“Anyway, it all goes back to their myths,” he continued. “The Greeks thought only heroes ended up in the Elysium Fields after death—their version of Heaven. Everybody else either went to Tartarus, if they were really bad, or the Asphodel Meadows if they were just meh. Neither was a good time. The old Scandinavians thought the same. Heroes went to Valhalla or that other hall, the one Odin’s wife had.” He snapped his fingers a couple of times. “I forget. But, anyway, the ticket to ride was always the same: big deeds. Hero stuff. Kind of good didn’t cut it.”
“And the fey nobles feel the same?”
He nodded. “Only more so. They think their future reincarnation depends on their actions now. Be legendary and you come back as a king or a noble. Be courageous and maybe you get to be a warrior. Be basic and you’ll be grubbing in the dirt for eternity, which is why they don’t think much of the common folk. Be a coward and, well, you might not come back at all.”
“So that is why Aeslinn fights? I heard it was for more . . . present rewards.”
“Oh, well, it’s different for him. He’s already a king. There’s not much higher he can go. Except the obvious, I guess.”
“The obvious?”
“Well, Hercules became a god, didn’t he?”
“But he was already a demigod.”
“Well, what do you think Aeslinn is?”
I blinked. “Really?”
The dark head nodded. “According to rumor, all three of the leaders of the great princely houses are children that the gods had with fey nobility: Nimue was the daughter of Poseidon, or Neptune or Njord, whatever name you wanna call him. Caedmon was the son of Zeus—or Jupiter or Odin—the original sky god.”
“Zeus?”
“Yeah, he’s fighting against his own father, again according to rumor.”
“And Aeslinn?”
“Hades.”
I supposed that made sense, in a way. “So, the three divine brothers of the Greek pantheon are still battling it out, only by proxy.”
“Yeah, only they didn’t win, did they? Artemis did. The underdog defeated them all, just like we’re gonna do.”
I smiled.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Dorina, Faerie
The river became wider after an hour or so, and faster, with the little drop offs not quite so little anymore. But landing anywhere wasn’t possible. The woods grew thick and close to the waterline here, hedging the flow so tightly that it almost looked like the trees were wading out to meet us.
“I been in spots like this before,” Ray said, raising his voice to be heard over the sound of rushing water. “They usually don’t last long.”
I nodded, and then continued to do so as we juddered over some rocks, hard enough to make my head bobble. But the occasional glimpses I had ahead, as the river snaked through the trees, was less the smooth green ribbon we had been traversing and more a mass of leaping white water. It was not encouraging.
And neither was that, I thought, as a bird cried high overhead.
My eyes turned upward, but for a moment, I couldn’t see anything. I squinted and focused on a black dot silhouetted against the sun. It was so high and so small that it would have been easy to overlook had its call had not sounded like an alarm.
And had it not been fluttering in my face a moment later.
It was just outside the cage of branches, its wings moving almost as fast as a hummingbird’s, although it was much larger. But it had the same bright coloring, with a crimson head, a blue-green neck, and an iridescent green body. And a pair of intelligent black eyes.
Too intelligent.
Shit, as Dory would say.
“We’re going to have company,” I told Ray, as the bird’s wings battered against our camouflage.