As soon as Raven dropped the shield, Nathaniel was ready. He’d packed his pipe again and blew a ring of smoke at the door. The ring formed into a pentagram and then revolved, symbols flashing in its sectors. Finally the spell found the combination to the ward around the room. He stepped over his mother’s twitching body and dialed the combination as fast as his fingers could move.
“Kill her,” Gabriel yelled at Tobias. From her place in his arms, Raven could feel his rage. He was vibrating with it. “Use the sword. Behead them both. Let’s finish this now.”
Tobias raised the sword. But when he brought it down toward his mother’s neck, it bounced harmlessly off a hard shell of air surrounding her and Aborella, who had thrown an arm and leg protectively over the empress. Raven’s gaze snapped to the fairy. Her skin was charred and mostly white, but a symbol on her leg was spinning. Wild eyes locked on hers and she bared her teeth. That silver gaze was as cold as ice and as determined as a bulldog’s. Aborella would die for Eleanor. Why? Raven would likely never know. But it was all there in the way she sheltered her with the remains of her magic.
“It’s down,” Nathaniel said.
“Wait!” Gabriel commanded. “Raven, can you break through Aborella’s defenses?”
Tobias raised the sword again over Eleanor’s neck.
Raven wanted to. She would have loved to watch Eleanor’s head roll, followed by Aborella’s. But she’d used everything she had on the reflective shield. She couldn’t even walk yet. “I’ve got nothing left.”
“Nathaniel?” Gabriel asked.
“Only enough tobacco to get us back home.”
Raven wondered if that was true. She saw tenderness in the way Nathaniel looked at Eleanor. At one time, Tobias had struggled to believe his mother was evil, but his mind had been changed when she’d sent Scoria to try to kill them. Nathaniel knew what his mother was. He’d been there as she threatened to kill them all. And although he’d been a large part of the plan to fry her, there was only sadness in his expression now. If Raven had any skill at all at reading people, and usually she did, she would guess that Nathaniel did not want to watch his mother die.
Gabriel’s gaze darted around the room like a caged animal. “We cannot let her live. She must pay!”
Sylas grabbed his shoulder and shook it. “We will have our day, brother, but if we don’t leave before she wakes up, we will never make it out of this palace.”
“He’s right,” Raven said. “We have to leave before she’s strong enough to call for help or we’ll have the whole of the Obsidian Guard to contend with.”
Gabriel cursed but thrust through the door with Raven still in his arms. Rowan, Tobias, Sylas, and Alexander rushed after him. Once everyone was through, Nathaniel’s ring glowed to life. Raven realized he was sealing the room with his own ward.
“It won’t hold them for long,” Nathaniel said. “We need to make it outside the castle. I can’t move this many people from inside.”
Sylas motioned. “This way.”
But when they reached the end of the hall, the sound of running feet pulled them up short.
“The guards! They’re coming!” Rowan said.
They all turned on a dime and rushed in the opposite direction, toward the front of the palace, but slowed when they came to a forked hallway. Raven squirmed in Gabriel’s arms and he put her down.
“Which way?” Nathaniel whispered.
A flash of gold to her left claimed Raven’s attention. She could have sworn she saw a woman with two golden eyes, a shimmering dress, and long, flowing black hair. Circe. But the moment she thought it, she was gone.
“This way,” Raven said, chasing after where the image had been.
“Wait, are you sure?” Tobias whispered, but she was already halfway down the hall.
The others followed after her. At the end of that hallway, there was a flash of gold to her right and then another around the bend, until she could have sworn she saw the goddess melt through a door in the side of the mountain.
Raven rushed to the door and found it unlocked. Beyond it, stairs led down into darkness. She held it open as the others rushed into the stairwell and descended. Gabriel helped her close and lock it behind them.
“What is this place?” Nathaniel asked from several stairs below.
They jogged down, one flight, then two.
“I don’t know,” Raven answered.
Gabriel darted an uneasy glance in her direction. “How did you know to come here? How do you know it’s safe?”
She opened her mouth to try to explain but couldn’t find the words. Had she really seen the goddess? Or was it just a hunch?
Rowan came to her rescue as she reached the final level. “I know this place. Raven, you’re a genius!”
“I am?”
“How do you know this place, Rowan? I’ve never seen this part of the palace before.” Tobias raised an eyebrow at his sister.
Rowan lit a torch on the wall and cast light across the chamber. “That’s because you shouldn’t be here. No male should be. This is the sanctuary to the goddess. It’s where dragon females come to lay their eggs.”
Raven’s gaze roved over the rough-hewn walls of the stony chamber. The temperature and red glow from deep within the cavern beyond were even hotter than the dungeon.
“It’s too hot for you,” Gabriel said to her. “We need to get you out of here.”
“I’ve got this.” As exhausted as she’d been moments ago, she suddenly felt a surge of energy. She whispered an incantation, and it began to snow above her head. Instantly, she felt cooler. “Is that the goddess?” Raven asked, pointing to the far wall, closer to the heat.
Rowan and the others turned to see where she was looking. A mural constructed of gemstones rose from the floor to the ceiling of the cave. It depicted a woman with obsidian hair and red armor that flowed over her torso like lava. She was muscular, larger than life, and reminded Raven of Wonder Woman. This goddess was formidable. She was a warrior.
Rowan answered. “Yes it is. The Goddess of the Mountain.”
“Does she have a name?” Raven asked.
“It is told only to females,” Rowan said. “Technically, I’m the only one who should be down here, and I’m supposed to bring an offering. Her name is Aitna. Mother of dragons.”
“I thought Circe was the mother of dragons?” Raven had tried to learn Paragonian history but was still putting all the stories together.
“Circe gave us the ability to transform into our soma forms, this form,” Rowan patted her chest. “Aitna came before Circe. She’s older, from a family of titans. It is said she wove the first dragon from the fabric of the universe.”
Raven stepped closer to the mural and its altar. There were craters in front of it, each just large enough to hold a dragon egg. “Is this where dragon mothers incubate their young?”
“We call it the cradle. Yes,” Rowan said.
“This is where our child would develop if we were here,” Raven said softly. Her gaze drifted up the mural to meet Aitna’s red-hot gaze.
Pounding steps came from the back of the cave and Sylas burst into the chamber from an opening in the stone. “There’s a passageway. Looks like an old lava tube. It’s tight, but it’s a way out of the palace.”
“Wait.” Raven glanced at Rowan. “We have to leave the goddess an offering to thank her for our safe passage.”
“It’s a sweet thought, Raven, but please hurry,” Gabriel said, glancing up the stairs. No doubt the guards were on full alert by now.
Raven glanced down at her hand, at the emerald ring Gabriel had given her when he’d asked her to marry him.
“Raven?” Gabriel asked.
“You can make me another. It’s the most valuable thing I have. Anything I conjure won’t be a sacrifice. This is the best offering I can give her.” She looked at him with pleading eyes.
He nodded. “Very well.”
Raven tossed the ring onto the altar.
Outwardly moved, Rowan hastily removed her shoes and set them next to the ring. Immediately she began to sob.
“Why are you crying?” Raven asked her.
“Those were Louboutins.” Rowan wiped under her eyes and strode toward Sylas and the lava tube. “They were works of art… and really comfortable.”
Gabriel tugged at her hand. “Come, little witch.”
They followed the others into the tube. Eventually they emerged in the front garden, just as the suns rose over the horizon.
“Link arms—this isn’t going to be easy,” Nathaniel said.
Alarms blared in the distance.
Raven looped one arm through Gabriel’s and then her other through Nathaniel’s. Tobias, Rowan, and Alexander linked on his other side.
“Where’s Sylas?”
They all searched, but he was gone.
Nathaniel frowned. “He was never going with us. He has a rebellion to lead.”
“Get us out of here, Nathaniel,” Gabriel said.
Nathaniel blew a puff from his pipe and unlocked the ward surrounding the palace, then with a sweep of his ring sliced open a portal between worlds. All six of them toppled, panting and drained, onto a Persian carpet in what appeared to be a manor parlor.
Dragging six people through a portal between worlds had only required Nathaniel to move a few steps, but it felt like he’d carried a house on his back as he did so. It had required all his strength and all his magic. He landed limp, exhausted, and sore in a cozy room with a blazing fire.
A scream of delight pierced the space and then a woman with bright red hair swept Tobias off the floor beside him as if the dragon weighed nothing and kissed him like the only oxygen left in the world was in his lungs.
“I take it that’s Sabrina,” Nathaniel murmured, trying to sit up and failing. He gave up and lay flat on his back again. No one answered him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Rowan collide with Nick, the human spinning her around in front of the bookshelves. Gabriel and Raven rushed to hug Avery and coo over the egg, which pulsed happily in the fire. Maiara and Alexander approached each other slowly, touched foreheads, and closed their eyes as if their spirits were connecting first before their bodies followed suit and they embraced each other.
Nathaniel watched the happy reunion and longed for his own. But when he inhaled deeply, trying to place her in the room, he couldn’t smell Clarissa. She wasn’t here. He swallowed hard. He needed her right now.
“It is good to see you, my dragon,” Tempest said, his pale face appearing over him.
“Where is she?” he whispered to the oread.
“At the O2. Preparing for the concert this evening. Her voice was restored.”
His heart sank. He’d wanted her to go, wanted her to sing, but her absence was crushing. Cold, hard doubt seeped into his soul. What if she hadn’t truly loved him? What if everything that had occurred had been a ploy to get him to do what she wanted? She had what she was after now. He’d restored her voice. Would she leave him as she had before? His heart felt hollow and his body ached just thinking about it. What if she left for good again? Would she even come home after the show? Or just leave without another word? He closed his eyes and longed for the feel of her fingers in his hair.
“I need the treasure room,” he whispered.
Laurel appeared by Tempest’s side, and the oreads helped him to his feet. That caught the attention of his siblings, who promptly circled him. He refused their offers of help and hobbled toward the parlor door.
“She wanted to stay,” Avery called, cutting through the murmurs around him. Everyone quieted and turned their attention on her. “Clarissa would have been here if we’d known when you’d be back. It absolutely tore her apart to leave. But she told me you made her promise. We waited for you. She’s hardly slept since you’ve been away. It’s been days since we did the spell. She would have stayed had she known. No matter what.”
He closed his eyes and allowed her words to sink in. Avery wasn’t a liar. Her face was genuine and sure. He believed her. Her words were a balm to the ache in his heart. “Thank you.”
Avery smiled softly. “It’s the least I can do. Thank you for bringing my family back.”
Her family. He supposed she was talking about Raven and Gabriel, but the way she said it, he almost felt like she meant all of them. Avery Tanglewood was a unique woman indeed. A fitting sister to his Clarissa.
He nodded his adieu, and with the last of his energy hobbled to his room and took refuge in his treasure.