Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana 1)

“I wasn’t ready,” Diana cried as soon as she stood in the chamber. It was even darker than the forest in Erebus and it took her eyes a moment to adjust. Cadan was running his hands over her body. He cupped her face.

“The hell you weren’t,” he said.

Diana felt Esha’s hands at her back. “She looks okay,” Esha said. “I can see the mark on her soul, but it will fade since it isn’t physical.”

She pulled away from them both. “You should have let me stay.”

“Your sword dinna affect Paulinus,” Warren said. “And you dinna have a chance against five harpies.”

“I had no idea there’d be so many. We didn’t see them when we went in the first time,” Esha said.

“Damn it.” Diana stomped her foot. “I just really wanted to finish this, especially if it could be done without me dying.”

“That was no guarantee, not once their blades cut so deep and there were so many of them. You couldn’t get to Vivienne, and your blade wouldn’t work on Paulinus when only part of your soul was there. This plan gave you a greater chance of living. Not a certain one.”

Diana scowled. Esha was right. She’d held her own, but she’d been outnumbered. More importantly, her blade hadn’t affected Paulinus. But the sight of Vivienne, bound at the foot of the tree, stuck in her mind like a burr. She had to save her.

“We need a new plan. Fast. Can we talk about it in your office?” Diana asked Warren.

He nodded and they departed the chamber, making their way through the underground until they reached the entrance near Edinburgh castle. Diana realized they were close to Cadan’s flat.

“Can we swing by your place so I can get cleaned up? I know my body didn’t go in, but I feel filthy from that place,” Diana asked him.

“Sure.”

Esha looked up from where she stood nearby and said, “We can meet at Cadan’s if he doesn’t mind. It’s closer.”

“Aye, it’s fine,” Cadan said.

It was a short drive to his flat. Esha rode with them since she had aetherwalked to the underground.

“I won’t be long,” Diana said as she carried her bag of clothes to the bathroom.

She showered quickly, more to wash away the memories of the demons’ hands on he

r than to actually get clean. As she was rifling through her bag for clean clothes, her hands closed on the book at the bottom of her bag.

The treatise with the picture of Arthur’s Seat that had led her here. She’d read it on the plane, but hadn’t found anything useful. But now that she knew who she was…

Diana dressed quickly and carried the book out of the bathroom and into the living room. Cadan sat on the couch, while Esha and Warren had taken the two chairs at either end.

She held up the book and said, “A month ago, I ordered this book off the Internet because I thought it might have something to do with the manuscript I’m working on back home. But there’s a drawing inside of Arthur’s Seat that led me here. Did you send it to me?”

Warren shook his head. “Dinna send you anything. We dinna know exactly who Boudica’s soul would be reborn to, so we couldn’t. Could be coincidence, or fate that you picked that one. Perhaps Aerten sent it to you.”

He reached out and she handed the treatise to him. It was a compendium of Celtic myths recorded during the Celtic Revival period in the eighteenth century, when academics and antiquarians had become interested in what they perceived to be Britain’s misty and romantic past. It had appealed to her a month ago when she’d found it for sale on a used books site. Her attraction to it made even more sense now.

Warren frowned down at the book. “I’ll be damned. Mary Anderson.”

“Who was she?” Diana asked.

“A mortal who came to the university in the mid eighteenth century when I first joined the Praesidium.” He looked at Cadan. “You would no’ remember. I think you were off somewhere else that century.”

“West Indies,” Cadan answered.

“Aye, well, and Esha would no’ be here for another three centuries. Anyway, she was a seer, and while she was here, she wrote three volumes of prophecy. They were presented in the form of myths or fairytales, but she was certain they would come true.”

“That’s the second volume—a collection of Celtic myths,” Diana said.