Chapter 32 Caelus #2
Her startlingly familiar eyes pressed on me. “Tell her when she most needs to hear it.” Her green eyes hardened, her expression so Nyssa-like it was displacing. “Love her as she deserves to be loved. And if you cannot, let her go.”
“I could not stop loving her even if I tried. Even if I could somehow unbind our souls, I would not, for where she goes, I will follow. And when, one day, her heart stops beating, I take comfort in the fact that mine will too, so that it will never have to know even a beat without her in the world.”
Hades snorted — and I suddenly realised exactly where Nyssa had gotten her distinct laughter from.
“My daughter and the prodigal prince of Olympus,” he mused.
Suddenly, he threw his head back and howled.
He clutched his ghostly belly in a fit of laughter so profound it ricocheted off the Styx, causing even Arch and Aph to raise their heads.
“If only Zeus knew!” He howled again. “He’d be livid!”
Despite myself, I chuckled. “Understatement of the century. He’d disown me.”
“Ugh, does that mean he’d have tried to claim me?” Charon grimaced.
“If he’d known about you before my mother killed him, you’d have been locked up in the palace right beside me.”
“Sadly, I’m relieved that he didn’t.”
Looking down, I smiled. “Me too. The thought of her facing all this alone…”
“Take good care of her,” Hades implored. “It took twelve of us to defeat Kronos last time. Something tells me it won’t be that easy this time.”
“I’ll guard her with my life,” I said, meaning every word like I hadn’t already done just that.
“And I with mine,” Evie added. “My brother, too.”
“And me,” Aphrodite added.
“Me as well,” Arch said, his voice cracking with fresh grief. “Though I haven’t the slightest who you’re talking to.”
“Hades and Persephone are here,” I explained. Three sets of eyes went wide as dinnerplates. “And Charon.”
“Char?!” Aphrodite leapt to her feet, eyes brimming with fresh tears. She rushed over, landing hard on her knees beside me. “Where is he?” she asked me.
“Right in front of us.”
Her cerulean eyes flitted around, uncertain, landing on something about six inches above Charon’s head. “I miss you, old friend,” she whispered.
Charon’s face cracked into a dimpled grin. “I’m right here.”
Aphrodite huffed an amused breath when I relayed his message.
“Tell her I love her,” Hades said. “Tell her we are both so proud of every decision she’s made thus far, and that she has the key to stopping him already.”
“And that, though we cannot wait to be reunited, we hope that day is a very long, long way away,” Persephone added with a small smile. “Charon, are you coming?”
The ferryman in question shook his ghostly head. “Not just yet.”
She nodded once. “Don’t dawdle, my dear. It’ll only make it harder in the end. For both of you.” Her eyes locked onto her daughter once more, as if committing her form to memory.
Then they both stepped up to the archway leading to the Elysian Fields, looked back just once, smiled, and vanished.
Two tears dashed down my cheeks, landing on Nyssa’s face, looking horrifyingly like she was crying herself.
What must it have been like, to have grown up being so completely loved for exactly who you were, not who you would one day become, or what you could one day do for someone?
I nearly scoffed aloud at myself when I realised — I already knew.
Nyssa loved me like that. Just as I was.
It was the greatest gift I’d ever been given.
“They’re gone,” I said around a lump in my throat.
Aphrodite’s lower lip trembled. “Goodbye, Charon,” she whispered, looking up at the starry night sky now visible — and devastatingly beautiful — on the Isle.
“Until we meet again, Aph,” he replied softly, looking up at the goddess of love and desire with stars in her tear-filled eyes.
“Take Arch back to Aegis,” I said, conjuring a wobbly shadowgate out of thin air. “Go with them, Evie. I’ve got her from here.”
After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, spinning on her heels to collect our shellshocked friend. All three figures disappeared into the darkness.
Nyssa chose that moment to rejoin the living. She cracked one eyelid open, then the other, and two shattered irises stared back at me. A heartbeat later, she jolted upright, almost smacking me in the face in her haste.
“Mama? Papa?” she called, looking around for them wildly. “Charon, where did they go?”
When Charon could not answer, she turned to me. “Caelus, please tell me. Did I do it? Did the arches get fixed?”
I nodded.
Horror flooded her. “Please tell me that was a horrible nightmare and I didn’t really steal Hephaestus’ soul to finish it…”
I shook my head, relief slumping her shoulders for all of a second before I told her the truth of it. “You didn’t steal anything. Hephaestus gave it up willingly—”
“No,” she sobbed, her gaze landing on the place where he’d lain.
“Aph, Arch, and Evie are waiting for us in Ephemeron. Your parents are back where they belong in the Elysian Fields” — tears tracked freely down her cheeks now — “and Aros is waiting for me back in Strathos.”
“I didn’t even get to say goodbye…”
Visibly stowing away her devastation, she straightened, and made to get to her feet.
“Easy there, Deadly. You just passed out.”
She raised a brow. “Deadly?”
“What, too soon?” I said with a smirk.
Her lip twitched, betraying the emotion I could feel through our tether anyway.
“Just Char and I then. Off you go, Taser Boy — you’ve got work still to do.” She glanced down at her ruined clothes. “Ugh, and I really need a shower.”
“Well, actually…” Charon began.
Both of us turned to him, our emotions in sync: dread, anguish, reluctance, regret… and bucketloads of love.
“It’s time for me to go, too. For good this time,” he said, sorrow stealing the dimple right off his cheek.
“I’m not ready,” Nyssa whispered, her heart breaking all over again.
“You know better than any that Death takes us when she’s ready, not when we are.”
“I’m going to murder Atropos for cutting your thread so short,” she vowed.
“Well actually…” Charon said again, rubbing the back of his neck. “I cut it.”
“You what?!” Nyssa burst out.
“When?” I dared ask.
“Months ago. During the trials. They offered me the choice between two threads” — his gaze crashed into mine — “and I chose mine.”
No.
“Why?” I choked out, a fresh ball of sorrow clawing its way up my throat.
“A son of Zeus was the price.”
The truth of it shattered across Nyssa’s face. Fate had decreed that loving us both meant she was always going to lose.
“So, either way, I was going to lose one of you…”
Charon nodded.
“Seems incredibly unfair.” She sniffed.
Charon and I both cracked what I’m sure were painfully similar grins because the corners of her lips pulled down, turning her mouth into an upside down U.
It was painfully, heartwrenchingly adorable.
“For what it’s worth, Nyss, I’m glad it was me. I don’t think I’m the son of Zeus you needed to finish this.” Charon turned to me. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Nyssa snorted. “That list is awfully short, Char.”
He bowed, dramatically splaying his arms. “Exactly.”
“So, this is it,” she said, unshed tears welling in her eyes.
“Mmhmm. Be brave, be bold, be good, and for the love of fuck, mind—”
“Mind my feet,” she laughed. “I know.”
“Just making sure,” he said, hands raised in surrender.
“Be happy, Char,” Nyssa whispered, her voice breaking.
“Always.” He pressed a ghostly kiss — or tried to — against her ichor-and-tear-stained cheek, offered me a nod since I wasn’t exactly kissable, at least to him. “We’ll see each other again.”
“I hope so,” she breathed as he drifted slowly over to where his eternal resting place waited.
“Wait! I have one question before you go,” I said.
Charon turned to look back over his shoulder. “What’s that?”
“What was your lie?”
His brows crashed together, then a second later he grinned. “Nobody can beat Hermes in a footrace.” He winked, then stepped up to the arch.
At the last second, Charon turned around, facing us both. It seemed there was so much left unsaid between us, but it all really just boiled down to two: love and regret.
“I’ll see you soon enough. Both of you,” he said. “But until then, live enough for all of us. There was a checklist of things I wanted to accomplish laying about somewhere.” He winked. “Beings I wanted to sleep with—”
“Char,” Nyssa groaned.
He just levelled her with that dimpled grin that looked so much like mine could sometimes, and said, “Now go send that bastard back where he belongs.”
With all the ease in the world, Charon took one step backwards and disappeared into the Elysian arch — this time, for good.
And though I’d been expecting it — though we both had — the immediate absence of Charon hit like a minotaur with a sledgehammer and all the strength a pissed off bull could possess.
Which was a lot.
Tears flowed steadily down Nyssa’s heartbreakingly ichor-stained cheeks. After a few seconds, she blinked up at me, letting me see beyond the mask she so often held in place for everyone else.
“He’s really gone, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s not coming back this time… is he?”
“No, Nightshade. He’s not. But just because Death has claimed him… just because he resides somewhere else, doesn’t mean he’s not still with you.”
Her lower lip trembled and in that moment, I felt more helpless than I’d ever been.
I placed a palm over her heart. “He lives on in here, too.”
She closed her eyes as two more tears rushed down her beautiful, broken face, and then she fell into me. It was with the juxtaposing feelings of rightness and fresh grief that I held her close.
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but eventually, Nyssa pulled back, her tears dried up.
“We have work to do,” she said, the steady hum of resolve pulsing along our soul-bond.
“We do.”
“Let’s get you back to Strathos.”
With little more than a twitch of her fingers, a perfect, solid doorway appeared — and then, she laughed. “What’s that face for?”
“What face?” I asked with scrunched up brows.
She tapped my lips with one long finger. “The pout.”
“I’m not pouting.” Though even as the words spilled past my tongue, I knew the lie they held within them. I was definitely pouting.
“Uh huh,” she murmured.
“You’re so good at that.”
“What?” She followed my line of sight. “The shadowgates? Caelus, come back to me when you’ve been wielding this power for years. I’d wager yours would be even better than mine.”
“Somehow I doubt that, oh Lady of Darkness.”
She frowned. “I was about to say ‘only time will tell’ but I’m finding I don’t like that phrase anymore.”
“Mmm, I don’t either.” I tipped her face up and pressed a gentle kiss to her soft, rosy — albeit ichor-painted — lips. “I’ll meet you in Aegis.”
She kissed me back, so temptingly sweet that I was even more reluctant to leave her. I chased her lips for more, not realising she’d been walking me back towards the shadowgate the entire time.
“I’ll see you soon, Golden,” she said with a grin. “Go win us an army.” Then shoved me heartily backwards with a glee-filled cackle, and I fell all the way back to Strathos, landing in a very surprised red-head’s lap.