Legacy of the Lost

by Lindsey Fairleigh

  The woman standing just a half-dozen steps away wore a form-fitting suit, black with electric blue piping running from her neck out to her fingertips and down to her toes. A doru was strapped to her back, tucked into a sleek harness. Her dark hair was pulled up and twisted into a bun. Her skin was pale, her features strong but feminine, her build athletic. And her eyes were a deep sapphire blue.

  The same shade of blue I saw every time I looked in the mirror.

  “It’s protocol,” Persephone said, eyes locking with mine. “To prevent a fractured consciousness.”

  I swallowed roughly, feeling like I was staring into a funhouse mirror, one that reflected back a warped, idealized version of myself.

  “You—” I couldn’t get the words out. My jaw trembled, and I licked my lips. “You’re me.”

  39

  “Actually, if you want to get technical about it,” Persephone said, smiling wryly, “you’re me.”

  Ever so slowly, I shook my head. “I’ve lost my mind.”

  “No,” Persephone said, shaking her head, too. She took a step toward me. “Well, yes, actually, but just for a moment—just long enough for us to talk, face to face.” She took another step.

  I held up my hand, not sure I could handle this better version of myself getting any closer.

  Persephone nodded, acquiescing. “Your shock gave me an opening.”

  “Oh,” was all I could manage to say.

  “We don’t have much time, Cora, and I need you to listen to me.” Persephone’s voice was filled with vehemence. “Return to the vault and take the other cube, but leave your bag down here. You can retrieve it later, but this is the only place it will be safe from them.”

  “But what about my mom and Raiden?” I asked. “I have to give Henry something . . .”

  “Don’t you see?” Persephone said, shaking her head. “Once you’ve returned to him, the only one to have ever made it through the labyrinth alive, the balance of power between the two of you will have shifted . . . in your favor.”

  I blinked, lips parting and eyes widening.

  “No matter what, we cannot let them get their hands on the cubes. Better the holodisks contained within remain lost down here forever than end up in their hands.”

  Numbly, I nodded. “What do they want?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Much has changed since I died.”

  Again, I nodded. Much had changed since Persephone died. And I was her clone. Sure. That made perfect sense.

  “You need to translate everything written on the pillars and stored in the holodisk to figure out what exactly Hades is planning.” Her brow furrowed. “It must have something to do with saving our people, but . . .” She shook her head. “There’s no way to know without more information.”

  Half of what she said slipped past me. I was still stuck on her comment about Hades, particularly on the tense she had used—present, not past.

  “What Hades is planning?” I said, brows drawing together. This place was old—crazy advanced technologically, but ancient nonetheless. And Hades had built it. “But isn’t he, you know, dead? And not just a little dead . . . like, way dead.”

  Persephone tilted her head to the side. “Maybe, but probably not,” she said. “He’s too smart . . . too stubborn. It’s complicated.” Before I could ask her to explain more, she continued, “go to the place marked by the beacon. See what else Hades wants us to find. And try not to let the Order know what you’re up to.”

  I gulped, then nodded once.

  This was really happening. I was really her.

  Persephone was fading, like the ghost she was. “And be careful, Cora. I’m always with you, but I can’t always help.”

  Again, I nodded.

  Persephone was fully transparent, now. “If you die, we both die,” she said. “Forever . . .” Her final word was spoken in my head, and her apparition was gone.

  I stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the place where Persephone had been. I finally had some answers, but they only spawned more questions. About a million of them. Maybe the answers were written somewhere, recorded by the camera in my phone or the sheets of paper on the floor, or maybe they were contained within the cubes, but I didn’t have time to figure that out right now.

  Raiden . . . my mom . . .

  Thoughts of the people who were relying on me snapped me out of my stunned state and into action. I gathered the sheets of paper off the floor and tucked them between the pages of the journal, then stowed the book in my backpack. Straightening, I leaned the doru against the wall beside the archway. I couldn’t risk having it confiscated the second I stepped foot in Vatican territory.

  After a moment, I crouched down, unzipped the bag, and dug out the hoplon suit. I would look more formidable in Henry’s eyes wearing the ancient armor than my mundane jeans and sweatshirt. But even more importantly, I would feel more formidable.

  “I hope you’re right about this,” I murmured to Persephone, as I set my folded-up clothes on the floor beside my backpack.

  I wasn’t entirely convinced that leaving the bag and all of the artifacts contained within it down here in the labyrinth was the best plan. But I agreed with Persephone on one thing—it would be better to lose the ancient, alien technology forever than to hand it over to the Custodes Veritatis.

  Taking a deep breath, I squared my shoulders and, once again, stepped through a wall of stone.

  40

  I was surrounded by cold water. Flowing water. It swept me away, disorienting me, and I struggled to differentiate up from down.

  On sheer, dumb luck alone, my toe dragged across a rocky surface—the bottom, I hoped. I pushed off with all my strength.

  Seconds later, I broke through the surface. I sputtered for breath as I flailed with arms and legs, attempting to keep my head above the water.

  My injured shoulder slammed into a huge rock jutting out of the water, and searing pain whited out my vision as I spun around. Gasping, I reached for the rock with clawed fingers, barely managing to get a good grip before I was swept past it.

  Luckily, the hoplon suit’s gloves afforded me excellent grip, and I dug my fingers into a crevice a few inches above my handhold as I hacked up a lungful of water. Once I reached the point where I could take long, deep breaths without choking, I was finally able to take in my surroundings.

  I was in the middle of the Tiber River, directly beneath a massive stone arch. At this point, if I never saw another stone arch it would be too soon. The rock I was clinging to wasn’t just a rock, but the base of a pillar supporting a bridge, and the crevice that had become my handhold was the crack between two immense stone blocks.

  The arch curved high overhead, dropping back down to the river about fifty yards away. The murky water of the Tiber River flowed lazily between the two pillars, barely a ripple in the surface save for the wake created by my disturbance. If it hadn’t been for my injuries and the disorientation of being dumped out of the labyrinth ten feet underwater, I doubted I would have struggled at all.

  Squinting, I looked beyond the bridge. The sky was clear but for a few wispy clouds, and the noon sun shone high overhead. I spotted the tower of Castel Sant’Angelo peeking over the high retaining wall beyond the west bank of the river. The five-arched Ponte Sant’Angelo crossed the Tiber a short way up river.

  I dragged myself to the end of the pillar to see how far away I was from the river’s west bank. This bridge was constructed of three arches, with two massive pillars planted in the river itself. My pillar held up half of the central and western arches. I estimated the riverbank to be about forty yards away, slightly closer than the other pillar.

  Forty yards—that was shorter than the length of an Olympic swimming pool. I could handle that, even swimming with one lame arm across the river’s current. It was far from raging, and though I wasn’t an expert swimmer, I could manage a decent breaststroke. And considering that all of my swimming experience had taken place in the frigid Puget Sound, the chill to
this water didn’t bother me one bit. In fact, I could barely feel it through the hoplon suit.

  I pulled my way around the base of the pillar to the other side and planted the soles of both feet against the wall of stone underwater. Taking a deep breath, I pushed off as hard as I could and swam my way toward the riverbank.

  When I was about five yards out, my knee struck a stone lodged in the mucky riverbed. “Ouch,” I muttered, pulling my head out of the water and holding myself up with one hand.

  I crawled the rest of the way to the water’s edge, my good hand sinking into the silty sediment each time I planted it on the riverbed. I headed for a set of stairs handily built into the paved walkway running along the bank of the river, pausing for a moment with my elbows on the paving stones and my knees in the water.

  I crawled the rest of the way onto the paved landing and, on hands and feet, clambered up the six stone steps to the walkway. At the top, I turned so I was sitting, then laid back and stared up at the sky, chest rising and falling rapidly from the exertion. Clearly, I needed to get more exercise.

  While I lay there, I worked out my next moves. I would give myself a minute to catch my breath, and then I would run back to Vatican City, cut to the front of the public admittance line, and demand to be taken to see the Primicerius of the Custodes Veritatis. I figured those three words would do the trick.

  “Stai bene?” The face of a middle-aged man appeared over me, blocking my view of the sun. “Signorina?”

  I blinked in surprise. A laugh bubbled up from my chest and burst out of my mouth. I covered my mouth with one hand, giving the concerned man a thumbs up with the other. I was good. Or, as good as I could be, considering all of the everything I was dealing with right now. I just hoped the gesture translated.

  The man didn’t look convinced, but he did leave me alone, which was all that really mattered.

  Once he was out of sight, I flopped my arms out to either side, inhaled deeply, and smiled.

  Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I was an alien clone. Maybe I would die tomorrow in the search for the ancient Greek god of the dead.

  But today, I was alive. Today, I had the means to save my mom and Raiden.

  Today, for once, my life had a purpose.

  Which meant that today was the best day of my life.

  41

  I was right, dropping the three magic words—Primicerius and Custodes Veritatis—worked like a charm.

  Ten minutes after shoving my way to the front of the line in Saint Peter’s Square, I was being escorted by a couple of heavily armed guards down a marble stairway to the passages beneath the library in the Apostolic Palace. And my guards didn’t look like members of the Italian Carabinieri or the Pontifical Swiss Guard. These men didn’t wear police gear or old-timey uniforms like I would have expected of members of those organizations, respectively; they wore black and gray camo, black body armor, and an array of weaponry that would’ve impressed even Raiden.

  All of this muscle for little old me, and I wasn’t even armed. Not that a trifling thing like weaponry really mattered. I felt fairly confident that, should push come to shove, Persephone would be able to take down both guards without making me break a sweat, no weapons needed. These guys were badasses, there was no mistaking that, but Persephone was next level. She was something else entirely. She was an Amazon warrior, and when it came to combat, no man—or woman—was her equal, save for another Amazon.

  The guards must have been told not to touch me, because they were making an art of keeping their distance while simultaneously crowding me. I wondered what, exactly, they had been told. Henry had seen me read Raiden’s mind, plus I had put on a fun little display with the doru. And there was no saying what kind of information Raiden had fed them on me. I hadn’t gleaned those details from his mind.

  Regardless, it was clear that a hands-off policy was in place.

  The stairs gave way to a wide passage with a low ceiling, the polished marble transitioning to less shiny travertine. The dim lighting and pale stone lent the place the feel of a mausoleum.

  Intricate cast iron gates blocked evenly spaced openings on either side of the passage. I peered through the first opening as we passed. Through the gate, I could see a small alcove filled with wine racks loaded up with wine bottles covered in a heavy coating of dust. Not a mausoleum, I realized, but a wine cellar.

  After passing three more wine alcoves on either side, we reached an intersecting corridor and took a right. About ten yards in, another stairway delved deeper under the library.

  When we reached the bottom of that second stairway and turned the corner, I recognized where we were—the torch-lined passage that led to the vault. One more corner up ahead, and the vault door would be within sight.

  The guards stopped when we reached the final corner, taking up posts on either side. The vault door was shut, another guard posted there. Waiting for me.

  I marched past my escorts and started down the final corridor, reviewing my plan in my head.

  I wanted to get this over with and to get both Raiden and my mom out of here and into the labyrinth as quickly as possible. Once we were through, we would need to flee the city and hole up somewhere remote, where we could regroup and plot our next steps.

  I was certain Persephone could’ve come up with something better, but she had been quiet since exiting the labyrinth. Maybe she exhausted herself by appearing to me like she had. I didn’t know.

  What I did know was that my lame-o, vague plan was the only plan I had.

  Both my mom and Raiden were expert plotters, so I was very comfortable with putting all of my eggs in their baskets, once we’d flown the coop, so to speak.

  I was about halfway down the corridor when the guard at the door turned to lock and started rotating the dials, entering the six-digit code. There was a deep clang, and the lock disengaged, the reinforced door cracking open a few inches. The guard stepped across the corridor and pulled the door open the rest of the way.

  Henry came into view first, standing with his left side to the doorway and his arms crossed over his chest. He looked my way as the door opened. His eyes locked with mine, and a pleased grin spread across his face.

  A moment later, I spotted Raiden, sitting with his back leaned against the pedestal displaying the cube. The muscles and tendons in his neck were taught with pain, but the grin that spread his lips was bright and earnest, and when his eyes met mine, his whole body seemed to relax a little.

  His and mine, both.

  His injured leg was stretched out on the floor in front of him, a swath of white bandages wrapped around his thigh. Henry must have changed his mind about withholding medical attention. Maybe he wasn’t as dickish as I had originally thought.

  Raiden started to stand, but only made it halfway up.

  A guard within the vault stepped into the doorway, blocking Raiden’s path before he was even on his feet.

  Raiden eased back down to the floor, his hands balling into fists.

  When I was ten steps from the doorway, I touched the regulator, tracing the tip of my index finger around the stone, changing it from amber to electric blue. The narrow channels running the length of the hoplon suit glowed the same, vibrant color. I sucked in a breath at the sudden influx of psychic input, like dozens of voices shouting in my head, but the foreign thoughts quieted to whispers by the time I exhaled the breath.

  “So the labyrinth exits elsewhere,” Henry said, turning to face me fully as I entered the vault. He scanned me from the feet up, raising an eyebrow when his eyes returned to mine. My wardrobe change was noted.

  I shot a quick glance around the vault. Two guards were posted on either side of the door within the vault, and another two stood on either side of the arched entrance to the labyrinth.

  “Yes,” I said, my attention settling on Henry, once more. “It exits elsewhere.”

  The hoplon suit had dried almost as soon as I was out of the river, and I had twisted my hair up in a tight bun after letting it dr
y partway, mimicking Persephone’s standard hairstyle, in the hopes that Henry wouldn’t be able to tell it was damp. I couldn’t risk him figuring out where the labyrinth exited.

  “How unexpected,” Henry said.

  I could sense in his thoughts that he was already formulating a plan to force me to reveal the exit point. There was no hint that he had noticed my hair wasn’t completely dry.

  “It would seem that you’ve returned empty handed,” he said, uncrossing his arms. In his mind, he was shuffling through his next moves. “I thought I made myself clear—or does your friend’s life mean so little to you?”

  I took a slow step toward Henry. Then another. And another.

  The guards raised their automatic rifles, training them on me.

  I stopped, just out of arm’s reach of Henry.

  He didn’t move, but I could sense the shift in his confidence. He fought the urge to take a step back, to put more distance between us. I was different, now, in his eyes. Before, he had feared me as one would fear a downed powerline—my power was wild and uncontrolled. Now, he feared me as one would fear a trained warrior. I had shifted out of the role of pawn and into the role of opponent. His priority was no longer forcing me to do his bidding, but making it out of the vault alive.

  Persephone had been right. Henry wasn’t in control of the situation anymore.

  I was.

  I smiled. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Henry,” I said, repeating the same words he had used when giving me orders earlier. Now, I was the one giving the orders. “I’m going back into the labyrinth, and I’m taking Raiden and my mom with me.”

  I paused, surprise widening my eyes as an unexpected thought drifted from Henry’s mind to mine: he didn’t have my mom, not anymore. She had escaped while I was in the labyrinth. Emi must have snuck into the Apostolic Palace and sprung her. A laugh bubbled up from my chest, and I didn’t bother holding it in.

  Henry eyed me warily.