warmth of a down jacket. It covered her from neck to toe, hiding her damp underthings from view.

  “Thank you.” Lucia clutched the coat closed at her chest. She was half afraid Corbette would take it from her. He could try. “May the Lady speed your journey.”

  The woman smiled a real smile. Light shimmered over her translucent form like a blanket covering her body, and in a flash she was a small bird again, unremarkable in shape or species except for her bright yellow feathers. A dandelion of the feathered realm. The blue of the cloak was gone. The bird took off, rose above the jungle canopy, and disappeared.

  When Lucia turned back to Corbette, his black brows clashed together.

  “What?” she said. “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same.”

  “Not if it interfered with my mission.”

  She pursed her lips. “How do you know this isn’t part of our mission?”

  “Our mission is to find Ereshkigal, steal her Scepter, and get back home before Tiamat destroys what’s left of the city.”

  “Steal?”

  “You think she’s just going to hand it over?”

  “How will we outrace the clay man or an enraged goddess with or without our wings?”

  “We will do it because it must be done. I refuse to entertain any alternative.” Turning, he stomped off through the forest. She hurried just enough to keep him in her sight. The bulk of the cloak inhibited climbing, but the warmth was well worth it.

  The bird woman wasn’t the only trapped bird spirit in the glade. Lucia stopped counting at fifteen and lost sight of Corbette a few times. He waited impatiently. None of the other birds spoke to her when she broke their cages, but she could tell by their trills that they were all glad to be free. A few dropped long tail feathers for her on the way out, and these she wove into her drying hair so that she shimmered with crimson, orange, and aquamarine. With the cloak, feathers, and dark wood, she felt like a fairy huntress on a quest. Step by step, some of her old anxiety crumbled away. She didn’t have to be the maiden in a tower anymore. She was muddy to her eyeballs and climbing in her underdrawers and feeling altogether disreputable. Like Maid Marian, setting the villagers free. Everything about it had a topsy-turvy air. She’d left Kivati Hall and its expectations and restrictions far behind. Here in the Land of the Dead, the worries of the Living World shucked off like a snake’s skin. She could do what she wanted. Be whomever she liked. She just had to figure out who that was.

  She found herself humming a little tune as she followed the scowling leader through the wood. Corbette stormed through—uncombed hair, silver earrings, and rumpled clothes—a ship captain far from his beloved sea. Following him, she could daydream without his too-seeing eyes. Her dreams held mermaids and ladies ravished in the wood by a Black Knight.

  As if he heard her daydream, he turned at that moment. The violet ring of his eyes was thick with danger. If they had still been in the Living World, Aether would have crackled from his skin and charged the air with his power. This Corbette held none of that charge, but every inch of his dominance.

  She fought the urge to lower her eyes.

  He was still an imposing, dangerous man. She shouldn’t misjudge him. He would never be tame.

  Lord Kai woke to the sound of banging on his door. He rolled out of bed and landed in one smooth jump on his feet, fully awake. This was it. Tiamat must have decided he was expendable. Maybe she’d found Grace’s rebel camp. Maybe . . .

  The pounding came again, and a voice. “Kai Raiden! Kai, hurry your ass—”

  In two strides he was at the door, hand half-Changed to Thunderbird talons, and he pulled it open to find Lucia’s mother. His heart skipped a beat. “Is Corbette back?” The Raven Lord had been gone a month already.

  “No.” Constance had chosen to stay behind, much like he had, and she looked like she’d aged a decade. She was shorter than her daughter and thinner than she’d ever been after four weeks living under Tiamat’s thumb. Stress made her skin tight across her cheekbones. He wondered how much it showed on him. He’d never had much interaction with Lucia’s mother, and she had always struck him a little too concerned with appearances and social climbing for his taste, but she’d stayed. Anyone who’d had half a chance had tried to escape. Anyone sane.

  “What’s Tiamat done now?” he asked.

  “Did you know about the children?” Constance grabbed his arm and pulled him down the hall.

  “No. What is she doing?” He tucked his shirt into his pants and tightened his belt as he raced to keep up with her.

  “Tiamat has started a new series of experiments.”

  Kai felt bile rise in his gut. The bitch goddess had become obsessed with cross-species breeding and genetic manipulation. She sought to create the ultimate warrior army by forcing Drekar and various totemed Kivati to mate while adding power and occult magic to the process. Apparently her first two pantheons had simply sprung from her giant womb as fully formed adults, but over the millennia her powers had waned until she had to make babies the old-fashioned way.

  “She’s not willing to sit on her heels as she waits for her forced unions to produce fruit.”

  “If Kivati and Drekar can even mate—”

  Her hand tightened on his arm. “They can.” “When? I don’t know any—”

  “They can!” She shoved him back against a silk-paneled wall, startling the hell out of him. “Don’t let down your guard.”

  “What happens to a half-Drekar, half-Kivati abomination? Why haven’t we heard of any—”

  “The babies disappear like the moon marked.”

  “You mean they’re left on Mount Rainier for the elements?” Kai studied the older woman’s face. The
biodiesel lamps cast haggard features in an unattractive light, but she’d been beautiful once. Before Tiamat. Everything good was before Tiamat. The shadows shifted over her like long-buried secrets. He suddenly wondered how well he could trust Constance.

  Constance gave a sharp nod, and released him. “They are just babies! Innocents. There is more dishonor in hurting a child than in raising one with Drekar blood.”

  “Babies? As in more than one?”

  “I—” She looked both ways down the hall to make sure no one was listening, but they were alone. “My parents raised us far outside the shelter of Corbette’s protection. You have lived among your own kind your whole life. Don’t let that blind you to what is and is not possible. Just because you haven’t seen it with your own limited perception—”

  “Who? Who birthed such a monster child and hid it from Corbette?”

  Constance’s face blanched. He suddenly remembered that Drekar had abducted her sister. Sarah was supposed to have died trying to escape after almost a year in captivity. Had it been closer to nine months? He started counting years, measuring ages of the youth of the Kivati who were close to Constance’s family. Constance herself had arrived with a husband and newborn in tow when he was twelve.

  “If that’s true, a Drekar could sire a child and sneak it right into the heart of the Kivati,” he said. “Do these creatures even have souls?”

  “Yes! They are no less Kivati by the circumstances of their birth,” she spat. “More blessed by the Lady than you or I.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.”

  No wonder Constance had tried to push her daughter to make friends in high places if she was harboring a soul-sucker’s fledgling somewhere among them. “And what of the Aether? Would such a child be able to touch the shimmering water? Would it heal unnaturally fast like the Drekar?”

  “Listen, you must hurry,” Constance hissed, digging her fingers into his arm. “Forget the past. The real viper is on our throne right now, and she’s experimenting on our own flesh and blood. Tiamat has decided to see what she can do to increase the power of Kivati children. She ordered Lady Acacia to deliver her daughter ten minutes ago.”