Dark Skye (Immortals After Dark #15)(82)

Lanthe patted down her outfit. “I don’t have a pock—” Sure enough, there was a concealed pocket in one of the leather bands of her skirt. “Okay, give it over.”

“I’m ready for an explanation, soothsayer,” Thronos told N?x. “Melanthe and I both felt the influence of this place; there was no denying it.”

The Valkyrie’s eyes flashed like her lightning. “Or maybe you two simply wanted an excuse to have each other. Here, you were able to get around your premarital sex rule. Here, Lanthe reasoned that you couldn’t think badly of her because she would have no control over her actions.”

“Then where are we?” Thronos demanded.

A sudden rank smell wafted over Lanthe, like . . . vomit. Where had that come from?

“Very well. I’ll tell Thronos alone.” N?x sauntered up to him, standing on tiptoe.

When he leaned down to accommodate her, putting their faces close together, a spike of irritation hit Lanthe. Jealousy? No, of course not. Still, she pointed out, “Hey, I’m part of this too!”

Whatever N?x was whispering made Thronos’s eyes widen. When she’d finished, he straightened, looking paler than Lanthe had ever seen him. His scars whitened.

N?x turned to her. “As much as I’d like to stay and discuss my plans for the Accession—hint: there will be wearable party favors!—I have a meeting that was penciled in one hundred and twenty-five years ago. Do take care with my lock, Lanthe.” Then the Valkyrie gazed up at the sky, her eyes swirling like mercury. A split second later, a bolt of lightning struck her.

When the smoke cleared and their eyes readjusted, N?x was gone.

Loreans had long wondered how N?x traveled the world(s). Lightning bolts. Who knew?

Thronos hastened to Lanthe, grabbing her shoulders.

“What’s going on?” She winced as that pain in her side flared up again. She began to feel more burns up and down her legs.

“You need to wake up with me.”

“What is wrong with you? I’m not asleep.” She glanced past him. Had the fields of flowers wavered? Her nose was now burning with that ghastly smell.

His hands tightened on her. “None of this is real. It’s a shared hallucination—so that we don’t fight our captivity.”

“Captivity?”

“That last portal took us to . . . to a treacherous place. Into the belly of a beast. It will want to keep us—immortals are a source of constantly replenishing nourishment—but we’re going to fight.”

Was he saying she was something’s food? One of her worst fears. “Y-you’re scaring me.”

“I’ll get you free, but you’ll have to create a portal directly after, or we’ll be drugged and trapped once more.”

“This isn’t funny!”

In a gallows tone, he said, “No, Lanthe. It isn’t.”





THIRTY-EIGHT


Thrymheim Hold, Northlands

Home of Skathi, goddess of the hunt

Goddess council convening

Agenda: Petition for godhood submitted by Phen?x the Ever-Knowing, firstborn Valkyrie

N?x, you’ve known about this meeting for decades and decades,” Riora, the goddess of impossibility, said. “Couldn’t you have prepared better?”

N?x blinked at Riora as they made their way through the rumbling halls carved into Godsbellow Mountain, a peak continually shaken by thunder. “I don’t take your meaning.”

“You’re wearing a T-shirt and flops, you’re carrying a sleeping bat, and you reek of what can only be gastric acid.” The bat burped in its sleep, expelling a puff of green mist. Then it smacked its lips. “This is a formal affair. Kali is wearing twelve skulls.”

N?x’s eyes went wide. “I should’ve vajazzled!” Her excitement woke the bat. It clawed its way up her T-shirt to perch on her shoulder. With a shrug, N?x opened her backpack, retrieving sheets of paper.

Riora looked approving, expecting a résumé of N?x’s great works and deeds, a divine CV to advance her cause—then frowned when the Valkyrie turned to post a flyer for a “barely used” Bentley on one of Thrymheim’s sacred walls. “As your friend, I have to tell you that the atmosphere in Skathi’s meeting hall is contentious. Most of the deities think you reach above your station. The questioning will be intense.” From within the hall, they could hear goddesses debating whether N?x had “the juice.”

“Who’s here?”

“Most goddesses. Standing, levitating, and astral projection room only.”

“How’re you liking my chances?” N?x asked.

Riora tilted her head. “Nothing is impossible with you, which is why I’ve always liked you.”

N?x nodded thoughtfully. “Aside from a few other deities, you’ve always been my favorite.”

Riora pursed her lips, and she and N?x entered.

The focus of the room was a grand wooden table with three concentric rotating disks. One disk measured all times. The second was a perpetually changing map of the mortal world and connecting domains. The third monitored celestial acts taking place across all realms. The center of the table was hollow, with a dais in the middle.

A number of goddesses, or their dimensional likenesses, were in attendance. In the flesh were the witch deities Hekate and Hela; Lamia, the goddess of life and fertility; Wohpe, goddess of peace; Saroh, the goddess of the Jinn; and the Great She-Bear, protectoress of shifters. Among many more . . .