Before the Fall by Sable Grace Page A

loud and bawdy as they boasted of their latest feats and accomplishments, but for now, the quiet was the first bit of peacefulness Kyana had experienced in a week. She entered the cave nestled between large marble boulders, her keen eyes having no trouble finding the path in the dark. Down. Down. Down. The carved steps spiraled like a snail’s shell, and soon she was able to hear the faint whisper of water lapping at sand.
    The darkness shifted, giving way to a faintly glowing gold light a short distance away. As her foot made contact with the soft sand, she breathed in the scent of death that always came with entering the River Styx, and made her way to Charon, the ferryman. Flipping two coins at the haggard old spirit, Kyana stepped onto the long, flat boat and braced her feet for balance.
    She loathed the River Styx. She hated the smell of death and the low wails coming from Tartarus below that chilled even her icy Vampyric blood, reminding her of her fate should true death ever find her. While some of the spirits waiting for eternal placement roamed visibly along the banks of the river, some remained unseen, and those she hated most of all. It was as though they passed through her, each of them pleading quiet demands to her soul as she tapped her foot impatiently at the torturously slow ferry.
    â€œCan’t you make this thing go faster?”
    Charon didn’t acknowledge her request. He stood at the helm of his little ferry, not needing to do anything more than stare in the direction of their destination to make his vessel obey.
    If threatening, intimidating, or shoving him off his damned ferry would get her there faster, she would have done it. But Charon didn’t scare easily. In fact, she wasn’t sure he felt anything . . . ever. He was just a cold, transparent, expressionless being that almost . . . almost . . . evoked her pity.
    Having no other choice but to bear the slow journey, she focused on the distant cave and turned her thoughts toward Jordan Faye and the strange mark on her breast. There were thousands of Chosen, but only three were branded with that mark. Two others were still out there. Perhaps safely Below. Perhaps discarded like all the other meaningless humans littering the mortal roads. Only time would tell.
    When the boat docked, she snarled at the ferryman before stepping onto the rocky beach. Dark water licked her boots, but no tide touched the path leading to the stone chamber in front of her.
    Kyana heard the faint sobbing before she made out the shadowed silhouettes of the three women huddled at the end of the cave. Their forms hunched over a smoking cauldron, the scent of which stirred within her a fresh hunger. She’d never learned what, exactly, the contents of that cauldron were. The scent seemed to change depending on the person smelling it, becoming intoxicating, reminding them of something they desperately wanted but usually couldn’t name.
    For Kyana, the longing made her woozy and slightly sad. For what, she didn’t know. Desperately trying to place the desire kept her occupied as she made her way down the passage, but she couldn’t remember a time, living or undead, when she’d been as melancholy as the nostalgic sensation that aroma evoked in her now.
    As she approached the women, they stepped away from the cauldron and lifted their hoods in greeting. The middle woman wiped a tear from her cheek, her shaky smile not quite genuine.
    â€œKyana,” she whispered. “You’ve come unannounced.”
    Much lovelier than Shakespeare’s interpretation of them as the Wyrd Sisters, the Moerae, also known as the three Fates, peered at Kyana with youthful eyes. Their entire beings glimmered with golden dust, though that dust was nowhere near as bright as it had once been.
    Kyana nodded in greeting. The beacon she refused to wear burned in her pocket. She was being summoned by an Ancient. More than likely, Artemis. But the