CHAPTER SIX
"Are Revelations Bitter or Sweet?"
Souls whispered in the Netherworld. The tension of revolting souls was slowly cracking through the peaceful ambiance of the underworld, a fracture line running through everything that had previously felt stable.
Tao sat on a lone stool in the crystal caverns, listening to souls recount the lives they had lived on Earth.
Sidius had brought her here without much explanation, and she had found a hollow space of dark rock lit by slow blue bioluminescent formations, where souls gathered in loose circles and talked about their actual lives.
Not performances. Not curated versions. Just the honest texture of what it had been like to be alive.
She sat at the edge and listened, and something about the raw intimacy of it sent an ache through her.
Each story filled Tao with longing she hadn't expected.
She knew about her own life. Her wealth and her family and the empire she had built and the particular loneliness of the top.
But the vital part of her recent life was still a lost memory, a gap she kept pressing against, waiting for some sort of clarity.
"Garden," the word repeated in her mind. Tao was certain she had heard her brother's voice and Priya's voice reaching through somehow, and garden was the only word that had surfaced fully before the connection broke.
"Garden," Tao said out loud.
"What?" Sidius asked. He had been observing her quietly. Her eyes had gone into a daze that he thought he recognised.
"Garden," Tao repeated. "I felt my brother reaching out to me. Garden was all I could get before something interrupted the connection."
"Come," Sidius said. His tone sounded indifferent but deep down, was glad about her progress. Most souls took years to recall the circumstances of their death. But Tao seemed determined, something Sidius had come to appreciate. For once, he was not doing most of the work.
"Where are we going?" Tao asked.
"You are starting to remember," Sidius explained, his steps echoing through the hallway. "This is the next stage of the process."
The familiar hallway had Tao's brow knitting in confusion as she recognised their destination. The path lit with bedazzled torches shone as they neared the foreboding door to Hades's throne room.
"Why are we here?" Tao whispered. The dark-eyed god had been occupying more of her thoughts than she had strictly authorised.
"This is the next step," Sidius said.
The large door opened, revealing Anubis seated on his throne in his full glory, his eyes fixed on a soul map in his hands, a young soul standing before him. At the sight of Tao entering with Sidius, something shifted almost imperceptibly in the ruler's expression.
"Leave us," Anubis commanded. The soul trembled and with a curt bow rushed out of the throne room without argument.
Tao felt nervous in a way she didn't entirely have a word for. She had been here a couple of times but each time she found herself discovering new details in the throne room, new beauties she had missed on the previous visit.
"Garden?" Death asked, his voice snapping her back from her examination of the ceiling.
"Yes. That's all I can remember so far," Tao replied.
She turned to Sidius, who stood in the corner observing their interaction with his customary stillness. "What next?" she asked.
Death ignored her question briefly, moving closer to Sidius and exchanging words in tones too low for Tao to catch. She watched with raised brows.
"Yes, master," Sidius said, and walked out of the room.
"What was that about?" Tao found herself asking before she could stop herself.
"You are a curious little thing, aren't you?" Hades said. There was something in his tone that wasn't quite a smile but occupied the same territory.
Tao shrugged. She wasn't one to pass on useful information, and information, in her experience, came from paying attention to everything people thought you weren't listening to.
"Curiosity killed the cat," Hades quipped, his eyes twinkling with something that looked very much like mischief.
"And I am already dead," Tao sassed back.
Hades laughed. His laugh was deep and full, echoing through the walls of the throne room in waves that felt almost physical. His eyes dimmed as he laughed, and Tao found herself laughing with him, which surprised her more than even being dead had.
"You humour me," he chuckled.
"Come," Hades said then, his tone shifting back to seriousness as he led her out of the throne room.
"Sure," Tao muttered to herself, rolling her eyes as she fell into step behind him.
Hades moved in giant strides, each step exuding poise and confidence.
His feet had a rhythmic flow with his body like a dance perfected over countless centuries.
His muscles rippled underneath his shirt, a reminder of the power contained in something that moved with such apparent ease.
Tao found herself noting these, though she often didn't want to admit she was paying such close attention. She couldn’t help being attracted to power.
The few times she had observed him in his throne room with others, she had watched how souls stared at him with looks of amazement and longing, falling over themselves trying to gain his attention. He moved through all of it as though it didn't exist.
Tao felt a private sense of reverence, walking beside him now while the rest of the Netherworld watched from a careful distance.
She had been lost enough in her observations that she barely noticed when he stopped. Her head connected firmly with his toned back.
"Sorry," Tao said, stepping back and reconstructing her dignity with impressive speed.
Hades was amused. He had combed through her life since her arrival and it had not failed to keep him entertained. A bashful Tao was a trait he had not read about and found he appreciated considerably.
"These are the Waters of Lethe," He said.
Tao was immediately lost in their beauty. The water glittered in the moonlight, its cornflower blue shining like sapphire gems, its air sweet like honey and flowers. It was a siren call to lost souls and Tao felt its pull even from where she stood.
"The Waters of Lethe," Tao repeated carefully. She took a few deliberate steps back, away from the edge. "Isn't it the river of forgetfulness?"
Hades knew well the misconception. "To some," he replied, the corners of his mouth lifting ever so slightly.
"Why have you taken me here?" Tao asked.
"You desire to know the truth, don't you?" he asked, clearly enjoying the slight torment of speaking in incomplete answers.
"Have a drink. From the water," he whispered again. "It won't make you forget. It will make you remember everything you've been too frightened to face."
Tao took unsure steps forward, her mind running circles around itself. Much of the knowledge she thought she had brought with her from the living world was proving unreliable down here. She had learned to hold things loosely.
The water felt warm as she dipped her fingers.
She couldn't quite believe she was trusting Hades blindly.
One thing she had learned in her short time here was that gods were bored, and in their boredom they loved to create mischief.
But something in the level of his attention made her trust the offer anyway.
Her eyes closed. Her tongue lapped at the water she had gathered in her palm. Hades's jaw clenched at the sight of her.
The pain came without warning.
It was total and white and enormous, a flood of images returned at speed, every suppressed memory forcibly restored at once. She went to her knees. She pressed her hands against her head and waited.
"Make it stop," she groaned.
Hades watched without moving. He had watched a thousand souls go through this process without feeling anything beyond professional detachment. He was aware, with the particular discomfort of noticing something new about oneself, that what he was feeling now was not detachment.
The pain stopped.
She stayed on her knees for a moment, breathing carefully, her head down. Then she looked up at him.
"I remember," she said. "I remember everything. I remember how I died. And I remember who killed me."
She began to laugh. Not the bright laughter of someone amused but the deeper, stranger laughter of someone processing something too large for ordinary emotion.
Anubis observed the scene before him. He had expected tears and fury. He had expected the particular shattering that came from learning the identity of a betrayer who had been trusted. He had not expected this.
"Why are you laughing?" He asked.
"Because I made the mistake of underestimating her," Tao replied, wiping the tear that had escaped her eye. "A power-hungry, domesticated cat is as deadly as a tiger. I knew that. I've always known that. I just thought it didn't apply to me." She looked at him steadily. "Is this how it ends?"
"No," he replied. "This is just another step in your journey."
Tao nodded. The anger was there, burning clean and useful beneath everything else. She pulled herself to her feet.
"Then let's take it," she said. "Because Monica Blanchard does not get the last word. Not in this world or any other. I am going to make her pay."
She walked away from the waterside with purpose, and behind her Anubis watched her go with something in his expression that he had not entirely expected to feel: the specific, inconvenient warmth of being genuinely intrigued.