“She is safe.” Arianrhod laid a hand on Doyle’s arm when he hesitated. “And will be guided to you.”
As he glanced toward the hills, shadows under a star-dazed sky, he heard the wolf howl. The sound of joy and triumph echoed after him as he took the winding, torch-lit path with the others.
The palace, rising high into the night sky, was as Sasha had foreseen. Gardens of color and scent, musical fountains, rooms with a fairy-tale gleam that glowed with light and glinted with sparkle.
No one approached them as they followed three goddesses up a sweep of silver stairs strewn with flowers and white candles as tall as a man. Jeweled ropes dripped from the ceiling, raining light as they traveled along a wide corridor into a large chamber.
An elaborate sitting room, Doyle supposed, decked out with curved sofas and chairs in the same jewel colors as the ropes of light. Tables held food—platters of meats and fruit and bread, cheeses and olives and dates. Desserts all but bursting with cream. Wine and crystal goblets.
He thought of Riley’s fast. Her hard luck.
He didn’t question that his clothes, his hair and body, so thoroughly drenched by the storm and the sea, were now dry and comfortably warm.
They didn’t walk in a world of logic now.
A fire crackled invitingly, and though light seemed to emanate from the walls, candles flickered.
From somewhere, soft as a whisper, came harp song.
“You have questions. But the body, mind, and spirit must be fed.” Celene poured wine into goblets. “And rested. Your chambers are prepared for you, when you’re ready.”
“There is beer.” Arianrhod poured from an amber bottle, offered it to Doyle. “There will be food for her in the chamber you share when she wakes.”
“And if I go out to look for her?”
“You are free to go as you please, as she is. As all are. Might I see your sword? And you mine,” she added when his eyes narrowed. She drew hers, held it out to him. “I forged it when I was very young, tempered it with lightning and cooled it in the sea. I named it Ceartas.”
“Justice?”
She smiled. “I was very young.”
He accepted her sword, gave her his own.
“It has good balance and weight,” Arianrhod decided. “It still carries her blood.”
“Apparently not enough of it.”
“My sword, despite its name, was not meant to bear her blood. I envy you that. I would like to spar with you.”
Doyle arched an eyebrow. “Now?”
He saw a warrior’s gleam in her eye before she glanced back where the others filled plates, tended wounds. “My sisters would object, but perhaps tomorrow.”
“You’d have an advantage.”
She exchanged swords with him, sheathed her own. “Warrior to warrior, not god to immortal.”
“No. You look like my mother.”
That warrior gleam shifted to a compassion he hadn’t expected. “I hope a time comes when you find comfort there instead of grief. Eat, soldier, the food is good.”
Now she turned to Sawyer. “The demon, the human she turned, is dead.”
“Yeah.”
Doyle’s head whipped around as the others stopped to look at Sawyer. “Malmon’s finished?”
“We’ve been a little too busy for the recount.” Sawyer rubbed the back of his neck. “He went at Riley.”