“Rise,” he said softly. “Just as they always feared you would.”
His words, the very same he’d spoken to me weeks ago while I’d visited his House of Sin, drew my attention to his face. He wasn’t looking at me like I was pathetic. He looked like someone who understood, intimately, what it was like to lose everything. To be forced to stand when you wished to fall. To get up on your own and defy the hand of fate that brought so much pain by smacking you down time and again. To choose to live and flourish despite the bad. And most important, to dare to dream of better days while your current world was a living nightmare.
“Rise, Emilia,” he repeated, his hand a lifeline. “Remind them all.”
My tears slowed as my fingers clasped his. He tugged gently but firmly, helping me to my feet. I took a deep, ragged breath and held on tighter, the last of my tears drying. “Thank you.”
He squeezed my hand once before letting go. “Naturally, this benefits me. Don’t be too grateful. I still don’t like you all that much.”
I knew it wasn’t the complete truth, but I didn’t question how he’d managed to partially lie. Instead, I looked at Celestia and Vittoria. My family by blood. My twin still struggled in her magical root chains, and my mother’s face was impossible to read. There would be time to talk, to see what could be done about my mortality and memories, but right now I had to get to Wrath.
I addressed my mother. “The wolves?”
“Are locked in the Shadow Realm for the next hour,” she said. “Go. And don’t forget, you owe me my book of spells. I’ll come for it soon. Have it ready.”
“I will.” I held the Crone’s stare and nodded once. Like any god, I imagined she was mercurial. Her moods shifting with her next whim. I did not need another enemy to look over my shoulder for and was grateful I’d remembered to stick her book into my satchel the night I’d discovered Vittoria was alive.
Envy started down the earthen corridor, not bothering to see if I followed. As promised, when we emerged in the room where I’d first found the Triple Moon Mirror, no werewolves lay in wait.
Envy glanced around the space, his attention landing on everything as if mentally filing the information away for later use. “Not very goddesslike, but I suppose there is a certain amount of rustic charm. If one overlooks the stone and dirt.”
Smiling at his commentary, I shook my head and moved toward the pedestal in the center of the room. Last time I was here, it contained the Triple Moon Mirror. Now my dagger gleamed from where it hovered, point down, in its center. I wrapped my fingers around it, feeling a surge of determination fill me. And perhaps hope. I would find my king, then I’d find a way to break my spell-lock. Somehow during that time, I’d also figure out the truth behind Vesta’s murder or disappearance and clear my sister from wrongdoing. Or see her pay for her crimes.
I let loose a breath. It wasn’t going to be easy, but I’d find a way to accomplish it all. First, I needed to find my partner. My husband.
I faced Envy, remembering what my sister said about Wrath’s location. If she could be believed. I wasn’t fully a goddess again, so I couldn’t be certain, but so far I didn’t have any issues lying. Unlike the demon princes.
“Do you know where Vittoria’s temple is?” I asked. He nodded, his attention fixed on the dagger. “Then let’s go.”
We stood outside the gates of Hell, right at the beginning of the Sin Corridor, looking at the fierce magic that crackled over the bones. Wrath had cast a spell to lock the gates when we’d first arrived in the Seven Circles, and the magic twisted around it like demonic vines.
This magic seemed slightly off in color and the way it felt, but I couldn’t exactly trust my memories. The curse was still hard at work, though it wasn’t quite as powerful now that I’d allowed a bit of Wrath’s magic into my soul.
The winter storm that always seemed to be present in some capacity was in a full rage. Wherever he was, my husband was furious. His temper and the way it impacted the realm gave me hope, though. Wrath must be unharmed to cause such turbulent weather.
I blinked snowflakes from my lashes, shivering as Envy placed his hand to the gate as Wrath had done. He spoke in an unfamiliar language, and green-colored magic lit up his hand and sank into the gates. He kept his hand there, waiting for that click to sound.
And nothing happened.
Envy swore roundly and tried again. With the same results. He turned away from the gates, shoving his hands through his hair as he paced, muttering to himself. He yanked his House dagger from inside his hunter green suit jacket and pricked his finger. Like Wrath, his wound healed instantly, but he managed to smear blood on the gates. They didn’t open.
Any hope I’d been feeling was slowly receding back to fear and uncertainty. Even though I was fairly positive he was all right, I needed to get to Wrath. “Will my blood open them?”
Envy stopped pacing in a circle, narrowing his eyes. “You can try, but I suspect the magic binding the gates was placed here to prevent your kind from returning as much as mine.”
He hadn’t said “your kind” with any venom, and yet I still flinched. To someone outside this realm, I was akin to a demon. That was going to take some time to get used to. I stepped closer to the elk antlers that acted as the handles.
“Wrath locked them. Why would he bind me or any other prince from leaving?”
“The magic isn’t demonic.” Envy sighed, his breath fogging in front of him. “The Star Witches have been up to their old tricks again.”
Star Witches like Nonna. She’d told me they were the guardians between realms. They acted as the wardens to the prison of damnation. Which I assumed was their name for the Seven Circles. She’d also claimed I was one of the guardians, but I now knew that for the lie it was.
Imagining my grandmother traveling here to lock me in was one more dagger to the heart. She’d promised to come find me after she told me to run and hide from the princes of Hell; she swore we’d reunite. I hadn’t told her I’d decided to come to the Seven Circles, and part of me wanted to believe that if she knew, she wouldn’t have locked me here.
“I’ll try anyway,” I said, still hopeful, though I had doubts.
I pressed my blade to my fingertip, wincing as the blood beaded up, and smeared the antler as Envy had done. I pictured the gates creaking open. Or even blasting open. I hoped that if I believed hard enough, the desired result would manifest. Nothing happened.
I studied the magic, a troubling thought entering my mind. Wrath was trapped outside this realm. Which meant either my sister transported him to the Shifting Isles before the Star Witches worked their hex or they somehow had worked in conjunction with each other.