Once they reached their cave, Urian used his powers to seal them in.
Out of patience, Urian turned to Brogan. “You think if I called for Acheron he might hear me and come to the rescue?”
“You can try.” Falcyn waited.
After a few seconds of trying, Urian growled again. “It was worth a shot.”
“Anyone know a dark elf?” Falcyn glanced to Blaise, who made it his habit to party with them.
“None that I want to call.”
Falcyn lit the cave with his fireballs. “Too bad we don’t have Cadegan here. A dark hole like this is right up his alley.”
“Illarion’s, too.” Urian reminded Falcyn of his other brother.
Falcyn nodded.
Medea gave him an arch stare. “I would have thought you were at home here, too.”
Falcyn grimaced. “Stop with the stereotypes. Not all dragons hibernate in closed quarters. I lived on an island, on top of ruins. In the open and quite happy not to be penned in. My brother Max lives in a bar.”
“Aye to that,” Blaise chimed in. “My home was a castle.”
Brogan cocked her head. “Most of the dragons here are cave-dwellers. They fire our forges. The rest hide so as not to be enslaved.”
Clearing her own throat, Brogan motioned toward the backside of the cave. “There should be a tunnel that leads toward the underground channels where we might be able to find a path to the porch.”
“The porch?” Medea asked.
“Aye. It’s the plateau where the elders meet to watch the other realms. There’s a portal there.”
“Why do they do that?”
Brogan scoffed at her question. “In case you haven’t noticed, my lady, there’s not a lot to do here, other than survive and make weaponry for the gods and fey beings. So the elder wyrdlings look out, pick a happy mortal, and ruin their lives. For fun and wagering.”
Medea gaped. “You’re serious?”
Her features grim, Brogan nodded. “They call it the yewing. The mortal is randomly selected and his or her fate is up to whatever lot they draw from their skytel bag while they’re watching them. They think it entertaining.”
“I knew it!” Blaise growled. “I knew my life was nothing but a sick joke to the fey. And all of you said I was crazy.” When no one commented, he drew up sullenly. “Well, you did. And I was right.”
Falcyn snorted. “Anyway, let’s find this porch and see if we can locate the portal back home.”
Medea asked, “Can’t we just teleport to the portal?”
Brogan shook her head. “I wouldn’t advise it. Those powers tend to attract unwanted attention in this realm. The less magick used that they’re unfamiliar with, the safer you’ll be.”
As they walked, Brogan drifted back to Medea’s side. “They called you a Daimon?”
“Sort of.”
“I don’t know your species. Are you like the fey?”
“My people were created by the Greek god Apollo and then cursed by him.”
“Why?”
Why indeed. That had been the question that had galled her the whole of her exceptionally long life as she explained it to the girl.
Medea sighed as she was driven against her will to remember the tragedy of her mother’s mortal fate. Head over heels in love as a girl, she’d married Apollo’s son without hesitation. And then pregnant with her, her mother had been forced to divorce Medea’s father or see herself raped and murdered by the vengeful god.
Leaving her father had emotionally destroyed her mother. Had killed something deep inside her that hadn’t come alive again until the day they’d reunited.
Centuries after Stryker had married and raised another family with another wife—Urian’s surrogate mother.
And thus had begun the curse of her people as Stryker had made a bargain with an Atlantean goddess to save his family from his father’s curse.
“That’s horrible!” Brogan breathed as she finished the story.
“It is, indeed.”
All of them had been damned by the god’s anger for something they’d had no part in or any ability to stop.
“I’m so sorry, Medea.”
She shrugged. “I got over it. Besides, I was six when he cursed us. I barely remember life before that day.”
“You don’t eat food?”
She shook her head.
Brogan fell silent for a moment. “But if you were to die at twenty-seven and you’re not a Daimon now, how is it that you’re still alive?”
“A bargain my mother made for my life.”
Sadness turned her eyes a vivid purple. “Tell me of a mother who so loves her child. Is she beautiful? Wondrous?”
Medea nodded. “Beyond words.” She pulled the locket from her neck and held it out to Brogan so that she could see the picture she had of her mother. “Her name is Zephyra.”
“Like the wind?”
“Yes. Her eyes are black now, but when I was a girl, they were a most vivid green.”
Brogan fingered the photo with a sad smile tugging at the edges of her lips. “You admire her.”
“She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known. And I love her for it.”
Closing the locket, she handed it back to Medea. “She looks like you.”
“Thank you. But I think she’s a lot more beautiful.” Medea returned it to her neck. “What of your mother?”
A tear fell down her cheek. “My mother sold me to the Black Crom when I was ten-and-three. If she ever loved me, she never once showed it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Wiping at her cheek, she drew a ragged breath. “It’s not so bad. She sold my siblings to much worse. At least I had Sight. Had I been born without anything, my fate would have been.…” She winced as if she couldn’t bring herself to say more about it.
“What exactly is the Black Crom?” Medea asked, trying to distract her from the horror that lingered in the back of those lavender eyes.
“A headless Death Rider who seeks the souls of the damned or the cursed.”
Medea jumped at Falcyn’s voice in her ear.
“A kerling can sing to them to offer up a sacrifice before battle. Or summon them for a particular victim.”
“Can,” Brogan said, lifting her chin defiantly. There was something about her, fiery and brave. “But I don’t. I hate the Crom. He springs from Annwn to claim the souls of his victims with a whip made from the bony spines of cowards. He rides a pale horse with fiery eyes that can incinerate the guilty and innocent alike should they happen upon him while he rides. None are safe in his path. To the very pit with him. I’ve no use for the likes of that beast. You’ve no idea what it’s like to live in its shadow. Subject to its pitiless whims.”
Though she’d just met her, Medea felt horrible for the woman. “Can you be freed?”
She shook her head. “Not even death can free me as I am bound to him for all eternity. What’s done is done.”
Suddenly, Brogan stopped moving.
Medea became instantly nervous at a look she was starting to recognize. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re approaching the porch,” she whispered.
“Is that bad?”
Urian gave her a droll stare.
She didn’t answer the question except to say, “The Crom is here.”
Urian looked up at her words to see the massive glowing horseman. At first, he appeared headless. Until one realized that his head was formed by mist at the end of the spiny whip he wielded as he rode. The white horse was giant in size … almost as large as a Mack truck. An awful stench of sulfur permeated the cavern, choking them and sticking in their throats as if it had been created from thorns.
Even more disconcerting, the baying horse made the sound of twenty echoing beasts. And its hooves were thunderous—like an approaching train.
“I won’t do it!” Brogan shouted. “I refuse you!”
The horse reared as the Crom cracked its whip in the air. Fire shot out from the whip’s tip as more thunder echoed.
Unfazed and with fists clenched at her sides, Brogan stood stubbornly between them and the Crom. “Beat me all you like. I will not give you that power. Not again! Not over my newfound friends!”
“What’s going on?” Medea asked.
Brogan kept her gaze locked stubbornly on her master. “He wants the ability to speak. But if I give it to him, then he can call out your name and claim your soul to take it with him to hell. And I will not allow it.”