New chapter at last. Thanks to The Obsessionist, Impish Wisdoms, and C Cawthorne for reviews, and a thousand writer points to my lovely editor.
Terra:
The ache in my ribs is nothing compared to the one in my chest. It feels like someone's ripped out my heart, but at the same time, not my heart. All Sirens are interconnected, and whenever one of us is angry or scared or really, truly, hurt, all of us feel the pain. Right now, someone's hit one of my Sirens, maybe fracturing a rib, but they've also done something much worse.
I hear a wail from Darcy, feel Loki's hands on my shoulders, even hear the stupid theme music from Titanic in the background, but I'm focused on the injured Siren. Who is it, and why do I feel this horrible, wrenching grief?
"No," I whisper, as all the pieces snap together in one terrible moment. "Not Renna and Ember."
I can see it, like a movie playing on the inside of my skull; Renna and Ember walking through a silent forest, hand in hand. Then, dark figures wearing the Guardian insignia surround them. They fight, Renna starts to sing, but the Guardians leap on her, hitting her in the stomach and clamping their hands over her mouth. Ember starts toward her, his whole being intent on rescuing her - and then one of the Guardians plunges a knife into his back.
It's Darcy's wailing that pulls me out of Renna's confused, grief-stricken mind and back into my own. I realize that Darcy is making a scene, and I have to get her out of here before everyone in the amphitheater catches on to the fact that there's something wrong.
"Come on," I say, pulling Darcy to her feet. She flops limply like a rag doll, and the unexpected weight nearly tips me over. Loki, however, catches us both before we fall and helps me support Darcy up the stairs and out of the amphitheater.
"What is it?" Loki asks as we drag Darcy further away from the amphitheater.
"It's Renna," I say, my voice tight. "The Guardians captured her, and they killed Ember right in front of her."
"No," Darcy screams, tilting her head back and giving voice to the emotions that Renna, wherever she is, can't. "No!"
"Stop it," I snarl, turning on Darcy. This incessant sobbing isn't helping anyone. When she continues to cry, I slap her across the face. It startles her just enough that she stops crying and stares at me with shocked eyes.
"Listen," I say. "I feel the same way as you do, but this isn't helping Renna at all. If you'll quit screaming, I'll talk to her and find out what we need to do."
Darcy quiets, and I shut my eyes, reaching out to Renna. Her thoughts, usually clear and lucid, are muddled with pain and grief, but I still get a sense of where she is. She's moving fast - too fast to be on foot, she must be in a car - and the scents and sounds of a big city surround her.
Renna, I say softly. Where are you?
New York, she answers. The sadness inside her is like a riptide, threatening to tow me under. They say I'm a traitor and they killed Ember and they left his body out there in the woods, and, and -
Renna's losing her ability for coherent thought fast, slipping back into the more animalistic thought processes that take over when someone's in great pain. I know I'm going to have to get the information I need to stage a rescue soon, before she loses control completely.
It's okay, I say, trying to project calm. We're coming to get you. It's going to be okay. Is there anything else I should know?
A storm of feelings hits me, pain and fear and protectiveness and love and rage, but I only get one word out of it. Pregnant.
"Terra!"
Loki's voice draws me back into my own mind and body, and as I open my eyes again I realize that I'm on my knees in the dust, head cradled in my hands. Loki is crouched beside me, and Darcy is standing over us.
"What do you know?" Darcy says. I see the imprint of my hand on her cheek, and I feel a fleeting twinge of guilt for slapping her as hard as I did. But at least her eyes are dry now, and the crying has stopped.
"She's in New York," I report. "That's where the Guardians are centered, so that's no surprise. Ember is dead, and Renna seems to think that the Guardians are going to put her on trial for treason."
Darcy shakes her head. "That's awful."
"It gets worse," I say. "She's pregnant."
There's a stunned silence after I drop that little bombshell, but I start talking again because we don't have time. "It'll take two hours at least to get to New York, and we've got to get her out of there before they pass a sentence. Once they do that, they put you in these unbreakable chains and lock you in the dungeon. So we'll need to leave as soon as we can pick up our gear from the house -"
"Terra," Loki says. I turn all the way around to look at him. Once he knows he's within my sight lines, he says, "You know this is a trap."
"Well, yeah," I say. "They want to provoke me into going back, so they can capture me and turn me into their little puppet Princess again. What did you thinkthey were doing this for?"
"Hang on," Darcy says before Loki can respond. "If they wanted to capture you and lure you in, why didn't they just kill Renna and be done with it? For all they know, you could be perfectly happy to leave her in prison!"
"No," Loki says. "The murder of a Siren would be considered an act of war, and Terra would likely respond by launching an attack on the Guardians that they are unprepared to face. In addition, those who know Terra well probably also know that she is unlikely to leave a friend in the hands of her enemies."
Loki looks at me. "Based on that, Terra, I think they've got you trapped already."
"I don't see it as being trapped," I respond. I'm not entirely surprised that Loki figured out the Guardians' motives, but it also gives me chills. Loki must know me better than I think, just like the person who orchestrated Renna's capture and wove this clever net I'm now ensnared in. "I can choose whether or not to go, but I choose to go save my friend. Now it's your turn to choose - are you coming with me?"
If Loki goes with me, I'll have a much better chance of escaping the Guardian stronghold a second time. But I don't really want him to see New York, I don't want him to see the Guardians, and I definitely don't want him within a hundred miles of Lethe or Adrian. It's not that I don't trust Loki to handle himself, it's just that I'm worried he might be hurt. And I really hate myself for worrying about him. I've got my own problems - first and foremost, my blind eye. As the fight with the Titans showcased, worrying about someone else puts my own life in danger. But I can't stop doing it.
"I will go with you," Loki says, and I simultaneously experience a sense of relief and the feeling that some of Darcy's butterflies are fluttering around in my chest.
"What about me?" Darcy asks.
"This isn't a game," I say, repeating what I said when she asked to become a Siren. "I could use your help, but if you aren't prepared for this, you need to stay here. It's going to be hard enough to save Renna, and Loki and I can't be there to protect you. Can you handle it?"
"Yes," Darcy says, and the expression on her face is fierce. "What are we waiting for? Let's get moving!"
We leave the car for Jane, returning to the house instead by way of dragon and butterfly. Erik gets only the slightest of explanations when he asks why we're rushing around like maniacs, stealing kitchen knives and grabbing throwing stars and - in my case - dressing Darcy in my old armor.
"Don't you need this?" she asks as I help her lace up the back of the wraparound chest piece.
"Nah," I say. "It slows me down, and I'm good enough at fighting that I don't get hit too often. Besides, the Guardians trained me. I know how they fight. It's better that you have it. Loki!" I holler up the stairs. He's on the second floor, doing I don't know what. "Let's GO!"
Loki comes down the stairs with a small white dagger in his hand. For a moment it doesn't register with me, but then I take a second look at it and realize that it's a piece of the Soul-Reaver - my piece of the Soul-Reaver - and what the hell is Loki doing with it?
I open my mouth to say something, but Loki says swiftly, "Terra, listen. You need to carry this with you. If that demon, whatever her name is, is there, you'll have to use it."
He holds the Soul-Reaver shard gingerly, and he's right to - if the weapon even scratches you, it starts to draw your soul out. If you're killed with the Soul-Reaver, your soul doesn't move on to the underworld. It stays trapped in the blade of the sword, stuck forever.
I notice that Loki's rigged a crude handle for the Soul-Reaver shard, wrapping the base of it in fabric and tying it with cord to give me a safe handhold. He flips it around in his hand and presents it to me hilt-first.
"Thanks," I say, hooking it onto my belt along with my two knives. Darcy, looking very strange in my leather armor, carries a kitchen knife that I doubt she knows how to use. Loki has my other two knives and a belt of throwing stars looped across his chest.
"Well," I say, "we've got to be the strangest rescue party the world has ever seen."
"Yeah," Darcy says. "Renna's going to be so surprised to see us."
I order the air dragon to discard caution and fly as fast as it can on the most direct path to New York. While I'm not receiving any new information from Renna, I know that we can't waste any time - not even hiding from airplanes. I think I was spotted at least once, but I'm hoping that the pilot who saw me will assume it was a hallucination. And the whole flight there, I try not to think about what waits in New York.
On a list of the top five worst things that have ever happened to me, three of those occurred in New York. Although the very worst - the day I cut myself out of the Fates' loom - didn't happen there, New York is where I lost my sight again, went on trial for failure in a mission and the underlying accusation of treason, and found out that the first guy I ever fell in love with cared more about his position in the Guardians than he cared about me.
Even now, thinking about the underground chamber where I was chained and tried before the Guardians, I get shivers and my heart starts to speed. It's funny to me that, out of everything I've been through, it's that room and that event that turns out to be the one that gives me post-traumatic stress disorder. I still see the iron door on the chamber in my dreams every night.
"Terra?" Loki says into my ear. As usual, he's sitting behind me, arms locked around my waist. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I say, lying and feeling a little bad about it. This in itself annoys me; the people around me have to accept that, at any given moment, I may be lying or omitting certain pieces of the truth. So why should lying to Loki upset me at all? "Why do you ask?"
"Your heart rate is speeding up," Loki says.
I've no doubt that it is, but it surprises me that he pointed it out. With our extra-good hearing, immortals always pick up on things like each other's heartbeats and breathing, but it's bad manners to mention it, unless you're extremely close to that person. Let me illustrate with an example; if Renna's heartbeat was going fast, Ember would mention it to her, but I never would.
"So what if it is?" I say combatively, trying to calm my racing heart. There are several explanations for the sudden hike in my heart rate. Possibly it's because I'm flying, another reason might be the thought of going back to New York, or maybe - my stomach clenches at this - because Loki's arms are around me.
"Is it normal?" Loki asks, impervious as usual to the tone of my voice. That particular tone, the if-you-keep-talking-I-will-rip-out-your-voice-box tone, sends most people running for cover. "Or are you going to drop dead at any second?"
"It's normal," I say. At least I think it is. I'm on the point of voicing that last thought when I realize what I'm doing, and I say, "Why? Doesn't it happen to you?"
Loki's voice sounds funny when he says, "Only sometimes."
My cheeks start to burn - why do I always have to blush at the most inopportune moment? As I look up, I see a cluster of bright lights up ahead. New York City, here we come. The dragon and butterfly both go into a steep dive at my direction and we land unobtrusively in a deserted alley in Manhattan.
Loki wrinkles his nose. "It doesn't smell right here."
"Yeah, no kidding," I say. I'd forgotten how the acrid scents of gasoline and smoke sting my nasal passages. How could I have lived here?
Darcy, having never been flying for so long, is having a bit of trouble regaining her land legs. She tips over and I have a fleeting immature thought of I see London, I see France as I avert my eyes.
Loki looks to be one part sorry for Darcy and nine parts highly amused. "Why didn't you tell her to change out of the miniskirt?"
"Honestly? It never occurred to me that anyone would think that a miniskirt was appropriate battle attire," I say as Darcy rights herself, glaring at us.
"Are you guys done making fun of my clothes?" she says angrily. "Can we go save Renna now?"
"By all means," I say. I set off through the streets of New York, steadfastly ignoring the catcalls, whistles, and cries of, "Yo, Arwen, what's up?"
The Guardian stronghold is buried beneath the ruins of a building on the darker side of Manhattan. Since the Guardians don't like the sunlight - in fact, they tend to spontaneously combust in response to it - it makes sense that their central hub of operations would be underground. There are miles and miles of tunnels surrounding it, undermining most of Manhattan, but those tunnels are all booby-trapped. I used to know which ones wouldn't cave in on you, but I'm sure they've changed where the traps are set. The only choice is to go through the main entrance.
Unfortunately, they've set a guard, and the guard happens to be Aaron. I have a bit of a history with Aaron, having saved his life a couple million times, and there's no doubt that he'd recognize me. I don't want to have to kill him, but that's what I'll have to do to prevent him raising the alarm.
"Use a distraction," Loki suggests when I voice this. "Then sneak up behind him and knock him out."
"Good idea," I say. Loki is the king of good ideas. I glance around, looking for a suitable distraction, and my good eye focuses on Darcy. "Darcy, go distract him."
Darcy looks at Aaron, and back at me. "What should I do?"
"Flirt with him," I say.
She looks appalled. "Why don't you do it?"
"Because he'd recognize me," I say, losing patience. "And Loki can't do it because I'm fairly certain that Aaron's attracted to girls. It's not like I'm asking you to marry him - I'm just asking you to distract him so that Loki and I can knock him out. Okay?"
"All right, all right," Darcy grumbles, picking her way through the dusty street to the ruins. "You don't have to yell."
The instant Darcy comes into Aaron's sightlines, she starts walking differently. Crossing one leg in front of the other on each step, chest out, hips shaking. Aaron, despite being a sweet kid and completely inept where girls are concerned, can't take his eyes off her.
"Ah, the sexy walk," I mutter as Darcy crosses the street to Aaron. "I never figured out how to do that without tripping over my own feet."
Loki says something quietly, and I don't catch it. "What?"
"I said you don't need to walk like that," Loki says. While I'm sorting through that and trying to figure out what he means, he points to Darcy and Aaron. "We need to get moving."
Loki and I creep across the street behind Aaron, and as we come closer to them I can hear what Darcy's saying.
"Nice place you've got here," she says.
"I, um, don't live here," Aaron says, stumbling over his words. I feel a pang of pity for him; he can't talk to girls at all. I was planning to set him up with a nice Siren, but then I got sent on that mission and all my plans went out the window. "I'm just, you know, keeping an eye on it."
"Ooh, are you into, like, drugs?" Darcy says with a high-pitched giggle. "Don't worry - I won't tell! Hey, did you know that ninety percent of girls find bad boys more attractive?"
"So not true," I hiss as Loki gives me a questioning look. "Hit him on three; one, two -"
Loki and I both hit Aaron, and the Guardian drops like a stone. I bind his hands and feet and we drag him behind one of the piles of rubble. He'll have a goose egg the size of a baseball when he wakes up, but he'll be all right.
Darcy regards Aaron's unconscious form with some regret. "I'm sorry," she tells him. "You seemed like a really nice guy."
"He is," I say, tapping on portions of the ground with a piece of pipe, looking for the secret entrance. "Normally, I'd tell you to go for it, but in the present situation, hooking up with Guardians is not a good idea."
"Terra?" Loki says. He's kneeling down, one hand resting on a piece of metal paneling. "I found the entrance."
It takes the combined strength of all three of us to haul the panel away from the door it conceals. I pause by the darkened entrance, listening, but the movement of air suggests that there's nothing down there but a long tunnel, just as I remember it.
My heart speeds up again at the idea of going down into that darkness. For someone who's named for the earth, I have an unreasonable fear of going underground. But all I can think of is the last time I entered the Guardian stronghold, and how I had to fight my way out.
"Don't be stupid," I say out loud, and I jump down into the tunnel.
The dirt floor of the landing place gives way to tile, and I reach out my hand, feeling for the edge. I find it and say, "All clear!"
Unfortunately, I forget to move after saying this, and so the next person to jump (Loki) lands directly on top of me. As you might expect, this leads to an incredibly awkward moment. If this were a romantic comedy, we would most definitely kiss right now, but my life has never followed the script.
Darcy lands - well off to the side - and smirks at us. "You know, if you two wanted alone time, all you needed to do was ask. But I seriously think it should wait until we save Renna."
"Why do you always make everything sound dirty?" I say furiously, giving Loki a shove away from me. He seems kind of stunned, probably because my shoulder went straight into his solar plexus when he fell.
"Hey," Darcy says. "You kind of asked for it. Let's go, lovebirds!"
We move off down the tunnel. My boots and Loki's click softly on the tile floor, but Darcy's heels let loose a staccato tapping sound that will alert everyone to our position. When Darcy pauses and asks if she should take off her shoes, I shake my head. "Don't worry about it. After all, they're expecting us."
The sight of the great iron door that leads to the gathering chamber pulls me up short. I see that door in my dreams quite a bit, though never from this side. In my dreams, it's always swinging shut, trapping me in the gathering hall for accusation and punishment. There's no handle or lock on the door, but that's not a problem.
I sing a note - F sharp - and summon the fire dragon. "What do you guys say we make an entrance?"
"By all means," Loki says, and Darcy adds, "Let's blow something up!"
We take shelter around the corner, and I order the fire dragon to open the door. It interprets this command as meaning blow the door off its hinges and reacts accordingly. Shrapnel sprays everywhere, chunks of white-hot metal flying both on this side and the other of what was formerly a door, and one piece cuts my cheek right down to the bone. I swear and bring one hand up, cradling the bleeding cut.
"Terra -" Loki says, seeing the trail of blood running down my face, but I cut him off.
"Forget about it," I say, pressing my hand against it in a failed attempt to stem the flow. "They're going to be disoriented in there, so this is our best shot to make a move. Follow me!"
I take a deep breath, order my dragon to follow me, and run full tilt into the hall. The dust is still settling as I skid to a stop in the center aisle, flanked by Darcy on my right and Loki on my left. The scene slowly takes shape; the seats on either side of the aisle filled with Guardians, the high platform with three chairs, three people sitting in judgment. But the only thing I'm focused on is the smaller, lower platform where Renna is chained.
I run to her, Darcy following. When I first broke the Guardians' special chains, I thought the only way to do it was to melt through the manacles, even though doing that sends molten iron pouring down your wrists. I still have scars from my last escape from Guardian chains. This time, though, I don't play around. I order the dragon to burn through the chains about a foot from Renna's hands, and she's free.
Renna's golden eyes are liquid with grief, and as soon as she's loosed from the chains, she collapses. I lunge forward and catch her before she hits the floor, her body boneless and limp. It scares me to see Renna like this. She's always been strong, holding up whenever I needed her help, but now, she's the one who can't control herself.
"It's okay," I say to Renna, who's sobbing again. I gently transfer her to Darcy's arms, because Darcy can comfort Renna better than I can, and because I've got something else to deal with.
I turn my eyes to the high platform, and to the three chairs upon it. First, in the center chair, is Lethe. Mother dearest regards me with a smug expression, as though she always knew I'd return. I resist the urge to stick my tongue out or flip her off or do anything to suggest that she's getting to me.
The sight of the person in the next chair might be the only thing on earth that can make me want to turn tail and run. But then I master myself and meet Ashari's eyes. I have to wonder what the demon is doing here, but then again, Lethe is now one of the Guardians' most trusted councilors. I suppose death goddess to demon isn't too far of a leap to make, is it?
But it's the third person on the high platform who I hate the most. Adrian, blond and brown-eyed, sits there, looking at me with something like wonder in his eyes. He stands up, steps cautiously down the stairs, and walks toward me, a hopeful expression on his face. For one crazy moment, I think about accepting Lethe's offer; drinking the river water, forgetting everything, and living happily ever after with Adrian. He'd take me back, I know he would.
Almost as soon as that thought crosses my mind, another thought swims in like a shark and eats the first one. Screw that, it burps, and I grin.
Once Adrian is within arm's reach of me, I slap him as hard as I can. I'm not generally the slapping type, but the sound of my hand hitting his face is very satisfying. Adrian's head snaps sideways, and he brings one hand to his cheek, staring at me. Deciding that my slap didn't hurt him nearly enough, I curl my left hand into a fist and punch him.
With all my weight behind it, the punch sends Adrian sprawling backwards, tripping on his own feet and falling over at the base of the high platform. Meanwhile, I'm grinning like a fool. Whenever I imagined confrontations with Adrian, they always ended in me falling apart into a sobbing mess. Based on that, I'm doing well.
Ashari leaps off the high platform and capers toward me, dancing and laughing like a mad person. I notice that she has the Soul-Reaver strapped into a sheath across her back. It makes me angry to see her with it; the Soul-Reaver is my weapon, and from what I've heard, she's been misusing its power. Ashari with the Soul-Reaver is like Chaos with the Mjolnir - definitely not a good thing.
Don't move, I say to Darcy as the demon advances, hoping that Loki's smart enough to figure it out on his own. Demons have a chase reflex. If you move, she'll attack.
It takes all my self-control to stay frozen as Ashari flits in a circle around me. "What's the matter, Princess?" she says. She grabs my chin and jerks my head around so that she's within sight of my good eye. "Demon got your tongue?"
I bring up one hand and rip her fingers free. "Don't touch, Ashari. By the way, how's your hand feeling?"
I definitely came off worse in the last fight I had with Ashari, but she didn't escape unscathed either. I managed to cut off the last two fingers on her right hand, and as I mention it, she snarls. Then her face clears, and she skips lightly off into my blind spot. "Can you see me now, Princess?"
"I can," says Loki. I turn my head and see that he's still flanking me on the left, and Ashari's little skipping pattern has carried her into the space between us. Loki looks perfectly calm and at ease, his breathing light and even, but it's clear to me at least that he's ready to fight at a moment's notice.
Ashari's focus turns to him. "An Asgardian…how exotic."
She moves around Loki, studying him from all angles, fingers brushing across the tops of his shoulders and the planes of his chest. The fact that she's touching him, that she's even near him at all, makes me unreasonably angry.
"My, my, little Princess," Ashari says, licking her lips. "You do meet interesting people."
I receive a thought from Darcy. Terra, are you just going to let her mess around with your man like that? Do something!
Loki is not my man! I shoot back.
You wish he was, Darcy says. So do something about it before he ends up as Ashari's man!
Don't do anything, Renna says, entering the conversation. She seems to have regained some control over herself, and her thoughts are cool and collected, though tinged with unimaginable grief. Ashari knows something, Terra. Wait just a moment, and she'll tell you what it is.
Renna's a Watcher; she sees the future and tells a little. So rather than smacking Ashari away from Loki like I really want to do, I wait, and say, "I suppose I do meet interesting people. Far more interesting than you or Adrian."
Ashari giggles, a high, tinkling sound completely at odds with her red eyes and fangs. "Oh, little Princess, Adrian's gotten a lot more interesting lately."
"How so?" I ask, glancing offhandedly at Adrian. He's picked himself up off the floor, but he looks distinctly worse for wear. "He still looks like a big dumbass to me."
There's a hastily muffled snort of laughter from somewhere in the ranks of Guardians, but I don't have time to dwell on it. Ashari comes up behind me and puts her hands on the sides of my head, forcing me to look directly at Adrian. Her long fingernails dig into my skin, but I can't see whatever it is she wants me to see. Then I see it out of the corner of my good eye - the faint trail of blood-red that floats along behind him, moving as he moves.
I've only seen that red trail once before; during my last fight as a friend of the Guardians, before the mission, we fought a Chaos-born. It was weak and dying, having found Earth an inhospitable place, but it still killed three Guardians and I barely made it out alive. The Chaos-born had the same red trail that now follows Adrian. That can only mean one thing. Adrian's been corrupted. And if that's true, I've badly miscalculated, and Darcy, Renna, and Loki may all die because of it.
"Oh, no," I whisper, and Ashari starts to laugh.