Harvest of the Gods Read Online Free Page B

behold, a collection of memories, desires, and magic that swam about without rhyme or reason. Now I was not only going to have to take another look, I was going to have to look longer.
    “It'll be okay,” Torrent said as if he knew my fears. “Just concentrate on finding Demeter's trail.”
    “ Right, okay,” I looked around. “I don't see it here.”
    “ I didn't expect you to,” he smiled. “She traced in way back in Yosemite. You'll have to find her again in the Aether. Do you think you can?”
    “ If it's as obvious as it was over where we started, I should be able to,” I frowned and looked back over my shoulder, the way we'd come. “I know the direction to look in.”
    “ Okay,” he took my hand. “Let's do this.”
    We stepped into the tunnel and made our way forward into the Aether. I could feel the change as soon as we passed through the hazy wall but I took a moment to steel myself before I looked up. The Aether was intense, it held pieces of everyone who'd ever traveled through it and energy from every spell ever crafted with it. Looking into it was like looking at a carnival side show view of millions of lives all at once.
    I finally looked up and tried to ignore the bombardment of memory upon memory, searching instead for the telltale sign of Demeter's passing. It was nowhere to be found, since I was pretty sure we were in the line that connected Odin's Santa TV to the Human Realm, I was a little relieved to know that Demeter hadn't jumped out in Asgard. On the other hand...
    “ Can we move horizontally through here?” I asked Torrent.
    “ Sure,” he moved toward the spot I indicated and just kept walking. The Inter Realm moved with him, “it's pretty flexible if you exert your will on it.”
    “ Oh, sweet,” I started forward but the tunnel wouldn't budge for me. “You mean if you exert your will on it,” I gestured to the immovable wall and began walking behind Torrent.
    “ Huh,” Torrent blinked and then shrugged. “Okay, I guess it doesn't do that for everyone. I'll keep going straight and when you spot her trail, just give me a holler.”
    “ Okay,” I took little glances as he walked, not able to withstand the onslaught of the Aether for long.
    We'd gone quite a ways when I finally spotted it, a red line running across our path and going straight toward the boundary of the Aether. I was about to point it out to Torrent when a memory floating through the Aether, caught my attention.
    It was of a little girl with rich brown hair and huge green eyes. She was smiling, reaching up for someone. The memory was from that person's perspective, so I couldn't see the face, but the arms that reached for the child were pale gold and a gold braid swung forward into view. The child laughed as she was swung above the person, smiling down with adoration.
    “ Sephy?” I whispered.
    “ What's that?” Torrent turned around.
    “ I think that's Persephone when she was a child,” I pointed at the memory as it continued to play out, undulating through the Aether, though it stayed fairly close to the red streak. “Demeter's left a memory behind.”
    “ We all do,” he shrugged. “It's like paying a toll but it's only a copy, the Aether doesn't steal the memory. So can you see the path now?”
    “ Huh?” I blinked and looked away from what had to be one of Demeter's happiest memories of her daughter. “Oh, yeah, it ends right there, at the point next to that blue sports car.”
    “ I see the block,” he declared as he moved our little vein of Inter Realm closer to the spot Demeter's path disappeared. “This is no problem at all, only take me a few minutes.”
    “ Great,” I chewed at my lip.
    The glimpse into Demeter's past was making my belly clench. It was hard to equate the loving mother in that memory to the monster Demeter had become. The most troubling thing about it though, was that it wasn't only Demeter's memory. It belonged to Sephy too. This was the mother she remembered and