Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series

by Kyleigh Castronaro

  Try as I might, to believe I was a wholly good person, I knew there were parts of me that were right for this job. The part of me that was excited by the prospect of pain and death, the part of me that longed for these things, because it was blood by which I had always survived.

  These things would always define us in the eyes of the other gods, even Valentina and Persephone. However we tried to steer ourselves in the right direction of our fate, there would always be that deeply pitted longing for the disorder. For within disorder, we found our real passion.

  The nose of the boat collided with the rocky shore, and the ferryman whispered something in Ancient Greek.

  If Hades hadn’t retreated to the back of my mind after kissing Persephone, he might’ve been able to translate for me. Instead, I guessed the detached statement was one asking me to get out.

  Clamoring onto the shore, I stepped back, turning to see Charon one more time, but he was already gone. I suppressed an unnerving shiver, turning back to the barbed gates. There was a longing within me to see my throne, be it either a sincere desire belonging to my God, or my own sick fascination for what was in store for me. I didn’t know if these gates would bring me there or not.

  Stepping toward the gates caused them to creak open magically. An invisible welcoming committee of murmuring voices waiting. I inclined my head to them thoughtfully, before crossing through and entering the despairing darkness that lay waiting. The corridor was long and savage in design. Rocks split from the floor to dig into the bottoms of my shoes, while the edges of the walls were carved so roughly, the occasional jutting edge cut into my shoulders. There was no way back I found, when I turned around to see. Just a darkness that threatened an eternity of nothing if I were to return to it. So I carried on, one hand outstretched for guidance while the other blindly felt for the rocks that might cut me along the way.

  It was foolish to have jumped headlong into coming here. I was in no sufficient condition to call Hades back, not that I was sure he’d want to. I knew nothing at all about this place, save for the fact that it answered to me. I considered this for a moment, and studied my surroundings.

  The darkness looming nearby, pulsated with a life force that wouldn’t be named. The air around me, rippling with each subtle movement that indicated its vitality. It was alive with a consuming hunger, smelling my flesh, and knowing that something living, for once, had come to its domain. But while it might reside here, this world and all its inhabitants belonged to me. It would answer to me when I called, like the darkness I summoned with my magic.

  I wondered: were they one in the same, perhaps? Was this what the source of the smoke I commanded when I sing the song of my soul?

  “Back,” I said twisting around completely, and holding my hands out like a shield. The darkness wavered, stretching itself out to touch from one side of the cavernous hallway to the other, before shrinking back to its normal size. “As King of the Underworld, I command you to return to where you’ve come from,” I said again, stepping forward into the darkness, only for it to shy away from me.

  I felt myself drawing from its energies; they throbbed within me as an ache. It seemed to sense, I was pulling its life force, as a high-frequency pitch of pain echoed down the long hallway. Then, the sound was absorbed entirely by the darkness, as it recoiled into itself, leaving me in a deafening silence. It was still pitch black, but it was far less ominous than before, and the darkness that lay behind me was simply the illusion of a dark distance and nothing more.

  I turned back on my way, stepping into another jagged rock protruding from the wall. Hissing in mild pain, I frowned, pressing my hands out on either side of myself.

  “Back!” I said again, this time with more impatience than before. The walls shuddered around me and shrank back, opening the hallway for more comfort. “Light,” I said testing my limits as a hundred candles appeared floating in midair to guide my safe passage.

  Nodding to myself in content, I returned to my course, tracing the length of the hallway in search of the throne room. Now that I understood the limits of this place, I knew that everything in the Underworld was within my power, as everything here had an essence to which my own magic was so intrinsically connected to. My will was the power by which this world operated. I was, quite literally, King of the Darkness.

  The hallway pooled out into a massive room that appeared to be more carefully carved. The walls had been chiseled away until they were flat and smooth, polished like tumbled obsidian. The floor was laid out in a vast expanse of smoky marble that curled like clouds in its design.

  Creating an aisle, leading forward into the room. Stalagmites erupted from the marble as indicators of the walkway. They glistened like little towers of dark red paint collected on the floor. The shimmer of red that caught my eye between flickers of the candle was unnerving in its resemblance to blood.

  The stalagmites lead the way through the room, where I saw now, that what I originally mistook as cloudy designs in the marble, were swirls of fog lapping itself against the embankment of marble. It was holding back the tides of the rivers that assembled here, dreary faces emerging from the small waves, crying for attention.

  If this wasn’t the throne room, I knew I was close.

  The stalagmite edged bridge led me across this foggy lake, and only at its end; peering into the oncoming darkness, did I realize my candles had been left hovering at the far end. Some warning tightened in my gut, but there was nowhere to go back to, I had to keep going forward; so I reached out, pressing myself blindly into the darkness.

  As my hand strayed forward, a whoosh echoed through the room and the darkness in front of me pulled back like a curtain. Stumbling backward, my feet caught on one of the stalagmites, and for a moment, a wave of horror washed over me as I imagine being impaled by the blood red rock. Barely managing to catch myself at the last minute, my hand slipped on the rock I latched onto and sliced my palm open. Inhaling sharply, I hissed, bringing the bloody cut to my mouth to ease the sting. To both my fascination and horror, the rock that had caused the cut, seemed to swallow the blood offering before growing a brighter red.

  Consciously, I grew aware of my surroundings; this is hell, and hell deals exclusively in death and what that may entail. But witnessing such a gruesome effect of my surroundings, left me feeling uncomfortable. I rose and stepped away from the carnivorous rocks, not wanting to see what a blood offering might make them do for more. Besides, I had a new entranceway to examine; one that certainly wasn’t there before.

  In the revealed threshold, stood two pillars of molten wax, atop each a candle sat, adding its discharge to the drippings below. The light was enough to show me that what I’d earlier mistaken for darkness was, in fact, two velvet shrouds hanging from nothing that were now held in place by magic. They were such a dark color, it’s unsurprising that I mistook them for an abyss, as they seem to swallow shadows with their void of color.

  Tentatively crossing the entrance into the next room, I immediately recognized it from the visions Hades had shown me. This was the throne room I had come in search of. It was exactly how I remembered it from the vision. The walls were cave-like in appearance, but more of the velvet curtains hung along them like blank tapestries. To my left, sat another threshold, whose beyond was uncertain. That was either the entrance to heaven or hell, depending on what whim was inspired in me by the begging mortals.

  The thrones, themselves, gleamed in the candlelight, the silver was meticulously polished by an unseen force for centuries since my last appearance. The skulls looked fresh and bleached, gleaming in an almost pearly, iridescent way. The jaws were frozen in a death smile, each tooth scrubbed to perfection. It was unnerving for my mortal self to look upon the throne of Death, knowing its purpose and power. I could feel the fear crawl up the back of my neck like spiders, weaving small webs of paranoia and distress.

  It took a lot of effort to move myself forward towards the chairs. Each step made my feet feel laden with cement. My muscle
s ached, longing to flee this place, but I knew it was wrong. This was a temporary fear. I belonged here. My hand found the throne first, curling around the arm of it, before I twisted myself around and lowered my body into the plush cushion.

  I sat; the throne and I became one.

  The fear dissipated, the paranoia dissolved, and the distress dispersed. That feeling in the garden was back, the sheer, absolute, all-encompassing power. I felt invincible and for the first time—God-like.

  I relaxed the breath I was holding, sinking further into my throne, and realized I felt welcome here. This is where I belonged, and the creatures of this world could sense it.

  The room around me began to shimmer with magic, the screams, I recognized from the river, grew louder, as they echoed around me, then they began to come. Souls of people who had been trapped in limbo since Hades went to sleep slipped into the room, crowding it as it pulsed to widen itself to fit all these people. They all looked anguished and haggard, centuries of being trapped wearing on their immortal souls. I frowned, unsure of what this place wanted me to do.

  Yes, I was Hades and yes, I had the power to make things right, but what did I know of these affairs. I didn’t hold the answers yet, I was still as much my mortal self, as I had ever been. Hades wasn’t going to help me either, he was more content to sulk over his wife, than return— fighting through the sluggish alcoholic clouds in my mind —to help me.

  “I’m sorry—” I began, but I didn’t know what else I could say that might make things better for these people. They wanted hope and answers, but I wasn’t ready to give it to them. False hope was as deadly as any poison.

  I rose quickly, moving away from the throne, before it was too late. The room was so full, the souls had packed themselves in like sardines, and removing myself from the throne merely put me closer to them. Moving through their matter was like trying to swim in quicksand. They clung to me and swarmed me; I was suffocating on ghosts.

  Through the vacant faces, I spotted someone familiar. I was taken aback, unsure as to why he would be here of all the places of the Underworld. Pushing through, I elbowed my way past unfamiliar faces, until I reached him, staring up at his forlorn expression. He didn’t seem to recognize me, not that I blamed him. The last time I’d seen him, I was a child and he was drunk most of the time.

  “Dad?” How long had he been dead? How long had he been waiting here? How was I supposed to react to seeing him? My mind swum with questions, but there were no answers. Here before me, was the man who had taught me everything I knew about coping, I had turned to drink because I had seen him use it. But, this was also a guy who had shown his love with his fists, a man who had made my mother cry and beg, and worst of all, blame herself for his shortcomings. But he was my father; above all else, he was the man who had given me my life; however useless I deemed it. Like any child with a void in their heart from a parent, I just wanted him to love me and to accept me. It was a twisted need, but a need nonetheless. I didn’t even know if I could forgive him, or if I wanted to. I just wanted him to see me for once and recognize me for what I was—his son.

  But his eyes were blank, as though he looked right through me. Then he did pass through me, joining the ranks of the other begging spirits. His body going through mine was cold and clammy, I felt shaken in the worse possible way. He had literally gone through my heart, seizing it with his existence, and forgotten me all at once.

  I wanted to condemn him to hell. But I also wanted to know what brought him here that the judges couldn’t agree on. Surely his life was a wasted one, something he had squandered in his alcoholism, insecurity, and self-hatred. Like myself. That was one a one-way ticket to hell in my books, so why did he wander my hall?

  “Griffin!” I turned in expectation, but my father had already been swallowed by the masses. Instead, some forceful being was pushing his way through the specter bodies and moving quickly toward me. I steeled myself for whoever it was. If my father was here, what else of my past would be back to haunt me?

  “Griffin!” He shoved his way through to me, and Lincoln stepped out of the crowd. Instinctively, I stepped back, remembering what Val had said about Lincoln and Aidan, before realizing I was stupid. If he was here, he was thoroughly dead.

  “Lincoln?” I asked, still rather uncertain with his appearance, “Cronos?” I tried instead, hoping it was the former and not the latter.

  “No, Lincoln.” I breathed an unnecessary sigh of relief.

  “I’m, uh, sorry...” I said awkwardly, “about the whole death thing.”

  He shook his head and spoke again, “it’s fine. I mean, I’m pissed; but it’s not like either of us can do anything about it.”

  “Is that why you’re here, then? Because you weren’t really supposed to die?”

  “Guess so...” He looked around the crowd of spirits, milling about and crying for attention. I wondered if he felt as uncomfortable around them as I did. The more I watched him though, the more I realized, he didn’t even notice them. Was it just me who could see all these ghosts?

  “I’m here for a reason...” He said vaguely, still staring across the throne room, like he was looking for something. His profile wavered slightly, like the reception on the TV was being messed with. What had started out as a clear signal, was quickly fading like he was exerting effort to be this present for me.

  It made sense, when I thought of it. My father hadn’t even noticed me; he just walked right through me and carried on. Perhaps they needed to want to be seen to communicate. I frowned to myself, wishing for a clear-cut answer.

  “I think most of them are,” I said dryly, watching an old woman go by, holding a tattered blanket she had wrapped up like a swaddled child. She screamed something, but I didn’t understand the language, and her voice sounded like she was underwater.

  “No. I’m here for you.” Again, I suspected this was the case for everyone. I was supposed to lay some final judgment on these people, from some reserve knowledge I had yet to tap into.

  “No,” he crooned again, as though he had been able to read my thoughts. “There’s something I have to tell you.” He wandered away from me, gliding through the other spirits. I sensed the urgency he was trying to convey in his abruptly lethargic state. He brought us to the other side of the throne room, returning me to my seat of skulls and silver. But he passed beyond it, moving us behind them, were the other spirits didn’t dare tread.

  He looked around as though someone might be watching, and I felt my own paranoia survey the room for a hidden threat. Lincoln grabbed my arm then, turning me back to him.

  “The Titans.” He said sternly, “the Titans are planning to overthrow the Gods. While I was still alive, inside my own head, I watched Cronos with Coeus and his brothers, plot against the Olympians. They plan to steal Zeus’ key to the Heavens—that is what gives him rule over his domain— and throw the Gods back to earth. They believe that by placing the Gods in their divided states on Earth, will weaken the Gods enough so that they can be killed like humans.”

  I stared at Lincoln in shock and horror, trying to process what he was saying. Initially, I wondered why he would tell me. I was in no position to go to the other Gods to warn them—not that they would believe me even if I tried. What was I supposed to do with this information?

  I wasn’t powerful enough, or well liked enough, to stop it. I couldn’t just go to Aidan and trust that he would believe me, not after the way he had acted in the club with Savannah and Valentina. Nothing I ever said was going to change his opinion of me; only time would ever be able to do that. Lots of time, and lots of walking on eggshells around him.

  “What do you mean the Gods can be killed like humans? Aren’t we immortal?”

  Lincoln shook his head, but I could already tell, he didn’t know; or if he did, focusing himself to recall the information was getting difficult. “There’s something about Earth that is dangerous for Gods. It’s why they spent most of their time in Olympus and only went down to Earth when nece
ssary.”

  There were answers then, ones that I needed to find. That would prove to be difficult, considering the way everyone treated me like I was diseased. Even these spirits couldn’t expel their energy enough to be around me, I was so draining.

  “What’s happening to you?”

  Lincoln’s attention had snapped back to me, before he looked down at himself like he was suddenly aware there was a difference in his makeup.

  “My magic is gone and as a spectral being, there is only so much I can tap into to regain consciousness. Soon I’ll be like the rest of them, caught in the same state I was when I died.”

  “And what happens when your magic runs out entirely?”

  He looked over at me and shrugged slowly, and with effort, “I imagine you are the decider of that fate.”

  “Is there a way I can stop it?” I didn’t know why I was asking him, what would he know of my realm, if he knew anything at all? I looked around the room quickly; trying to recall to memory the vision Hades had given me when I was here with Persephone. She had taken the child somewhere and I’d known, deep inside, the child was going to a better place. She would return to the Greek Heaven.

  “Elysium,” I whispered unconsciously to myself, looking back up at Lincoln with a snap. “This way,” I said, moving back around the thrones, and guiding him to the threshold Persephone used. I tried to imagine what Heaven would be like, although a voice in my head reminded me I would never be blessed with the privilege of going to such a place.

  Casting aside my own doubts and insecurities, I looked at the guy next to me. Here was someone who had his whole future ahead of him and being brought to this world had done nothing but take it away because of greed. I steeled myself, imagining Elysium for him and drew back the curtains of the threshold. Lincoln looked at me uncertainly, but I nodded to tell him it was going to be okay.