The Dark God's Bride Trilogy, #3 (12 page)

But she had never been colder in her life. She gritted her teeth to stop them from chattering. The wind felt like razor blades against her damp skin. The snow invaded and melted in her shoe. Wet and heavy, they were only slowing her down so she shook them off and walked with her bare feet.

Countless steps later, Amara could barely feel her limbs. Her limbs weren’t the only thing that had given out on her. Her mind wanted to abandon her for sleep. She felt much warmer, much more comfortable than she did before. So warm that she just wanted to curl up and sleep.

No! It’s a serious sign of hyperthermia! Your body is tricking you!

She fought herself and lost. She dropped to her knees. Their connecting hands tugged at him. He turned around, and Amara gave him an apologetic look.

“I can’t go on,” she finally admitted. “I’m sorry.”

He unstrapped the blade from his back and then got down on one knee. “Get on,” he instructed.

She used the last of her strength to get on his back and wrapped her stiffed arms tightly around his neck. He got back on his feet and moved forward. Their combined weight forced each step to sink further into the snow.

She rested her head on his shoulder and he shook his entire body.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he clipped out.

“I’m not going to sleep… I’m just going to rest my eyes a little.”

“Stay with me, Amara. Endure a few more hours and we can go home.”

“Can we
really
go home?” she asked, doubts leaking from her voice.

“Yes. I just need you to hang on for a bit longer.”

“I don’t know if I can…” she confessed weakly. “I’m not like you.”

“You
can
. You are much stronger than you realize. Use the same fiery spirit you’ve used against me. If you can handle me, you can handle anything.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “That’s true. If I can handle you, I can handle anything… Can I close my eyes for a moment? Just a moment…?”

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Just a moment…” she pleaded as she leaned her head against him.

“What happened, Amara?” He inquired hastily.

“…
What happened what?” She murmured softly.

“How did you lose our child?”

Grey eyes flew wide. Her heart began to race frenziedly inside her chest. The question left her in a state of shock.

“…
Must you ask that now? I don’t think this is a good time for…”

“Tell me,” he said quietly.

“That is…” she stammered, her mind frantically searching for the right thing to say. But there was no right thing to say. The truth and the lie were both equally horrible. She let out a soft cry and hid her face behind his neck. “I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry… the truth is…”

“…
I lied.
” He interrupted her. “I’m not prepared to hear it. I don’t think I will ever be prepared to hear it. I didn’t know what else to say to keep you awake.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to know the truth?”
she whispered into his ear. “I would tell you. I would…”

He heaved a deep breath. “I can’t face the truth yet.”

“Why don’t you want to know? I’m offering you the whole truth.”

“Give me a little more time, Amara. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle the whole truth.”

“I didn’t think you were afraid of anything…”

“I had thought so, too,” he said grimly.

“…What are you afraid of?”

A long pause came between them, so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he spoke in a soft voice that could only be heard by the two of them, “I’m afraid that I could have done something about it. If I was there, I could have prevented it. I’m also afraid that it may not
be accidental… afraid to learn how much you truly resent me. I’d rather run on speculation than to face the solid truth because then… I don’t know what I would do.”

“Do you really think that I’m capable of something like that?”

“You didn’t want the child.”

She couldn’t deny that she had said that. She also couldn’t deny that she had threatened him with his child’s life when she wasn’t even pregnant. “What…
would you do if I’d told you that it’s true?”

He stopped.

“
If
,” she reminded him.

“I don’t know,” he said rigidly and then continued to walk.

“What would you do to me?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Even if I had done something so despicable?”

“I was never in any delusion. I know I’m keeping you against your will and I haven’t treated you the way I should. Why should I punish you for the crimes that are mine? Even when I know this better than anyone, I’m too selfish to let you go. So I will continue to fulfill my duty as your husband. I will continue to protect you and provide for you. Our covenant is unbreakable.”

“…And if it was accidental?”

The muscles on his body didn’t feel any less tense. “… I would never allow myself to fail you again.”

Was that his pride speaking or was it his heart? He was such a proud man that it couldn’t be all heart. Whatever the case may have been, he had genuinely touched her. Why did she ever think of him as cold and unfeeling?  Because at this very moment, he had more heart than any man she ever knew.
Just a little broken
, she thought sadly.

He just needed someone to mend him, piece by piece, and she wanted to be that woman. Three years ago, she would have mocked herself for even thinking of such an endeavor. But then again, things were no longer the way they were three years ago.

It was about time she admitted it. Denying something doesn’t make it nonexistent. She knew for some time that she was in love with him, but she didn’t want to trust him with something so fragile and so dear to her. Maybe she should give him a chance and pray he wouldn’t break it. Maybe she should give them both a chance.

“Hang on a little longer,” he said. “We’re almost home.”

Home,
Amara smiled to herself. Suddenly a very intimate feeling was attached to that word. This feeling was what gave the word ‘home’ a whole new meaning. She wanted to go home.

They marched
for hours across the frozen ascending terrain against the violent storm before they fell through the snow and onto a thick sheet of ice twenty meters down. Cold, weak, pained, and hungry, Amara lay still and wait for Noctis to come up with a solution. They were surrounded by ice and the only way was up. In another words, they were trapped in.

He tried to climb the walls but they were too slippery. He pinned the blade into the ice and tried to use it as a stepping tool so he
could reach an area he could get a grip on. He pulled the blade from the ice, pinned it a little bit higher, and then pulled himself up. For some unknown reason, he abandoned his quest, retrieved the blade, and then leaped down. He returned to her side and sat beside her.

“It worked. Why didn’t you…?”

He glanced down at her and shook his head. Then she realized that even if he made it to the top by himself, she would be too weak to come with him. He had made it clear that he wouldn’t leave her behind.

Dead weight again.

“
Amara!
” he snapped at her. The volume of his voice startled her. “
Keep your eyes open!
” he commanded

She tried, but it was so damn hard keeping the heavy lids from closing over her eyes.

Her chattering teeth echoed back loudly. What she wouldn’t give for a cup of cocoa and a warm hot meal right now.

He got back up to his feet and began to stomp around. He listened carefully for the sound echoing back. The ice began to crack beneath the pressure of his stomp. He gathered her in his arms and pressed her head tightly against his chest. He stomped again and again until the sheet of ice shattered. They fell through once more, much deeper this time, and she landed on top of him.

At this point, Amara couldn’t tell the difference in temperature anymore. If she made it out of this alive, she might probably need to amputate her limbs because of frostbite. Amara didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

She felt gentle tapping on her face and opened her eyes. “Look,” he said to her, but she didn’t have the strength to open her eyes. His voice was echoing inside her head as it was fading, “There is a cave system inside this mountain. We’ll find our way out from here…”

“
Amara!
” he was calling her name again. The urgency in his voice snapped her awake. She was sitting on his lap, and they were surrounded by a circle of white flame. No wonder she felt much warmer than before. She immediately checked to see if she still had use of her fingers and then her toes. Each one wiggled according to her will. She exhaled her relief. No frostbite.

The last thing she remembered was falling through a sheet of ice and then another, but now she
could see the vast night sky above them. There were no stars in the sky.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“We’re on the other side of the snowcap,” he said and then asked, “Do you feel warmer?”

She nodded. “I don’t feel frozen anymore.”

“Good because we have to keep moving.”

“Already?” She was just beginning to feel comfortable and there was nothing chasing after them. She wanted to stay like this a little longer. “Couldn’t we stay a little longer?”

“I know this is hard for you, but we have to keep moving.”

“Why?”

“We’re running out of time. If we don’t get out of this forsaken place by sunrise, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“…‘
We’ as in us? You too?”

“That was the deal.”

She gaped up at him. “What deal?”

“The deal I made with
him
.”

“Wait!
What?
”

“How do you think I got here? I made a bet with Death. If I fail to take you back to the Realm of the Living by sunrise, we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Why did you make a bet like that? Are you so arrogant that you think you can never fail?”

“I wasn’t being arrogant. I didn’t have a choice.”

“If you knew that you might fail then why did you do it? Why wager with him when the stakes are so high?”

“I would have come even if the stakes were higher. Be quiet and save your strength for the rest of the way. We are in the dark of what
’s to come.” He leaned back and asked the night sky, “What
is
to come?”

Amara wished
he hadn’t asked what was to come, because what came was loud ear-splitting, head-pounding screeching. She rose to her feet to take a better look at what was happening around her. They were camping out in front of an entrance to a tunnel that leads into the mountain. The other side was a steep vertical fall. She kicked a small rock off the edge, but she couldn’t hear it hit the bottom. She looked beyond the edge and saw the outline of small floating islands in the dark. Those islands were suspended in mid-air, similar to that of the floating castle in Hell.

“I heard shrieking. Did you hear shrieking?”

“Shhh,” he hushed her. He rose and gripped his blade tightly. He had heard it too. Her eyes cautiously surveyed the sky. She saw a flock of birds flying toward them from the horizon. When they came closer, Amara realized they weren’t birds at all. They were haggard looking women with long hair, sharp talons, and eagle-like wings for arms. And they were very hostile, like every other creature they’d encountered.

Harpies?

“Just what in the world is this place…?” she murmured. If she hadn’t lived in the Realm of Hell for nine years of her life, this place would have boggled her mind and then some. She knew that these were only illusions that Death had dreamt up, but it still amazed her. The books said that the manifestation of Death gained his knowledge through the memories of the souls he reaped. They called all of these illusions because they had no permanence, but that wasn’t the right word for it. They couldn’t be illusions if they were real enough to kill. Altering reality was more like it.

Their shrieking was excruciatingly painful to hear. Amara ducked low and covered her ears. They were attacking one after the other. One of the harpies was gripping onto the blade with her sharp claws to stop
Noctis from swinging. He caught a firm grip on her leg and burned her to ashes. Seeing this, the others wailed and then attacked more ferociously. He dodged many of them, but he couldn’t dodge them all. Their claws and beaks ripped into his flesh. He gritted and swung his blade at two of them. Fatally wounded, they fell from the sky. There were four of them left. They took to the sky where he could not get to them and dived down like eagles. Three of them targeted him while a lone harpy targeted Amara.

The harpy grabbed Amara by her shoulders and took to the sky. Angered, Noctis engulfed the three harpies attacking him in torrents of white flames. He leaped from one island to another to get to her.