by Cassie Day
“Go on, brother.” Zeus’ eyes sparkle with mirth.
All at once, my doubts return. Except this time, they become reality.
“I won’t judge.” Hades audibly gulps.
Not can’t or shouldn’t.
Won’t.
A chill seeps into my bones. Numbs all in its path. Charon’s hand braced on my shoulder becomes nothing at all.
“Husband?” Persephone’s voice trembles.
Demeter stands, using Persephone’s shoulder as support.
Persephone flinches beneath the weight. Her mother doesn’t notice, too busy glaring at Hades with a frigid intensity.
“Be grateful, you beast.” She bares her teeth in a mockery of a smile. “If Zeus hadn’t defended you this very morning, you’d see my daughter for one week of each year.”
One of Aunt’s stories flashes across my mind. Demeter’s anguish spread across Prasinos during the first winter. The first season Persephone spent in Hades’ realm.
Wheat withered. The Pomria orchards turned to barren fields. The ground froze solid with thick ice. Even when farmers dug through, the soil refused to grow anything.
Most died from starvation alone. Those left alive faced the first winter with little to keep them warm. Why would they have had heavy clothing? Or hearths supplied with stacked piles of wood? The mild spring, summer, and fall cycle required so little.
Now with each six month stay Persephone takes to Nekros, summer morphs into fall, then into a winter milder than the first one. Spring returns only with Persephone’s arrival back to Demeter in Athansi.
What has Zeus defended Hades from?
Demeter’s words take on a sudden clarity.
She threatened to reduce her daughter’s time with Hades to days. At Zeus’ urging, no doubt, only for him to turn and defend Hades. He used bribery. No, worse. Blackmail.
The Titan law: bribery voids all.
“Mother,” Persephone says, voice sharp. “What have you done?”
I break from my tangle of thoughts too late. My heart beats in erratic thuds. I imagine myself floating in the spring sky above, watching everything from a distance.
Demeter huffs. “What I had to do to protect you, my dearest child.”
She pats Persephone’s cheek and gets a grimace for the act. Hades steps away from the thrones, his head ducked low.
“Be glad for what your mother has done. If not for her overhearing your plan, this mortal girl might have triumphed.” Zeus’ upper lip curls on the word mortal.
Demeter chuckles. She overheard my conversation with Persephone. How?
Their joined rooms. The tapestry. The heavy fabric fluttered with what I assumed was a breeze. Demeter waited on the other side, breath stirring the fabric while she listened.
Persephone’s mouth flattens.
Did she know? She faced the tapestry; she must have known. She should have seen her mother’s shadow through the fabric. Should have seen the fabric move in telltale ways.
And that night in the library. She was helping.
But she wasn’t helping me.
Were her tears for Molpe real? Or just a ploy for information to tell Zeus? He won’t dare punish me, not now. Doing so risks Hera discovering Molpe’s existence. The thought brings no comfort.
Tears sting my eyes. I blink them away. I refuse to cry at the base of their towering thrones. Refuse to show any anguish in the face of Zeus’ victory and Hera’s disdain.
One breath. I clear my face of emotion. Another. I stand straighter.
One last chance. One more tool.
Closing my eyes, I feel for their gray strings. Charon’s is brighter than the rest. Dionysus’ wobbles more with each sip of wine. Aphrodite, Ares, Demeter, Hades, Persephone, Apollo, Artemis, and Hermes. Even Desma’s, distant from the far side of the room.
There! Zeus and Hera’s blackened strings stretched taut. I imagine plucking them like lyre strings. The first note of my song is barely free when Hera sways on her throne, leaning perilously forward. Zeus’ face goes slack.
Agree to anything I say, I think, keeping my song wordless. Bribery voids all—and this is my way of bribing. A song for their willingness to bargain. Or better: a song for a cup of Zeus’ ambrosia.
Speak, I command. Zeus’ mouth opens. The strings tighten. I pull tighter and tighter still. My vision trembles. I become nothing more than a song and racing heart in a mortal shell.
The song climbs higher, racing across the lines.
“A cup,” Zeus mumbles.
Not enough. Louder. Stronger.
“Bring me a cup of ambrosia,” he says.
Good.
I grip tighter to his string.
My mind fractures. Even as I grasp for anything to hold, his string slips away. My song falls apart. The notes echo flat. My voice cracks on what should be the crescendo. I gasp for air and my song unspools completely.
Their strings darken from glittering gold to gray-black, then settle, dormant and frayed.
Hera shakes her head. “A siren.”
Zeus sits straighter, looming with flashes of lightning arcing across his broad shoulders. “You’ve lost your chance, siren. Accept defeat and be glad I don’t punish your insolence.”
Why not punish me? But I catch how his look darts to Hera. He fears I’ll tell her about Molpe, his mistress hidden away for two hundred years. It’s not enough for him to bargain fairly but it’s enough for him to leave me alive.
For now.
My knees buckle. Charon catches me, hauling me against him. His chest is a feverish line of heat against my back. Why am I so cold? Why does the room ripple and blur?
Charon turns us around. Desma’s staggering toward the doors. Her freckled skin is almost translucent. Sweat beads on her forehead. It could be a trick of my warping sight but I swear she shivers with each step. Hermes follows with a hand on her back.
The sickness has returned for good. Without Thanatos suppressing the worst of it, we could be dead in days.
The halls race by but I notice little; a steady rushing fills my head. Is it my heartbeat or the sea waves?
We stop. I’m placed on my bed. Hermes drags Desma onto hers, his hands gentle but strong.
Charon’s clawed hands adjust pillows and blankets until I’m cocooned. He shouldn’t bother; it’s not enough. Tremors of cold sink through my skin like needle-thin icicles. They pierce deep into my bones, chilling me from the inside out.
Desma groans. She gags, then vomits over the side of the bed. One painful push at a time, she levers herself upright. “How dare you.”
Dark crescents mar the skin beneath each eye. Has she been sleeping at all?
“Cousin,” I rasp. Thoughts drift away with a chest-rattling cough.
“You’ve lost us our lives,” she says.
At first, I think she means the bargain failed minutes ago. Yet she never cared if I earned immortality. If she did, she would’ve pressed for me to include her in the bargain. Desma cares for nothing more than a place to settle and warm herself like one of the basking sharks near our underwater caves.
She speaks of my argument with Thanatos. What did she expect me to do? By removing her immortality, he killed Molpe as sure as sinking the knife in himself.
A vein stands stark against the skin of her neck. “Our death will be your fault.”
Then her eyes roll back in their sockets. She collapses, limp and pale.
Hermes fusses, straightening blankets and plumping cushions. The blankets tremble with each of her shivers.
Hands bury themselves in my hair. Claws prick at my scalp. Charon. He deftly braids my tangled hair free of my face, securing the end with a scrap of leather cord. His knuckles brush against my necklace. He freezes.
Pain slices into every muscle. Sharp cramps take over until I’m curled into a ball, groaning. The room undulates in rolling waves. Each time I gag, hands guide my mouth to the lip of a bucket.
When the room is dark, there’s nothing left to vomi
t.
Someone cracks my mouth open. Flavorless broth slides across my tongue and down my throat. I cough but hands hold my mouth closed until I swallow.
After, I fall into a feverish sleep full of tossing. My mother sings a lullaby. What are the words? I grasp for them. They slip through my fingers like sand.
Someone shakes my shoulder. With a groan, I roll away. Too late; my mother’s voice fades into the sounds of Desma’s warbling words.
“Fetch water from the Akri,” she says.
One last melody, crisp and clear.
Come home. Don’t die so far from the sea.
The taste of brine lingers on my tongue. I float in the Akri’s waves, eyelids crusted shut with salt. Dark tendrils of sleep drag me down.
Chapter 28
I WAKE WITH A GASP. Water pours into my mouth. Coughing, I jerk and flail. Long-forgotten gills snap open. My eyes burn, shifting until they glow.
Water surrounds me on all sides.
Not the sea. The sea doesn’t have metal sides nor shadows lingering at the surface. I sigh in relief through my gills. Salt fills my senses, briny yet stale with a metallic finish.
Scales ripple across my legs. I glimpse a line of turquoise-teal before they sink back beneath my skin.
My gills should be a thrumming pain where the skin split in two. The scales should be a constant sting.
But all I feel is alive.
I hum, strumming across song strings without grabbing. Charon’s is bright and malleable. I’ve never asked him why. Maybe it’s his status as a deity, closer to a mortal than a god. Or perhaps it’s how much time we spend together.
His hand plunges into the water, offering me a way up. Better than grasping for the slick metal sides and hard rim. Taking his hand, I let him heave me from the oblong metal tub.
My gills snap shut. I take a lungful of true air. Water cascades off my skin, leaving my dress stuck to the contours of my body.
He throws a plush blanket across my shoulders, rubbing briskly. My skin begins to both dry and heat. I don’t bother telling him I’m not cold. I prefer him close.
Sloshes sound from the other side of the room. Desma leaves a tub identical to mine. Hermes’ hand is tentative against her elbow. She doesn’t look at him. Doesn’t look at any of us. She strides into the bathroom, the hem of her dress slapping against the floor. She slams the door shut.
Click. The lock slides into place.
Hermes shrugs, raising his hands like what can you do?
But she’s not angry at him. She’s angry at me.
“I’ll call for someone to clean this up,” Hermes says, shuffling from the room.
“Thank you,” Charon says, his head bowed. A look passes between them.
Hermes closes the door behind himself with a wink.
“What was that about?” My words muffle when Charon ruffles a blanket across my soaked hair.
He sighs. “He brought the Akri seawater.”
“At whose command?” I pop my head free, a smile curling my lips. Nothing aches for the first time in days.
He huffs a laugh. “Desma’s, then mine.”
I grasp his hand. Our fingers slot neatly together. A shiver slides down my spine. “Thank you, Charon. Truly.”
“Of course.”
Is it my imagination or is he moving closer? His hand squeezes mine, claws gliding across my knuckles. I shiver again and lick my lips. His eyes turn dark. Hunted.
A resounding bang.
We jump apart. He rubs at the back of his neck, gaze on the floor. I twist around.
Desma. The door swings behind her. A glimpse of the bathroom shows steaming water strewn with flower petals. Her hair is in two braids from temple to neck, only the middle loose in a red-orange wave.
She bows low to Charon. “Thank you.”
Then leaves our room in a fit of more slamming and rose petal perfume.
I crack beneath the inquisitive tilt of Charon’s head. “She blames me.”
I wave to the tubs of seawater, the mussed sheets, and pots of water and vomit.
“Why?”
“After Molpe.” I swallow, thankful no tears spring forth. “After Molpe died, I argued with Thanatos. He insisted letting her die was the right path.”
“You disagreed.” A flat observation.
“Of course! She might have healed, mind and body, if given time.”
His voice is soft. “And what did Molpe want?”
“She took a knife to her own throat; what do you think?” I snap.
He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t do anything except stare with a careful blankness. One I haven’t seen since our first meeting in Nekros.
“But she was driven insane. That room and Zeus and no one to speak to—” I stop, gulping, and my next words tumble out in a rush. “She wasn’t in the right mind to make such a decision.”
He tilts his head. “Were you?”
“Was I what?”
“In the right mind to make a decision.”
I stare, my mouth gaping open. My cheeks burn with heat.
He smooths a hand over his hair, claws catching in snarls and knots. “You’re angry and distraught now. When Molpe made her choice, were you worse? Did your emotions overwhelm you? Sane or not, you were as driven by emotion as she was. Maybe more.”
I flounder for words, an argument, but nothing comes.
The blood covering my hands. Molpe’s dying breaths. The grief and loss. The anger rioting in my mind.
“Your argument with Thanatos,” he says. “How did it end?”
I cross my arms. Armor against his words. “I told him to leave.”
“So he left and took yours and Desma’s strength against the sickness with him.”
I nod. Curl forward, protecting my throbbing heart.
“Maybe Desma is right,” he says, voice strong like it’s something he believes.
Black slinks at the corner of each eye. Not sickness, not yet, but something else. Something dark. Something twisted.
The flower-filled vase on a nearby table, the pots of vomit, even the cushions on my bed—I want to throw them. At the wall, at the floor, until nothing remains.
He’s always been on my side. Always.
But not now.
“She’s not.” My heart races, pounding against my sternum. I press a hand there. The swift thump thump does nothing to calm me.
He rolls his shoulders. Not quite a shrug but close. It’s enough for more of the twisting black to take over.
For a moment, I question if it’s Nyx’s influence. The necklace is a cool slide of metal and jewel beneath my fingertips.
Rage. Mine and mine alone.
Charon follows my hand, zeroing in on where the necklace lies.
Has the necklace always been so tight? Always felt like a collar?
“What is it?” he asks. “I felt it earlier but I can’t see it.”
I gasp. The black recedes. The tightness in my chest eases. “A necklace. A gift.”
“From Nyx.” His stare snaps to my face. He snarls, teeth jagged points. “Why didn’t you tell me? Do you trust me or not?”
“Charon—”
“You lied. I asked you what she said, what she did, and you lied.”
“I didn’t lie!” I reach for his hands.
He pulls away. His lip curls. “Maybe you didn’t. But not telling me the whole truth is close enough.”
This is disgust. This is him pulling away. But it’s too late; I can’t force the icy snap from my voice nor the anger from my heart.
“What would you have had me do? Refuse a gift from a powerful goddess?”
“I would have advised you to refuse a gift from Nyx!” he yells. Then pauses, chest heaving. His voice is quiet when he next speaks. “You have no idea what she’s capable of.”
“And you do?”
“I spent years beside her and Erebus, watching them destroy each other.”
I scoff. “You spent all your time hiding on a boat with only soul
s for company. If not for me, you never would’ve left Styx.”
He flinches. Something in his expression fractures. Then his blank mask slides into place.
“Charon,” I begin. No apology springs forth.
“Don’t.” He steps back until he’s at the closed door. “I’m nothing more than a pawn in your games with Nyx.” He swallows, throat bobbing. “Am I?”
His face is blank, his eyes empty, but he can’t hide how he gasps with each breath. He can’t hide how his voice tremors.
I’m losing him. I’m losing my truest friend.
And I care so much my heart aches. Yet I can’t force an apology. Can’t say I’m wrong when I’m not.
Can’t or won’t?
“I thought so.” He smiles. It’s empty and broken, searing into my memory no matter how hard I fight.
Then he’s gone, the door closed quietly behind him. It’d be easier if he slammed it. It’d be easier if he was angry.
Gods, I can’t do this anymore. Can’t fight for immortality while I break everyone around me. How long before my actions kill someone else? My mother, Cosmas, Molpe—who’s next?
The Akri Sea isn’t home, isn’t safe, but it’s predictable.
I can go home. I can live my short life among the other sirens. In time, the realms will forget and I’ll die as I’m meant to: forgotten.
Though my heart rages, my mother’s lullaby returns.
Come home. Don’t die so far from the sea.
Her memory. Her song.
Not a warning. A prophecy.
Chapter 29
THE LEATHER BAG IS light. What little I own—the comb from my time in Nekros and a slim volume stolen from the library containing Charon’s origin—barely fill it a quarter of the way.
“Ready?” Hermes asks.
The sun renders his mussed curls aflame. Finally, one similarity between him and his father Zeus: the copper highlights in their hair. He steps into the room, out of direct light, and the similarity vanishes.
I nod, swinging the satchel strap over my shoulder. The book slides and I wince. I’ll store it somewhere safe. With Bion, maybe.
We travel the servant halls. Not out of wanting to stay hidden; no one cares if I leave, not anymore. It’s out of basic ease. Where the main halls twist and turn, the servant halls are direct through-ways.