Daimon (Guardians of Hades #6) - Felicity Heaton Page 0,110
tearing Keras a new one.
“Calindria,” Keras whispered just as Daimon had been about to escort Esher out for some air too. Everyone fell silent, an air of expectation settling over the room. Keras buried his face in his hands and his back shuddered as he inhaled. “I saw her. All grown up. Locked in a cage… Somewhere in the Underworld. A hellish domain.”
“She’s grown up?” Cal sank to his knees in front of Keras. “How is that possible? A soul doesn’t grow up… does it?”
Cal looked at Marek.
Marek shrugged. “It shouldn’t, but we don’t know the particulars of what the wraith and the necromancer did to her soul.”
“She can feel everything,” Keras murmured and everyone looked at him. Cold slithered down Daimon’s spine as Keras continued, “She can feel it as if she’s flesh and blood. I saw it.”
“That can’t be right.” Cal’s voice hitched, breaking as he threw a panicked look at everyone before settling his stormy blue eyes back on Keras. “It has to be a lie. Something he showed you to hurt you. It has to be a lie. The daemon couldn’t enter the Underworld until he went through the gate, and Esher was on his tail the whole time, so he couldn’t have been there because Esher would have seen her too and she couldn’t have been grown up like me…”
Marek placed a gentle hand on Cal’s shoulder. “She’s been dead a long time, Cal. It’s possible the wraith saw her when she was grown, long before we were sent to the mortal world. He might have managed to slip into the Underworld before.”
“No.” Keras spoke that word in a calm tone but it seemed to crack like lightning, shaking the room. He lifted his head and looked at Cal. “I don’t think it was a memory belonging to the wraith. I think it belonged to the necromancer.”
“Eli took his blood?” Daimon didn’t want to believe that.
“Maybe. It wasn’t Eli. It was someone else’s memory.” Keras scrubbed a hand over his face, sat up and leaned back, sagging against the wall as his hands fell into his lap. “It was real though.”
“You think it was recent?” Daimon flicked a glance at Cal, keeping an eye on him.
His youngest brother stared straight ahead and looked as if he was struggling, his eyes wide and unfocused. Daimon had his hands full with keeping Esher on the rails. He wasn’t sure he could handle both Esher and Cal going off them.
“I’m not sure.” Keras pushed forwards and took hold of Cal’s shoulders and Cal looked at him. “We will find her.”
Cal nodded, the movement jerky. When he didn’t stop nodding, Keras kneaded his shoulders.
“Don’t think about it for now,” Keras murmured, fatigue laced with concern in his deep voice. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
Cal shook his head this time. “No. I want to know these things.”
He might want to know them, but he was having trouble handling them without passing out. His brother’s affliction had been slowly improving over the past few weeks, since they had dealt with the necromancer and Cal had discovered that Calindria’s soul was still out there, giving him a chance to save it and guide it to the Elysian Fields where she could rest.
He had managed to remember some things about what had happened to him and Calindria all those centuries ago without passing out.
“That’s not good.” Marek’s bass voice rolling over the room had everyone looking at him, and then in the direction of his gaze.
Black blood trickled from Eli’s nose and ears.
The wraith stilled.
Rubbed his fingers over his lip and brought it away, staring at the blood.
He smiled and then coughed, spraying more blood across the floor. It rolled down his chin and coated his teeth as he looked at Keras.
“This isn’t over,” Eli calmly said and coughed again, sending more vile black blood oozing down his chin. His violet eyes brightened dangerously as he stared hard at Keras, his voice dropping to a hiss. “I am not the last.”
The wraith lurched forwards, vomiting blood, his entire body shaking so hard he rattled the cage as he clawed at the bars on the floor of it, hands slipping around in the oily black liquid.
“Cass!” Daimon leaped over Cal and shoved past Marek, hitting the doorway of the building as quickly as he could. “Need a healing spell.”
Cass twisted away from Mari, Megan and Ares. Her eyes widened and she hurried to him.
“Godsdammit, Keras!” Ares boomed and rushed after her.