“What is this place?” I asked Ahmose when Asten was at a full stop at the water’s edge.
“I’ve heard of it, though it is not at all as I imagined. It is called the Lake of Fire, a place of purging. The errors one makes can be, in essence, washed away—that is, if the person doesn’t drown during the process. It’s interesting that his heart ended up here.”
“Don’t all hearts come here?”
“Not at all. Most hearts go to the Mires of Despair. That his came here means the wrongs he did caused more pain to himself than to anyone else. The bad news is that his heart sought the deepest point in the netherworld to hide, something we can attribute to how long Asten has allowed these feelings and mistakes of the past to fester. The good news is that if he manages to successfully bring his heart back to the surface, he can, in essence, be free from his demons. That’s not a small thing in the netherworld.”
“So you’re saying that Asten’s going to dive in?” I asked, hoping that I was wrong.
“That would be my guess. His heart is even now calling to him from its depths.”
Just then, a large creature with gaping jaws broke the surface and dove back in. Its eye must have sighted us because it breached not once but twice more, each time coming closer. I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous. We can’t let him go in there.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” Ahmose warned.
Asten turned to look at us with a weak smile and waded in.
Ahmose caught my arm when I tried to go after him, giving me a pained look. “He has to fight his demons to win back his heart,” he said, fingering a lock of my hair.
Turning, I stared desperately at the lake. The golden water clung to Asten’s legs like thick goo.
I panicked. We were going to lose him. We couldn’t lose him. Not when I thought I could love him. No. Wait. What? That’s wrong. No, it isn’t, my mind insisted. My heart beat swift as a roe, and before I understood what I was doing, I leapt from the path and ran toward the shore.
“Lily! Wait!” Ahmose cried out as I ran, but I ignored him and pressed on, splashing into the thick liquid just as Asten dove under.
“Asten!” I cried, tossing my knives and the quiver and bow onto the sand before plunging beneath the waves myself. When we couldn’t see, I locked my mind with Tia’s and summoned our power. All at once the light that filled our vision dissipated and we could clearly see Asten ahead of us. A shining rock drew him forward, downward.
I swam awkwardly, my human half and my lioness half moving like two disparate creatures fighting. I switched back and forth from the breaststroke to a doggie paddle and ended up kicking viciously, tearing through the water like I would through a large animal. Even though the Lake of Fire was viscous and reddish, the water was cold, so cold that it felt like we had sunk into a grave. My eyes closed, and Tia was the one who raised our body temperature enough for us to return to the living—at least, as living as we could be in the netherworld.
Our claws extended naturally when a scaled monster attacked, and we raked our nails down its side, black blood filling the water before the creature disappeared. I used Horus’s healing stela to repair a wicked gash on my leg that the toothy beast had rendered before vanishing.
Tiny biting fish swarmed around Asten, but he paid them no heed as he swam downward. Sensing something hunting us, I turned and sought it out, swimming quickly and boldly toward it. With a quick slice of my claws, I dispatched the creature and moved on. This lake could be the end of us. Asten was now just a speck on the edge of my vision. I was barely able to see him even with our sphinx abilities.
Another monstrous creature took note of me. This was beginning to feel like an underwater Whac-A-Mole. I tightened my fist and used only the power of my mind to destroy it. The large beast thrashed violently for a full minute before going still.
I’d already been holding my breath for much longer than I’d be able to as a human, and my lungs weren’t burning at all. I