Promise of Shadows

by Ireland, Justina

  Hades takes a step back, and I push the questions from my mind. I can’t really imagine my mother with anyone, let alone Hades. She wasn’t one to let sentiment override her judgment. Whoever my father was, I know I was the result of a breeding contract, not some torrid affair. Love just isn’t in the cards for Harpies.

  In the back of my mind a little voice whispers, What about your sister? But Whisper proves my point. She let herself fall in love and ended up dead.

  Hades retreats across the room, but the darkness doesn’t follow him. For a moment it clings to my skin, soothing my pain. The ever-present ache in my chest, a constant companion since the day Whisper was killed, eases. I want to make Hades’s dark cloak my own, to let it erase the burden of loss and failure that weighs on me.

  But the darkness isn’t mine, and to try to claim it would be a death sentence. So instead of cradling the erebos close, I shove it away while taking a step back.

  Hades watches me, his gaze too knowing. “The darkness seems placated by you.”

  I turn away so he won’t see my expression, which I’m sure is full of longing. “I’m a Godslayer. The darkness knows its own.” I bite my tongue and hope that Hades doesn’t notice the slip. Way to almost confess, Mourning.

  Hades says nothing, and after a long moment, when I feel more centered, I turn around. “Is that it, then? Am I free to return to the Pits?”

  “If that is your wish.” He seems reluctant to let me go, and I wonder what this is really about. I should be beneath the notice of the King of the Dead. After all, I’m just another inmate of the Pits.

  I look back toward the window that earlier showed the Elysian Fields. Hades notices, and asks, “Would you like to see your mother?”

  “What’s the catch?”

  His eyebrows raise. “There is no catch. The offer was without conditions.”

  I hesitate. “Yes. Yes, I’d like to see her.”

  The window lights up, and there is my mother. Her blue-black skin glows like it never did in life. Her long red snarls are piled on top of her head, and she wears a dress. Her black-and-red wings seem to glow, less terrifying in death, almost cheerful. She sits with a group of other Harpies, laughing over something. I blink and look at the image again.

  “Umm, are you sure that’s my mother?”

  “Yes. The shades are different from how they were in life. The Elysian Fields are a place of forgetting.”

  I nod, because I get what he’s trying to say. It’s hard to be angry when you can’t remember what it was that you were pissed about.

  I step back from the window. “Thank you,” I say. I pause, considering my next words. “My sister, Whisper. Do you think I could see her, too? Just for a quick moment,” I hurriedly add as his expression darkens. I hate the weakness in my voice, the slight tremor at the end. But the empty ache in the middle of my chest is back. I think that maybe if I can see her one last time, if I can see that she’s happy in the afterlife, that some of the hurting will go away. Maybe I won’t be so scared about everything. Maybe I can face my impending death with dignity.

  “I am sorry. I cannot.”

  The yearning in my middle disappears, burned away by a familiar rage. This time I don’t try to silence it. “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Cannot.”

  “Why not? Just a second. I swear, I’ll never ask you for anything again.”

  The whorls of darkness snap, and Hades tenses. “I cannot show you your sister because she is not here. Her shade never arrived in my domain.”

  His answer steals my breath away, and my chest tightens. “She never arrived?”

  “Your sister is not in the afterlife.”

  His words unhinge something in me. The thought that Whisper isn’t in the Elysian Fields breaks something in my heart. I want to lie on the ground and never get up.

  I see her again, lying on the patio, her chest a gaping red mess. I know she was dead. She has to be in the Fields. If she isn’t in the afterlife, where is she?

  And does Hermes know her shade is adrift somewhere in the realms?

  The only thing that’s gotten me through my time in Tartarus was the belief that I would one day see my family again in the Elysian Fields, that I could still earn a place in the afterlife. And now . . .

  Now I have nothing.

  Suddenly there’s no point in going on. Why care where my shade ends up? Either way I’ll just be alone. I don’t know the woman who Hades just showed me in the Elysian Fields. My mother and I were never all that close, anyway. Mom was a drill sergeant, a taskmaster trying to make me something I was not. It was Whisper who cared for me, who taught me to fly and worked hard to make sure I could pass my lessons. My mother was just a specter who appeared in between wars. I can’t spend eternity without Whisper.

  I almost blurt out what Hades wants to know. Tell him about my abilities so he can end me here and now. I could tell him everything about the night Ramun Mar was killed, how I was so angry and scared and when I reached for the power, the darkness came, eager and willing and oh so destructive. I want to tell him everything. I want to just be done with it all.

  But as I open my mouth to spill my one remaining secret, I stop. Because maybe that’s just want he wants me to do. Maybe that’s why he was kind to me. Hermes’s smiling blue-steel eyes come back to me. What if this has all been an act? What if he’s only pretending to be nice to get me to confess everything?

  What if Hermes is part of this? Maybe the little pep talk was so I’d trust Hades and confess to using the dark power. Then he could deliver the coup de grâce and end me once and for all.

  My anger returns, my grief forgotten. Æthereals are all the same.

  “You’re lying,” I say, my voice soft. Something dark and anxious jumps low in my belly. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize it’s probably not the smartest thing in the world to insult an Exalted like Hades. The Exalteds are stronger than other Æthereals, and Hades is near the top of the food chain.

  And me? I’m pretty close to the bottom.

  But I can’t seem to stop myself. My rage churns and fills me with the shadows that I recognize from the night I confronted Ramun Mar. The tiny voice in the back of my mind urges me to calm down, to be cautious. But I can’t.

  I won’t.

  Hades stills, his dark aura snapping with temper. Strangely, it seems to echo my own emotional state. “Why would I lie? What is the benefit in denying you access to your sister?”

  I don’t answer his question. Because if he’s not lying, then my sister is gone. Not in the afterlife, just gone. She was once there, and now she’s nowhere. My brain can’t process that fact. My heart won’t let me think that someone I loved so much could just cease to exist.

  “I said you’re lying. You’re a liar. You’re all liars.” Hot tears pour down my cheeks. I know they make me look weak, but I don’t care. I’m beyond caring. I am nothing but grief and rage. “You’re all alike, lying when it suits you, cruel for the fun of it. Sleeping with whoever you want even though it could mean their death.” I dash away my tears, breathing deep to keep myself from having a full-fledged breakdown.

  But something of my words has penetrated Hades’s somber demeanor, and behind the churning darkness his eyes narrow. “Who? Who am I like, Zephyr Mourning?”

  Awareness prickles along my arms, and too late I realize I’ve pushed him too far. One does not offend a god and live to tell about it. But my anger and pain and sorrow are too wide for me to see reason, and I open my mouth when I would be better off keeping it shut.

  “The High Council. All you Æthereals are the same. I don’t know why I ever thought I could trust you. You probably never even met my mother. It’s all just a lie to get me to confess how I killed Ramun Mar.”

  Hades pauses, and for a second I think maybe he won’t punish me for my behavior. But then the whole of his darkness draws back from him, so that for one shining moment his form is revealed. The inky aura looms over him like a snake about to
strike.

  “Insolent puppy,” he says. Time seems to slow into that single moment, and my anger withdraws enough for me to realize that I have seriously screwed up.

  The dark wave rushes around Hades and over me, sweeping me up. It’s no longer the welcoming friend it was earlier. Now the darkness has intent. I can feel it as it whispers over my skin. The erebos sighs in a hundred different voices. It steals my air and burns my nerve endings. I’m on fire while drowning and being torn to pieces. It flows through the center of me, tearing away something vital. I try to scream out my pain, but the darkness steals even that bit of release.

  I am tossed and turned in a sea of pain and rage and disappointment. I reach out, attempting to wield some of my own forbidden power. For a single shining moment the darkness abates, reluctant to hurt me. But it’s pointless. The erebos quickly begins devouring me again, Hades’s intent pushing it forward. My abilities are nothing compared to his, a raindrop trying to attack the ocean.

  I surrender to my punishment, going limp as the dark energy tears me apart atom by atom. My last thought before I lose consciousness is relief.

  At least I finally know how I die.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I WAKE SLOWLY. MY BODY takes its time coming back online, fingertips tingling and toes wiggling. I’ve just registered the grass tickling my nose and the headache forming behind my eyelids when the full effect of Hades’s punishment slams into me.

  I roll over with a groan. I feel like I’ve been beaten with a sack of doorknobs. Everything throbs, even my teeth. My nerve endings are seared. When I try to move, fresh pain shoots through me. I close my eyes and take deep breaths. Maybe I can just lie here forever. I’d make a pretty good rock.

  Nausea ripples through my middle. I want to sit up. Maybe puke a little. But that would involve movement. I can’t do anything more strenuous than breathe.

  The pain begins to ebb, but I don’t move. I open my eyes and blink in surprise. I stare up into the same twilight sky that I’ve looked at for the past year.

  “Rise and shine, princess,” Cass says, kicking my foot. “You missed chow.”

  I roll over before climbing to my knees. My head pounds and I hurt all over, but it’s better than being dead.

  “Where are we?” I glance around, taking in the scenery. There’s actually grass here, and the wood line is closer. A lot closer.

  “The bulls got a sudden order to move us after the rain stopped. We’re going into the woods.” Cass holds out her hand and helps me lever myself to my feet.

  “The woods? But I thought going in there was certain death.”

  Cass gives me a look. “It is. I think someone is trying to make a point.”

  A couple of Fae walk past me, giving me serious stink eye. One whispers something to the other, and I shrink into myself as the willowy blondes study me. “Oh gods.”

  Cass sighs. “Yeah. It’s going to be really hard to keep you alive.”

  I swallow and nod. “I understand. Well, thanks for all you’ve done. I mean, you’re probably one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” I don’t add that she’s one of the only friends I’ve ever had. Life in the Aerie doesn’t really lend itself to closeness.

  Thinking about Cass abandoning me dredges up old memories of a boy with dark eyes and an easy smile. He was the one who gave me the nickname Peep, after those marshmallow chicks that come out in the spring. But he wasn’t a Harpy, and in the end he left me just like everyone else.

  She gives me a strange look. “You’re a good friend too, Zeph. But that wasn’t a declaration of your death. It was merely a statement of fact.” She pauses and looks around. “Come on, let’s fall in line before the bulls notice.”

  We slip into the line of vættir, trailing behind a satyr with a shovel propped on his shoulder. It reminds me that my shovel is gone. It’s going to be really hard to dig without one. Assuming I live long enough to make it to the work site.

  My body still aches a little, but as we start walking, my discomfort fades into the background. There’s an anxious sensation deep in my stomach that I don’t recognize. It makes me want to run into the shadows behind the trees or pick a fight with the satyr in front of me. It’s a strange urge to have. I’m not really one to break the rules.

  But I’ve also never been so close to dying before.

  The trees press in on us, turning the twilight to night. There are deep shadows in between the twisted black trunks of the trees, and I press closer to Cass on instinct. “Don’t touch the trunks. The trees are carnivorous,” she says just as the satyr in front of us trips over an exposed root and falls. He lands against the trunk of one of the trees and screams as the bark envelops him. The spoiled-lemon stink of his fear is overwhelming, and I have to hold my breath. Cass carefully steps around the tree, avoiding the satyr’s flailing arms as he is completely encased in smooth, shining bark.

  The line keeps moving. No one even turns around to see what happened. That’s the thing about Tartarus. Everyone can hear you scream. They just don’t care. I reach down to pick up his shovel and keep walking.

  I should feel something, be sad about his death or at least horrified. But I didn’t know him, and I needed a shovel. I’m too busy trying to figure out how I’m going to survive to feel much beyond my own desperation.

  We keep walking, picking our way around the deadly trees. I watch the ground to make sure I don’t trip and try to forget that very soon I’ll be dead. Whether at the hands of my fellow inmates or the Æthereals or this forest is really the only question. My sadness makes my shoulders droop, and I consider throwing myself against a tree just to get it over with. Maybe my restless shade will be able to find Whisper, wherever she ended up.

  Cass nudges me with her elbow, and I look up. “What’s wrong?” she asks, perceptive as always. I hastily detail everything that happened, from the strange meeting with Persephone to the revelation that Whisper isn’t in the Elysian Fields and my punishment for talking back to a god. She winces when I describe how the darkness overwhelmed me.

  “You’re lucky to even be here.”

  I nod. “I know.”

  “Not many vættir can even survive contact with a wave of erebos.” Cass grabs me by the arm and pulls me out of the way of a grasping vine. I swat at the vine with my shovel, making contact. The thing lets loose a high-pitched scream as it darts away.

  Cass continues to look at me like she’s waiting for me to confess my darkest secret. Maybe I should finally tell her. It’s not like I have a lot of time left. I owe her so much. The least I could give her would be this small truth.

  I open my mouth, ready to tell her everything, when there’s a chorus of screams from the front of the line of vættir winding its way through the forest. “What’s going on?”

  Cass snaps to attention just as vættir begin to run toward us. Their screams meld with the rancid-citrus stink of their fear, and my head pounds. Her hand is a vise on my arm. “Look.”

  A creature moves through the forest, its hulking mass knocking over trees as it lets loose a hoarse roar. The head of the thing resembles a giant lion, but a scorpion’s tail lashes out at the fleeing vættir, while an eagle’s wings beat the air in agitation. I take a step back, and my mouth goes dry. “Is that a manticore?”

  “No, chimera. But this is our chance.” Cass pulls me sideways, away from the approaching beast but also in the opposite direction of the fleeing inmates.

  “Wait, our chance for what?” I ask as I run to keep up with Cass. I really don’t have much choice. She’s pulling me by the arm, and she’s incredibly strong. It’s either run or let my arm get yanked out of the socket, and once was enough.

  “To escape,” she says, and it’s enough to make me dig in my heels.

  “Whoa, wait. Wait just a minute here. We can’t escape. Where are we supposed to go?”

  Behind us the screams are getting louder, the roar of the beast echoing through the trees. Cass sighs. “We go to the Mortal Realm. I can get us
to Charon, at the river crossing. We’ll convince him to get us across. You can hide in the Mortal Realm, at least for a little while. The Æthereals aren’t as strong there.”

  I shake my head, despair weighing heavily in my middle. “They’ll still find me.”

  “Maybe. Either way we can at least find out what happened to your sister.” Cass grabs my arm and pulls me along, and I don’t resist.

  “What do you mean we can find my sister?” I run to keep up with her, and she lets go of me to swing her shovel at a clinging vine that drops down at us.

  “If her shade never made it to the Underworld, then it has to be in the Mortal Realm somewhere. We can help her move on.”

  “But what if it isn’t? What if she isn’t there?”

  Cass stops and looks me dead in the eye. “Then the Nyx can find her.”

  My bark of laughter bounces off the trees. “Really, Cass? The Nyx isn’t real. It’s just a story adults tell children to help them sleep at night.”

  Cass sighs and starts jogging again. “If your sister didn’t cross over, then the Nyx is real. That’s why we need to find out if her shade is still in the Mortal Realm or not.”

  I pick up the pace to keep up. “I don’t understand.”

  “Disappearing shades is one of the signs of the Nyx’s return. So if your sister’s shade is missing, then it might mean the Nyx has finally returned.”

  “Returned? What are you saying? You mean the Nyx was a real thing once?”

  Cass nods. “A long time ago. I’m surprised you don’t know that.” Her words are heavy with importance, and her tone is kind of insulting. Why would I think that a made-up hero is real? What does she think I am, a little kid?

  I shake my head, pushing aside my irritation. “But, if she was real, what happened to her?”

  “Not her, him,” Cass says, as she starts moving faster. “He was a real person.” She looks over her shoulder at me but doesn’t stop running. “My father killed him.”

  CHAPTER SIX