by Diana Tyler
“Answer her, Mr. Ross. Where’s Damian?”
Resisting the urge to look away from the councilman’s interrogating gaze, Ethan stood up straighter and thrust out his chin. “I wasn’t planning on surviving.”
Chloe gasped.
The councilman whipped his head toward her. “What is it, my dear? What’s wrong? There’s nothing for you to fear.” He went to her and cupped her chin with his hand. “My heart breaks for you and your brother, for what you went through with your parents.”
Ethan’s eyes fell to the helmet on the floor, his ears burning more with every ticking sound it made. Around him, the suit felt as if it was tightening, gripping his arms and legs like a python’s coils, squeezing around his ribcage, tempting him to break free from it. He needed to think fast, but his mind was stuck, his thoughts sabotaged by the countdown as it accelerated until the ticks were almost indistinguishable from one another.
“I may be a man of power, but I’m a man of pity, too,” continued the councilman. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to Chloe’s forehead.
She grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut. Her limbs went rigid, petrified for Ethan’s sake.
“It isn’t your fault you were born an Asher. I have no intention of harming you. I just need your friend here, and your brother, wherever he is, to cooperate.” The man slid his hand down her neck, laughing softly at her disgust.
Ethan was sweating under the suit. He fought the urge to pull off the gloves and implore Chloe not to believe the man, that everything they’d ever been taught about the Religious Council, and all Petros, for that matter, was a lie. But he had a feeling she knew that already. He could only imagine all she’d seen and heard if she really had been in Hades.
“Is it getting hot in there, Mr. Ross?” The councilman held up the fob again. “Tell me what I need to know and I will relieve you.”
“I told you,” said Ethan, barely opening his mouth. “I don’t know where he is. I didn’t plan on getting out of that room.”
The councilman sighed and bowed his head. “My patience has run its course, Mr. Ross. We will find the Asher. And as for your parents, I’ll see to it personally that they die as slowly as possible.”
“No!” Chloe lunged forward and grabbed hold of the councilman’s sleeve. He held the fob high in the opposite hand, his weak breath whistling as she leapt for it.
“Chloe, stop!” yelled Ethan.
But Chloe didn’t stop. She seized the councilman’s wrist and became very still, eerily still, frozen in time. The clock stopped ticking. Ethan closed his eyes, ready for whatever was rigged within his suit to engulf him in flames.
The silence lingered. His breaths persisted. He opened his eyes and saw no trace of Chloe or the councilman.
“Chloe?”
He could hear the guards talking to one another outside, followed by the sound of the foyer’s bronze doors creaking open. Ethan snatched his helmet from the floor and put it on. He could only hope that wherever Chloe was, she had possession of the fob. He’d find out soon enough.
It had worked. A few moments ago, Chloe had been focusing on this time and place, concentrating not on an image but a prayer, a yearning that had inexplicably arisen the moment the councilman had made clear his intentions.
Now she was standing in the midst of what she could only guess was the ancient temple in Eirene. Around her were throngs of people and a heap of ruins, huge stones and toppled columns strewn over acres of rubble. Though the area was filled with evidence of destruction, the people there were jubilant, dancing and smiling, laughing and singing, jumping and twirling with a happiness she’d never seen.
Stretched over the remaining columns of a colonnade were two halves of an indigo veil; dozens of worshippers lay prostrate beneath them, the pieces flapping lazily in the breeze. Children danced, and acrobats flipped to the music of pipes, drums, and tambourines. The air was crisp and refreshed Chloe’s body as she breathed in the alien atmosphere. She wished everyone from her time could see this.
Not far from where she stood was a rectangular rock-cut pool, about one quarter of the size of her swimming pool back home. She turned to the councilman a few yards away and let him watch as she dropped the fob into the water.
“He’ll live a little while longer, then,” said the councilman. His gaunt, skinny body looked like a corpse against the colorful backdrop of whatever celebration was being held there. “You have no idea what you’re doing, do you?”
It wasn’t a question, but an observation. And in truth, Chloe didn’t know what she was doing. It had been her hope to bring him here so together they could see what had happened to their world. Petros’s history had been corrupted long ago, and its rulers brainwashed by a nefarious ideology, the source of which she’d seen with her own eyes.
She couldn’t fully blame the councilman for his actions. He’d been indoctrinated since birth, programmed to carry out the plans of his predecessors and their predecessors before them.
“This is Petros before there was a Religious Council,” Chloe said. “They’re happy because they’re free. Free to be what Duna created them to be.”
The councilman’s face twisted with loathing at Duna’s name.
“I saw a boy freely give his life because of his love for a total stranger.” She nearly choked on the words as she thought of Ethan’s willingness to die for his parents and for Damian. “That love doesn’t exist in the world today because its source has been shut out.”
Passion emboldened her words, edging them with a conviction she was only now able to comprehend. She didn’t know the All-Powerful, but he had known her all along. She could feel him pouring courage into her even now, filling her with a confidence she’d never had, and with a hope she hadn’t thought possible.
“I’m confused.” The councilman scratched his chin as two young kids gave him funny looks as they brushed past his robe. “Is your doma time travel or sophistry?”
“It isn’t sophistry. And it doesn’t take a doma to see what’s happened. But it isn’t your fault.” She took a step toward him, the soft glow of the sunset adding much-needed warmth to his face. “You can see for yourself, and you can change it. You can make things right.”
A shadow fell across the councilman’s face as a low, roaring sound rumbled through the temple, muting the revelry as every instrument and voice fell silent. “You should have done more research.”
“What are you talking about?” Chloe’s eyes scanned the desecrated courtyard, certain that Iris and Tycho were nearby. If she could get the councilman to meet them, to listen to everything they knew…
“Run!”
The command echoed through the crowd, carried from person to person in a contagious surge of panic. The people who had been so carefree just moments ago, caught up in the bliss of the festival, began stampeding toward the portico like a herd of animals, dropping their banners, palm branches, and pieces of fruit as they went.
Black plumes of smoke rose beyond the inner courtyard, blocking out the sun, spearing the clouds with long bolts of lightning that reached the ground. A deafening crack, like a sonic boom, rang out from the mountain range encircling the city.
“You don’t want to stick around for what’s coming, Miss Zacharias,” the councilman said. “That’s a promise.”
“What is it?” Chloe climbed onto a boulder to get a better view. But she could see nothing except the wall of smoke drawing nearer, growing taller, curling toward her like a tidal wave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
GENESIS
A small blond-haired boy stopped beside the rock on which Chloe stood and leaned forward onto his tiptoes, taking her finger. He spoke in Próta, but she didn’t need an interpreter, or Carya’s magic, to understand that he wanted her to go with him. His family shouted at him to move.
“Mania!” said the boy, pulling Chloe toward him. “Mania!” He pointed toward the blackening sky.
What an odd word for a child to use, Chloe thought.
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br /> Growing impatient, the boy’s father scooped him up and carried him off, disappearing into the frenzied crowd. Chloe looked to the councilman, his expression cold and bizarrely calm despite the chaos around them.
The boulder began to tremble, and Chloe jumped off, only to land on quaking ground. The remaining upright columns swayed and quickly collapsed, and all the debris of a prior catastrophe shook in terror as gusts of wind gathered the dirt and created from it dozens of man-sized tornadoes that sped directly toward her.
“Mania is her name,” said the councilman in a voice so low she could hardly hear him.
Chloe coughed as dust flew into her mouth. “Whose name?”
“The final Asher ever to have a place in history.” The councilman turned to her, pulling up his sleeve to cover his face. “Your ancestor. You want to know why I’ve sworn to do away with you?” He stretched out his free arm as lightning struck the boulder on which Chloe had stood. “You, and all your kind, are dangerous, Miss Zacharias.” He stabbed his finger into the air. “This is what Ashers become. This is what you do.”
Chloe shook her head. “No. That’s what you’ve been told to believe all your life.” She shielded her face with her arm and stepped over to him, touching his hand. “But it’s a lie, and if you won’t make things right then I will.”
She reached out and yanked the councilman’s sleeve, pulling him toward her. “I could leave you here at her mercy,” she said, clutching his cold, brittle arm and glancing up at the gray-green thunderheads churning above them.
He gave her a small, condescending smile and patted her hand. “But you won’t.”
“Why do you seem so sure of that?” she said, loosening her grip.
“Because you need answers. And I’m the only person on this planet who holds them.”
One breath later, Chloe was in the sanctuary where she’d first seen the councilman all those years ago. He was beside her, standing on one of the square white mats reserved for the eight-year-olds who came here to learn about the last phase of life, about Coronations. He didn’t seem to be afraid of her, even though he knew by now that all it took was a light touch and a single thought for her to send him to any place, and any time, in history.
“Are you through taking your doma for a spin, Miss Zacharias?”
“I haven’t even started.”
His eyebrows lifted as a snarl crept into his smirk. He tapped his ear and lowered his chin to his right shoulder. “Tell the aunt and uncle that their charges are wanted criminals. Make a public announcement of it. If anyone knows the whereabouts of Chloe and Damian Zacharias, they are to report it immediately.”
He smiled at her, dark circles carving out purple crescents beneath his eyes. “You are hereby an exile, a heretic, a traitor, and a threat to the empire of Petros.”
Chloe smiled back, feeling somehow that her parents knew what was happening, that they were watching her now…and waiting.
“I’ve been to hell,” she said. “It isn’t anything at all like the Coronations you taught us about. Did you know that?” She watched his eyes cloud over as the faintest wisp of fear floated across his countenance. “The worst monsters you ever read about in the myths are true, and they’re even more evil than what the stories say. And the souls there are just shells of their former selves; they spend every waking hour picking flowers in a field covered with fake sky. And from what I hear, that’s the good part of hell.”
She stared up at the domed ceiling above them, picking out the familiar constellations within its lifelike painting of outer space. “They don’t remember what they lived for, or who they loved. They don’t know how they died. They don’t know why or how they were ever born to begin with.”
“You may stop talking now, girl.” The councilman’s cheeks were reddening with heightened rage.
“They don’t know the one who created them because people like you made them forget.”
“Shut up! You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I would take you there myself if I could, but it doesn’t exist anywhere in time. But that’s the other thing about hell. It’s eternal. That means you will be there forever.”
The councilman’s face contorted into a terrifying mask, as if it were made of wax and melting slowly off his skull. His eyes rolled back into his head, his white fingers spread, and his arms shot out to either side. He dropped his head, his black eyes peering up at her as though he were a panther crouched low in high grass.
“What I wouldn’t give to kill you,” he said. “As I killed your mother and father.”
Chloe’s heart pounded hard in her chest. Hot tears welled in her eyes. She’d known deep down that her parents’ death was no accident, and yet hearing him confirm it sliced her heart in two all over again. She fell to her knees and wept as fresh waves of grief washed over her.
“Dry your tears.” The voice that spoke through the councilman didn’t belong to him. It was deeper, more sonorous, almost hypnotic, swinging like a pendulum through the air. “The All-Powerful hasn’t allowed me to take your life, lucky for you.”
The councilman’s eyelids fluttered. His feet lifted off the floor, and he hovered in midair, looking like a scarecrow with its arms pulled straight and body sagging.
“But I have a feeling that in time,” the voice continued, “you will step into death without having to be led. Hades will see you again. At your Coronation.”
Whatever was speaking through the councilman released the old man and threw him to the ground. He lay curled up in the fetal position and groaned as he ripped out a syringe from his robe and stuck it into his arm.
For the first time, Chloe felt sorry for him. He wasn’t to blame for her parents’ deaths. He wasn’t to blame for Orpheus luring her to Aeaea or to the River Styx. He was just a pawn, a dispensable puppet whose strings were being pulled by the true rulers of Petros. If she wanted to change the world, she knew it would take more than changing one man’s mind. Even if he saw the truth, his peers would waste no time putting him to death and the tyranny would continue.
“Goodbye,” Chloe said to the councilman. “I’ll be praying for you.” Then she closed her eyes, her thoughts focused on four people.
Four people she could save.
Four people who could change history.
“Chloe.”
Chloe jumped and opened her eyes, but she wasn’t in the sanctuary. In fact, she didn’t know where she was. Walls that appeared to be made of clouds surrounded her, and her feet were wrapped in the hazy tendrils of a dying fog. Below her toes, faraway lights twinkled through the mist; a bright sphere, identical to the moon, hung between them.
And then a figure stepped in front of her. He wore a white tunic that shimmered as he moved, and golden sandals that hurt her eyes to look at. She stopped breathing when she saw his hair, the dark brown waves that grazed high, olive cheekbones.
A spark flickered in one of his sapphire eyes.
“Orpheus?” She gasped as if coming up for air after minutes under water. “What are you do—where are—” She moved closer to him to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. “It’s really you.”
He smiled, then stretched his hand into the cloud behind him and pulled it back like a curtain. Beyond were countless stars of every hue, all of them gleaming like brilliant gemstones set on fire. Surrounding them towered hundreds of nebulas, suspended like colossal cocoons of cosmic dust and plasma in which ancient giants slept.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.
As Chloe nodded, Orpheus traced a circle in the cloud with his foot, forming a melon-sized hole below them. Through it, Chloe could see Petros, a tiny blue-and-green marble floating perhaps a million miles away.
“Where am I?” The air in the cloud suddenly seemed very thin. How was she able to breathe? How was she able to stay warm?
“I can’t say for sure, but I would call it a bridge. A bridge for the living to meet with the dead, at least this once.”
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nbsp; “The last time you met with the living, the living ended up in Hades.” Chloe’s brain fought against itself. One half yearned to travel back to Petros, to get out of this celestial web before Orpheus tried his sly tactics again. But the other half, the stronger half, sensed something had changed since they’d last been together.
“I’m sorry for everything, Chloe. In his graciousness, Duna has allowed me to ask your forgiveness face to face.”
“Duna? You know about Duna?”
“Yes. Ironically, it was when I returned to Hades that I placed my trust in him. And I died a second death.”
“I…I forgive you. You did what you did because you love your wife.” Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes.
Orpheus’s eyes were glistening, too. “No. I did what I did because I didn’t have hope.” He took a deep breath as if a great yoke had just been lifted off his shoulders. “All is well now. I am with my wife Eurydice again.” He wiped his cheek and looked out into the universe, joy brightening his face like a sunrise. “We were sent to the Vale of Mourning and the Fields of Asphodel to proclaim the existence, and the grace, of the All-Powerful. The ones who believed are now free.”
“That’s wonderful news.” It was all Chloe could get out.
Orpheus took a step forward and placed a hand on her shoulder. His face grew solemn. “Apollo and his followers will do everything in their power to stop you. You mustn’t lose faith.”
“I won’t.”
The cloudy nest that sheltered them began to break apart, fading into the ether like puffs of breath in winter air.
The glittering lights of the heavens dimmed, and soon Orpheus was gone, leaving not a trace save for his warmth still lingering on her shoulder.
All alone and enveloped in darkness, Chloe looked down at her feet. There was nothing supporting her, but at the same time everything was.
“Please, Duna, don’t let me fall.”
Then she set her gaze on her home below as unseen fingertips painted the Moonbow into the blackness around it, filling her heart with hope, and strength for the coming fight.