A rough chuckle escaped Esha. “No. The spell is better than anything I could manage. It’s Andrasta’s. She wanted you to have it for this, so she dropped it at my place last night. She said she hopes it helps.”
“It will.” Diana unfastened the buckles and shrugged into the ancient armor, turning around so that Esha could fasten it. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” Esha said.
“Is this the only entrance?” Diana nodded toward the crevice.
“No, but it’s the one closest to the portal that doesn’t go through any heavily trafficked sections of the underground. We don’t want to run into anyone, and since I can’t transport everyone at once, we’ll just walk.” Esha turned, and after shooting Warren a quick glance, headed toward the crevice.
Diana wanted to look up at Cadan, but couldn’t. She teetered on the edge of a breakdown, and even a little bit of sympathy would push her over. She couldn’t afford that. She had a plan. What she didn’t have was another option. Fate might say she was supposed to die, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Esha led them through the crevice in the wall. It expanded to let them enter and the air immediately took on the old, stale scent of abandonment. Esha handed out flashlights that she pulled from the bag thrown over her shoulder.
Diana flicked hers on to provide light for Cadan to hand out their weapons now that they were hidden within the underground. He unzipped the case he’d brought and handed her Boudica’s sword, then strapped a quiver of arrows and a small bow to his back. His sword came out last, though she knew he had a dagger in his boot as well.
“Ready?” Cadan asked.
She nodded and the four of them set off down the tunnel, crunching over rubble and animal bones.
They arrived at the chamber with the portal and Diana immediately started to breathe more shallowly from the stench. Stale air became dead air and her stomach dropped when Esha gestured toward the far side of the room to where the portal had opened. She still couldn’t see it, but within moments she would be walking through and leaving her body behind.
When her soul tore away from her body, would it hurt? She assumed it had to, and it became harder to drag air into her struggling lungs. The desire to run back out into the sun was nearly overwhelming. She reached blindly behind her for Cadan’s hand. She wasn’t sure if she could do this.
He came up behind her and gripped her hand, laid one upon her shoulder and squeezed. “You doona have to do this,” Cadan whispered into her ear.
“Yes—yes, I do.” Her stomach jumped and her extremities trembled, but she had to do this. For all her bravado, she really didn’t have another choice. “I can—”
Her words were cut off as chaos rocked the chamber. Two tall figures hurtled through the portal. Cadan pushed her behind him, but not before her flashlight highlighted a harpy. It shrieked when the light blinded it, and charged.
“Watch out!” Esha screamed, blasting a fireball from her palm at the harpy that charged toward Diana.
No! If they caught her and took her to Paulinus, she would lose the advantage. Her plan would be dead.
“Go!” Warren yelled as he clashed with the second demon. “We’ll hold them off.”
Diana and Cadan took off for the portal, dodging around the harpy that had lost an arm to Esha’s fireball. She grabbed Cadan’s hand, and with one last breath, stepped into the area that she thought held the portal.
She gasped when the world suddenly quieted and darkened.
Wait. She could breathe?
“Diana.” Cadan’s voice was awed. “You have your body.”
She looked down at her arm. He was right. She was flesh and blood, as he was. He, she had expected. But she stared at her own arm in joy. It didn’t have the pale translucence of the souls she’d seen here before. Those souls maintained the same form they’d had on earth, but were a pale imitation of themselves.
She was just...Diana. But somehow more, as if taking this last step toward courage had allowed the two aspects of her soul to knit properly together. She felt the strength and knowledge of Boudica running through her veins all the more strongly. Even if her plan failed, she would have Boudica’s strength and skill to fall back on.
“You’re a warrior, Diana. The portal was no barrier to you.”
She hadn’t died? If she still had her body, did that mean that Paulinus was meant to kill her here?
“We can do this,” she told Cadan. And herself.
“Aye, always knew you could.”
She nodded gratefully, then slipped the charm over her head as he did the same. His confidence acted as a buoy for her own.
She spun to look at their surroundings. It was the same place she’d visited before. Still gloomy and dark, with a foul yellowish mist creeping along the ground, but she was actually here this time instead of just her consciousness.
The river flowed sluggishly nearby, winding through the marsh that grew on either side. A vast field of wheat stretched before them that led to the forest where Paulinus had created his altar.