24. Sandro
Sandro
T hanatos and Hypnos stretched out their hands and weapons appeared in them. A scythe for Thanatos and a sword for Hypnos.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked as the twins exchanged a smirk, and…
And it struck me.
Bastards.
Traitors!
After everything they’d done, they still dared defy their king and me—by extension—and attack me?
Thanatos brought his scythe down on my head while Hypnos stabbed me in the stomach, and even though I had a few more choice words for them, they all dissipated, swallowed by the darkness that emerged around me.
It was a strange kind of dark. Suffocating but at the same time freeing. All absorbing but all expanding.
Trippy.
The more my eyes adjusted to this strange sensory darkness, the more lights I spotted in the distance. Little twinkles piercing through, almost like a night sky.
As I spun around myself—or floated was the more accurate word—I saw the twins there with me.
“Wh-what did you do to me?”
Thanatos frowned. “We didn’t do anything.”
“You clearly did. What is this place?” I put my hands on my hips and gave them my most masterful are you serious look.
“You asked us to take you to him,” Hypnos said as a glowing blue light rushed under our feet and carried us with it.
It shimmered and sparkled like water, but it was unnatural, bioluminescent, and defied the laws of gravity and momentum because being on it felt like a rush.
The stars blurred and the darkness blew past me like the wind, but somehow, I still felt stationary and moving.
“What’s happening?” I asked when I finally scrambled words together.
“River Styx,” Hypnos said. “It will take us to Hades.”
I stared at him.
I had no idea what I had expected when I asked them to take me to the Underworld, but a glowing river in the dead quiet of space wasn’t it.
Maybe if I’d paid more attention to mythology, I would know how “accurate” this was, but seeing as I hadn’t, I had no clue.
The river carried us forward, wherever forward was, and just as I was starting to wonder how long the trip would be, we came to a halt.
The river crashed against black rock and turned to little blue fireflies around us before it completely went out while some continued streaming under our feet.
The black rock was, in fact, a black wall. A rough-textured surface that, when I closed my eyes just enough, seemed to expand and contract as if it were breathing.
I raised a hand to touch it. Something hot flared in my chest, and I looked down. My necklace. It thrummed in unison with the rock, a shared heartbeat that could probably not be explained by normal physics or even witch logic.
Hadn’t Hades said it was made out of the rock native to the Underworld? Stib-something.
“ Stibnite ,” said a voice within me.
No, it wasn’t exactly a voice, more like a…
A vision.
My eyes embraced the darkness, and when I blinked again, I felt different. Light. I set my bare feet on stibnite ground with grace and humility, which is weird because I didn’t know how someone could step on something with grace and especially humility. But there was power inside me, so I didn’t care to find the answer.
Power. So much power. It oozed out of my every pore. I felt it seep into the rocks surrounding me, and they pulsed with it.
“ Come on, dear. He’ll be waiting for us. And you know how he gets when we’re gone too long. ”
The words had come out of my mouth, but my voice was different. It was…feminine and foreign, yet oddly familiar.
I looked behind me, and there, in the middle of the dark, six bright lights snapped open. Eyes. And as they stepped forward, I smiled, a warmth tugging at my heart.
It was Pluto, a Doberman by all accounts, only he didn’t have just one head, but three. He still had the same enthusiasm and wagged his single tail as he caught up with me.
“Good boy, Cerberus. Now, let’s go find our king, huh?” I patted his back with a long, tanned, solid hand, and we stepped into a dark fog.
My knees buckled under me, and I found myself crouching in the glowing river.
“What the…?” I muttered.
My voice was mine again, and I looked at my hands. Through my hands.
Yeah, I’m still dead, I guess.
“Are you okay, my lord?” Hypnos asked.
I closed my eyes and replayed the events in my head. The voice, the hand, the dog.
“I…I think I just…remembered?”
I was more certain now than ever these were visions. And…I think this one had been one from my very first life. Persephone.
“What was that?” Thanatos asked.
Both he and his brother looked at me in confusion.
“I—”
The wall in front of us shook. Rock dust rose into the air, and it parted in two. The river flowed through the gap and upward, creating an upside-down waterfall of light.
A tall blond man walked through.
“Sandro, what a surprise.” He smiled at me.
Hermes was still wearing his winged sandals and the tunic, but he also wore a spiked crown made of the same rock as the rest of the place.
My rock.
Hades had said it belonged to me.
I didn’t know why that particular detail ground at my gut, but it did, and I dug my fingers into my palms, which must have looked extremely pathetic considering my predicament.
“Mr. Erman,” I said.
It wasn’t out of respect or delusion. I had a game plan, and I hoped it would work.
“My name is Hermes. King to you,” Hermes snarled.
Bingo.
“I’m sorry. I’ve known you as Mr. Erman for so long that it’s hard to get used…”
“What do you want?” he asked. “Don’t tell me you came to be judged.” He joined his hands in front of him and pursed his lips. “I’m sorry. I just. Don’t. Have. The time.”
He turned his back to me and started walking toward the water.
If he went through it, there was no guarantee I’d see him again, and then everything would be over over.
“Why?” I asked, unable to find anything better or more convincing to make my case or delay his departure.
I just hoped he liked the sound of his own voice, and if our earlier interaction was anything to go by, he did.
He paused and turned to face me again.
I held back a sigh of relief and maintained his gaze. This was it. I couldn’t back out now. Somehow, I had to get the truth out of him.
“Why?” he asked with a strained face, sounding clueless.
I nodded. “You tricked me, you tricked Hades, why? Why would you hurt so many people to get the throne?”
Hermes grimaced.
“Dear Divinities, I knew you were a pathetic little shit, but I didn’t realize you were also stupid. That’s how thrones are taken, dear Sandro. There is no other way.” He rolled his eyes as if he were sick of me and glanced at the twins. “Take him away from here. And next time you turn up without souls to judge, you will be punished.”
“No,” I told him.
Maybe it was stupid of me to be so contrarian to him, considering his position now, but that didn’t mean I was going to stop.
Not until I left here with answers. Or was dragged away screaming and crying. It would be one or the other.
“No?” Hermes repeated.
“No. I won’t just go because you said so.”
“So what I’m hearing is you want to be punished now ,” Hermes told the twins and started moving his hands.
“Stop! Don’t. You don’t need to punish them because of me,” I pleaded.
This god was unhinged. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, but I was sure he didn’t have his wits about him.
“All I need is an answer. A real answer.”
“I gave you all the answers you need.” He shook his head, rose off the water—aided by his fluttering winged sandals—and spun around.
“But not the most important one.”
Instead of going through the waterfall, Hermes leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
“What’s the most important one?” he asked dismissively.
It twisted the guts I didn’t even have. How blasé and dismissive he was about everyone’s wellbeing.
Blasé or scared.
My money was on scared.
It was one thing craving to be powerful and a whole other thing entirely to actually be powerful.
Was he afraid he was going to lose it? Because I could work with that. I didn’t know how, but I could.
“Why let me die anyway? You got what you wanted. You gave us all quite the show. Why would you not hold your end of the deal? Why wouldn’t you give me back my life?”
Hermes’ face hardened, and he stared at me for a few moments before his sandals carried him to me.
He leaned so close I could smell his breath and whispered, “Because, darling, you’re far more dangerous than him, and if you came to your full power, you’d get in my way.”
What on earth was he talking about? He must be lying again just to unsettle me or get rid of me or something.
I wasn’t dangerous. I wasn’t powerful. I wasn’t even a very good witch. The only thing I could do was tattoo spells, and even that had done fuck-all to protect me from death.
How could I possibly be more dangerous or powerful than Hades himself? What a preposterous idea.
“You think if that were true, I wouldn’t have used my magic to save myself?”
Hermes smirked.
“You really are stupid, huh? After everything you’ve uncovered about the real world and how it works, you still don’t get it. There was nothing you could do, nor anyone else, that would save your life. As long as I’m in possession of your thread of life, there’s nothing you can do to change your fate. Nothing .”
His words reverberated through my flimsy surface and made me feel cold. Colder than I’d felt so far, and I was fucking dead.
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right. You fucked me over big time.” He smiled at that. “You…you won.”
I hated uttering the words as much as thinking them. As much as I hated imagining them. Technically, he’d already won, but until I was gone for good, I refused to accept that reality.
“I’m glad we agree on something,” he whispered.
I nodded. “I get it. You…you’re terrified of me. But…”
“But what?” His eyes narrowed and his lips creased as his curiosity got the better of him.
I glared back at him with the most confident look I could muster.
“You’re terrified of me alive, but…you’re the lord of the dead now. And I am, in fact, dead. So why…?” I drifted off again.
It wasn’t that I was afraid to say it, but this was working so well with him that I couldn’t help being a little conniving.
Especially if edging him like that was going to make him all the more eager to tell me what I wanted.
“What I’m trying to say is…you’ve killed me. I’m dead now.” His eyes flared, and I took another moment to appreciate how beautiful this all was.
“Yes. Yes, you are.”
“I was…? Can’t I at least…?” I hesitated again.
Hermes was hanging on my every word. If I knew how to bring him down, this would be the moment I dragged him into a trap and reclaimed what was Hades’. But I didn’t know, and I was still at risk, what with being a spirit and all.
“Oh, come on. Out with it,” he spat.
For the first time since I died, I was grateful I wasn’t solid because his spittle just passed through me and I was unfazed by his juicy anger.
“Won’t you judge me? Can’t I at least have an afterlife?” I finally said.
Hermes’ eye twitched.
“You’re the supreme judge now. Why let the Wraiths take me? I mean, I’m still so young. I’ve barely lived. Can’t I at least have an after life?”
He pulled back and his face was a picture. It spoke a thousand words.
“I’m afraid that’s a no, young Sandro,” he said in a weird voice.
It was as if he was trying to sound composed and maybe sarcastic, but he just sounded awash with fear.
“Why?”
“Because…I’m the king now, and what I say goes.” He spun around and straightened his shoulders, but no matter how he tried to hide it, he was scared. “Say hello to the Wraiths for me. It’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
He walked away, ducking through the opening in the wall before it shut behind him, leaving me with Thanatos and Hypnos.
“I’m so sorry, my lord,” Hypnos said.
“What for? This was enlightening.”
“It was?” Thanatos asked.
I smirked. “Oh hells, yes.”