Esha nodded. “There was an altar.”
“An altar?” Cadan asked, dread sinking his stomach.
“Yeah,” Esha said. “Nothing says blood sacrifice like an altar.”
Diana swallowed, her eyes stark. “They want to sacrifice me?”
“Yeah, sucks,” Esha said.
“Eloquent, Esha,” Warren said.
“Shut up, Warren—some dead guy wants to cut open my new friend here on a big black rock in hell. Sucks is one of the nicer words to describe it.”
Diana nodded. “So, there’s a spell—probably one that involves my death—that is the key to getting Paulinus out of Erebus?”
“Yes,” Esha said. “I think it is supposed to be an equal exchange. One soul imprisoned so that another can escape. And because you’re the one who put him in Erebus in the first place, your soul is the only one that can get him out. If any soul would work, then he’d have escaped long ago. Hell, most folks in there would be out.”
“So what is Diana supposed to do about it? She has no magic, no way to get to Erebus to kill him. All she can do is look in with Esha’s help,” Cadan said.
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here! I’m not helpless. And I’m sick of you deciding for me.” Her cheeks flushed red. “I killed him the first time—I can do it again if I have to. Which apparently I do.”
“Nay.” It was all Cadan said, but she jerked as if she’d been slapped, then turned to glare at him. He was getting her out of here, and they were going to talk.
“No?” She asked, her voice vibrating with rage. “You dare to tell me no? You have no say over what I do! I know better than to trust you after what you’ve done.”
“What I’ve done?” He was at her side in a second, grasping her arms once again and staring down at her fiercely. She matched his gaze, the dead look in her eyes drowned by rage. “What about you? You’re the one who left!”
He could hear Esha and Warren talking, but through the buzzing in his head couldn’t make out their words.
“Lef—” Diana started to yell back at him, but before she could finish, Esha and her damned feline were at their side. Without warning, she sucked Cadan and Diana through the aether and within seconds. they were standing in his flat in Edinburgh’s Old Town.
“You two have something to work out before we can get any further. Call me when you’re done.” She disappeared.
They stood, breathing heavily, still clasped together.
“Why, Cadan? Why did you lock me away? Why did you take my choice?” She gazed up at him, the questions hanging between them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“I couldn’t lose you.” Pain hollowed out Cadan’s voice, as if something vital had been carved free of his soul. “I’d lost too many. Was unable to protect too many.”
It dawned on her then. His family. When the Romans had taken his village, they’d killed many of the Trinovantes and expelled the rest from their homes. She’d known the loss of his sisters and mother in the initial attack had affected him, but she’d had no idea how much. He’d carried that burden with him, blamed himself, though he’d barely been out of childhood when they’d attacked. As Boudica, she’d been too filled with her own pain to ask about his, to even wonder. Had that wound been festering all this time?
“You couldn’t have protected them, Cadan. You were a boy. The Romans were an army with the support of the greatest empire on earth. You were lucky to survive when they burned your village.”
“It was my fault. It was my responsibility to protect them.”
“Not yours alone, and their deaths aren’t on your shoulders.”
“Yours is.” His voice was bleak, his eyes dark with pain.
“No!” She wanted to stamp her foot. How could he not get this? “It’s not. That’s what you don’t understand. It wasn’t your job to protect me above all else. We were to look out for each other in battle, yes, as soldiers do.”
“You were my woman. The woman I loved. The only person left alive who meant anything to me. When our homes were burned, our people killed, you were all that was left.”
Oh God. What was she supposed to do? Her anger was just, his sins unjustifiable. But what could she do in the face of such pain? Continue to kick a man who’d committed his sin out of love? Because she had escaped his trap and fought in the final battle, his actions hadn’t had long-ranging consequences other than killing Boudica’s trust in him.
“And then you left me.” His voice had the jagged edges of pain. “Without a word, without a good-bye, you plunged that dagger into your heart.”