“Please don’t kill me,” I mutter.
It’s cool to the touch and causes my skin to tingle, but otherwise I’m left unaffected.
To the left, several steps are carved into the rock floor and descend into the pool.
It’s at this point that I realize I have no instructions for visiting the Fates. Do I wait for them to come to me? Do I enter the pool? Do I clap my hands twice and do a dance?
I decide the pool must be part of the equation otherwise it wouldn’t be called the Well of Moirai and I wouldn’t have had to come all this way to visit it.
Shucking off my boots and then my pants, I go to the steps and descend. The water vibrates around me and ripples bloom outward on the surface.
“Here goes nothing,” I say. With one last deep breath, I plunge downward.
Clea and I have spent more than one lazy afternoon swimming in Lake Nisa. But this is nothing like that. The water of the Moirai pool feels like the fine material of an expensive dress sliding along my skin.
The deeper I go, the easier it is to swim. I don’t feel the same pressure I do when swimming to the bottom of Lake Nisa on the shallow side. And oddly, the deeper I get, the brighter it is.
I keep swimming, my arms cutting through the water and then—
I blink. I’m sitting on a smooth stone floor. My hair is plastered to my face.
A throat clears and when I follow the sound, I find three women sitting at a loom on a raised stone dais.
The Fates.
Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.
I know of them, of course, but I’ve never actually laid eyes on them. Not many of us descendants have.
In all of the literature I’ve read on them, there’s not one general consensus as to what they look like, or which is which.
The Fate on the left is older with gray hair plaited in a thick braid that hangs over her shoulder. She’s wearing a robe the color of emeralds and gold chains around her wrists.
The one on the right could be my age or maybe older. It’s hard to tell. Her skin is pale as moonlight and her black hair shines beneath the rippling light of the cavern. A gold star winks from the center of her forehead. I can’t tell if it’s jewelry or some cosmic birthmark.
It’s the Fate in the middle who is the first to speak. Her hair is the color of wheat and is pulled back into a complicated knotwork of braids and twists. There’s a warmth to her gaze that immediately settles my nerves.
“Ana Hearthtender. Orphan of House Hestia. Chosen of Hades. Child foretold. You’ve come at last,” she says, like they’ve been here waiting this whole time.
Since I’ve never met the Fates, I’m not entirely sure what is a customary greeting, so I go with what I know. I bow my head and sink into a deep curtsy. “Your Graces,” I say.
“What is it you want from us, child?” the older Fate asks. “Is it your fortune you seek?”
When I straighten again, and swallow hard around the lump in my throat, I manage to say, “Umm…”
“Well, go on,” the dark-haired one says. “Spit it out.”
How did Haven do this? What did he say when he got down here? What did he ask for? Why didn’t I ask more questions instead of… I feel my face start to heat and hope the Fates can’t also read minds.
I try to picture Haven in this place and all I can imagine is the Fates fawning over him as everyone does. Thinking this makes a streak of jealousy rear up in my chest.
“Dear,” says the middle Fate as her fingers work at the loom, “is it your future you wish to know? You must ask a question if you wish to get an answer.”
I lick my lips. “I’m not sure. I don’t…” All of my words tangle around one another. Do I really want to know what comes next? Haven was so happy when he stumbled out of the cave. The Fates must have told him he was destined to win the trial and maybe that was why he did...we did...what we did. He realized that it wouldn’t matter in the end. Because when I lost, he’d forget me anyway.
This whole time I’ve been telling myself the same thing. That whatever this was we were doing, that whatever physical response I had to Haven wouldn’t matter in the end. It was just for fun, part of the game.
But I’ve been lying to myself.
It does matter.
It matters too much.
So whatever is in store for us, for me, I don’t want to know. What I need right now is to focus on the upcoming trial.
I inhale, level my shoulders and say, “Can you tell me something meaningful about the future?”
I think this is the safest thing I can request. The Fates could give me the future of next year’s pomegranate crop. They could tell me tomorrow’s weather forecast. After all, meaningful is a subjective term.
“Very well,” the gray-haired Fate says. Her fingers dance over the threads as she works at the loom. The middle Fate eyes me with a sharp glitter in her eye. The third Fate frowns at me, her dark brow shadowing her violet eyes.
“You’ve asked for something meaningful,” the middle Fate says. “So here it is.”
The dark-haired one says, “If you are victorious in your final trial, Haven Knightfall will not survive to see the mortal realm.”
I stagger back. “What does that mean?”
“It means what it means,” the blonde one replies.
“That’s not...no. That’s not what I asked for. What will happen to him?” I’m panicky now. A cold sweat has broken out over my forehead.
The crone lifts her chin and looks down the sharp slant of her nose at me. “You asked for something meaningful and that’s what you’ve been given. If you are the winner, Knightfall will die before he reaches the mortal realm.”
“But...does that mean I’ll definitely win the trial? Is there nothing I can do to save him? Am I supposed to kill him? I will not kill him so that can’t possibly be it.”
Where I had trouble coming up with a question before, now all I have are questions.
The Fates are silent, unflinching.
“None of this helps me,” I try instead.
Their measly morsel of information somehow makes everything worse.
I didn’t want to know about Haven. Hell, I didn’t want to know about myself. And somehow, this vague statement is connected to both of us and yet tells me nothing at all.
I scrub at my face, angry and annoyed. I didn’t even want to come here. I don’t want to know what the future holds before I live it.
I don’t want to think about—
—losing Haven.
As the terror of that thought takes hold of my heart, I feel like I might vomit right here in the Fates’s cavern all over their smooth stone floor.
I crouch down and try to suck in air.
This can’t be right.
And what does that mean—if I am victorious—does that mean there’s still a possibility I will lose? What will happen to Haven then? Does that mean he’ll live then?
Gaia help me.
When my lungs manage to fill with air again, I stand upright. My eyes are wet. I hadn’t realized I’d started crying. I must look a fool, a descendant, sobbing for a boy. A boy that up until a day ago, I thought I didn’t like. A boy I thought hated me.
“I need more,” I beg. “Something else. Can I save him? Am I supposed to win the trial? Please,” I suddenly can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth in a rush, “I need something more.”
The Fate in the middle with the wheat blonde hair stands up from the loom and walks down the dais and comes to a stop in front of me. Up close, my skin tingles just from the close proximity of so much power and magic.
I shrink back.
“You’ve been given what you asked for, nothing less, nothing more,” the Fate says.
Anger rises up inside of me. Anger at the Fates for giving me a useless answer. Anger at Hades for forcing me to come here. Anger at Haven for...well...for making me feel the way I do about him. But most of all, anger at myself for asking the wrong fucking question.
What
I really wanted to know and was too afraid to ask was—do I have a future with Haven in it?
The air crackles around me. Heat surges to my hands. The pool above us begins to rain down around us.
The Fate looks up at it and then back at me. There’s a new glint in her eyes. A flash of awe and…excitement?
Teeth gritted, my power wells up inside of me and my hair lifts around my face.
The other Fates stop spinning at the loom and stand up.
The cavern floor trembles.
A rising tide of power builds at my center and I sense it getting ready to spill over the edge. Haven might have helped me call the magic, but I still know nothing about controlling it.
Right now, I feel like I’ve lost control of everything. Even my own fucking fate.
The Fate in front of me smiles as the cavern’s ceiling lets out a resounding crack.
“There she is,” the Fate says, “the mighty daughter of—”
BOOM.
There’s a flash of light and the rolling sensation that I’m caught in a wave. I can’t tell if I’m standing or floating and I can’t seem to get my feet beneath me.
When the light fades out a second later, I’m crouched on the grass outside the Fates’s cave, water dripping from my hair.
I suck in air and try to quell the rapid beating of my heart.
Tarter and Russ lurch upright and bound over to me, their wet tongues slobbering all over my face.
The Fate’s words echo in my head.
There she is, the mighty daughter of—
I turn back to the cave intent on diving into the pool again to demand answers, but the entrance is gone. There’s only creeping weria vines now.
“No!” I shout and run my hands over the rock. “Let me in! You can’t leave me with that! I need to know! Please!”
I bang on the rock until my hands burn and bleed.
It’s Haven who finally pulls me back as Tarter and Russ bark at the spot where the entrance should have been.
“What happened?” Haven asks. He drags me over to our makeshift camp and sits me down.
“It’s gone,” I say, half weeping, half growling. “They gave me nothing but more questions and then dumped me out here and now the cave’s entrance is gone and—”
“Ana,” Haven says.
Hearing him say my name pulls me to a stop. Hearing him say my name is a marked shift between what we were and what we are now.
But what is that, exactly? What have we become?
“What did they tell you?” he asks.
The sun has risen, but here on the northwestern side of the mountain, nestled in our mountain glade, the light is murky at best. I can just barely make out his eyes—one amber, one white—and the concern pinched between his brows.
“They told me…” I trail off as fresh tears well beneath my lids. I look away.
The pain from the cuts in my hands fades as the unsettling feeling in my gut grows.
“You know the Fates,” I say instead. “What they told me was shrouded in ten layers of confusing nonsensical garbage. I wanted answers and I got more questions is all. And we came all this way.”
He cleans the blood from my hands with one of his clean shirts. When he’s finished, he tears the shirt into strips and wraps them around my hands, tying the makeshift bandage over my knuckles.
He lingers, my hands clutched in his.
“You don’t have to worry,” he says. “I got all the answers we need. It’ll be okay.”
I swallow. “How can you be so sure?”
What if I win? I want to say. Do you know for certain you will?
Because if you don’t, you might be dead…
Slowly, like he’s approaching a scared animal, he leans in and plants a kiss on my lips. It’s soft and gentle and full of hope. And it makes me feel even more hopeless.
“I’m sure,” he says when he pulls away. “When this is over, we will both have what we want.”
I don’t want you dead.
As the sunlight finally reaches the glade, Haven busies himself with packing and orders me to stay put to rest. I don’t argue. I don’t have the energy for it.
Because now we have to make the long trek back to Hades’s House, back to our last trial, back to our fates.
And no matter what Haven says, I can’t shake this unsettling feeling in my stomach that things are only going to get much, much worse.
Chapter 16
I’m in a fog on our journey back to Hades’s House and I think Haven and my dogs sense it because they give me a lot of space. Every night we camp, Haven conjures me a bed and soft, thick blankets, but I barely sleep.
I keep repeating the Fates’s words over and over in my head, trying to puzzle them together. Haven won’t survive to see the mortal realm.
Which means if he loses the trial, it will be because he died at my hands. That’s the only reason he wouldn’t make it to the mortal realm. Right? My stomach lurches at the thought and I have to fight the surge of panic that begins to overtake my senses.
They specifically said if he loses. Which means it’s not certain he will lose. There’s the possibility that he’ll win and the Fates have told me nothing because it’s me who will be banished to the mortal realm in the end.
I feel tricked.
How can that information be meaningful when it lacks so much meaning?
And worse—why do I suddenly care what happens to Haven? Because we slept together?
I want to blame it on that, that him being inside of me somehow fried my brain, but I know that’s not true.
Days ago, he was taking credit for my victory and I hated his fucking guts and now….
Now I don’t even want to think about what we are.
Thinking about it means facing our eventual fate.
What I do know is that his sudden kindness has me reeling and feeling slightly chafed. I don’t want his kindness. I don’t want to feel anything for him. I don’t want to worry about what will happen to him if I win the trial.
But should I be more worried about what will happen to me if I don’t win?
Haven taking credit for my victory in the maze made it easy for me to decide on what I wanted and I wanted to win to show him up. Now I’m not sure what I want. It’s not like I fit in with Hades’s other descendants. I mean, maybe Monstrat and Max, but they’re an exception not a rule. There’s no way I’m going to find my people among the elite of the Underworld. I’m no one, from nowhere and none of them will ever forget that—even winning the trials won’t change that.
When we crest the hill on our final leg of the journey and Hades’s House comes into view, Haven and I stop to take in the sight. His hands are hooked around the straps of his pack and Tarter and Russ sit quietly at his feet. The sun sets just over his shoulder limning him in golden light. Sweat shines on his forehead and his mouth is just slightly open as he breathes heavily from the exertion.
My chest aches when I look at him.
I’ve never wanted something—someone—so acutely. It’s a visceral feeling in my veins.
I don’t fucking want it.
I want the feeling to go away.
I surge ahead and whistle for my dogs. They bound down the hill after me. I don’t wait for Haven.
When we come up the path, the double doors on the front of Hades’s House pull open to reveal Max, Nereus, and Monstrat.
I’m so relieved to see Max that I drop my bag at the bottom of the stairs and rush him, wrapping him into a hug. He lets out an umph and then returns the greeting.
“That bad, huh?” he whispers to me.
When I pull back, all I can manage to say is, “You have no idea.”
“You certainly smell like you could use a long, hot bath.”
“Oh gods.” I wrinkle my nose and hope I haven’t smelled that bad the entire time. “You’re right. I could definitely use a bath. And wine. And an entire spread of food.”
“You’re in luck,” Max says. “Ellie is plannin
g a feast for later tonight.”
Beside us, Nereus grips Haven’s arm and pulls him into a half-hug. Their embrace is perfunctory and brief.
Monstrat greets us both with enthusiasm and a wide smile. “You’ve done well,” he says, but his gaze lingers on me. Does he know something I don’t? Because I don’t feel like I’ve done well. I have no further insight than I did before I went on that stupid journey.
“Come.” Monstrat puts his arm around my shoulders and pulls me inside. “Once you’ve both had a chance to clean yourselves up, you’ll meet with Lord Hades before dinner. And then”—he looks over at me—“we’ll finalize preparations for your last trial. I’m sure it will be a spectacle.”
He has no idea.
Chapter 17
When I get to my room and see a copper tub has been brought in and filled with hot, steaming water, I nearly weep.
After dumping my stuff in the corner, I strip out of my dirt-crusted clothes and nearly leap into the tub. The water burns at first, but as soon as I settle into the tub and lean into its raised backside, I exhale with relief. The water soothes my aching muscles and I can already feel the dirt from the journey washing away.
By the time I climb out and attend to my hair, the day has turned to night.
I dress in leather leggings and a tight-fitting black sleeveless shirt that shows off the new cut of my biceps. This is a side effect of the training and the hearty meals served at Hades’s House. I’m no longer consuming large quantities of sweets and dozing on sun-soaked balconies in the late afternoon.
I can’t say that I hate the new, fitter me. I like feeling physically strong.
As I cross the front foyer intent on nabbing some food from Ellie in the kitchen, Monstrat finds me and directs me to Hades’s office.
My stomach grumbles as I make the detour, but it sours and shuts up when I find Nereus in the hall outside Hades’s door.
He smiles at me, but a smile from Nereus is like a smile from a shark. It’s not actually a greeting of hello, it’s just him opening his mouth while he prepares to devour you.
“Good evening, Ana,” he says, his words full of thinly-veiled bite. “You’re looking much better.”
Vicious Champion (Games of the Gods Book 2) Page 9