by Ali Winters
But what Hades offered her wasn’t a choice.
“It’s okay,” she said, and his confident expression faltered. “While it’s true, I do want them and would give almost anything to get them back… I want something else more. And if it means giving them up, I will gladly pay that price.”
He had tried one last deception. Maybe her logic about the souls had been wrong. Maybe this was all just a game to him and he’d force her back to the Reapers’ realm when he was done… but maybe, just maybe he was testing her again. Feeling for weaknesses to see if she stood a chance at making it.
Or it could just be him doing anything he could so he didn’t have to let a soul go free.
“I will grant you passage through my domain. But don’t think this means you can just walk in and take him. Things will get harder from here on out. Before you can even get near him, you must navigate the five rivers. You will not have the immortal protections you’re used to.” He placed his hands on the top of her head.
A buzzing radiated through her body and skittered along her bones. She felt it in her mind and in her powers.
“But then,” he whispered quietly, “you are used to feeling things as a mortal does, aren’t you? Whatever keeps Reapers impervious to their surroundings has been slowly fading in you. You need sleep and your sensitivity to temperature is increasing.” Hades leaned his head back and looked into her eyes as if he could find all the answers in them. “Why do I know you?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.” Nivian stepped back. “I-I think I should go now. I don’t have much time.”
“There is one more thing,” he said. “You must pay to pass through.”
She didn’t know why, but she looked over her shoulder and out across the city. “Didn’t I already pay, with Cerberus?”
Hades snorted. “That wasn’t payment. I told you, that was to see if you were worth my time.”
Nivian narrowed her eyes, annoyed with his self-important attitude. “While I appreciate that you could find it in yourself to deign to see me,” she started, cutting her eyes to Prometheus and Kore snickering in the background, their hands covering their mouths. “I need to get Kain as soon as possible. So if you could, just tell me what you want and send me on my way.”
Hades pointed to her chest. Nivian half turned her body, her hand clasping Kain’s watch. “You can’t have it, I need it for Kain.”
“Not the watch, though, I will need to hold on to it for collateral.”
“Collateral for what?”
“Your soul.”
“My what?” Nivian asked. She liked to think of herself possessing one, but the truth was, no Reaper did. It was why they just vanished when they were destroyed.
“You are not like the others, Nivian. For some reason, I cannot put my finger on, you were created with one. Both your soul and his will be mine if you fail to make it through the rivers.”
The price was steep. It was a risk she didn’t want to take, yet… what choice did she have? If she refused Hades would send her away and then any hope of saving Kain would be gone forever. At least, if she failed there was the chance that she could still be with him.
“Done,” she said. She reached up to grab the chain around her neck, pausing halfway to eye him suspiciously. “You’ll give the watch back if I do make it through to Kain? No tricks?”
“You have my word.”
And she could feel that his word was binding.
Nivian removed the chain the rest of the way from around her neck then held it out to him, clasping it tightly in her hand. Reluctantly, she unfurled her fist and placed it in his palm, letting the chain slide through her fingers like a cool river of molten gold. He placed it in a pocket and her heart squeezed at giving up a part of Kain so easily.
But if she didn’t make it to him in time, then it wouldn’t matter anyway.
“One last thing before we go,” Hades said as an afterthought. He raised his hand and pressed his finger to the center of Nivian’s forehead. “Boop.”
She blinked. “Did you just… boop me?”
A smile formed on his face, but she couldn’t make out his next words. All sounds were distant and muffled. Nivian’s eyes went wide, her pupils swallowed up the ice blue of her irises, turning them into black pools. She tried to speak, to ask what he did, but her body fell limp.
Two arms caught her before she hit the floor. Her vision blurred to a mix of shapeless colors. Muffled voices sounded through the ringing in her ears.
Then everything went dark.
Nivian woke with a start, gasping. Her back arched at the pain shooting through her, it felt as if her skin and muscles were shrinking over her bones, trying to crush them. Her lungs felt stiff with each breath she drew.
“She’s awake!” Kore shouted. She stood over her with hands on her hips, amused. Nivian wasn’t a fan of the goddess in that moment.
Hades walked into her vision as she squirmed on the cold, tiled floor, trying to gather her bearings.
“Shall we?” Hades asked, holding out his hand to her.
“What happened?” she asked. Her limbs felt strange as she pushed herself to sitting.
Hades crouched down to meet her eyes. “I couldn’t let you go forward with your body as it was.”
“What?” Her stomach roiled and she pressed a cold, clammy hand to her forehead to wipe away a thin layer of sweat. “What did you do to me?”
“I made your body mortal.” He smiled at the expression twisting her face. “Do not worry, the second you leave this realm it will revert back to your normal state.”
“But I thought I was already mortal?”
“No, only your powers were suppressed.”
Nivian looked at him with furrowed brows. She wanted to protest, but while she was in the Underworld, she had to play by his rules.
She placed her hand in his and allowed Hades to pull her up, drawing her into him and holding her as if they were waiting for music to begin to lead them into a waltz.
Their surroundings wavered, then faded. She clung tightly to him as he transported them away.
As soon as ground formed beneath her feet, she backed out of Hades’s hold. He was too hard for her to read to be comfortable around him. Would he trick her like many of the old gods were said to do, or was he only playing with her, trying to climb into her head?
“Wh-what are the rivers like?” she asked, hating the tremor in her voice. The first one looked like every other one she’d seen, there didn’t seem to be anything special about it. But that didn’t mean it was as benign as it appeared.
“That, I could not tell you even if I wanted to. The journey across the rivers is different for everyone. Almost no one has ever made it past Cerberus.”
“I couldn’t bring my cloak or scythe with me, is there anything I can use to defend myself?”
Hades laughed as if she’d said something funny. “No, you must do this only with what you entered the Underworld carrying. Nothing more.”
She frowned as a long silence passed between them. “Then how will I succeed?”
“I said I would grant you passage in and out. I did not guarantee that you would not fail.”
Nivian suppressed a huff of annoyance, then asked, “How many have come before me?”
“There have been many who have tried, and many who have failed.” He gave her a dark smile. “The soul of a Reaper would be a very rare one indeed to add to my collection,” he added.
Nivian swallowed but ignored the look he gave her. “Has anyone ever succeeded?”
“Only one.”
Only one of many. She looked out to the edge of the seemingly harmless river. The odds were stacked against her. But for Kain, for her friends, for the world… she would be the second. She had to be. There was no room for her to carry around even a sliver of doubt.
Nivian walked away from him and stepped to the edge of the water.
“One more thing, Nivian, whatever happens, do not remove the Eye. It is what will
allow you to leave here. ”
She nodded and tucked the stone into her shirt. Nivian didn’t look back at him again as her eyes focused on the water at her feet.
The river was darkened by silt stirred up by a vicious undercurrent. Greenish shadows danced beneath the surface. Plants similar to seaweed, only long and stringy, sprouted up from the riverbed.
Nivian shivered at the eerie water, then took a step forward, letting it splash onto the toes of her boots.
She looked up and down the river, but couldn’t see farther than a few yards on either side. A thick fog had rolled in surrounding her.
She spun to ask Hades a question, but he’d already vanished.
With a heavy sigh, she made her way into the river. She placed a foot on top and grunted when her foot sank. Nivian never thought she’d miss walking atop water, nor did she realize how often she used that particular power until now. But the Moirai and Hades had both told her she was as good as mortal in the Underworld.
Nivian kept walking determined to get to Kain as fast as she could. The river flowed silently, void of all sound, save for the lapping around her legs. Even the sound of volcanoes erupting was missing.
A quick glance behind her told her the fog was more than ordinary fog. It had closed in around her, swallowing up everything but the river. She waded faster, not wanting to get caught by the mist.
For several feet, the river stayed no deeper than her knees. It was cold and familiar, but she wasn’t sure why. Her skin broke out in goose bumps and she shivered from the chill invading her bones, making them ache.
Her head pounded as a memory ripped its way to the forefront of her mind like a bolt of lighting. Her heart thundered and she clutched at her chest. She stumbled, falling into neck deep water, struggling to pull in a breath.
Nivian flailed, moving backward, gripped by the sudden and over powering fear that tore its way through her.
“No…” She shook her head. “No, no, not again.”
She scrambled onto the shallow part, wading on her hands and knees, ready to stand and run head first into the fog.
She didn’t want to drown again. Couldn’t stand reliving those memories as more than just fragments of dreams. Nivian stood dripping on the cusp of the river and forced herself to look across to the far shore.
Kain.
She’d already come so far, she was only a few rivers away from bringing Kain back and making him the new Guardian of Life.
It’s just water, she told herself. She could do this, for him.
Slowly, she turned and squared her shoulders. If she didn’t do this, then she would be keeping him from his duty… more than that, she wanted to look him in the eyes and tell him she loved him. She let that thought roll through her mind on repeat to remind herself of why she was doing this.
She wanted to apologize to him for being so stupid and cutting his life thread just because he was in pain. Surely if they had waited—brought other Hunters to him—they would have been able to do something to save him.
He should have been able to heal.
Nivian stepped into the deep water again and moved forward. She wiped at her face, surprised to find tears streaming down her cheeks.
All those centuries of thinking she was one of the best Reapers to exist, but they were nothing more than placating lies to cover how truly pathetic she was.
She’d always been too emotional, too different. Silas had created a defective Reaper the day he’d made her.
With each step, the realization that she was broken, had always been broken, came to her as the river cleared her mind of the fallacies she’d believed. Her body shook violently, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or the effects of her self-pity.
Nivian’s foot snagged on the green weeds and she ripped her leg free, but the farther she moved into the river, the more they grabbed at her, trying to pull her down, to keep her from going forward.
Kain… her lips parted and she let out a sob for what she’d done. She had killed the man she loved.
In a blink, her head was below the surface and she was choking on water.
Nivian thrashed, the feeling of her lungs filling with water all too familiar.
She kicked, pulling her legs free from the tangle of plants. Her head broke through and she pulled in a large lungful of air just as she felt something slithering along her ankles and up her body.
The next moment, she was being pulled under, watching the surface of the river move farther and farther away from her outstretched hands.
TWENTY-ONE
NIVIAN
NIVIAN SANK LIKE a stone being devoured by the river. She kicked, her legs and arms flailed about as she tried to push her way back up to the surface and break free of the weeds, but the more she moved, the more tangled she became. The cold moved in, numbing her body until it refused to obey her commands any longer.
Her lungs burned and she realized she had to draw breath soon… or die. A terrifying and familiar feeling swarmed through her. Nivian’s arms weakened as she continued to fight the pull of the current. Her hands gripped uselessly at the water. The light above faded as black spots danced before her eyes.
Her body started to give out, and she looked around for something, anything, to help fight a way up, but all that surrounded her was an endless darkness that continued to drag her down, down, down into its murky depths.
The sky above darkened and spots of light glittered, smiling down on her, not realizing she was minutes, even seconds away from failing.
Nivian stilled and her descent did as well.
She had been here before.
Stars flickered between the waves of water dancing before her eyes.
She could stay. She could stay here for however long the river wanted her, even through the burning in her lungs as she fought to not breathe.
The soft murmur of water moving was the only thing she could hear, the melodic sound lulled her as her strength continued to siphon away. The warm, orange glow faded to a dark, muted gray, growing darker and darker.
Her eyelids slid closed, heavy with the weight of exhaustion.
It’s exactly the same, she thought.
A single bubble escaped from her lips.
Then another.
And another.
A flurry of them as all the air left her lugs to block out the stars. Nivian let her eyes close, welcoming the darkness that gobbled up the night. All she had to do was wait. Wait for the hand to once again pull her out, to summon her to… She didn’t know. But it would come. He would come for her.
“Nivian…” a voice called to her from inside her mind, clear as if the two of them stood on land, only inches apart. A voice so familiar and yet, she couldn't place it.
Prying open her eyes, she saw a hand form through the shadows of murky water, reaching for her. Caspian. No… not Caspian. Kain?
Her awareness snapped back with startling force. The light above weren’t the stars in the night sky at all.
The Underworld.
The river Acheron would drag her to a half life of waiting. A half life that would doom the human realm and the Reaper realm alike.
Everything would be destroyed.
Nivian reached down and started pulling at the green, rope like plant that held her legs. She pried at the spiky leaves that clawed at her through her clothes as she inched her way out of their grasp.
A hand seized her upper arm. Nivian’s gaze shot up to meet the eyes of a shriveled thing, a skeleton with barely even enough skin to cover its elongated bones.
She stretched her legs apart, snapping the last of the restraints. She pulled and kicked her way toward the top, dragging the corpse beast with her.
She was so close, but her strength was giving out. Nivian stretched out her hand, searching for a salvation that did not exist.
Hallucinations appeared before her eyes. The shadow of a man, arm outstretched toward her. Even knowing it wasn’t real; she kicked one last time and reached for his hand
.
Fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled. She soared upward, weightless.
Water poured off her as she found herself being lifted and pressed against a hard, male body. She tried to sit up but could only turn her head away as she coughed up the water in her lungs.
She glanced at her savior, waist deep in the water, then slowly up the sun darkened skin and into the ruby eyes of Prometheus.
“You make quite the spectacle trying to drown in shallow water,” he said, giving her a wide grin.
Nivian narrowed her eyes, not in the least bit amused at what she just experienced. She’d almost lost her second existence in the exact way she’d lost her first life.
“You know that’s not what happened,” she rasped.
He chuckled then sloshed to the shore. “I know.”
Prometheus sat her on the shore where she gave herself a brief moment just to lie in the dirt and regain her energy. He towered above her and waited patiently.
Weakened more than she’d like to admit, Nivian sat up and looked around. Ahead on the opposite shore, another river waited. She spun to look behind her to see only a large expanse of land stretch out and the City of the Dead in the far distance.
Her vision wavered with panic.
She would have to risk the river again. There was a chance she wouldn’t make it this time, she almost hadn’t made it at all.
Nivian jumped to her feet and closed the distance between her and Prometheus. She poked a finger into his chest, still covered in the fiery gold armor. “Do you have any idea what you just did?” she spat. “Now I have to cross the river again! All that time, wasted. And what if I don’t make it this time?” Nivian began to pace back and forth, tugging at her hair.
“You almost didn’t make it the first time,” he muttered under his breath, not in the least bit intimidated by her. He had his arms crossed, holding himself with a relaxed posture.
“Why would you do that?”
“I can put you back if you like.”
Nivian whirled on him. “You know that’s not what I meant. If you had to drag me to shore, couldn’t you at least put me on the right side of the river.”