I made sure my concealment spells and silencing bubble were firm around me and began to climb, jogging up the steps quickly in hunt of the fresh air I could feel billowing around me.
I wanted out of this dank series of tunnels and I needed to get back to my friends.
At the top of the steps, I found myself in a stone arch which was cut into the side of the hill, overlooking the now destroyed temple below where I could make out a large figure moving among the rubble.
My blood chilled at the sight of the Nymph and I hesitated just inside the doorway as I looked out at them through the sheeting rain, hunting for any sign of Darcy or Darius or any one of the people I’d come here with. But there was nothing.
My mind began to turn with a plan to get closer to the destruction down there, to hunt for them and figure out where they were, but I flinched at the sound of Lavinia’s voice and I shrank back into the shadows instead.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are…I want a taste of rebel blood tonight.”
I spotted her as she landed amongst the rubble in the valley below, a shriek of fury escaping her as she yelled at her Nymphs to search harder and find her some prey.
Hope swelled in my chest as I took in her frustration, and I was struck with the certainty that she hadn’t found them after all. But then where were they?
It was hard to believe that they would have left here without me, but maybe they hadn’t had a choice. Maybe they thought I was dead. The explosion of power which had collided between me and Darcy had been enough to hurl me far from her and any of the others, and I had no idea how long I’d been lying in the grass unconscious either.
A tugging sensation in my gut made me turn and look to the north, a feeling of need filling me as I squinted into the storm and was hit with the desire to fly that way, sensing my mother’s presence once again like there was more she wanted to show me.
I’d never felt her like this outside of the palace before and I wasn’t certain if it was the golden trinket in my hand or the head injury I’d received that was causing it, but I was going to have to hope it was the trinket.
I glanced down at the little Hydra charm in my hand before tightening my fist around it and turning my back on Lavinia and the destruction we’d left here, choosing to have a little faith for once in my damn life and calling my wings into existence.
I was careful to keep the flames of my Phoenix at bay as I took off, holding the darkness around me with a concealment spell and using the storm to hide my progress through the sky as I tore away from this place and its foul memories.
I hurried through the rumbling storm clouds, flying higher and higher as the freezing water coated my skin and armour, making goosebumps pepper my flesh and my hair stick to my cheeks.
The clouds were thick and freezing cold as I flew into them, the thrum of electricity present all around me and making memories of my torture at Lionel’s hands rise to the surface of my mind. He had taken a special interest in watching me scream beneath the strike of the lightning which he kept trapped in those jars. Even this faint tingle of that power had me back in that room, back at his mercy and trapped in my own mind.
I fought to shake off those memories, trying to cling to the lessons Max had been giving me in compartmentalising and deep breathing. But I really wasn’t a meditation kind of girl, so I worked on my favourite coping mechanism instead as I failed to find that calm place inside me which always seemed to elude me too easily. Revenge. My desire for cold, hard, revenge was what was going to get me through those flashbacks. I gave myself over to thoughts of all the ways I dreamed of making Lionel, Lavinia and Vard pay for what they’d done to me and countless others besides.
And while I indulged in fantasies about carving them up and burning them in Phoenix fire, I burst through the barrier of the storm clouds and made it up to the peace above them where only the stars could see me as I flew on.
I let the sensation I was getting from the Hydra charm guide me as I flew on, filling my body with the heat of my fire magic as I went and leaving the chill of the storm behind alongside the shadow bitch who was mourning her poor lost rift.
I wasn’t sure how long I flew for, but by the time I felt the urge to descend from the sky, dawn was lightening the horizon and my wings were aching with fatigue.
I dropped down through the clouds which were now white and hazy, the storm left long behind alongside the forest and I found myself gliding over a huge, flat plane which was covered in grass and wild flowers tipped with morning dew.
The charm in my fist almost seemed to heat the further I flew until eventually I spotted a stone circle standing in the centre of an otherwise open expanse of grass.