Black Widow Demon (27 page)

“What do you suppose is on the other side of the boundary?” she asked.

“You would have grown up hearing the same stories I did,” Blade said. The past few nights had been long ones for him, and he was not in the best of moods. He had slept badly for fear he would awaken to find her gone to the demon boundary again, and that this time, he would not be able to follow her.

“But you’ve lived elsewhere and met people from different parts of the world. Were their stories the same?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“Is that why you sing of the sea? Because you believe them?”

“I sing of the sea?” Then, he remembered the song he had used as a signal to her when he returned from the temple. “That. It’s one I learned from an old trader who used to come into my saloon maybe once or twice a year. He said his grandfather used to sing it to him and talk of a sea his grandfather’s grandfather had claimed to have sailed.” It was one of very few songs Blade had learned over the years appropriate to sing to a woman. “I suppose the thought of a sea so vast that huge ships take weeks to sail across it fascinates me as much as it would anyone else who’s only ever seen mountains and deserts.”

“There must be a lot of people on the other side of such a sea if they can build ships capable of sailing it,” Raven said. “Or maybe it’s all a lie, and the world really ends at the goddesses’ boundary. What if we make it through, only to fall off the world’s edge?”

She sought an excuse not to proceed. He would not give her one. If they could not cross, they would have to find shelter on this side of the boundary for the winter. And soon.

“That’s nothing more than an old wives’ tale. The temple has a library filled with books,” Blade said. “Some of those books predate the immortals and contain maps drawn by Old World cartographers. We won’t be falling off any edge because the world is round. The real question is whether or not people still exist on the other side of the boundary.”

She clung stubbornly to her opposition. “Some of the older Godseekers claim demons destroyed the rest of the world, and that’s why the goddesses trapped them in the desert.”

“It’s possible,” he conceded. “It’s also possible the Godseekers encourage the spread of those stories because they want to keep people in goddess territory, and therefore under their control.”

They did not talk for a long time after that.

Late in the morning, they crested a bluff and found a thick, green forest spread below them. Beyond the forest, the world dropped away. A dense mist blanketed the entire horizon.

This, then, was the boundary.

The world truly did end here.

“I didn’t expect it to be quite so…vast,” Raven said.

As she gazed at the layer of mist extending from the base of the mountain to the horizon, dread washed through her. This seemed to be very much like the half-world of the boundary between the demon and the mortal worlds, only this one did not welcome her.

In fact, she felt the opposite.

She did not believe she could cross this. The thought of making the attempt left her physically ill.

Blade crooked an elbow around her neck and drew her head to his shoulder, running his fingers through the back of her hair and tugging on a fistful of curls, sending a shiver of heat to the toes of her boots. The air was milder here, and he had thrown back the hood of his coat.

“The goddesses are gone,” he reminded her. “All that’s left below is a lingering reminder of their existence. The mist can’t harm you.”

Her demon disagreed. The mist was not mortal in origin. It expressed a great deal of reluctance to move forward, sensing danger, but from what, she remained uncertain.

She did not know how to explain this to Blade. There had been distance enough between them the past few days. She did not want to point out to him how much demon she had in her.

“No one has ever gotten through it before,” she said. “What happened to anyone who tried?”

“I know of no one who has,” Blade replied. “Assassins guard the approach to it. Entering it was part of a ritual for Godseekers, and none of them were ever harmed, not even the ones the goddesses rejected. They spoke of a heavy and blinding mist that led them in circles until they were back where they started, nothing more. Having ordinary people afraid to try to cross served their own purposes. If you’re worried and need some time to get used to it, we could wait until tomorrow to try to cross,” he added.

She would not have him believe she had not given this her best effort. And she would not have any immortal, including the goddesses, believe she was afraid.

She pushed away from him and settled the straps of her pack into place. “No. The sooner we begin, the sooner we can be out again. A day will make no difference. We’ll have to spend at least one night inside the boundary regardless, judging by the breadth of it.”

They began to descend, working their way around slides of rock and deeper into the verdant forest, until the first tendrils of mist began to wind around their ankles. The pliant ground beneath their feet disappeared beneath a layer of gray. The scent of rich, rotting earth enfolded them, and Raven’s unease spiked.

“Wait.” Blade stopped her. He set his pack down and rummaged in it until he found a length of rope. He laced it around his hips, then hooked it to her waist, tying the ends in secure knots. “Now, whatever happens, we won’t be separated.”

She could not shake the sensation she was about to step from the mortal world into one unknown and hostile to her, but the reassurance of a physical connection to him bolstered her determination to proceed. There was only one way to find out whether or not she could cross a boundary the goddesses had created, and that was to move forward. If she could not, then they would be forced to turn back.

And she could do so with a clear conscience.

Blade went first.

She followed, one hand gripping the rope between them so it did not drag on the ground. The mist crawled to her knees and then to her waist. She raised her arms higher and higher, reluctant to allow it to come in contact with her bared flesh. Then curiosity won out, and she dipped one finger into the soupy gray mass, only to jerk it back on a sharp, indrawn breath and a hiss of pain.

He turned to her, a question in his eyes. She held up her hand for him to inspect. A painful blister had already formed on the tip of her finger.

“The mist is consecrated,” she said. “I can’t cross the boundary.”

Disbelief, then determination, straightened his lips and narrowed his eyes. He plunged his hands in. When he withdrew them, they were unmarked.

He could cross, while she could not.

The mist crept upward, reaching to Raven’s chest now. An acid dampness had begun to seep between the layers of her clothing.

A muscle jerked in Blade’s jaw. “We go back,” he said. He caught her chin and held her gaze. “But this does not make you a demon.”

She wanted to believe he was right. Doubt, however, had shaken her certainty. She had not expected the boundary to be consecrated, or considered what it might mean for her that it was.

When they turned to retrace their steps, they found that the mountain behind them had vanished. Instead, they faced an immense wall of gray.

The demon in Raven rebelled. She could not hold it back. The rope connecting her to Blade placed him in danger from it, as well. She tore at the rope, too frantic to untie it, attempting instead to sever it with her bare hands. Her palms burned from where the consecrated mist had soaked into the rope’s fibers.

Blade groped for her hands, trying to stop her, but the rope snapped first and she was free. He dove for her, but she dodged out of his reach.

“We stay together,” he said as she backed away from him.

Seconds later, he disappeared from her sight. The mist receded so that it encircled her but no longer touched and burned her. Her steps slowed, and Blade’s shouts cut off abruptly.

A presence prowled nearby. Unease slithered through her. “Blade?”

She called to him softly, uncertain who else it might be. His name bounced back to her, an echo contained within the gray walls of her prison.

A shadow stirred. The demon inside her went silent and still.
Danger
.

“You should not be here,” the shadow said.

It was a woman’s voice, and Raven spun to face it. The woman was very tall and golden-skinned, with straight, white-blond hair that swept the backs of her knees. She had eyes a luminous shade of blue so deep as to be almost purple. The silver gown she wore fell from her shoulders to her feet, caught at the waist and hips by a broad girdle of gold.

Several more figures were partially visible within the thick mist, but none stepped into the small clearing to join the first. Raven did not need to ask who they were.

“Where am I?” she asked the goddess who had spoken instead.

“You stand in the mortal world, but you’re held within the goddesses’ boundary. You’re demon. You cannot cross.”

“I’m not a demon,” Raven said. “I was born on a mortal world. You have no right to judge me.”

The goddess examined her. “You have demon blood. Therefore, we have the right to judge you here.”

Raven burned with a growing sense of injustice. Restricting the movement of demons was the purpose of the goddesses—she could neither refute that, nor fight against it. She could not cross their boundary and accepted it had been wrong for her to try. Her instincts had warned her. She should have listened to them.

But Raven would not be judged by the goddesses, or anyone else, for circumstances beyond her control. “I’m also a mortal. As such, you have no right to keep me here.”

She prepared to face anger at her defiance of them, but it did not come.

“We’ll permit you to go back to the side of the boundary where you were born,” the goddess said, “if you agree to one condition.”

While Raven did not want to barter for a freedom that was hers by right, she also didn’t believe she should refuse to listen to what they had to say. “I’d like to hear your condition before I agree to anything.”

The goddess looked to the others, who one by one, all nodded. “If you’re truly a mortal, as you claim, we would insist that you protect the goddesses’ chosen from the dangers the demons left behind in the mortal world.”

They meant from spawn.

Raven cradled her burned and stinging palms to her waist. It was never wise to agree to any immortal demand too hastily.

“No,” she said. “I’m not one of your chosen, and I can’t agree to your terms. This is the mortal world’s first chance at freedom since the coming of the immortals. Demon offspring are now a part of this world. They deserve as much protection in it as any other person. They have a right to life, too. I’d offer what help I can give to all mortals or none of them.”

“You’ve made your choice.” The goddess lifted her hand and the wall of mist receded enough so that the mountain where she came from was again visible to Raven. A path had opened up to it, but the boundary itself remained in place and impenetrable to her.

The goddesses vanished. She could hear Blade now, shouting her name.

Raven waded through the gray, dreary dampness toward the mountain, and safety, and the welcoming sound of his voice.

Patience was a skill Blade had honed over the years. Raven’s sudden disappearance had not been natural and he stayed where he was in the hopes she would be returned to him. If she did not reappear soon, then he would search for her.

And he would not rest until he found her.

He crouched, his crossed arms resting on his knees, and waited. It seemed ironic to him how Godseekers preached that the goddesses preserved all life, yet here in the boundary they had created, birds did not sing. Nothing moved through the spongy, rotted earth beneath Blade’s feet, and not a breath of wind stirred the dense fog enveloping him.

Hunter had once said he believed the immortals were one and the same, and that they served nothing but their own purposes. He’d had no love for any of them, not until he’d met Airie. Blade, on the other hand, had been raised in the Godseeker Mountains and could never seem to shake the beliefs taught to him at an early age. Because of his long-held beliefs that the goddesses were benevolent to the innocent, he had been certain that Raven’s demon blood would be of no significance to them.

He should have listened to her concerns. She had not wanted to enter here. If harm came to her it would be his fault, and he did not think he could bury his guilt as he had in the past and pretend it did not exist.

He had no idea how much time passed before the mist finally parted, only that he had started to lose his considerable, hard-earned patience.

But it was not Raven who appeared to him.

This woman was tall and blonde, with purple eyes, and while not as beautiful as Raven, she was more so than an ordinary woman. Her dress was whisper thin and translucent.

He had seen goddesses in his youth. He knew what she was. The sight of her mesmerized him. Held him in place. And he resented it.

“You’ve brought a demon into our boundary,” she said. Disapproval filled those purple eyes. Disappointment in him rang in her tone. “We would have expected better from one of our own.”

“She’s not a demon,” he said. He tore his eyes from hers, although with difficulty, and searched the mist behind her. “Where is she?”

“Lost.”

Fear for Raven bubbled up, and although he quickly suppressed it, he was not quick enough. The goddess felt it, too.

“No demon can cross,” she said. “But you, on the other hand… You’ve traveled a long distance to find us. You want to start over, to find a new life. You, we’ll let through.”

The mist parted. Far off in the distance, he saw a length of blue sky that rippled and shimmered.