Slowly, carefully, she drew the power deeper, closer to the part of her the gods had blessed.
She gathered Dante’s gift.
And she gave it back.
Fifty-Four
Piccola favilla gran fiamma seconda.
A little spark kindles a great fire.
Relief.
The pain, the noise, the light—it all ceased. The battle vanished, and Dante felt nothing.
Not because his body went numb, but because he … wasn’t.
He had no heart, so his pulse didn’t pound. He knew fear, recognized the mental prickle of warning, but not in any way he’d felt before. He had no eyes, so damned if he knew how he could see a glow in the darkness. But there it was. Everywhere. A warm, rosy light concentrated in one spot, expanding to meet him.
Something about the light was trying to calm him, and it wasn’t working.
After twenty years expecting death around every damn corner, tempting the gods time and time again, daring them to just do it already, he was finally dead. And he was pissed.
He’d chosen to become Alessa’s guard. To climb that ugly peak. To heal her with his gift, knowing it would kill him. And he’d do it again.
But he didn’t even get to see if it had worked? If she was okay? If the battle was won? He’d finally decided to become something other than a selfish asshole, and his prize was a light show and a headache without a head?
Fanculo. Screw that.
He couldn’t turn to find the source of the sound, but it didn’t matter, because it wasn’t behind him. Or in front. If there was such a thing as direction in this place. The sound was inside him. Maybe the light was, too. Or, it would have been, if there was any him to be inside.
The sound wasn’t music. There was no word for it. It had meaning, though. It was a language, sort of, or maybe it was language in its purest form. Miseria ladra, his head would have throbbed if he had one.
Death was supposed to be a relief, an end to mortal suffering.
This was bullshit.
Maybe if he had an eternity to listen, he’d understand what the light was trying to tell him, but death hadn’t blessed him with patience.
I don’t speak colors or music. He aimed the thought at the brightest part of the glowing whatever-the-hell-it-was. Pick a language I know or cut it out. I’ve had a long day.
The thing … laughed? Silently. A bubble of affectionate amusement, popping inside him.
Dante sent a mental scowl. Please tell me we’re not doing this for eternity.
Something tingled. His … fingers? They materialized in front of his face. His face! He had a face. And a body. Thank Dea.
Literally.
“Uh, thanks,” he said, to test out his voice. It sounded the same. “Dea?”
The bubble of mirth returned, warmer and brighter, but also not quite a confirmation. At least this time the sensation was in his chest, because he had one. Clothes, too, which were unnecessary, but appreciated. Gods probably didn’t give a shit about nudity, but it was a hard habit to shake.
“So … you are Dea? Or you aren’t?”
Correct.
He knew that feeling. Didn’t answer the question though. It was Dea and not Dea. Fun game. “Listen, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful here, but can you tell me if it worked? Is she going to be okay?”
The light wavered, almost but not quite fully taking form, flickering like a candle in an open window.
A mirage of a woman, tall and thin, with light brown hair and the same dark eyes he saw every time he looked in the mirror.
“Mama?”
His mother—or the goddess who looked like his mother—reached out a hand to him, her eyes somehow full of love and regret at the same time.
Nothing could have stopped Dante from reaching back.
His hand found only warmth where hers should have been. The light moved up his arm, tingling over his skin, soaking through to heat him from the inside. The first tide of emotion—pride, love, reassurance—was as welcoming as a hearth fire after a freezing rain, and he could have basked in it forever.
But warmth became heat—scorching, crackling, igniting—tinged with profound regret that there wasn’t time to do it any other way. This was the fastest way to show him what he needed to know. And there was no time to wait.
His mother smiled, but it was the saddest thing he’d ever seen.
She vanished, and his mind exploded.
A voracious, murky ocean swallowing the shore, battering the city walls, belching forth scaly, fanged creatures with claws like scythes. Ash clouds choking the skies above rivers of blood, and people, everywhere, burning and burning and burning.