This might be one of them.
Hera releases me and I fall to the ground. She takes her bloody sword to the center of the fort’s remains. I roll over to watch her. I clutch my stomach, as though I can stop my life from draining out between my fingers. She shoves the sword into the center of the Node, burying the thing up to the hilt. I have the urge to laugh. With that kind of strength there was no way I ever had a chance of defeating her.
Tallon skids to a stop beside me just as Hera begins to recite something in a language I don’t understand. His hands find my middle, pushing down over mine. “It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ll fix it. The dark will fix you.”
I shake my head, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes. I can’t bear to tell him that there’s something wrong with me. The sword was made of æther, and that element has never been my friend. I can feel it killing me from the inside out. I don’t have much time left.
“What’s she saying?” I ask. Tallon turns to Hera and then turns back to me.
“It’s High Æthereal. She’s asking the spirits to open the gate, to bring the blood of her blood to her. But we don’t have time for her. We need to get you somewhere safe.”
I shake my head. “No, she’s doing it. She’s going to kill the shadow vættir. We have to stop her.”
Tallon shakes his head. “You need a healer.”
“No, I need to see what she’s doing. Help me sit up.” I have a feeling. It’s just a hunch, but something that Hades told me about the shades niggles at the back of my brain.
Tallon scowls at me before lifting me into a sitting position. I swallow a moan and watch Hera, and it all suddenly clicks. She needed the shades to power the spell, but she needed my blood to summon them through the Paths.
“Those are my shades,” I murmur, remembering my father’s words. It all makes sense. Hera may have trapped the shades and kept them from traveling to the afterlife, but she couldn’t command them to do what she needed them to do. That would take a dark lord’s power.
Or the blood of the daughter of a dark lord.
Everything slips into place. Hera must have suspected that either Whisper or I were Hades’s daughter, since Persephone knew about his fling with my mother. When Whisper didn’t go along with Ramun Mar’s questioning, he killed her. Not because she was sleeping with Hermes, but because Hera wanted the blood of Hades’s daughter for her spell. But Ramun Mar made a mistake, and I walked in on the aftermath.
Hermes must have known the truth about my parentage, which is why he told me Whisper was killed because of their relationship. Like my mother, he was counting on my ignorance keeping me safe until I was strong enough to fulfill the Prophecy of the Promise. Well, that and Cass’s protection.
Hera would’ve known that I was Hades’s daughter after I killed her Acolyte with the dark lightning. Plus she had Whisper’s shade all this time. She would’ve been able to question her, and she would’ve known that I used dark lightning to kill Ramun Mar. Since I was in the custody of the High Æthereal Council, Hera just had to wait for them to hand down a death sentence. It must have pissed Hera off when the High Council gave me a sentence in Tartarus instead of death. I wonder how much Hermes and Hades had to do with that bit of good luck.
I hope my good fortune can hold for a little longer.
“Help me up,” I say, trying to struggle to my feet. I’m bleeding all over the place, and even though the darkness is trying to heal me, I can sense its frustration. The æther in my belly burns like acid. I imagine it eating away vital organs, and force the thought away. I have one last thing to do. To fulfill a promise.
This all started with Hera. If I beat her, I can end it once and for all.
I push Tallon away, and stumble toward Hera. He grabs me by the arm and hauls me back. “Don’t,” he says, voice rough. “If you try to stop her now, you’re dead.”
“Tallon, I’m already dead.” Pain shoots through my middle again, but I’m careful not to let any of my distress show. There’s too much of the dark in me now, and Hera’s bright sword has done more damage than it should’ve. But I don’t tell Tallon any of this.
I gently remove his fingers from my arm. Behind him, the darkness is beginning to whip around Hera. I can sense the shades approaching down the Paths, pulled from wherever Hera’s kept them hidden. I have to get to her before they do.
I shuffle toward Hera. I’ve only gone a couple of steps before I start to go down. I brace for impact, but Tallon is there. He scowls at me. “You need help.”
“I can’t ask you to do that. She’s your grandmother.”
“She’s an insane goddess bent on once again ruling the Mortal Realm, Zeph. Besides, she’s never even sent me a birthday card.” His grin is slow and wicked, and sadness floods me.
I’m going to miss him most of all.
I clear the lump from my throat. “I need you to throw me into the air. If I can get high enough, I think I can dive at her. Can you do that?”
He nods and moves behind me, his hands on my waist. I draw as much of my darkness to me as I can. His breath is warm on my ear. “I’m going to lift you onto my shoulders, and then launch you from there. Just like the old days. Okay?” I nod. We used to do something similar back in the Aerie when I was small, before I could take off on my own. It was one of my favorite games.
I brace myself, but I’m still not ready for the pain that knifes through me when he lifts me up. Still, my feet manage to find his shoulders without kicking him in the face.
“On the count of three,” he yells. His hands are under my feet, ready to throw me. Hera is only a few feet away from us, completely absorbed in whatever she’s doing. I can do this. I can stop her.
“One, two, THREE!”
I crouch and jump at the same time that Tallon pushes up on the bottom of my feet. The result is that I’m airborne, but falling too quickly to reach Hera.
Wings. I need wings, I think. And like before, the darkness obliges.
There’s a tingling along my spine, and then upward movement. A coordinated flapping of wings behind me, and I’m soaring. It feels like coming home, gliding through the sky again. But I don’t have time to savor the feeling. I have a prophecy to fulfill.
The pain in my middle fades a little as I focus on Hera. I climb a little higher. Up high, the ruins of the old fort are clear, as is the darkness pulsing along the lines of the old walls. It radiates off into the night. From here it’s easy to see how this place could be more than what it seems. Each of the corners of the fort terminates in a diamond shape instead of a normal corner. It’s unusual and beautiful.
I take a deep breath. I don’t have time to admire ancient architecture. Holding my hand out, I ask the darkness for a short sword, the kind we train with in the Aerie. It’s slow to respond, and instead a long, slender knife made of midnight appears in my hand. The darkness is fading, pulled down to whatever Hera is doing below.
That’s my cue.
The wings ride the currents as I seek the best place to strike. The magic is stirring up the winds now, and Hera stands in the calm center of a storm of erebos. A thin layer of bright æther protects her from the dark magic, which is probably why I wasn’t able to hurt her before.
But my talons were able to strike her just fine.
I loosen my grip on the long knife and angle my shadow wings into a dive. Hera doesn’t move, but her magic senses the impending attack. The bright reaches out for me, but a bit of the dark magic swirling around Hera detaches itself and intercepts the bright. I swerve to avoid the next missile, and then I’m beside Hera.
Æther leaks from the Exalted’s eyes, the only sign of the amount of energy she’s expending. “They are coming. And they will bring every last dark creature with them.”
“Let them come,” I grit out. Hera still grips the sword she buried in the ground. It must be her link to the spell she’s casting. I slice at her arm with my talons. The æther pulls back, revealing the pale skin of her arm and a thin bloody cut. Before the æther can
recover I plunge the dark knife into the gash.
Hera’s scream of pain rips through me like a sonic boom. My shadow wings disintegrate at the same moment that she lets go of the sword. She clutches at the knife in her arm, but already the darkness is devouring her from the inside out. Dark lines run up her white arms and the column of her throat. She turns wide eyes on me.
“No. It cannot be. You . . .” She never finishes, stumbling backward into a bright column of æther and disappearing.
That’s when all the hells break loose.
The rushing sound of a freight train approaching echoes around me. The erebos has been let loose, the magic wild without Hera to control it. The ground vibrates. Tallon runs up next to me, his eyes wide. “You have to take control,” he says, yelling to be heard over the noise.
I groan. I just want to lie on the ground and die in peace. “What?”
“Look!” He points behind me, and I slowly turn. A dark cloud spirals into the sky like a tornado. Only the cloud has faces. The thing shifts, and I get a glimpse of Cass before she’s sucked back into the maelstrom.
A funnel cloud of the dead is about to destroy Pittsburgh.
“I got it,” I say. Pain radiates through my middle again, and I moan. Tallon starts to move toward me, and I shake my head. “I have to do this myself.” He nods and takes a step back. I close the distance to the sword without a backward glance.
The swirling mass of shades is anchored to the sword, courtesy of my blood and Hera’s spell. The sword is no longer bright, but blackest night. It oozes erebos, and the thing calls to me like a piece of unattended chocolate cake. I limp toward it. But it takes me years to reach it. The bright æther in my middle is spreading throughout my body. My leg has gone numb, and the side of my face tingles. I’m going to die from this.
I hope Hera is going through the same hell.
I tentatively touch the sword, and the darkness leaps for me. My arms are bare, silver lines arching across them from the poisonous æther. The erebos doesn’t seem to mind, and dark lines form right next to the bright. I take a deep breath and put my other hand on the sword. I gasp as the dark rushes toward me, fast and hard.
I am drowning in a sea of shadows.
It’s just like when Hades sent his dark after me, but worse. There’s no violence this time, no intent to punish. There is only the dark’s willingness to serve. It wants what I want. It wants me to be happy.
Right now it thinks that means pulling every shadow vættir in the world down the Paths and straight into the Node.
I try to tell the darkness to stop. But it’s too loud. It’s like shouting at a crowd of screaming fans. Telling the darkness not to pull in the shadow vættir isn’t going to work.
I have a moment of despair before I take a deep breath, and I close my eyes. I think about Whisper and Cass and all of the other shades swirling overhead. I think about Alora lying facedown in the grass and Blue gorging his dragon form on kobaloi. I even think of Tallon, waiting to catch me like he always did when I was little.
He won’t get the chance. This time I’m going to save everybody else.
The darkness is so close, and I reach for it. It comes like an eager puppy. It wants to heal me, but the bright is too far entrenched. I know there’s no use in worrying about that, so I try to clear my mind of all my doubts, all my worries. I send the darkness one final, crystal clear thought.
Home, please. Send everyone home.
The shadows hesitate for a second, trying to interpret what I mean. Then the dark storm of shades slowly stops swirling. The column of them stretches and narrows, before shattering into a flurry of dark butterflies. They flutter and flit for a second before winking out one by one.
One of the shades brushes against my cheek before it goes. I want to think it was Whisper, but I know it’s more likely it was Cass. She always believed in me.
The shades fade away, and so does the darkness. My legs go numb, and as I collapse, Tallon is there to catch me.
Just as I knew he would.
“Peep, what did you do?”
I can’t breathe, the æther moving through me faster and faster. I try to force a smile, but instead a sob tears through me. It hurts so bad. Now that I know I’ve stopped Hera, it’s hard to focus on anything else. “I told the darkness to send everyone home. I’m sorry.” I say it because I don’t know what else to say. Tears leak out of the corners of my eyes.
“Not yet, Zeph. Not yet,” Tallon says, but I can’t answer him. I look up, surprised to see the darkness hovering above us. Tallon’s right. I can’t die yet. That much darkness let loose in the Mortal Realm will upset the balance. There’s too much. If I try to take it all, it will kill me.
But I’m already dead. The bright will see to that. I can’t just leave the shadows here for Tallon and everyone else to deal with.
“Go. I have to take the darkness from the Paths,” I tell Tallon. This close he’ll be hurt if something goes wrong. But he doesn’t listen.
“I’m not leaving you. We need to get you to a healer,” he says, his jaw set. I reach behind him for the sword, connecting with the darkness that way. Then I use the dark power to shove him away and copy Hera’s barrier move from earlier. It’s easier than I thought it would be. He yells at me, but I’m not listening. I’m focused on the darkness still pulsing down the Paths.
“Come here,” I say, calling to it. I use the sword to haul myself to my knees. It’s the best I can do. The darkness moves along it and into me, healing me and battling the æther in my veins. But there’s too much bright.
More. I need more.
I’m not trying to heal myself. I’m just trying to soak up as much of the erebos as I can before the bright wins out. Hopefully when I die, the erebos will be carried to the Underworld with me. The darkness floods through me, and the black lines on my arms grow thicker, the shadows deeper. I take in more. I’m bloated with the energy. My heart thrums, loud in my ears, and the pain of the æther is sharper, closer.
I close my eyes, pull in more erebos. More and more. For a single brilliant moment the pain fades away, and I open my eyes. On the other side of the barrier Tallon, Blue, and Alora watch me, their mouths hanging open. I smile, feeling truly wonderful for the first time in a very long while.
This is what it’s like to win.
It’s the last thought I have before the darkness overwhelms me.
I break into a million pieces.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE AFTERLIFE BLOWS.
I sit on a grassy mound above a gently sloping field. It’s skirmish time, and far below, my mother and Whisper lead a contingent of shadow vættir against a horde of Hera’s Acolytes. It’s all in good fun, since there are no grudges in the Elysian Fields. Memory is a tricky thing when you’re dead. No one remembers the petty arguments that were so important in the Mortal Realm.
That’s a good thing, since a lot of the Acolytes down below were sent here by me.
Someone blows a horn, and the two sides run screaming toward each other. I catch a glimpse of Cass and Elias throwing spears alongside a score of Amazons, their aim deadly true.
The two of them cheer as their spears bury themselves in a couple of satyrs. Elias, the dark champion, looks nothing like I thought he would. His hair is the orangey red of the setting sun, and his skin is covered with freckles. But Cass is crazy about him, and even death hasn’t erased their love for each other.
On the other side of the field the goat men go down, writhing around in their death throes. Then after a few minutes they jump up, pull out the spears, and chase after a couple of nearby nymphs. I can hear their laughs all the way up on my hill.
Skirmishes in the afterlife are just to pass the time. What’s the point? Everyone’s already dead.
I look away from the battle, which will go on until it’s time to eat again. It’s hard not to appreciate the view. Every day is perfect, the sky a shade of blue that makes my chest ache. Time actually seems to exist here, although i
t’s a lie. But there’s a day and a night. We sleep under the stars when the sky darkens or in one of the cottages that spring up at a thought. In the morning we’re greeted by a perfect sunrise. Everyone’s dead down here, so I’m not plagued with the stink of emotions. Although I suspect that if I was, it would be the smell of never-ending birthday-cake happiness.
I don’t know if I could handle all that joy when I’m as angry as a hornet’s nest.
I watch as Cass picks up a set of bolas and swings them above her head before releasing them. They tangle around the legs of the satyr chasing a nymph, and he goes down. Elias high-fives Cass, a move she taught him. I sigh.
“What, don’t they let you play?”
The voice strikes a chord deep in my belly, and I hate the way my breath catches. This is the third time he’s found me, but not the third time he’s come looking. He’s been down in the Elysian Fields so much that the dead have given him a nickname. The Dark One. It’s fitting.
Every time I see him, it’s the same nervous flutter of hope and excitement. I swallow the ache that blooms in my chest. I will not do this to myself.
“No. I’m not allowed to participate in the battles. The last time I fought alongside them, I changed the entire landscape. Hades said that until I learn to control my powers, I’m not allowed to use them anywhere but Tartarus. He doesn’t like cleaning up my messes.”
Tallon collapses on the ground next to me with a sigh. It’s an exhalation of pain, and I can’t help myself. I look at him.
“Oh my gods, what happened to you?” He looks like he was beaten with a sock full of quarters. His face is scraped up, and his lower lip is swollen. He moves like he’s in agony, slow and stiff. He isn’t healing, which is unusual.
“I had to cross the river Styx to get here this time. And, you know, a few other choice places. You ever fight a hydra? Yeah. Me neither. I got my ass kicked.”
He looks so sad that before I can help myself, I reach out and touch his lip, using my darkness to lower the swelling and ease his pain. He could’ve healed it himself, but instead he made me do it.
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