Gold: A Bandia Novel Part 32

Liam slides down from the boulder and moves toward Austin with grace befitting a G.o.d. "What have you done?" His voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear it. "You are a failure in every sense of the word. It shouldn't come as a surprise after all this time, but still, I find myself at a loss."

Austin steps forward. "I think I just chose a side, friend."

Liam laughs. The sound echoes across the canyon until it's finally swallowed by the river below. "You were a pathetic excuse for a G.o.d, and you're an even worse human. A traitor to your own cause. For what? A mortal who will die anyway?"

Austin raises his sword as Liam gets closer.

"Your sword can't hurt me for long." Liam circles Austin. White light arcs from his fingers. "You are a disgrace, Arawn. It is only fitting that you will die like one. A true death."

Jonah and Micah move toward Dr. McKay, standing together.

Blake crawls to Portia. She sits up, trembling as she stares at Sherri's bloodied body.

I step forward, trying to deflect Liam's attention away from Austin.

Liam smiles at me, and my stomach twists into a tight knot. "Is this your moment then? Will you end the war with the Sons?" He pushes Sherri's body to the side with his foot, clearing a path for me. "As a sacrificial lamb?" He sends a bolt of white light at my chest. It bursts in front of me, sending me flying backwards. I land on my back, breathless. I reach for my chest but I'm fine. It's not until I sit up on my elbows that I see Austin on the ground.

The light I saw was gold, not white.

No.

No, no, no.

I scramble to Austin. His body shakes and quivers from the shock of Liam's blast. His skin is red where he was. .h.i.t, but his chest still rises and falls as he sucks in air. I look for Dr. McKay, pleading with my eyes. Help him.

Liam laughs again. "Utterly predictable. Arawn's fall at the hands of a girl."

"At the hands of a tyrant." I glare at Liam as he moves closer. "You can't kill him. You'll be banished."

"He's not dead, is he?" Liam kicks Austin hard in the ribs. Austin curls away and lets out a grunt. "Didn't think so. He'll just wish that he were." He kicks Austin in the small of his back, right over a kidney. "Then you will do the deed for me."

I leap to my feet, sword at Liam's throat. I slash. Blood splatters everywhere. In my hair, my eyes, my mouth. The iron taste is thick and sour. I spit at the ground, but I keep slas.h.i.+ng, hacking and chopping at his neck. I don't stop until he lays on the ground unmoving. I stand over him, sword still pressed against his neck. Skin grows back over the gash, repairing itself before my eyes.

Liam coughs and sputters. "Stupid girl. You can't kill me."

"Maybe not, but I can make you wish you were dead." I cut his neck again, then hack away until he's unconscious, ignoring the second wave of blood that sprays on me.

I wait for the skin to regroup. Then I do it again.

And again. I keep going, chopping until I feel spine. The muscles in my shoulders ache from the effort, but I push past the pain, past everything.

A hand rests on my shoulder.

"Stop." Austin stands beside me. "You have to stop sometime."

I drop the sword and throw my arms around Austin, hugging him to me, feeling his warmth. He hugs me back, undeterred by the blood that covers my clothes and hair.

"I love you," I say.

He laughs in my ear. "It's okay. I already knew. I've been waiting for you to figure it out."

"I should have told you."

"You did." He lifts his hand to my face, wiping a drop of blood from my lips. "A long time ago."

The movement behind me barely registers, but I catch it out of the corner of my eye. I spin around to face Liam. I raise my sword, but he's too far away.

All I see is white light as it comes at Austin and me. A crack of pain as we fall to the ground. Then nothing.

FIFTY-FIVE.

Everything hurts. My head throbs in time to the sharp stabs in my chest. My hands and feet are numb, but p.r.i.c.kles of pain poke along my skin, threatening to prod my nerves into an all-out a.s.sault. My mouth feels hot, tinged with the taste of rusty metal.

"She has a pulse." I recognize Dr. McKay's voice, although it sounds tinny and far away. I can't be sure if he's talking about me.

"Kill her then," says another male voice. Maybe Levi. I can't be sure. "It's what we came for."

Everything goes numb at once. Then I'm floating, drifting. I open my eyes, but there's nothing to see but foggy blankness. It's cold and disorienting.

Then I see him, just a silhouette in the clouds, reaching for me. I know him now. Once, he had been just a shadow in the fog, but now he is my heart. My Austin.

I stretch to reach him. Our fingers brush, and his hand closes around mine, pulling me the rest of the way to him. His touch ignites something primal and strong inside me, filling me with a strength that has a magic all its own.

"You can't stay." I feel the soft lilt of his voice inside my head. It's as if we're trapped in a dream where nothing is truly physical. Everything happens on the inside.

I don't argue with him. I'm completely out of my element here. Surrounded by an icy mist that threatens to swallow me whole. "Come back with me."

His sigh is a vacuum, stealing my own breath, smothering me. "You already know I can't do that."

My heart doesn't make a sound as it shatters. I don't cry or scream or even beg for things I know I can't have. I just hold on.

A silver thread of light moves through the fog, breaking up the gray. It inches toward us.

"I have to go." His words are resigned.

The light moves closer. It brushes my arm, then wraps itself around my wrist, pulling me. I fight against it, not wanting to let go. Not yet.

He lifts my hands from his shoulders. "Remember your promise to me."

He once asked me to stay alive, no matter what. "I never said I would do it."

"You have your whole life ahead of you."

"So do you."

"You know that's not true."

The silver thread tightens. I grab Austin's hand.

He brings my hand to his lips. His voice in my head is warm and melodic. "I would die a thousand deaths for the life I had with you."

I cry out as he lets go of my hand and his shadowy form retreats, floating backwards until he disappears into the haze.

I'm pulled in the other direction, along a trail of silver light. But when I close my eyes, all I see is gold.

FIFTY-SIX.

Blake kneels over me, his hands pressed against my rib cage. Even with all the silver light that surrounds him, I can see the shadows that line his face. His lips are fixed in a hard line. "She's awake," he says.

Awake? As if I had been sleeping. Dreaming. As if none of this is real.

I sit up too fast, sending a rush of oxygen to my head. Austin lies next to me. No one needs to tell me he won't be waking up. He lies on his stomach, his arm still draped across my waist. Liam's blood puddles around us.

I reach for my sword, but Blake's hand stops me. "It's over." As if to demonstrate the point, he vanishes and reappears in street clothes. The other Sons follow suit. All but Micah, who sits hunched over Jeremy's body in the matching plaid his brother wears.

"What about Liam?" I look around the rocks frantically, but I don't see him anywhere.

"They took him. After he killed-" Blake looks at the ground.

"They?"

"The dogs we saw that night?"

"Arawn's hounds." Three giant wolfhounds that guard the river. As the G.o.d of the underworld, Liam's ability to come and go was limited. Killing a mortal was an offense with a hefty price. "Liam was banished, right?" He killed a mortal. I try not to think about what that means, even though I already know the answer. "I think it was more than that." Blake's cheek twitches.

"I don't understand."

Blake lifts his head, and his face is paler than normal. "The dogs didn't just herd him to the river. They took him. In pieces."

"What?" Liam is a G.o.d. An immortal. But the hounds are creatures of the underworld too. And Arawn had been their master.

Blake looks from me to where Austin's body lays. "I'm sorry."

I look around the bluff, anywhere but at Austin. Portia sits huddled on a rock, her face in her hands, shaking. Sherri's neck is bent at an unnatural angle where she lays slumped over a boulder, in a pool of hero own blood.

Levi limps, but he manages to help Jonah lift Rush's body and take him to the side of the canyon. They say a few words I can't hear and then throw him into the water below. Portia screams.

Micah sits on the ground with Jeremy's head cradled in his lap. As Levi and Jonah approach, he leans forward, s.h.i.+elding Jeremy's face with his chest. "You're not taking him."

"It's already done," Levi says. "He's on the path to Avalon whether the river takes him or not."

"No!" Micah's cheeks are wet with tears. "Jeremy doesn't even believe in the war. He can't die this way."

I push myself off the ground, forcing myself to my feet. My shoulders hurt. My heart hurts. Everything hurts. I try not to look at Austin as I step over him. I focus on Micah.

I place a hand on Micah's arm, ignoring the stickiness where my b.l.o.o.d.y fingers touch his skin, careful not to touch the swath of plaid across his shoulder that matches the one Jeremy wears. I know words are meaningless now, so I say nothing. I just take him in my arms and hold on.

He cries, and I wish I could cry with him, not just for Jeremy, not just for Austin. For Rush. For Sherri. For the Sons and Seventh Daughters who have fought and died and killed for the last thousand years. But I can't afford tears. We are far from out of this.

Finally, when he is too exhausted to cry anymore, I let go. "He didn't die for nothing." I don't know if I mean Jeremy or Austin. "He ended a war."

I feel the eyes of the Sons on me. All of them. Blake tilts his head. It dawns on me that I have no idea what he's thinking, but I'm not trying to feel him anymore. It takes all my effort to keep from feeling the emotions that hover near the edge of my own composure, waiting to pull me under and drag me into darkness.

I turn my attention to Portia. She lifts her head to watch me, eyes wary.

I weigh my words carefully. "The G.o.ds can't cross over without the gateway, and the gateway won't be opened for another thousand years." I think about what Blake said about Liam. "Maybe more." I put my hand on Portia's shoulder. "The last remaining Seventh Daughter is right here. But she's more than just a descendant of Danu. She's the daughter of a Son. She chose not to fight against her family. Not to kill the Son she bonded to her."

"The last?" Jonah moves toward me, a sick smile on his lips. "Aren't you forgetting someone?" He lunges forward, but Micah is on his feet with his sword raised, preventing Jonah from getting closer. "I haven't forgotten. But I'm no threat. As I said, the G.o.ds can't be released with the gateway sealed. And my powers were lost when I broke the bond with Blake."

"Is this true?" Levi looks to Blake for confirmation.

"More or less," Blake says.

"Which is it?" Equivocation won't work with Levi.

"She can't access her power," Blake says.

Dr. McKay nods. "We saw as much at the pub, and again tonight." He looks at Portia. "But she came here to fight."

Portia glances over her shoulder at the ravine where her father's body was dropped into the river. She buries her head in her knees and starts crying again.

The sun drops the rest of the way behind the rocks, casting us in shadows. Only the glow from Micah keeps us from descending completely into darkness.

"Tell them," I whisper, but Portia doesn't acknowledge me. I square my shoulders. "She was called here like the rest of you. She couldn't stay away. She tried to. That's why she was late."

Portia lifts her head and stares.

"She didn't attack anyone," I continue. "She's one of you."

"G.o.d help us then." Jonah smirks.

Portia picks up a rock and throws it at Jonah's feet. He steps out of the way easily, but Levi laughs. Dr. McKay smiles. Just like that, the tension is broken. Dr. McKay and Levi turn away from Portia and me, and walk to where Jeremy lies on the ground.

Micah holds up a hand. "I'll do it." Micah sets down his sword, and brushes a long strand of hair away from Jeremy's face. He lifts his brother's shoulders off the ground. Dr. McKay comes around to takes Jeremy's feet, but one look from Micah is all it takes to wave him off. Micah hugs Jeremy's back to his chest and drags Jeremy to the ravine on his own. Once there, he hesitates. He leans forward, kissing his brother's cheek. And then he lets go with a shrill scream that echoes through the ravine.

A howl responds in the distance.

The dogs. "The hounds will be back," I say. "We need to get out of here."

Blake takes a step in my direction.

"Don't." Portia's voice is so quiet I'm not sure I heard it.

I turn away from them, too fast, catching Austin out of the corner of my eye. I know he's already moved on, that this body is not him. Not anymore. Still, I'm not as strong as Micah. I don't go to him.

I stare at the ground when Levi motions for Dr. McKay to help him move Austin's body to the ledge. I close my eyes tight when they push him over. I don't even hear the splash when his body hits the river, indistinguishable as it is from the sound of the water rus.h.i.+ng below.

I walk in the opposite direction, to the crack in the cliff wall that should lead back out to the beach. There's nothing but solid rock. It will not be as simple as walking out of here.