her into the cover of the trees that lined the lower slopes of the mountains.
What he really wanted to do was pick her up and fly with her, but she had that mulish twist to her lips that warned him not to even mention it.
Her gaze shifted to the trees to his left. “It will take us twice as long to reach the next mountain range.”
That didn’t stop her from starting towards them, leading him by his hand. He pursed his lips and canted his head to his right. Apparently, compromises could work. Thanatos took the lead, gaze scouring the lands ahead of them as his senses reached all around him. What he wouldn’t give to destroy whatever power dampened them, hindering him.
But not Calindria.
He slid a look at her. “Can you feel things further away than that clump of trees?”
He pointed to the edge of the black forest ahead of them, one that clung to the base of the mountain they had exited. She nodded.
“How far can you sense?” He looked around to find something else to use as a marker, but she answered before he could pick one out.
“The whole of this valley with ease.” She frowned, a little pout to her lips as she stared at the black ground. “I think…”
She looked as if she didn’t want to finish that sentence, so he finished it for her.
“You can feel everything that is connected to the ground.” He glanced at her again when she looked at him, met her curious gaze and almost smiled. “Your mother can do the same. I believe using your power over nature has helped you hone it and made you grow more accustomed to it, unlocking its full potential.”
She stiffened again, her hand tightening against his. “My full potential says that something is in this valley. Many somethings.”
“Can you tell how big they are?” He scowled past his right wing, searching the gloom for movement.
“No. They’ve moved again. It’s like they keep disappearing.” She cast a worried look over her shoulder.
“Not disappearing,” he growled as it hit him. “Taking flight. They keep landing and you feel them, and then they take flight, breaking their connection with the earth and therefore you. Are they those winged black creatures we saw in the caves?”
She shook her head. “Bigger… and they feel… darker. Hungry.”
Great. Hungry beasts of undetermined species were tracking them.
He huffed. “I think they are the creatures we keep hearing.”
Ones that had begun to sound more and more familiar to him, although he couldn’t put his finger on why. The last time he had heard them shrieking was more than a day ago and he had put the building sense of familiarity down to the fact he kept hearing them. Now, he was sure he had heard these beasts before entering this realm.
He pulled her into the trees.
She was looking backwards at the time and she knocked against one of the broken branches and flinched as she gasped.
“Sorry.” He turned towards her, guilt flooding him as she frowned and lifted her free hand to touch a cut on her forehead.
Blood beaded along the ragged gash.
Time seemed to slow as he stared at it, an uneasy feeling swift to grow in his gut as he watched it trickle down her forehead, although he wasn’t sure why.
It hit him when distant shrieks sounded.
A chill swept over him.
“Keres!” He pulled Calindria into a run as he felt them entering the sphere of his senses, his heart pounding hard as he thought about them getting their hands on her.
“Keres?” she breathed and he could feel her confusion.
The female death spirits his mother had birthed were vicious and easily roused into a feeding frenzy when they smelled blood, had been used by Eris in the battle that had taken place between her side and Hades’s sons. There, they had preyed upon anyone who had bled, had descended on screaming howls to rip at them and feast.
He doubted these Keres were here of their own accord. Someone had brought them here, was using them to track him and Calindria, and he had the terrible feeling he knew who it was. The demigoddess. She had to be working for the enemy, part of the remaining forces that Hades had been trying to learn about from Eris. His sister had only revealed that others would rise up to take her place, had refused to say any more than that.
Maybe if he could get his hands on the demigoddess, he could take her