P.C. Cast - Burned

“It has to be more complicated than that.”

“Probably, but whatever. We’ll figure it out.”

“How?”

Aphrodite paused, thinking of Thanatos and her wise, dark eyes. “I might know someone who can at least point us in the right direction.”

“Don’t let Neferet know you’re onto her,” Stevie Rae cautioned.

“I’m not stupid, stupid,” Aphrodite said. “Leave this whole thing in my extremely capable and well-manicured hands. I’ll call you later with an update. Bye!” She hit the red END CALL button before Stevie Rae could nag her anymore. And, smiling slyly, headed back into the Council Chamber.

The longer he stayed in the same room as Neferet, the hotter Stark’s anger burned. And that was good. He could think through anger. He couldn’t think through the grief. Goddess! The unbearable grief of losing his Priestess . . . his Zoey . . .

“So we are in agreement then,” Neferet said. “I will take my consort’s body to Capri. There I can watch over him until the time when—”

It finally registered with Stark what the bitch was saying, and he rounded on her, only stopped short from launching himself at the evil hag by Darius’s ironlike grip on his arm.

“You can’t let her escape with him!” Stark yelled at Duantia, the Leader of the High Council. “Kalona killed Heath; I saw it. Zoey saw it. That’s what made this happen to her.” He gestured at Zoey’s soulless body without looking down at her. He couldn’t look at her.

“Escape?” Neferet scoffed. “I’ve already agreed to be escorted by a group of Sons of Erebus Warriors, and to make regular reports to the Council regarding Erebus’s state of consciousness. After all, my consort isn’t a criminal. It isn’t against our laws for a Warrior to kill a human if he’s in the service of the Goddess.”

Stark ignored Neferet and concentrated on Duantia. “Don’t let her go. Don’t let her take him. He did more than kill a human guy, and they aren’t in the service of Nyx.”

“Lies propagated by a jealous teenager, who had so little control over herself that her eternal soul has been shattered!” Neferet snapped.

“You fucking bitch!” Stark lunged for Neferet, who didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, she lifted one elegant hand and pointed it, palm outward, at Stark. As he struggled to free himself from Darius’s hold, Stark thought he saw black smoke begin materializing around Neferet’s fingers.

“Stop it, Stark, you total moron!”

Suddenly, Aphrodite was there right in front of him. Stark knew she was Zoey’s friend, but if Darius hadn’t had a vise-like hold on him, he wouldn’t have hesitated to knock her aside to get to Neferet.

“Stark!” Aphrodite yelled at him. “You’re not helping Zoey!” Then the blonde did something that totally shocked him, and by Darius’s sharp intake of breath, she shocked her Warrior, too. She took his face between her smooth palms and forced him to stare into her eyes, whispering words that changed his life. “I know how to help Zoey.”

“You see how uncontrollable he is! If my consort’s body remains here, who knows what this undisciplined child could do to it?” Neferet spewed her poison as Stark kept his eyes locked with Aphrodite’s.

“Do you swear?” Stark whispered urgently back to her. “You’re not just talking crap?”

Aphrodite lifted one blond brow. “If you knew me better, you’d know I never just talk crap , but yes. I swear on my new and annoyingly responsible title of Prophetess that I know how to help Zoey, but we need her away from Neferet. Get it?”

Stark nodded once and quit straining against Darius. Aphrodite took her hands from his face. Looking and sounding every bit a Prophetess of Nyx, she whirled around to face Neferet and the High Council.

“Why are you all so willing to believe Zoey is going to die?”

Duantia was first to respond. “Her soul has left her body, and not just on a Spirit Journey to the Otherworld, or in temporary communion with the Goddess. Zoey has been shattered.”

One of the Council members who had stayed mostly silent until then spoke up. “You must understand what that means, Prophetess. Zoey’s spirit is in the Otherworld in pieces. Past lives have been stripped from her, as have memories and different aspects of her personality. She is becoming one of the Caoinic Shi’, a thing not dead and not alive—a being trapped in the realm of spirits, yet without the comfort of her own spirit.”

“No. Seriously. Speak American and not this ancient and very fucked-up, confusing olden-day Euro crap.” Aphrodite planted one hand on the curve of her waist, and the other pointed a finger at the Vampyre High Council in general. “Without the confusing woo-woo references, explain why the hell you’re writing Zoey off.”

Stark heard a few of the Council members draw in breath at Aphrodite’s brash words and registered the smug, “I told you they were out of control” look Neferet shared with several of the vamps, but Thanatos responded smoothly. “What Aether is saying is that the layers of spirit that make Zoey who she is today—her past lives, her past experiences, her personality—have been stripped from her, and without those layers intact, it is impossible for her to rest in the Otherworld, or for her spirit to return to her body here in this world. Think of it as if you had been in a terrible accident and the layers of skin and muscle and bone that protect your heart have been peeled away from your body, leaving that vital organ bare and defenseless. What would happen to you then?”

Aphrodite paused, and Stark thought she hesitated because she didn’t want to say the obvious answer, but she glanced at him, and when their eyes met, he was surprised to see triumph and excitement in hers. “If my heart didn’t have any protection, it wouldn’t keep beating. So why not get Zoey some protection?”

Protection! I’m Zoey’s protection! A small quiver of hope moved through his body. “I’m her protection!” he said quickly. “I don’t care if it’s in this world or the next. Just show me how to get to where she is, and I’ll be there for her.”

“That does, indeed, sound logical, Stark,” Thanatos said. “But your gifts are that of a Warrior, which means your skills are corporeal and not of the spirit realm.”

“Protection is protection,” Stark insisted. “Just show me how to get where she is, and I’ll figure the rest of it out.”

“Zoey must make her spirit whole again, and that is a battle you cannot fight for her,” Aether said.

“But I can be there for her while she gets herself together. I can protect her,” Stark insisted.

“A living Warrior cannot enter the Otherworld. Not even to follow his High Priestess,” Aether said.

“Should you attempt it, you would be lost, too,” Duantia said.

“You don’t know that for sure,” Stark said.

“In our recorded history, there is no Warrior who has recovered from attempting to follow his Priestess’s shattered spirit into the Other-world. All of them perished—every Warrior and every High Priestess,” Thanatos said.

Stark felt a jolt of surprise. He hadn’t even thought of that—that he’d die, too. With a detached sense of curiosity, he realized he didn’t really mind the idea of dying, not if he could fulfill his Oath to Zoey; but before he could respond, Neferet’s cold voice intruded again. “And all of those Warriors and High Priestesses were older and more experienced than you.”

“Maybe that was their problem.” Aphrodite pitched her voice low enough that only Stark heard her murmur. “They were too old and had too much experience.”