Both men were in terrible shape. Madolina and Liona didn’t even try to move them away from the portal, but worked to try to heal them right there. Madolina lit the chamber with healing candles, packed her lifemate’s wounds with soil and her saliva and gave her blood to Domizio while Liona did the same for her brother. They worked fast, the swiftness and silence of their actions betraying the urgency to those seeing the images.
The guardians and Tiberiu exchanged long looks with one another. Justice was alive. An ancient older than Vlad. One so skilled in battle there were few hunters—if any—who would be able to destroy him should he choose to become undead.
This is what my sister was taken to interact with? Tiberiu said after a time.
Sandu inclined his head. I believe so. She could talk to beasts. Justice is more beast than man. I think she is the only one who can communicate with him, and she refuses to leave him.
Yet she is not his lifemate, Tiberiu reiterated.
I do not believe she is, Sandu said. I did not get that impression when he was chanting the sacred oath with me.
What is the plan? Afanasiv was practical. The portal is slipping and the gate could be opening. We are here to ensure neither happens.
I am here to see if my sister still lives, Tiberiu said. And if she lives, if there is a way to retrieve her from that place.
Sandu nodded. I, too, wish to find my sister. She was left to guard this gate. Three other Carpathian women were chosen to guard each of the other gates. Now that I remember who she is and that she exists, I want to find her alive and well. She must feel she’s been abandoned.
Adalasia leaned into Sandu to give him comfort when his past was too close and haunting him.
You didn’t abandon her, even if she feels that way, Sandu. We just have to seal the portal for good. I have to make certain the gate is closed and guarded. Any demons on this side of the portal have to be driven back to the underworld or disposed of.
Adalasia gripped her sword. Nera awaited on the other side of the portal. She crowded close to it. Adalasia could feel her now, pushing for her demons to get it open so her army could pour into the realm of the living.
It’s best if they think it is only Sandu and I and Tiberiu. They feel him. They know who he is, and they don’t want him here. Tiberiu, they will strike at you even before they will at me. They want to acquire both Sandu and me alive. You, they want dead.
I am not so easy to kill, Tiberiu assured her. They must have Gaia if I present such a threat to them.
Would she recognize you? Sandu asked. She was but ten.
No. I was away and already centuries old when she was born. She saw me once. I returned right after she turned ten but left soon after I visited. I wanted to acknowledge her so she would always know she was wanted. I counted on our mother and father being able to have the time to tell her, Tiberiu said.
That twisted at Adalasia’s heart.
Sandu’s warmth slid into her mind. You are always so compassionate, Sivamet.
Tell me what to expect, Tiberiu ordered.
They will go for your stomach to try to rip you open. Then your eyes to blind you. Then your throat to tear it out, Sandu said. Just as the demons did when they attacked us in the underworld.
Adalasia took a breath, trying to keep from breathing in the scent of sulfur that hung heavy in the air. Only the small ones were able to get through this portal, and they have set an ambush in this next chamber. Even as molecules, stay away from the walls. I don’t know what Nera has learned from her spies, but she sent them out not just to learn from us but from others. We have to be careful.
She raised her sword and, with Sandu, stepped confidently into the next chamber. She recognized the interior from his memories, when Liona and he had made it from the underworld, flinging themselves from the portal onto the floor of the cave. She took the time to study every aspect of the cave, the position of every rock formation. The floor, the ceiling and the walls. She had an excellent memory, and she knew where the portal had been when Sandu had emerged.
They stood back-to-back while she took her time, allowing her gaze to move over the spot where the portal had to be. With the sword gripped in her hands, pointed down toward the floor, she observed the way the shadows played through the cave. The light from the blade of the sword was steady, unmoving, yet the shadows were subtle, restless, a continuous swaying that shimmered a silvery gray and then went dark again. It happened in the blink of an eye, so the first two times, she questioned whether it was real or illusion, that solid arch.