Burned (House of Night #7)(98)

going home. Oh, and by the way, I don't care where you'll be going."

"You've gone mad. I cannot bring the dead back to life."

"In this case, I think you can. Stark's body is safe back in the real world, along with mine. We're in the Otherworld, and it's all about spirit here. You're an immortal, which means you're all about spirit. So you're gonna take some of your immortal spirit and share it with my Guardian. And bring him back to me. Now. Because you owe it to me. Do you get it? I claim the debt, and it's time you paid up."

"You don't have the power to make me," Kalona said.

She does not, but I do.

The disembodied words settled down into the arena. I recognized the sound of Nyx's voice immediately and looked around expectantly, trying to see her. It was Kalona who found her, though. He was staring over my shoulder with an expression that utterly changed his face. It took me a second to recognize it.

He'd looked at me with lust, with possessiveness, and even with what he'd called love. But he'd been wrong. He didn't love me. Kalona loved Nyx.

I followed his gaze and turned to see the Goddess standing beside Stark's body. One of her hands rested tenderly on his head.

"Nyx!" the immortal's voice sounded broken and surprisingly young. "My Goddess!"

Nyx's eyes lifted from Stark's body, but she didn't look at Kalona. The Goddess looked at me. She smiled, and everything within me was suffused in joy.

"Merry meet, Zoey."

I grinned, and bowed my head. "Merry meet, Nyx."

"You've done well, daughter. You've made me proud of you again."

"It took me too long," I said. "I'm sorry about that."

Her gaze was unwaveringly kind. "As always with you, as with many of my strongest daughters, it is yourselves you should be forgiving. There is no need to ask it of me."

"And what of me?" Kalona rasped. "Will you ever forgive me?"

The Goddess looked at him. Her eyes were sad, but the set of her mouth was grim, her words clipped and emotionless. "If you are ever worthy of forgiving, you may ask it of me. Not until then." Nyx lifted her hand from Stark's head and flicked her fingers at Kalona. The claymore disappeared from his chest.

Wind abated, and he dropped from the wall of the arena. "You will pay my daughter the debt you owe her, and then you will return to the world and the consequences awaiting you there, knowing this, my fallen Warrior, your spirit, as well as your body, is forbidden entrance to my realm." Without another glance at Kalona, Nyx turned her back to him. She bent to kiss Stark's bloody lips gently, and then the air around her rippled, glistened, and she faded away.

When Kalona got to his feet I backed away from him fast, lifting my hands and getting ready to throw air at him again. Then his eyes met mine, and I saw that he was weeping silently.

"I will do as she commands. Except for one time, one single time, I always did as she commanded," he said.

I followed him as he walked to Stark's body. "I return to you that last sweet breath of life. With it live again, and accept a small piece of my immortality for the human life I have taken." Then, totally shocking me, Kalona bent and, mimicking Nyx, he kissed Stark.

Stark's body jerked. He gasped and inhaled a long breath.

Before I could stop him, Kalona put one hand on Stark's shoulder, and with the other he wrenched the spear from his body. With an agonized cry, Stark collapsed.

"You jerk!" I ran to Stark and cradled his head on my lap. He was breathing hard, in panting gasps, but he was breathing. I looked up at Kalona. "No wonder she won't forgive you. You're cruel and heartless and just plain wrong."

"When you get back to the world, stay away from me. You'll be out of her realm then, and Nyx won't come running to save you," he said.

"The farther I am from you, the better."

Kalona stretched open his wings, but before he could take to the sky, tendrils of Darkness, sticky and sharp, oozed from the black sides of the arena and the pitch-colored dirt beneath his feet. While he stared at me, they wrapped around his body, slicing his flesh. Segment by segment they cut him, covered him, until he was nothing but writhing darkness, blood, and amber eyes. Then the tendrils reached his eyes, plunging into them. I cried out in horror as they ripped something that was so bright and shining from inside him that I had to close my eyes against its brilliance. When I opened them again Kalona's body had disappeared along with the arena, and Stark and I were inside the grove.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Zoey

"Zoey! What is it? What's happened?" Stark struggled, trying to make his broken body work.

"Ssh, it's okay. Everything's okay. Kalona's gone. We're safe."

His gaze found mine, and all the tension went out of him. He slumped in my arms and let me cradle his head in my lap. "It's you again. You're not shattered anymore."

"It's me again." I touched his cheek in one of the few places on his face that wasn't bloody, broken, or bruised. "This time you're the one who looks shattered."

"No, Z. As long as you're whole, I'll be fine." He coughed then. Blood poured from the gaping wound in his chest. His eyes closed, and his face contorted in agony.

Oh, Goddess! He's hurt so badly! I tried to speak calmly. "Okay, good, but you don't really look fine.