Wicked

by Elisabeth Naughton

  “You didn’t come here to take him?”

  “No. The choice is his. It always was.”

  Talisa stared at the Fate as she continued to hold Zagreus’s hand, a new feeling welling inside her. One she recognized as anger. “So, what…? You’re here to gloat?”

  “No.” The Fate looked toward Talisa. “I’m not here for him, paidí. I’m here for you. And before you begin to worry, I’m not my sister. I’m Lachesis.”

  The Fate who spins the thread. Not the one who cuts it.

  Talisa knew all about the three Fates. She’d heard the stories back home. Knew full well how the Fates liked to meddle in Argonaut business.

  She had the markings. Obviously, she was next on their How To Fuck With The Argonauts list. “I don’t need your help, but he does. Do something to help him.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Lachesis’s eyes softened. “The Fates stopped interfering in Zagreus’s affairs long ago, when we realized he was lost.”

  When he was lost…

  Talisa was suddenly afraid to ask what that meant. She lifted her other hand to hold Zagreus’s in both of hers.

  “Oh, it was long ago.” Lachesis floated toward the cathedral window and looked out at the moonlight sparkling over the dark lake below. “So long it probably doesn’t matter anymore. But, I suppose you deserve to know the truth. Here, now, at the end.”

  Talisa wasn’t ready to accept any end, but she needed answers, and she suddenly sensed this Fate was the only one who could give them to her.

  The Fate clasped her hands at the her back. “You know the story of the gods, how they came to be. They were angels, sent by the Creator to oversee to development of this world.”

  “Fallen angels,” Talisa corrected. “Who turned away from their duties, choosing power and greed instead.”

  Lachesis nodded. “We—the Fates—were tasked by the Creator with keeping the gods in check, much as your father and the Argonauts were tasked with protecting the mortal realm. For a while, things were good. Mortals and immortals coexisted with little conflict. But we quickly realized the gods were shifting balance within the universe. Without a savior, this world was destined to fall, and when it did, every innocent mortal would fall with it. So… we intervened.”

  “Intervened, how?”

  “We blessed the soul of an immortal child with light. The same light all the gods had slowly turned away from. The light that was fading in the world. And our intervention worked. The child quickly came to represent everything good, or everything good as it should be in the world—happiness, joy, and pleasure. But then… his father interceded.”

  “His father?” Talisa asked.

  “Hades. He sensed the light in the boy from the beginning. Was threatened by it because he associated that light with Olympus, where his wife is from. He grew paranoid. So, to ensure that the boy never rose up against him as he and his brothers had risen against their father, he cursed the boy with darkness.”

  Oh shit. Talisa suddenly knew where this was going.

  “Yes,” the Fate whispered. “Hades cursed the boy with the darkness that is the lifeblood of the Underworld.”

  Talisa’s heart beat hard and fast as she looked down at Zagreus’s relaxed face, still scratched and bruised, still tipped her way as he slept.

  Lachesis sighed. “My sisters and I knew the world was in trouble. Wars were breaking out. Zeus was doing nothing to stop them. He and the Olympians were actually feeding conflicts in the human realm, and their infighting was growing worse. We believed the only way to restore balance in the cosmos was for the boy we’d blessed to embrace that light. To use it to overthrow the Olympians. The only catch was that by the time Zagreus reached adulthood, he was, understandably, conflicted. He existed in a chaotic mixture of light and darkness. We believed he needed something—or someone—to inspire him to be the god he was always destined to be.”

  Talisa stared at her, instinctively knowing what came next. Dreading it at the same time. “You interfered again.”

  “We did. We placed a nymph in his path while he was in the human realm on one of Hades’s errands. A female who was young and beautiful. One who was the exact opposite of the succubi he encountered in the Underworld. One who could not be tempted by power or greed. Who was as pure as the light we knew was still inside Zagreus. And, as we hoped, he was instantly drawn to her.”

  A faint smile curled the Fate’s mouth. “She was good for him. Every day he spent with her drew him out of the darkness and pushed him farther into the light. It made him stronger. He seemed happy. We believed she was happy. And we quickly realized that with her, Zagreus would finally live up to his destiny and restore balance to the cosmos. Our interventions had worked.” Her smile slowly faded. “Our only mistake was underestimating just how far Hades had taken his curse.”

  Talisa’s fingers tightened around Zagreus’s.

  “Had we known Hades had cursed him not just with darkness,” Lachesis said, her eyes sad and fixed on Talisa’s, “but with an uncontrollable need for power, we would not have interfered again. But we were unaware.”

  “What happened?” Talisa asked softly, already sensing whatever came next was going to be bad.

  “He was presented with an opportunity. The chance to possess a medallion of monumental power.”

  The Orb of Krónos. The Fate was talking about the magickal medallion that all the gods wanted and which had the power to unleash the Titans from Tartarus. The god who controlled that controlled everything.

  Talisa swallowed hard. “I’m guessing he took it.”

  “He did. He couldn’t resist. And in doing so, he left the nymph unguarded. She was not trained as a warrior. So when hellhounds arrived—”

  “Skata.” Talisa’s eyes fell closed, already knowing what came next. “They killed her.”

  “Yes.”

  Dear gods… Hades had lured Zagreus away on purpose, then killed the female he’d cared about.

  Her eyes popped open. “All to punish him? For being happy?”

  “No, paidí. For turning toward the light. Hades does not care about balance in the universe. He cares only about power. And Zagreus is powerful. More powerful than even he himself knows. But that power is only an asset to Hades so long as Zagreus remains in the dark.”

  She looked toward Zagreus on the bed. “After her death, Hades had what he wanted. Zagreus was lost in that darkness again, consumed with rage. He tracked down every individual who had any knowledge of the nymph’s murder, leaving a trail of blood and death in his wake that could not be overlooked. The other gods took notice and pressured Hades to control him. And Hades happily did. He drew Zagreus back to the Underworld for punishment—a horrific repetition of torture and pain that went on for hundreds of years and left Zagreus even darker than before. A pain that only strengthened Hades’s own powers.”

  Shit. No wonder Zagreus was so fucked up.

  Lachesis sighed. “We—the Fates—quickly realized we had failed. Zagreus was lost to us in every way possible. But with no one to challenge the King of the Gods, Zeus’s powers also grew. As did those of the other Olympians. War between Olympus and the Underworld was inevitable. The mortal realm would be caught in the middle. Zagreus had been our best chance for peace. Then Hades released Zagreus from the Underworld, and we realized… there was still some light left in him. Not much, but enough.”

  “Skata.” Understanding dawned when Lachesis’s words suddenly converged with Rhen’s and Nysa’s still circling in Talisa’s head. “You brought her back to tempt him again, didn’t you?”

  “We brought her soul back.” The Fate met her gaze head-on. “Not her body. Her body was long gone by that point. You know reincarnation is possible. We don’t like to use it, but in this situation, we felt it was warranted.”

  Warranted… Warranted was just a fancy way of saying the Fates didn’t give a fuck about the consequences.

  Her jaw tightened. �
�What happened?”

  “We chose another nymph. One who was as beautiful and innocent as the first, waited until she was of age, then put her in his path once more.”

  “And let me guess. He wasn’t interested.”

  “Oh no. He was very interested. He recognized her almost immediately. Not by her body but by her eyes. His focus immediately shifted from the task his father had sent him on to her. A little too quickly. Whereas before he had been naïve, almost innocent in his feelings for her, this time he was obsessed with keeping her close. She noticed it, too. Their relationship was very one-sided. He became… possessive. That worried us, but we hoped he would relax as they spent more time together. And he did. Gradually.”

  She moved away from the bed, floating around the room, studying items on the bookshelves, almost as if suddenly avoiding Talisa’s gaze. And as Talisa turned to look after her, she remembered the way Zagreus had watched her in that club. The way he’d stared into her eyes when she’d walked up to him. As if he’d recognized her. As if he’d known her.

  Holy shit… “Did she… Did she remember him?”

  “No. We didn’t want her to. For our plan to work, he had to turn to the light by his own choosing, not because she was leading him. We were not sure what would happen, but slowly, as he spent more time with her, the darkness began to fade. And she softened to him as well. It wasn’t love by any means, but there was definite attraction. A shared interest. And it gave us hope.”

  Lachesis turned her head but didn’t meet Talisa’s gaze. “Until his lust for power drew him away from her once again.”

  “Skata.”

  The Fate sighed. “He again went on a killing spree after her second death. And Hades again drew him back to the Underworld for torture and punishment. Hades grew stronger while Zagreus grew darker. During it all, Zeus and the other gods remained unchecked. When Zagreus was finally released back into the mortal realm many long years later, he was a mere shadow of his former self. But the world was also a much darker place. And we were desperate. So we tried again.”

  Holy hell… A protective urge welled inside Talisa, one that made her grip Zagreus’s hand tighter. “You sent her back a third time?”

  Lachesis turned to face her and softly, she said, “We actually sent her back three more times. The third time he quickly bound their souls so he could find her more easily should she be killed again. And she was. Each of her subsequent lives began and ended worse than the one before.”

  Dear gods… Talisa had known the Fates were hated by many but she’d never understood why. Now she did. They didn’t look at souls as individuals but as pawns they could move around a chess board. “How could you? How could you do that to him? To her?”

  “I know it sounds very cruel,” Lachesis said in a soft voice, “but we honestly thought we were helping. After the fifth time, though…” She floated to the side of the bed once more and looked down at Zagreus still sleeping. “After we watched him capture and imprison her with no warmth between them, after she died yet again, we realized he had become so dark, so destructive, that we had pushed him to the brink. There was no light left in him at all, and we were to blame. So we gave up on him.”

  She shifted her gaze to Talisa. “We turned all our hopes on the Argonauts instead—on the descendants of the ancient heroes. That they could locate the Orb of Krónos and its elements; that they would be strong enough to battle the gods, thereby restoring balance to the cosmos once more. And they have not let us down. Your father and his kin have proven their worth.”

  Talisa should feel pride but all she knew was anger. “But not Zagreus, right? He’s not worthy of pride. You set him up to fail, and he did, so you just abandoned him, which is why you won’t help him now.”

  A ghost of a smile curled the Fate’s lips. “You are so like your father, paidí.”

  That was the last thing Talisa wanted to hear.

  “We did not interfere with him again, it’s true. But we did not abandon him. Not completely. We’ve watched him from afar for over five hundred years, which is how we knew he continued to search for her, expecting she would be reincarnated again. It’s also how we knew he’d aligned himself with a female from your realm some twenty-eight years ago with her own secret agenda for revenge.”

  Talisa’s stomach tightened as she stared at the Fate.

  Cynna. Lachesis was talking about Cynna and the time Cynna had spent as Zagreus’s mistress in his Yucatan lair.

  Lachesis clasped her hands behind her back once more and floated to the window. “He knew right away the Argolean female wasn’t his mono mia. And he didn’t love her. Not a bit. She was nothing but a distraction from the bitter emptiness inside him. But by that point, he was so dark… He did some truly evil things during that time—things that shocked even us, including imprisoning and torturing innocents for information on his mono mia—and we were certain he was lost to the darkness for good. But then, one day… he surprised us.”

  Talisa’s heart stuttered because she knew this story, too. She’d heard it from the female at the center of it herself. “He let Cynna go.”

  “Yes.” Lachesis met her gaze. “That light we thought was gone flickered inside him. It was sudden. And brief. And had we not been watching, we might have missed it. But the day he realized Cynna truly loved Niko… The day Zagreus decided to release her instead of hold on to her as he’d tried to hold on to his mate all those times… We realized he wasn’t completely lost.”

  Talisa’s brow wrinkled. “I don’t understand. What are you saying?”

  “We weren’t convinced he could be saved—not based on one good deed—but we were intrigued. By releasing Cynna and Niko, he betrayed his father, thereby sacrificing himself to more punishment at Hades’s hand. Hades destroyed his lair and dragged him back to the Underworld, but this time, it did not have the desired effect Hades hoped for. Zagreus accepted his punishment. His torture did not strengthen Hades’s powers in any way. So Hades turned him over to us.”

  “To the Fates?”

  “Yes.” Lachesis’s lips curled. “Serving us is a fate worse than Tartarus for the gods. Zagreus—or Ziggy as my sisters like to call him—served us in our realm for twenty-five years. And it was there that we saw he wasn’t a lost cause after all. There was still light inside him. Not only enough light to counteract the Underworld darkness, but to change this war once and for all.”

  Talisa’s heart picked up speed.

  “We decided to give him one last chance to fulfill his destiny. We let him go, and he came here.”

  Talisa’s mouth grew dry, and her gaze skipped over Zagreus again. Only this time, she knew what Rhen had told her, what Nysa had told her was true. Because she felt it deep in the bottom of her soul.

  The she in the Fate’s story was her.

  She was the soul who’d been reincarnated numerous times. Only this time they’d reincarnated her not as a nymph but as an Argolean—like Cynna, the last female he’d been attracted to. She was tough, like Cynna. She could stand up to him, unlike the nymphs. And she—skata—she had the Argonaut markings, which meant she’d been cursed with a soul mate. So she would be looking for him the way he was always looking for her.

  “Your being here is not a coincidence. It’s destiny. You found me, mono mia, not the other way around. You can fight that feeling all you want, but it won’t go away. It’ll just burn hotter until you give in to it.”

  His words echoed in her head, making her pulse beat faster and her skin grow hotter.

  He was her soul mate. The one person she would always look for and never be complete without.

  All those years wondering why she was the only female ever born with the Argonaut markings now made a sick sort of sense. It wasn’t because she was special in any way, it was simply because the Fates wanted to ensure she would find him. So she could draw him into the light and he could live up to his destiny. She hadn’t been chosen for anything more important than that. Nothing she’d ever done mattered.<
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  Anger and disgust welled inside her, forcing her to release Zagreus’s hand. “So I don’t have a say in this. I’m just a soul you move from body to body so you can manipulate him for your own gain.” She pushed off the bed and moved away from the Fate, afraid if she didn’t she’d wring the creature’s miserable neck, and she had a feeling if she tried that her hands would just pass right through the mystical creature. “Is that how this works?”

  “No, paidí. That is not how this works. I told you, we stopped interfering in his life that way.”

  Talisa turned and stared at Lachesis. “Are you telling me I’m not her? He knows me.” And I know him even if I can’t remember him… “I have the same damn mark on my hip he does.”

  “What I’m telling you is… The Fates did not reincarnate your soul this time.”

  Talisa stilled, trying to make sense of that revelation. “Then who? The gods?”

  “No god has that power. Only one other being can bring a soul back.”

  The air caught in Talisa’s throat. No. That couldn’t be possible…

  The Fate floated toward her and stopped close. So close she seemed to glow, and even though Lachesis was ethereal, Talisa felt warmth as the Fate reached out and touched her shoulders.

  “There is a reason you were brought back. A reason you were given these markings. A reason you were chosen in this time and place. Your destiny may have once been linked to Zagreus’s, but your purpose is your own, paidí. I know you do not remember your past, but every life, every death shaped your soul into what it is today. And while you may feel lost, while you may still struggle to find where you belong, today your soul is strong, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. That strength is what will lead you where you were always meant to be. All you have to do is trust in it. Trust in yourself.”

  Talisa stared at the Fate as her pulse raced. Lachesis had just nailed who she was inside. She’d never felt she fit in anywhere... Not with her family or the Argonauts or anywhere in her realm.

  Her gaze drifted toward Zagreus, and she wondered... Was he the reason? But if so, then why had the Fate said her destiny had once been linked to his? Was it not any longer?