Chapter 12 Nyssa
Nyssa
Life.
To repair the gateways of death, I must give them that which I stole from Fate in the first place.
All I could do was hope that I had enough of my mother’s power within me, and that I had enough time to learn how to wield it.
Otherwise, Arch was going to do something stupid, reckless, and irreversible.
After the mortifying Charon incident earlier, I knew Caelus couldn’t see the shades, but there were certain tells that he felt their presence on the Isle.
I figured he couldn’t tell the Elysian souls from the Asphodelian ones…
or that some were darker still, eloping straight from the depths of Tartarus itself…
A shiver skated down my spine.
“You’re running out of time,” Charon warned softly — too low for anyone else to hear.
“I know,” I answered just as quiet.
“We’re working to keep the shades down here, but every now and then, one breaks through… and it’s those ones you’re going to need to worry about.”
I frowned. “Who’s ‘we’?”
He grimaced, reluctant to answer.
“Charon?” I pressed. “You’ve only been gone for a week and you’re already keeping secrets from me?”
“Dead.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve been dead for a week, Nyssa. And the dead hold secrets the living couldn’t even begin to guess at.”
While I struggled to contemplate the depth of that remark, he deigned to answer my first question.
“‘We’ are those who have your wellbeing in mind.”
“Who?” I pressed anyway.
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“Well then why can’t I see them?”
“They don’t want to be seen… Not yet. Not unless they have to be.”
The crease between my brows deepened. I sucked in a breath to reply, maybe cuss him out for being so infuriatingly vague, but when I looked up, Charon was gone. Pulled back to wherever it was souls linger, or evading any further questioning, I didn't know.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.
Velira eyed me from across the smooth, black river. She was too large for the Isle, especially with Lykos already upon it, but could maintain perfect surveillance from the mainland.
I’m not sure that you’ll have to, she murmured. The bluntness of her words bounced painfully through my skull, mostly because I knew that she was right.
Charon could not stay here, in this in-between state. He deserved paradise, and I’d make sure he got it before my own end came to greet me. My heart somersaulted uncomfortably in my chest as I looked over at Caelus, standing as far away from the arches as possible, a foot from the glassy Styx.
Before our entwined end came to greet us both.
Anguish. Despair. Smoke.
The only three things I knew as my body writhed in the hot, grainy sand.
It was agony to burn alive. To feel the flesh melting off your bones. To feel your face liquefy, then boil, then evaporate — no better than a strip of piar left forgotten in a pan.
Nobody was coming to save me.
No one could right this wrong.
The ones we lived for, left us to burn.
So, fuck them all.
A scream clawed its way out of my throat, searing everything in its path as I thrashed and burned.
My fervid legs twisted in the silken sheets, the fabric melding with my skin.
“Nyssa!” Caelus roared.
But still, I screamed.
I was too hot.
Too-hot-too-hot-too-hot.
Vaguely, I was aware of my body being jostled around, but everything else was overwhelmed by sheer pain and blistering heat.
Make it stop. Make it stop!
Stay with me, Nightshade. I’ll make it stop. I’ll make it stop.
His voice cut through the agony of the pyre, burning me from the inside out. And as its echo started to fade, my vision did too.
The only thought left available to me: if his voice was the last thing I ever heard, then I was okay with that.