They arrived at the chamber with the portal and Diana immediately started to breathe more shallowly from the stench. Stale air became dead air and her stomach dropped when Esha gestured toward the far side of the room to where the portal had opened. She still couldn’t see it, but within moments she would be walking through and leaving her body behind.
When her soul tore away from her body, would it hurt? She assumed it had to, and it became harder to drag air into her struggling lungs. The desire to run back out into the sun was nearly overwhelming. She reached blindly behind her for Cadan’s hand. She wasn’t sure if she could do this.
He came up behind her and gripped her hand, laid one upon her shoulder and squeezed. “You doona have to do this,” Cadan whispered into her ear.
“Yes—yes, I do.” Her stomach jumped and her extremities trembled, but she had to do this. For all her bravado, she really didn’t have another choice. “I can—”
Her words were cut off as chaos rocked the chamber. Two tall figures hurtled through the portal. Cadan pushed her behind him, but not before her flashlight highlighted a harpy. It shrieked when the light blinded it, and charged.
“Watch out!” Esha screamed, blasting a fireball from her palm at the harpy that charged toward Diana.
No! If they caught her and took her to Paulinus, she would lose the advantage. Her plan would be dead.
“Go!” Warren yelled as he clashed with the second demon. “We’ll hold them off.”
Diana and Cadan took off for the portal, dodging around the harpy that had lost an arm to Esha’s fireball. She grabbed Cadan’s hand, and with one last breath, stepped into the area that she thought held the portal.
She gasped when the world suddenly quieted and darkened.
Wait. She could breathe?
“Diana.” Cadan’s voice was awed. “You have your body.”
She looked down at her arm. He was right. She was flesh and blood, as he was. He, she had expected. But she stared at her own arm in joy. It didn’t have the pale translucence of the souls she’d seen here before. Those souls maintained the same form they’d had on earth, but were a pale imitation of themselves.
She was just...Diana. But somehow more, as if taking this last step toward courage had allowed the two aspects of her soul to knit properly together. She felt the strength and knowledge of Boudica running through her veins all the more strongly. Even if her plan failed, she would have Boudica’s strength and skill to fall back on.
“You’re a warrior, Diana. The portal was no barrier to you.”
She hadn’t died? If she still had her body, did that mean that Paulinus was meant to kill her here?
“We can do this,” she told Cadan. And herself.
“Aye, always knew you could.”
She nodded gratefully, then slipped the charm over her head as he did the same. His confidence acted as a buoy for her own.
She spun to look at their surroundings. It was the same place she’d visited before. Still gloomy and dark, with a foul yellowish mist creeping along the ground, but she was actually here this time instead of just her consciousness.
The river flowed sluggishly nearby, winding through the marsh that grew on either side. A vast field of wheat stretched before them that led to the forest where Paulinus had created his altar.
She swallowed.
“Which way?” Cadan lowered his hand to the sword sheathed at his side. They hadn’t seen anyone else yet, but she gripped her sword tighter as well.
“Toward the forest.”
They set off in that direction, stepping cautiously on the boggy ground. It soon hardened beneath their feet as the marsh transitioned to the field. Gray wheat rose up to their thighs, waving lightly in the foul breeze.
“Go first to the boy, and stay with him.”
“Aye, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you as well.”
She tried to smile, but she was filled with nothing but dark purpose now. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the boy. About her daughters. Boudica had sent him here, and though she understood the rage and pain that had caused her to do so, as Diana she couldn’t bear the thought.
The boy hadn’t killed her daughters; he was just a child. She’d do what she could to make amends. As she couldn’t for her daughters.
They reached the forest and began to pick their way around fallen limbs and branches. Black, leafless oaks twisted and reached toward a gray, starless sky of perpetual night.