CHAPTER 33

I don’t know how long I sat there, but when I opened my eyes again, the sky was still dark and Seth’s presence was gone. At some point, I’d felt him ease away. I thought he had whispered something before the connection faded, but I had to be hearing things, because it couldn’t be right.

I’d thought I’d heard him say he was sorry.

Obviously I was losing my mind. Seth rarely apologized, and given his needs for power and acceptance that had driven him toward this end game, I doubted he felt remorse.

Taking a deep breath, I almost choked on the bitter remnants of smoke. I knew what I needed to do—pick myself up and get moving. Sitting out here in the open, waiting for more automatons to come along, wasn’t safe.

I stood and turned, brushing the dirt off my tactical pants. The group was still around Lea’s body. Olivia was sitting beside the fallen half-blood, her head in her hands. Deacon and Luke flanked her, the half cradling his injured arm.

Wiping my hands across my cheeks, I stopped beside Aiden.

Olivia looked up, her eyes shiny in the moonlight. “She didn’t feel it, right?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t think so.”

She nodded, and then picked up Lea’s blade, holding it close as she stood. “What do we… what do we do from here?”

It was Solos who spoke. “We need to move quickly. There’s no telling if more will come along, and we’re sitting ducks out here.”

“Do you still think the University is a safe place?” Marcus asked, rubbing his chin. The palm of his hand came back red. I realized then he was bleeding.

I started toward Marcus, but he waved me off. “I’m okay. It’s just a scratch,” he said gruffly. “How do we know that the University is still standing? The automatons could’ve torched it and…”

And all those people. My head swam as I glanced down at Lea. Someone had closed her eyes. Mine burned.

“We have to find out.” Aiden thrust a hand through his hair. “We’re about a mile from the campus.”

Luke shook his head. “There could be more of them. Hell, there could be a dozen or more over the next damn hill and we’d be walking into that blind.”

“Or there could be nothing but open land and the damn University,” Aiden countered, his jaw set hard. “As far as we know, these automatons may’ve been here to stop anyone from reaching the campus… or to stop people from leaving.”

“Or the campus could be gone.” Deacon backed up, running his hands down his sides.

Solos stepped forward, clapping a hand on Deacon’s shoulder. “I cannot believe the whole campus is gone.”

“With all those automatons, anything is possible.” Luke straightened his injured arm as he stared in the general direction of where I assumed the campus was. “But we have to see. We’ve come this—”

“Wait!” Olivia’s voice rose above the guys’. “I wasn’t asking about going to the University or not. I was talking about what we were going to do with Lea.”

Silence fell again and I turned to Aiden. “We can’t leave her here.”

Pain flickered in those deep gray eyes. He reached out, extending his hand, and I went, pressing myself against his side. My fingers dug into his singed shirt, finding tiny burnt holes in the material. “We can’t,” I whispered.

His arm tightened around me. “I know.”

“We can’t… take her with us,” Solos said. “We have no idea what we’ll be facing.”

Olivia went off like a nuclear bomb, holding that dagger like she was considering impaling it between Solos’ eyes. “We can’t leave her here like this. That’s so wrong I don’t even need to explain.”

Sympathy shone in Solos’ scarred face. “I know, but we—”

“We bury our dead—our warriors.” Olivia’s lower lip trembled. “We don’t just leave them here to rot.”

Laadan placed a pale hand on Olivia’s arm, but Olivia was beyond consoling. “I don’t care what we have to face or what is waiting for us! We can’t just leave her here.” Her gaze swung to me. “We need to bury her.”

“With what?” Solos asked gently. “We don’t have shovels and this ground is rock hard.”

Olivia sucked in a sharp breath and turned. Her slim shoulders shook as Luke wrapped his good arm around her.

“Aiden, we have to do something,” Deacon pleaded. “I don’t know what, but something.”

Pulling away from Aiden, I glanced down at my hands. I wasn’t sure how much juice I had left in me, or even if I could use the earth element to create… to create a grave, but I would try. There was no way we could leave Lea out here.

“I don’t know if this will work.” I tucked my hair back, having no idea what’d happened to my ponytail.

Aiden’s brows slammed down as concern flared. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”

I nodded. “Where do you think we should do it, Olivia?”

It took her a couple of seconds to pull away from Luke and process what I was asking. She looked around and seemed to recognize that there really wasn’t a suitable place. She headed off and I followed her. We stopped near two juniper trees that had remained unscathed from the fire and battle, their sweet scent so at odds with the lingering acidic and metallic smells.

“This should work,” she said, clearing her throat. “It’s not much, but the trees… she’d like the trees.”

I looked at her.

Olivia slowly turned to me and she let out a choked, hoarse laugh. “Okay. Lea really wasn’t big on nature or trees.”

“No.” I smiled and it hurt. “She’s probably thinking what the hell right now.”

She blinked. “You think?”

“Yeah, I mean, when I was down there waiting, I couldn’t tell what was going on up here, but maybe it’s different for her.” I thought of the oracle I had met, and then the old woman. “It seemed different for everyone, but I know she’s not in pain.”

Olivia nodded slowly. “That’s the thing about death, I’ve realized. They’re gone to us, but not really, you know? There is life after death, just a different kind of life.” There was a pause. “I wish we’d become friends before all of this crap. Lea… she was pretty cool if you got past the bitchiness.”

I rubbed my temple, feeling an incredible empty place in my chest. “I wish I hadn’t been such a bitch to her.”

“What?”

Shaking my head, I lowered my gaze. “It’s a long story.”

Olivia looked like she wanted to push it, but didn’t. “She’ll see her family again.”

“Yeah, she wanted that.” My eyes were starting to burn again and I knew, if I let the tears fall once more, they wouldn’t stop and I’d be utterly useless. “Okay. I can do this.”

Taking a deep breath, I got down on my knees and placed my hands on the dirt. I closed my eyes, wiggling my fingers into the leaf litter until I found the topsoil. I’d made the ground move before, when I’d fought Aiden, so I imagined I could do this.

I pictured the soil loosening and giving way under my fingertips. The ground trembled slightly and my confidence bloomed. I created an image of the ground cracking open, deep—deep enough for a decent burial. In my head, the soil was darker—a rich brown—the deeper I went. Inhaling, I caught the damp, earthy scent of disturbed soil.

When I opened my eyes, the ground really was split open. Mounds of fresh dirt lay on either side of the circular six-foot hole. Seeing that it was deep enough, I sat back and wiped my shaking hands along my thighs. I felt dry inside and a little brittle. And I was definitely not going to stand anytime soon.

Everyone started doing their own part. Someone found a blanket in one of our backpacks and Lea was wrapped in it. When her body was lowered into the grave, Marcus helped me up. He handed me a bottle of water, along with the daggers I’d dropped.

“Thanks,” I murmured, gulping the water down before sheathing the daggers. And then something struck me. “Wait. Does anyone have any coins?”

Aiden patted his pockets, as did the rest of the guys. They came up empty and my stomach sank. “Burying her doesn’t really make a difference,” I said. “That’s for us. But she needs passage for Charon or she’ll be stuck there.”

“We can bring back coins,” Solos suggested.

“No.” Panic bubbled. “We have to have something. Trust me, she needs the coins now.”

Laadan stepped forward, reaching behind her neck. “I have this,” she said, unclasping a necklace and pulling it from underneath her shirt. “The embellishments are gold coins, ancient ones. They will be worth more than enough.”

My muscles relaxed, full of relief. “Thank you.”

She smiled as she handed the necklace to Marcus, who then snapped off two of the gold coins. Parting the blanket, he placed them in Lea’s hands.

I took a breath, trying to ease the burning and the ever-increasing knot in my throat. Aiden came to my side, wrapping his arms around my shoulders. I turned into him, resting my cheek against his chest. The steady rise and fall of his breathing soothed my frayed edges.

Solos had found two thick branches, and shoved them into the ground above the disturbed earth after Laaden and Marcus had used air to push the dirt back into the grave. Deacon and Luke had gathered up a few rocks, which they placed around the branches. It wasn’t much of a tombstone, but it would have to do for now.

We stood around Lea’s makeshift grave as Laadan murmured a prayer in the old language. I didn’t realize I was crying until I felt Aiden’s thumb brushing the tears away. I couldn’t help but wonder how many more times we would be doing this before it was over—and who would brush Aiden’s tears away if it were my grave they ended up standing over.

The sun had begun to rise by the time we reached the outer wall of the University campus, casting a sliver of orangey light that stretched across the mountain meadow. We’d spent the last mile of the trip in solemn silence. There was no conversation, no joking or laughter. Talking seemed inappropriate after the loss we’d all suffered. I knew I wasn’t alone in convincing myself that Lea was, or would be, in a much better place—a place where the fighting could no longer reach her, where the future was no longer precarious, and where she was reunited with her loved ones.

It helped a little.

But when the outer stone wall came into view, we pretty much knew things were going to suck daimon butt.

Entire sections of the marble-encased outer structure were either gone completely or in the process of crumbling down. It looked like someone had brought in a wrecking ball and played yo-yo with it.

“Gods,” Marcus muttered. “This could be a problem.”

I arched a brow at my uncle. “Really?”

The eeriest part of it all was the hundreds of trees just inside the outer wall. They were all tipped over at the trunks, the limbs reaching the ground, roots exposed and ash-white, like they had succumbed to a powerful wind.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Laadan said, her head moving slowly from side to side. “It’s like a great unseen hand forced them all to the ground.”

I walked up to one, placing my hand on it. I half-expected the tree to fall over, but it was stable. “So weird.” I turned to Aiden. “Any idea what could’ve done this?”

“No clue.” He frowned at the rising sun. “But hopefully we’ll get an answer to this. We need to move on.”

We continued on, the eight of us weary and desperately hoping that the University was safe and in one piece. It almost seemed like too much to ask for.

The second wall looked better. Damage showed in places, but the gate was still standing and locked. Kind of good news, I guessed. But how in the hell were we supposed to get over a twenty-foot wall?

I folded my aching arms. “Before anyone gets any ideas, I am so not knocking a hole through this.”

Aiden sent a wry grin over his shoulder as he joined Marcus and Solos approaching the titanium gates. The sharp spikes along the top caught my eye, and my imagination placed decapitated heads on the things.

I shuddered.

Luke dropped an arm over my shoulders. “You hanging in there?”

“Of course.”

His brows rose. “You’ve been running like the little Apollyon Energizer Bunny.”

I almost laughed. “Hopefully, we’ll all get to recharge soon. How’s your arm?”

“Not as bad as I initially thought.” Luke squeezed my shoulders and let go. “I think Deacon’s getting blisters on his feet.”

At the sound of his name, Deacon scowled over his shoulder. “My feet are covered in blisters.”

“Your poor precious feet,” Luke teased.

From the gate, Solos raised his hand, silencing us. My heart sped up as I grabbed the daggers strapped to my thighs. Luke moved Laadan and Deacon behind us as I inched forward.

“What’s going on?” I asked in a low voice.

Dawn had yet to crack the darkness beyond the gate, and all I could see were the shadows of more twisted trees.

Marcus cleared his throat. “Hello!” he called out, and his voice echoed on for what seemed like forever. “We… we come in peace.”

I rolled my eyes and muttered, “Wow.”

My uncle shot me a dark look and then continued. “I am Marcus Andros, the Dean of the Deity Island Covenant. I have Sentinels with me and the—”

The sound of guns being locked into place was a rat-a-tat-tat that shut Marcus up and probably stopped everyone’s hearts. Not a single shadow had moved beyond the gate.

“Turn around and lower your weapons now,” came a dark voice from behind us.

Oh, crap on a cracker.

My eyes flicked up, meeting Aiden’s for a brief second, and then, because I really didn’t want to be pumped full of titanium, I turned and hoped I hadn’t tapped that well of power inside me completely dry.

Two Sentinels stood behind Deacon and Laadan, guns pressed against their pale cheeks. But there were more than two Sentinels. Over a dozen surrounded us, forming a half-circle. They all held Glocks and looked more than ready to use them.

We were surrounded.