The Immortal Throne

by Bree Despain

  I will follow Daphne into the dark.

  I lean against my pillow and pull the bottle of sleeping draught from my belt. Ethan had said to be careful with it. More than a drop could kill. I open the lid and pull out the glass dropper. Stop, says that voice inside my head. You aren’t thinking clearly. This isn’t the answer . . . I set the dropper aside and raise the bottle to my lips.

  The taste is bitter, like asphodel blossoms—the flowers that grow in the Wastelands of the underworld—and this strikes me as oddly appropriate. Stop! The voice shouts. Jonathan said the poison will drive you to hurt yourself. This idea isn’t yours . . . I let the liquid roll over my tongue and think of Daphne.

  The poison is driving you to this . . .

  And then I stop before I swallow. Dax’s voice—the rational part of my brain, not tainted by the poison—shouts loudly in my head. Telling me I’m being a fool. That the Underrealm doesn’t work that way—being dead doesn’t mean I can run around the realm as a free soul looking for Daphne. No, I will be turned into a Shade, my memory wiped. I’d become the kind of monster I was trying to save her from. Even if I remembered, even if I found her, I would only be a danger to her.

  Rational thinking returns to my mind, and I realize this isn’t a reasonable plan—it was the black poison driving me to put an end to my suffering. Trying to trick me into thinking I am doing the brave thing.

  I sit bolt upright, the potion pooled in my mouth. I lean over to spit it out, but before I can open my mouth, hands grab my head. One clasps over my mouth and nose, the other claws into my hair, wrenching my head backwards. I struggle against the hands, clawing at them, but their grip only gets stronger.

  “What’s the matter, little brother, you lose your nerve?”

  My eyes focus on my attacker. Rowan. My brother bares his teeth in a malevolent smile. I can’t breathe. He’s suffocating me. He wrenches back on my hair, bending my head backward so hard I think he’s trying to snap my neck. I gasp for air, not realizing the mistake, and the sleeping potion slips down my throat.

  My eyes must show my panic because Rowan laughs and lets go with a forceful shove. My head slams into the wooden headboard, and I slump onto my pillow. Nothing happens at first and I hope to Hades that Ethan had been exaggerating about the potion. But then a heavy feeling falls over my shoulders and chest, and I cannot sit up no matter how hard I try.

  “Why?” I ask, looking up at my brother.

  “I am merely finishing what you weren’t man enough to finish on your own,” he says. “And because it’s what Father would have wanted. Death to the traitor who sent him off to the Sky King with your Skylord scum friends.”

  “I didn’t . . .” I try to say, but my tongue becomes so heavy I can’t speak.

  “I saw you,” Rowan says. “I saw you take off to the Skyrealm with Father as your prisoner. I wasn’t able to stop you, but I can certainly punish you.”

  I try to tell him that what he saw is not what came to pass. That I returned from the Skyrealm with Father. That I granted him his freedom. That the two of us had come to an understanding. A reconciliation. Alas, my mouth no longer follows the commands of my brain.

  He smiles. “Not that I need any more reason. I’ve always wanted you dead. Ever since Mother decided she like you best.”

  It becomes almost impossible to keep my eyes open.

  “You’ve ruined everything. There never should have been any question. You’re the Lesser brother, not me. I should have been the heir apparent. I should be sitting on the immortal throne right now with the Key in my hands and your precious Cypher at my side . . .”

  He goes on but I can no longer make out the words. I close my eyes and it feels like I am sinking in thick water, falling limp. I can’t feel my fingers, then my arms and my legs. My chest feels too heavy to breathe. I am tired. So very, very tired. And I don’t want to fight the dark nothingness anymore. As I let it settle into my brain, I think I hear someone calling my name. The voice sounds like Dax’s again.

  A bright light engulfs me. I am standing in some sort of forest or corridor lined with trees. A black gate stands at the end of it. I hear Dax calling me again. Perhaps he is on the other side. Waiting for me. The gate creaks open a few inches as I approach. I hear my name once more. I look back behind my shoulder. The trees and the corridor are gone. There’s only darkness behind me. The light from beyond the gate beckons me.

  I push the gate open wider and step through.

  chapter thirty-seven

  daphne

  I find myself lying in the grove in Olympus Hills. Or at least I assume it’s the same grove, even though it looks so different. The ground is scorched and littered with upturned earth and broken tree branches from burned trees. There must have been a battle here. I look up at the sky and shield my eyes from the noonday sun. It’s so much brighter here than the ethereal daylight of the Underrealm.

  The Underrealm. Tobin!

  I push myself up and hobble to the two arched trees that cloak Persephone’s Gate in the mortal world. It pulses with green light. Tobin is on the other side with the Keres. I know it even though I cannot see him. My first thought is to jump back through and try to save him, but then I remember what he shouted when he let go of my hand. He wanted me to get the others and come back for him. And he was right. Even though I can use my vocal powers to make the Keres solid, there’s nothing I can do to stop them without someone who can throw lightning.

  I need Haden.

  But as much as I hate the idea of locking Tobin out, the first thing I need to do is lock the gate. I can’t risk any Keres slipping through. One had done enough damage on its own—an entire swarm would decimate Olympus Hills in no time. And if what Haden had told me was true, if the Keres get strong enough from feeding on the life forces of people, they could multiply exponentially—and destroy the world.

  I dig into my pocket to pull out the Key, but it isn’t there. The talisman and Joe’s coin remain, but instead of the Key, I only find a small hole in the lining of the pocket, just big enough for the Key to slip through.

  I let out a string of swear words and shake my cloak and my skirts. I search the ground, looking for anything metallic in the burned grass. I try singing to the Key, beckoning it to come like when I removed it from the tree where it had been hidden for millennia. When that doesn’t work, I swear some more. The Key is gone. Once again it’s lost. Either in this realm, the other, or possibly somewhere in between. Only this time, the gate is unlocked.

  I pick up my skirts and run, dashing wildly, adrenaline driving me to ignore the throbbing pain in my knee, out of the grove and onto the jogging paths that will take me away from the lake. I don’t know where to go—back to Joe’s perhaps?—to find Haden and the others. What if they’re still in the Skyrealm?

  I remember the communication talisman. I pull it from my pocket, and without slowing my pace, I try to make a call. My talisman glows with a green light but no one picks up on the other end. I try once more and then shove it back in my pocket, when I come to a crossroads—a fork in the path. One direction will take me back toward Joe’s, and the other will take me to the other side of the lake, where Haden’s house is. I stop for a moment to catch my breath. Logic tells me to head toward Joe’s because that’s the most likely place they would use to rendezvous, but my heart tells me to turn to Haden’s.

  I get an idea and grab the pomegranate charm between my fingers. I close my eyes and envision Haden’s living room where he and I sat at the coffee table eating the French toast we’d made. I remember wanting to kiss him so badly but not wanting to allow myself to do so. How could I have been so dumb? I get a clear picture of that coffee table in my mind, but when I open my eyes I find myself still standing on the lake path. A few more choice words come out of my mouth. Apparently I can only teleport in the Underrealm.

  I take off in a limping run once more. Not stopping for anything until I make it to Haden’s doorstep. The door has been left wide open. I enter the
house. The smell tells me that no one has been living here for days, but I don’t let that stop me. I run up the stairs, feeling as though some invisible thread is pulling me there.

  I hear voices and follow them all the way to Haden’s bedroom. A group of people stand around Haden’s bed. I recognize Ethan, Joe, and Lexie. They’re joined by a few other people but I don’t take the time to notice who they are because of what I see on the bed. Haden, lying as still as death on his back.

  “Haden?” I say from the doorway. Someone gasps. I don’t know who. I can’t take my eyes off of Haden. He looks like some sort of ghastly marbled statue, the way his veins have gone black and hard under his too-pale skin. “What happened?”

  “It’s too late,” someone says. “Haden is dead.”

  I am reeling. Spinning. The whole world feels like it’s spinning off its axis.

  “No,” I say. “It can’t be. I thought I had time. I thought I could make it back.”

  Had I wasted too much time trying to save Tobin, only to have to leave him behind? Did I make the wrong choice?

  Did I cause this?

  “Sleeping potion,” someone says, but I don’t know who. I don’t care. I can’t focus on anyone but Haden. “Someone helped him down the whole bottle.”

  “Someone?” Haden was murdered? It wasn’t even the black poison.

  “I only finished what he started,” someone else says.

  Started? Haden would do this to himself?

  I remember Jonathan saying the black poison would drive its victim into madness. Make him the greatest danger to himself.

  “Sleeping potion?” My mind finally focuses on that fact. The other thing it focuses on is all the worried and melancholy tones bombarding my ears. The sounds of sorrow coming from Haden’s companions are so overwhelming that I almost don’t catch the other noise. It’s a small sound, like a distant chime of a small bell coming from the direction of Haden’s chest. I don’t think anyone else can hear it—which means . . .

  “Everyone get out!” I say.

  “Daphne . . . What . . . ?” I think it is Joe who says this but I don’t know.

  “Get out!” I demand, waving them away. “I need to listen.”

  The other people and their overpowering tones shuffle out of the room. I hear someone whisper that I might be out of my mind, but I don’t really care. When the room empties, I rush to Haden’s side and listen closely, placing my ear over his chest. The tone, so faint, is coming from inside his ribcage. Having worked for the only florist in a small town, I had seen my fair share of dead bodies when delivering wreaths and bouquets to the local funeral home. Something that had struck me as interesting ever since I was a young child was that even though other organic things like rocks and rain have inner songs, the bodies of dead people and animals do not give off any sound.

  “He has no pulse,” someone says from the doorway. The voice strikes me as familiar but different somehow. Deeper. More commanding. “We tried resuscitation. He’s as good as gone—”

  “No,” I say. He may not have a pulse but he does have a song, a tiny chime, coming from his heart. “I don’t think he’s dead. Not yet. I think he’s in a deep sleep.”

  “Perhaps not,” that voice says. “You’re his true love. You’re bonded. There’s still the kiss.”

  True love’s kiss. The thing that fairy tales were made of. Only, according to Jonathan, he’s the one who invented the concept. I had administered the true love arrow to Haden, but I had not sealed the cure with true love’s kiss. The only thing that could release him from the black poison’s grip.

  I practically throw myself on top of Haden’s body. I grip his blackened hand. “Come back to me.” I press my lips to his marbled mouth. They’re as cold and unyielding as stone. I press harder, trying to give him all of my warmth. “Haden, I love you. You have to come back to me.”

  chapter thirty-eight

  haden

  I find myself standing on what appears to be an old boat dock on a riverbank. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t remember why I came. I feel as though I should be looking for something—or possibly a someone—but I don’t remember what.

  A woman dressed in veils appears beside me. Is she who I am looking for?

  “Haden,” she says from behind a veil that hides her face. Her voice strikes me as familiar, but I cannot place it. “I was sent to greet you.”

  “Where am I?” I ask.

  “In Elysium.”

  “Elysium?” I had dreamed of this place. It is where heroes go when they die with honor. “But I don’t belong here. I had my honor taken from me years ago.”

  I should be a Shade.

  “True honor cannot be taken,” the woman says. “But it can be given. And there are many who honor you. As a friend. A leader. A loved one.”

  I shake my head but then remember Dax telling me after I decided to take up the fight to find the Key and destroy the Keres that I was honorable to him. “Alas, I have failed. I am not a hero.”

  “A hero is one who would sacrifice all to save his friends.” She steps closer and her veils float around her as if blown by an invisible wind. “But I have been sent with a message for you. A choice.”

  A large black boat approaches the dock. A crooked old man with a long oar steers the ship.

  “Your life thread has not been fully severed. Not quite yet. So you have a choice. You can get on this boat and it will take you to the Temple of Judgment. You will drink from the water of Lethe and forget your former life, and then return here to live with the Oracle as I do. She has chosen you to be one of her companions. You will rest and your quest will be considered over. You can be at peace with your honor.” She points toward the gate with a long, glittering finger. “Or, you can choose to go back the way you came—back through the gate—before it closes. And return to the fight. Darkness is coming but the light is gathering in order to beat it back. Your friends still need you. Your world still needs you, Haden. But it is your choice. Your destiny is in your hands.”

  I look at my hands. They’re no longer black, and the pain is gone.

  The woman holds one of her arms out as if to escort me to the boat. “You’ve fought so hard already. No one will blame you if you choose to rest. Choose to forget all that you have lost . . .” Then she holds out her other arm, gesturing back toward the gate. “Or you can choose to live and return to the fight.”

  I remember the feeling of being so very tired before giving in to the poison in my system. That feeling still clings to me now. It’s so heavy that I don’t know if I can even make it all the way back to the gate, let alone go on fighting. It would be so much easier to take the few steps needed to get on the boat. To sit. To rest. To be done.

  I think of everything I have lost. Images of Dax and Daphne and Brimstone flash through my mind. Each comes with a sharp stab to the heart. I have lost so much . . . It would be nice to forget . . .

  No. I don’t want to forget Daphne. She is who I am supposed to remember, I think just as I hear a voice calling my name again. This time it isn’t Dax’s voice. It sounds like Daphne’s, calling to me from somewhere beyond the gate. But that can’t be. Daphne is gone. Trapped. Possibly dead.

  As am I.

  “Is he coming or what?” the old man calls from the boat. “I haven’t got all century.”

  I stare at the boat and then look at the gate. I hear Daphne call my name once again. Come back to me. Those were the words she spoke that saved my life six months ago. Am I hearing her now, or is it a trick my dying brain is playing on me? Recalling old memories? Telling me what I want to hear?

  Haden, I love you. You have to come back to me.

  A feeling of warmth radiates through my body. I turn toward the gate. I try to run but my legs feel like lead. Every step weighs me down, but I don’t stop moving. I finally make it back to the gate. It stands open only a crack. It will close soon but I look back at the dock, wondering if I am making the right choice. The boat is pulling away.
The woman lowers her veil, revealing her young face, and gives me a nod of approval.

  Mother, I think as she vanishes into thin air.

  With all the strength I have left, I push the gate open and stumble into the dark.

  chapter thirty-nine

  daphne

  Haden’s lips become soft. Pulsing with warmth, with life. The black veins that mar his otherwise perfect face recede and disappear. He opens his eyes. It takes a moment for them to focus. “Daphne?” he says sleepily. “You’re here.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I was coming to rescue you.”

  “I know.”

  “I was going to save you.”

  “I know.”

  “But you saved yourself.”

  “I know.”

  “And now you’ve saved me.”

  “I know,” I say, clasping my fingers behind his head and drawing his lips closer to mine. “I love you.” I kiss him once more. He melts against me, his body and mouth showing me his gratitude.

  When we finally pull apart, looking for air, he caresses my jawline with his fingers. “You have no idea how nice it is to be fully cognizant while hearing those words.” He kisses my cheek, soft and lingering. “I love you, too.”

  “I know,” I say.

  Haden shivers. Electricity prickles my lips as he closes them over mine again. “Is there anything you don’t know?” he says after a moment. His lips, so close to mine, quirk into a smile. There’s nothing better in this world than Haden smiling. It strikes me that there are all sorts of things I don’t know, and would like to discover with him . . .”Ahem,” comes the sound of someone clearing his voice from behind us, followed by a gentle knock on the door.

  I pull away from Haden, suddenly remembering all the people out in the hallway. Heat rushes into my face.

  “Hey guys,” Haden says to the crowd in the hall, waving his hand and smiling sheepishly as if in a dreamy daze.