Page 67 of Harbinger

The fever that had afflicted Morgan since his return from Ivory Peaks had finally abated. Cassius wished he could interpret this as a positive sign. Except he knew it wasn’t.

“I’ll be back soon, my love,” he whispered shakily. “Wait for me.”

Morgan remained lifeless, eyes closed and face waxen. He was barely recognizable as the powerful demigod he had once been.

Cassius’s nails bit into his palms as he rose and whirled away.I swear on everything that I am. Iwillsave you!

He and Atropos found Ladon on a boulder a quarter of a mile from the poplar tree, close to the chasm that split the island. The dragon’s tail twitched agitatedly as he gazed at the arid plain before them.

“There’s nothing here,” Atropos said in a troubled voice.

Ladon looked beseechingly at Cassius. “You can sense it, can you not?”

Atropos looked between them, puzzled.

Cassius dipped his chin, the sound of the waves at the bottom of the gully faint in his ears. The strange force he’d picked up on when they’d landed on the island had gotten stronger.

Relief had Ladon drooping.

Recognition washed over Cassius like a warm summer breeze in the next moment. His eyes widened.

The power he was discerning smelled like Rain Vale, his home and the place of his birth. It was the divine energy of the Nymphs.

“There is something here,” Cassius murmured. “Something we cannot yet see.”

His heart slammed heavily against his ribs. He hesitated before raising a hand, instinct guiding his movements. Heaven’s Light flared on his fingertips.

It sparked when it made contact with an invisible wall some twenty feet away.

Atropos sucked in air. “It’s a barrier!”

Cassius followed the path of the flashes fading above them, his chest lightening as hope surged inside him. “It’s a dome. This is what the Hesperides erected to protect the location of the Garden of the West!”

“Yesss!” Ladon confirmed excitedly. “I wasss ejected from it when the Nether tore!”

“But why could my sisters and I not detect it?” Atropos mumbled. “We should have been able to sense our sisters’ souls through the bond that connects us, regardless of the presence of this shield.”

Cassius frowned. “I guess we’re about to find out.”

He walked over to the invisible wall, placed his hand upon it, and closed his eyes. Heat flooded his body as he drew on his divine powers. The words Ladon had taught him before they’d left Earth rose in his mind while he infused the barrier with the energy of the Nymph Goddess whose blood flowed in his veins.

Cassius opened his mouth and started chanting the Song of the Evening Star.

“Listen to the wind soughing through the branches of this most hallowed realm, Listen to the song of the Graceful Maidens born of Eos and Hesperus, They who guard the Garden of the West, the Sacred Tree, and its Golden Fruits, They who dance under the Setting Sun and above the Rising Moon, They who are Dazzling Light, Sunset Glow, Nymphs of Red and Gold.”

Atropos’s gasp had his eyes slamming open.

The shield was solidifying into a translucent wall. Shimmering in and out of view beyond it was a resplendent garden full of rich, fruit-laden greenery and gurgling brooks. Soaring in its midst atop a low hill in the distance, glowing as bright as a sun, was the Sacred Tree.

Ladon leaned forward, his pupils flaring gold as his soul core started absorbing the divine force it had long been deprived of. “Don’t ssstop, Awakener! You are almossst there!”

Cassius focused on the rest of the song.

“Listen to the wind soughing through the branches of this most hallowed realm, Listen to the song of the Graceful Maidens born of Eos and Hesperus, Follow the Moonbeams to the Poplar, The Elm, and the Willow Tree, For it is there that the Daughters of the Evening Star await the dawn of a New Day, So they can dance under the Sunlight once more, until the Dragon swallows the Moon.”

Arcane symbols flashed into life around his hand. They moved and merged, forming lines that demarcated an opening. The section of the wall they outlined faded to nothingness.

The heavenly scents of the Garden of the West assailed Cassius’s nostrils. Ladon darted through the revealed entrance.

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