Six Months with Cerberus

by Lucas, Naomi

  “You’re no heir.”

  “I mean…why did you bring me back to life?” Cyane couldn’t even remember her childhood to well, let alone an entire previous existence as Hades seemed to be insinuating. “Why bring me back to life and leave me alone? Why sign your name on a note as father and do such a terrible thing? Why go to all this effort if I’m beneath importance?”

  “Ah, so many questions. More than most would ever dare to ask me in a given year. It’s refreshing. If not willful and annoying.” Hades took a long drink from his cup. “I suppose.” Even his swallows weren’t masked by the music and lovers.

  “I came all this way. I deserve to know.”

  “Deserve? How you entertain me.” He tittered. “I left you because a mortal doesn’t belong here, and to raise one amongst the dead, well, it would’ve ruined my plans. You had to be left above, and as such, alone.”

  Cyane breathed. “And what if I ignored your note, or lost it, what if I never came?”

  “It was enchanted to remain with you, never to wrinkle, never to deteriorate, designed to haunt you. And if you never came, I would’ve had to repeat myself and steal you from above. Which would not have been ideal. Predictability is a bad trait for a Lord to have. Predictability is weak.”

  All these years she’d obsessed over that note, wondering and searching, letting it rule her life, letting it rule every decision she had the ability to make—had she ever really been her own person? Was she really even a person at all?

  Hades was acting so nonchalant to her torment.

  Where was Cerberus? She needed him now more than ever. Would give anything to have him there beside her. Even if the protection she needed was protection from herself. But he wasn’t there, and even death couldn’t save her.

  Cyane grew numb.

  If I died, I’d end up right back where I am.

  Cerberus’s hounds stalked the sides of the room, but there was still no sight of Cerberus. Had he known?

  No, he couldn’t have. He nearly killed me, made me swear to Styx before he even considered trusting me…

  He had known something, according to Hades. Something that Cerberus hadn’t told her. She shoved the thought from her head, needing to deny it.

  Hades hadn’t answered the most important question of them all. The one that her life now depended on—

  Dionysus appeared before them, a bevy of women behind him, some hanging from his limbs. He bowed to Hades and offered him the cup of wine he held, then bowed to Cyane with a smile that made her want to drink her thoughts away and dance until she passed out.

  She reached forward and stole a drink from one of his naked followers and gulped it down.

  “Well, well, well, my Lord Hades, your guest of honor is not only beautiful and deliciously weak, but a joy as well!” Dionysus laughed.

  “She is all those things and more,” Hades agreed.

  “I am not weak,” she whispered, but both gods ignored her.

  I need another drink.

  Dionysus bowed once more, this time with less flourish. “I hope the party is to your liking?” he asked of Hades.

  Could Dionysus see her torment? Could everyone else?

  “You’ve outdone yourself again. It’s a marvel what you and Hecate can accomplish when you work together.”

  “I humbly thank you to the bottom of my casks.” Dionysus grinned. “Which have no bottom that I have yet found!”

  High-pitched laughter filled the air. Cyane flinched, not finding it funny at all, not since her stolen drink very much had a bottom, and she had found it all too soon.

  “Will you remain to greet our beautiful Queen Persephone on the morrow?” Hades asked.

  “I would be honored, my lord. Will this new beauty of yours be with us?”

  “She will be at the front of the procession. After me, of course, but I fear I will lose Persephone’s attention once she sees Cyane.”

  What? Cyane’s eyes snapped back to Hades, albeit unwillingly. She didn’t want to meet the Goddess of Spring, not like that, and not so soon. If she knew anything about the goddesses of Olympus, it was that their jealousy and possessiveness were not a thing to incite.

  Was that the answer to her question? Was that Hades’s intention all along?

  Was she being used to incite jealousy?

  A new cup of wine appeared in Dionysus’s hand. He offered it to her this time. “Here mortal, drink to your heart’s desire tonight. The morrow will be interesting, indeed, and I am even more honored to be in attendance.”

  Cyane took the cup, and the other one vanished. She gripped it with white fingers.

  Hades scoffed. “Leave us, Dionysus. I won’t have you corrupt Cyane’s mind this night. We are not yet done talking.”

  “Yes, my lord.” Dionysus bowed again. He turned to the women behind him with an exuberant dance, and they all tumbled into each other with perverse delight, their laughter far less happy and more dangerously gleeful. Cyane couldn’t help but think it was because of her.

  She peered down at the wine in her hand and set it on the floor beside her, no longer wanting it. When the giggles disappeared, and Dionysus departed with his lusty broads, she felt Hades’s attention return.

  Cyane ignored them as best she could. I could still find Melinoe, find Cerberus, and get the information the goddess wanted. Maybe Cyane would take her chance at running—if she had the help of a goddess—but something niggling told her not to trust Melinoe. Especially not now that the goddess witnessed Cerberus having sex with her.

  Even a blind zombie could tell the Goddess of Nightmares had feelings for Cerberus.

  Cyane bit her tongue and steadied herself, turning to Hades. “What do you plan for me?” It hurt asking.

  The corner of his devilish lips curled upwards. “Nothing.”

  “Why then…why am I here?”

  “To serve,” he said, offering no comfort.

  “Serve how?”

  “You are here for one reason and one reason only.” Hades’s voice slithered into her ear, dark and full of warning. “Your very existence depends on that reason. The fact that you haven’t even inquired about your previous life sits ill with me, but know that it was because of you that Demeter discovered I took her daughter.”

  Because of me?

  Hades turned fully toward her. “I do not easily forget nor do I easily forgive, Cyane. I gave you a new life for one purpose, and one purpose only—to ensure I have an heir.”

  The music roared, and Cyane’s hands went slack. The cup she thought she put aside was returned to her, now empty. Had she picked it back up? Had she drunk it without realizing? Her mouth tasted of wine.

  “Rest and be ready tomorrow,” Hades said. “Your service begins tomorrow.”

  Her world grew dark. She welcomed it.

  It was better than being here.

  But Hades’s voice was clear despite that descending darkness; just before oblivion swallowed her, she heard him say, “And Cyane, father or no, I’m not without mercy. You’ll realize that soon enough.”

  The Hours Before

  Someone carried her. The feel of plated armor dug into her side, but then it was gone, and she was placed on something soft and warm. Warm bodies moved to lie next to her, and a familiar scent filtered into her nose.

  Dog.

  Not just a dog, but a hellish hound. Cerberus’s hounds. They warmed her sides. His one-hundred heads that were no longer apart of his body. Cyane burrowed into the bedding, into the hounds. She wanted them to consume her, hold her, comfort her like the countless times she’d burrowed into a bed in the world above.

  But the taste of wine was still in her mouth, and try as she might, she couldn’t forget all that Hades had told her.

  Rest and be ready, he’d said, when he’d really meant, Come to terms with your situation or cease to exist. Oh and, Do it outside my presence. She curled up on her side and squeezed her eyes even harder shut.

  “Cyane,” Cerberus said her name somewh
ere beside her. She didn’t want to face him, didn’t want to see his face so soon. She wished she’d engorged on wine all day so she could truly be unconscious right now. Not temporarily put here by an evil god.

  I don’t have parents.

  Her fingers gripped the blanket beneath her.

  I don’t have control.

  Her heart thundered.

  I’m nothing but a means to an end...

  A sad, agonized wail escaped her.

  A hand rested softly over her head, then lifted enough to pet her with chilling fingers. She shrunk away from them and cried, heaving into the pillow.

  “Please go away,” she begged between aching breaths. “I don’t want to see you.”

  “We need to talk,” Cerberus said without remorse, making everything worse. “But I will don my helmet if hiding my face eases your pain.”

  His hand left her head, and she heard him move beside her. Everything made her sick—even him. She needed him to just go away, even though at the same time she wanted to crawl into his lap and submit and beg and pray. Not just pray, she realized, but pray to him. Pray for darkness, and offer herself up as a sacrifice, to show her fealty.

  Hate, sickness, and love. Was this what loving a god was like?

  “This note. I know—”

  “Did you know?” she snapped. If Cerberus was going to force her to talk, he was going to deal with her anger. Cyane lifted her head to glare at him, thankful and annoyed she was looking at his helmet instead of his face. “What did you know? Did you know Hades is the reason I exist?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Did you know I was reincarnated, that I was someone, something else in another life that crossed your god?”

  Cerberus started, and she could see the shock in his eyes. It made her feel a little better.

  “No,” he said once more.

  “Did you know my very existence isn’t my own?” She wanted to scream, but most of all, she wanted to forget. “That every choice I ever made was because of some unseeable god pulling strings from afar? That nothing I’ve ever done or felt means anything?”

  Cerberus lowered and knelt beside the bed. “No,” he whispered. The word was soft and low and hollow behind the shield of metal over his mouth. “I knew none of this.”

  God, how she wanted to believe him.

  “I’m nothing, nothing. Nothing.” Cyane pressed her palms to her eyes and heaved, feeling the air refuse to fill her lungs. Nothing.

  Cerberus took her hands and drew them from her face. He sat on the bed and pulled her to his chest, and she cried again, unable to stop. The gentleness of his gesture made it worse, but she pressed herself into him, needing everything he would give her. Needing him.

  “You’re not nothing,” he said, his arms banding around her. “You are everything.”

  Cyane tried to steel herself and force the pain away. It was easier, horribly easier than facing the truth. Believing her parents hadn’t wanted her, hadn’t kept her, hadn’t given her anything but a damnable note was better than this. She’d thought nothing would be as sickening as being unwanted, forgotten. She’d been wrong. And now she hated Hades so much, hated him to the very core of...what? Whatever she could claim as herself, because fuck, she didn’t even know if her soul was hers anymore.

  “What did you know?” She gripped Cerberus’s armor tight, holding onto him like a lifeline. “Tell me.”

  His fingers brushed through her hair. “That you were brought here to serve.”

  His softness irritated her. “You knew that?”

  “Hades would tell me nothing else.”

  Cyane pulled away and wiped her eyes. “I’m never leaving this place, am I?”

  “No. You’re not. Unless—”

  “How long have you known?” she asked. “Since we slept together?”

  “Since the Day of Battles.”

  “Since before we slept toge—that was…” Days ago, although it could’ve been an eternity. “And you didn’t bother to tell me? You let me believe I still had a chance? That there was still a chance for…” Her voice hitched, but her anger rose. “I had no idea why I was here, and you knew.” Cyane couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear it. She looked at her wet hands instead.

  “Cyane—”

  “Don’t,” she snapped, pulling away. “I don’t want to hear it. I have hours before my time is up. I want to be alone now.”

  “There is still a chance for you to leave.”

  “What?”

  “You can still leave.” Cerberus sat back and faced the terrace. “I made a deal with Hermes.”

  She wiped her eyes again, not quite believing what he was saying. “Why?”

  “Whether you believe me or not,” he said, still gazing out the terrace opening where Hades’s castle loomed like a diseased finger in the distance. “I promised to protect you, even if it’s against my loyalty to Hades. I didn’t know why you were brought here, nor what plans he had. My lord does not share much with anyone, not even me, and I’m the closest he has to a confidant, but he did tell me you were here to serve. If I had seen the note sooner…”

  “Why do you serve him? Why do you care so much for such a terrible man?”

  “He’s not so terrible.” Cerberus turned back to her. “My father was terrible. My brothers were terrible. Even my mother, the Mother of Monsters, was terrible. They wanted to destroy, to challenge, to go against the ways of nature and sow chaos, a fate worse than death, upon everyone. If it weren’t for Hades finding me, leading me away from them, I may have become like my family. Hades offered me retribution and life, a purpose. A purpose that used my talents for destruction to instill order between the living and the dead. What you see as terrible is nothing compared to what the other gods of Olympus are capable of. What history and humanity are even capable of. I am honored to serve Hades, but it is a choice I made myself.”

  “I don’t want to serve him,” she whispered. “He’s not my god.”

  You’re my god. She wanted to say but didn’t.

  “I know, Cyane.”

  The words broke her heart. This time when he reached out to caress her, she let him.

  “Will you come with me?” she asked.

  His hand dropped. “No. I don’t belong in the light.”

  “We can manage,” she said. “I can show you so much more. There is real goodness above. I’m good. There are dark places above as well, so we could find such a place and make it ours. A sanctuary where it’s just us.”

  “I don’t belong with mortals. I may look human, but I’m not. Goodness is not easy on me, the souls of the dead sustain me, the hounds need the shadows to thrive. Parts of me will die in the light, parts of me I cannot lose. And, say we did this without incurring the wrath of the gods, that we found a place where a smaller version of me might live, what would happen to me when you died? What would happen to you?”

  “We can make it work. I know we can.”

  Cerberus shook his head.

  She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “We can change.”

  He squeezed her hand back, and suddenly they were in a dark tunnel far different from anything she’d seen before in Tartarus. Cyane stumbled, and Cerberus caught her, keeping her upright. A rushing river flowed beside them, and far, far upriver, diminished by distance, was a weak light.

  Moonlight.

  She’d known it as sure as she knew her own face. There’d been moonlight below, light from the river, even candlelight, but none of it had been real. None of it was like the small beam ahead. She stilled.

  He’s letting me leave.

  Cyane gripped him tight. This was happening too fast, all of it was. From Hades lecturing her on her existence, the hopelessness, and now this. The loss.

  Why couldn’t she have remained unconscious?

  “I can’t change,” he said, “Not like that.”

  She turned from the moonlight. “Of course you can change, we can all change. With every day that passes, change is happe
ning.”

  He cupped her face within his palm. “Someday you will die, Cyane, and if I’m above who will be here to await your soul’s final journey? Who will stop Hades from pursuing you when he finds out you’re gone? Mortals don’t belong here, they never have, and they never will. This place isn’t for the living. It’s for those who created it.”

  “But you belong with me.” She blinked back tears and leaned into his hand. Freedom was before her, everything she knew lay just beyond. He did this for me. Despite his loyalty to Hades. It hurt her heart. Her life hadn’t been great before, but it hadn’t been terrible. It’d been mine, and no one else's. Now that life was being offered back to her, she didn’t know how to take the first step.

  “And you belong with me.”

  “Then ask me to stay,” she pleaded. “Tell me to stay. Tell me it will all be okay.” Cyane insides crumbled when all he did was look down at her with removed emotion.

  He’s not going to tell me it’ll be okay...

  He’s not going to ask me to stay, and he won’t come with me.

  She bit back tears.

  She reached up and pulled Cerberus’s helmet off, needing to see him, aching for something from him. His dark, curly, shoulder-length hair tumbled out like tussled silk, his deep, red eyes, swirling with a myriad of color, stared at her, and his mouth parted slightly.

  She leaned up to kiss him.

  A soft, sad goodbye. Warm and cold collided for a lingering second, neutralizing each other one last time.

  Cerberus pulled away from her far too soon.

  “Wait here,” he said, and before she could ask why, he disappeared into the darkness.

  Cyane curled her arms around her middle and shook, glancing behind her where the tunnel led deeper back into the Underworld. Only a few yards could be seen before the darkness consumed everything. She shivered. It still frightened her, yet at the same time, she didn’t want it to go away. After being within it for so long, it wasn’t all that bad… It was just different. Another part of life. One that everyone would eventually belong to.

  She turned back to the light, and for the first time since she’d fallen, she wondered about her few friends and foster parents. The people that were still in her life above. The social workers that cared for her wellbeing, the professors that taught her, even the nuns. They returned to her like a beaconing, warm aura of familiarity.