Forty-Six
F ORTY - S IX
ESTRELLA
The journey out of the caverns took far longer than the descent. There was no drop into the pools to rush the process, only the climbing of hundreds of crudely carved steps. As we approached the surface, the oppressive dry heat of Tartarus drifted down the tunnels to reach us, chasing away the humidity of the caverns. The coolness of the stone surrounding us slid away, replaced by scorching heat and fires that I knew waited just outside the sanctuary the Gorgons had called home.
Caldris led the way, stepping out into the blinding light beyond as I turned to look back at the majority of my mother’s people. Of the family I hadn’t been allowed to have, that would potentially always feel like strangers to me now. Another thing that had been robbed of me in my lifetimes cursed to a human existence, rather than the eternal one I’d been meant for.
Medusa followed at my back as I finally followed my mate into the light, blinking back against the red heat and light that felt unbearable to my eyes that had adjusted to the darkness. A figure crashed into my side, knocking me to the ground as a wet, canine tongue lapped at my cheek. Fenrir stunk of whatever meal he’d devoured while we’d been tucked safely away, but I couldn’t bring myself to be angry with the familiar when I too craved his presence.
“ You are almost who you were born to be ,” he thought, that deep voice echoing in my head. I watched Caldris snuggle into the two other wolves of the Cwn Annwn, smiling at the sight of my mate and his affection for the creatures.
“ Almost? ” I asked with a nervous swallow, but I knew better than to hope for an answer. As forthcoming as Fenrir was in some moments, there were others where he was as cryptic as the rest. The very notion that after everything I’d endured, I still had further to walk on my path of changes was horrifying.
“ We kept him safe for you all these years, Child of Chaos, so that you may find yourselves united as one in this very moment. ” Fenrir’s voice came as a deep growl in my head, his attention fixed on my face as he lingered over me. Instead of feeling suffocated by the cage his size might have created, I felt nothing but a sense of absolute safety.
He was both my weapon and my armor, the shield that would stand between myself and the dangers lurking in the depths. I reached up a hand, smoothing it through the silky fur of his coat at his neck. My hand came away wet with blood, a reminder of the meal he and the others had probably indulged in when they no longer had to worry about protecting me from all the things that went bump in the night.
“ Didn’t you bond to Caldris because of your bond with his father? ” I asked him, wiping the blood from my hand against the leather of my armor. No matter how safe I felt with him, no matter how much I wanted to believe this massive creature was a docile house pet, there was the constant reminder of his capabilities. Of the violence that could consume him at a moment’s notice.
His eyes burned a little darker as he felt that realization make me swallow, his nose nudging mine playfully as Caldris stepped up beside us. I was certain he heard my conversation with Fenrir through my own thoughts, heard it play out in his own mind that was simply an extension of mine now with the bond pulsating so brightly.
Fenrir shifted, nudging the thread of my and my mate’s bond with his snout in a move that told me he too could see the threads that had so quickly come to define my life and my very existence.
“ Why else would I abandon my bond with Khaos to protect a God? ” Fenrir thought, his eyes shifting to look at Caldris midway. He knew my mate could hear him through me, knew he could communicate with the male that he’d looked after since childhood. For the first time, what had once been Caldris’s companion could speak into his mind.
Caldris reached out a hand to stroke Fenrir’s face, the wolf leaning into the touch.
“Whatever the reason, I have been honored to have you at my side,” Caldris said to the wolf, the moment of affection making everything inside of me tighten and then swell. My heart felt too big for my chest, the realization that my family was growing by the day something so unfamiliar to me that I didn’t know how to cope.
Fenrir moved finally, allowing me to push to my feet. The sands beneath my boots felt unsteady compared to the firmness of the rocks within the caves, the muscles in my legs tightening ever so slightly. My body felt not its own, like it was battered and bruised, like it would never recover from the way it had changed so many fucking times in such a short period.
I was human, but not. I was Fae, but not. I was an odd jumble of contradictions that couldn’t seem to settle. My skin tingled as I stepped away from the caves, drawn to the bright light shining in the distance as I peered over the top of the entryway.
Making my way up the bank, I clawed my hands into the sand to support my body as I fought against the loose grains that wanted to send me spiraling back into the ravine below. Caldris and Fenrir watched me climb, waiting in stillness as Medusa followed after me. I felt her at my side, ascending along with me even though I suspected she already knew what I might find.
Water poured out the other side of the caves, a steady streaming waterfall that rushed into an enormous lake in the middle of Tartarus. Something moved beneath the surface of the water in the distance, the shadow of it in the turquoise waters dark and larger than anything I’d ever seen. There were massive rocks carved into the cliffs at the side of the lake, altars where the glint of iron chains strapped moving bodies down and held them still.
Blood poured off the rocks in steady rivulets, bleeding down into the lake and staining that turquoise water with red.
“What is this place?” I asked, my voice a hushed whisper. I was used to the violence of Tartarus, to the endless suffering that existed in all the plains I had encountered. This punishment felt more real and raw than most of what Khaos exacted; it felt more personal.
“When your father asked me to move to Tartarus with him, to bring my people to a place that was so defined by suffering and pain, I only had one requirement,” Medusa said, reaching over to take my hand in hers. She guided me forward, leaving the ravine behind us as Caldris and the wolves began the ascent to follow in our wake. “I wanted a place that was all mine. A little corner of endless suffering where I could do whatever I wanted to the people who had hurt those I loved. To the very people who were responsible for my suffering.” She guided me toward one of the rocks, looming just out of reach as we watched the figure of a male writhing on the stone. His innards had been torn from his body, draped over the stone. Even still, he breathed, staring off into the distance with eyes that had long since gone foggy with suffering. She closed the distance finally, bringing me closer until I stared down at the male.
He didn’t respond to our presence, and Medusa reached into his torn-open stomach and wrapped her hands around flesh that made squelching sounds. She watched his face for a reaction, only removing her bloodstained hand when she did not get one.
“I was young when Pathos found me in the temple where I served my Goddess. Far too young when he took what was not his on her sacred ground. Definitely far too young for her to turn me into a Gorgon in punishment for tempting a God the way I had. All that I asked of your father was a place where men like him could suffer for eternity, but even Khaos could not grant me that. His mind has been broken for far longer than I care to admit, and yet I cannot bring myself to free him from his fate. I will not grant him the peace of the afterlife,” she said, reaching down into the waters of the lake. She let it wash the blood from her skin and then stood, making her way to the stone that waited nearby. It was only close enough to see the body writhing on it, to hear the shrill, high screams of agony. “That is my choice, and it is one that I made long, long ago. And now it is time for you to make yours.”
I followed after her, swallowing back my apprehension as we approached. “Is this part of my trials?” I asked, hating the familiar sight that greeted me. To have him thrown in my face once again for the purposes of testing me was a cruel punishment. Mussed salt-and-pepper hair was a tattered mess on the male’s head, his form far thinner than I could ever remember it being. I’d been too aware of every curve of his body, of every flimsy, privileged muscle when it flexed as he forced me to watch him with the ladies of the night.
Byron lay strapped to the stone, the iron of his chains an unnec essary detail. He’d been human, a pitiful one at that in his life before Caldris ran him through and rid us of his presence.
I’d thought he would move on to reincarnate into his next life, but instead he’d come here. Come to suffer.
“No, this is not a part of your trials. This is your father’s way of apologizing for all this man forced you to endure. This is a gift for you to do with as you please,” Medusa said. She stopped me with a hand at my chest, keeping me from approaching him as the enormous shadow within the water approached his stone. It burst through the surface with a splash that would rival a tidal wave, sending buckets of water splashing over Byron’s form. He screamed anew as the water sank into his open and gaping wounds, washing the stone clean as the creature stared down at him.
It was beautiful, covered in soft, iridescent pearly scales. It had two webbed wings that reminded me of a bat, and it fanned them out to the side before using them to push more water onto Byron’s form. Its eyes glowed with turquoise light that reflected off the water. A thing of great and absolute beauty, the last thing I expected as it rose up from the water was for it to show pure brutality.
So when it struck forward and trapped Byron’s leg within its gaping mouth, digging jagged, razor-like teeth into his flesh, all I could do was watch as it tore chunks of flesh from the bone. The sea serpent retreated back into the lake once more, disappearing from view as fresh blood pumped from Byron’s wounds.
There’d been a time when all I wanted was my freedom. When I didn’t care what happened to Byron so long as he no longer had the ability to torment me, but in the changes that had come over the last weeks since I’d escaped, I found I no longer had the maturity to be above watching him suffer.
His pain brought me peace. His suffering filled a karmic void that I hadn’t known existed within me. Maybe it was Aella that I had embraced, maybe it was her bloodthirstiness that I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge before, constantly trying to convince myself that I was above the brutality I’d seen in others.
But I wasn’t. I was willing to sink to the depths of Hel if it meant I would get to bear witness to the suffering of those who had harmed me. My self-righteousness had been a lie, a deception to make me feel better about the monster hiding within me.
“What will you choose, daughter?” Medusa asked, staying behind when I took my first steps to close the gap between Byron and me. I paused at his side, waiting for his eyes to open. He’d squeezed them closed in pain, his fingers clenched into a fist at his side as if he wanted nothing more than to put pressure on his own wound.
I gave him what he sought, lifting myself onto the stone beside him and being careful not to touch him. His mouth stumbled as he gaped for air, mumbling beneath his breath.
“Please,” he said, his throat dry in spite of the water that surrounded him. This close to the lake, the brine of salt assaulted my senses. Water that could not be drunk. Water that would make the sting of pain worse with every torrent the sea serpent poured onto Medusa’s victims.
His eyes flung open when my hands went to the cloth covering his waist, the scraps of what had once been pants all that kept his manhood from the open air. I knew the moment he recognized me staring down at him, that flare of recognition in his gaze.
“Estrella,” he wheezed, his mouth curving into the faintest of smiles. Believing the kindness and love he’d seen in me as a child would translate to all who were in need of help, when I wanted nothing more than to make sure he suffered for all he’d done. For all he’d hurt.
I reached into the fabric and grasped his length in my hand, ignoring Caldris’s growl at my side. He may not have liked the situation, but his thoughts in my mind were a reassurance that he was willing to allow me this moment. To allow me to bring this pain, even though touching him made nausea swirl in my gut.
Byron’s eyes widened as I dug my nails into him, making sure to cup him fully. “Is this how you imagined it? All those nights you pictured your future with me in your bed?” I asked, leaning forward to press my free hand into the wound in his abdomen. His guts were soft and pliant as I forced my hand to navigate through the gaps between them, digging deeper and deeper still and reveling in his gasps of pain. I angled my arm up, searching for the hollow where I felt certain his heart should have been. There was no possible way that the man capable of such evil even possessed one, no way that he could have a beating heart and not care for the suffering he caused.
But it beat within his chest, thrumming against my fingers in a fast rhythm as I angled up behind his ribs.
“I’ll be honest, this is far better than anything I have ever dared to dream of for you,” I said, sliding my hand back through his torso. I removed it just before I let my vision fill with thoughts of stone, with thoughts of rock so hard it would break into a million pieces and never recover. My hand pulsed with the cool, damp feeling of rock, reminding me of caves and darkness. Byron’s scream was one of pure agony as the limp flesh in my hand hardened, turning to stone. He watched it, peering down over the tattered mess of his body to find the stone that had once been his cock. “The pain you feel now is nothing compared to what you did to me. To the agony I felt every time you touched me and promised to do more. I was a child,” I hissed, wishing more than anything that I could reach inside of him and bring him the internal turmoil, the internal agony that came with such a violation.
That I could make his physical pain transcend into the pain of the soul that never went away. There was no healing.
“I intended to make you my wife!” he argued, grunting through the pain.
“And that would have been a fate worse than death. Just like this,” I snapped, standing from his altar. I stood beside his stone, drawing one of my swords from the scabbard strapped across my back. It felt heavy in my hand as he writhed on the table, desperately attempting to escape the iron that I grasped in my palm. I adjusted my grip slowly, pulling the curved sword back before I sliced it through the air and tore through the skin at the base of his shaft. The stone fell heavy to the rock where he would linger forever, and I grasped it with my free hand. Guiding it to his face, I sheathed my sword once more and gripped his aging face between my thumb and forefinger, pressing into his cheeks and wedging my fingers between his teeth until he opened his mouth.
I shoved the stone into his open mouth, pushing it deeper and deeper until he gagged. Only then did I close his lips around it, pressing my palm to his mouth and holding it closed as I thought of stone once more.
The rock spread out from under my hand, closing his mouth permanently as it turned to stone. Never again would he hurl violent words. Never again would he give commands that resulted in the end of someone’s life.
Never again would he be graced with the outlet of screaming to numb his pain, forced to suffer in silence the way all his victims had.
I turned away from him suddenly as the sea serpent broke through the surface of the water once more. Climbing onto the foot of the rock, I brought myself to stare back at him. “Estrella, get back!” Caldris snapped, the order making me wonder if I should feel fear as I stared at the brutally beautiful creature.
But I didn’t as I met its turquoise stare. The sea serpent came closer, bringing its face only a breath from mine. That tongue snaked out, dragging over my cheek and the tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed in my moments of violence before the serpent snuggled into my neck. I moved to pull my short sword free once again, moving cautiously so I wouldn’t make the serpent fear me. It held perfectly still as I dug the tip into my forefinger, resulting in a single bead of blood that welled.
Touching that to the serpent’s forehead, I held that touch as the serpent’s eyes drifted closed. They flashed with gold when they opened, the color fading slowly as I held its stare.
“Make sure he suffers,” I whispered, watching as the creature nodded its head once. It retreated into the depths as I climbed down off the rock.
The sound of splashing water reached my ears as I strode away, leaving my past behind.
I no longer had any use for it.