Chapter 51
Chapter Fifty-One
Thea
“Where are we?” I asked Athene, my voice unnaturally airy.
The Goddess smiled, waving an arm around us. “Do you not recognize it?”
The sudden darkness was such a contrast to the bright space we had existed in only moments ago that I felt off-balance as my eyes struggled to adjust and take in our new environment.
Cavernous walls. A dining table made of shiny dark wood. An obscenely large hearth.
The throne of skulls.
Yes, I certainly recognized this place.
We were in Hyrax’s throne room.
“Why here?”
I stared at the room with a furrowed brow, the chill in the air uncomfortably brisk. Aside from the usual melodic drum of music that typically played in the background, it was silent, empty of Hyrax and Caldrius both.
“First, you must face the truth,” Athene explained, nodding towards the door that I knew led into the hallway towards Hyrax’s bedchamber. “You must learn to accept a truth that you do not wish to acknowledge.”
The door burst open in a rush, boots sounding loudly as Hyrax marched into the room, his face a mask of exasperation and frustration.
And behind him strode in a Goddess with wild eyes and a mane of untamed red hair.
A Goddess who had haunted many of my recent nightmares.
Pasnia.
“This is the past?” I demanded, needing the confirmation that Pasnia was good and truly dead.
“They cannot see you,” Athene explained, watching me as I tracked their movements in confusion. “In simple terms, you are not actually here. You are just an observer.”
“I do not wish to discuss this any further, Pasnia,” Hyrax declared, his voice unyielding as he summoned a chalice of wine in a puff of smoke and drank it down in a single gulp. It instantly refilled itself, and he watched with detached eyes as it did.
Pasnia ran a hand along his back as he did, gently pushing a parchment in front of him. I crept closer, trying to spy what was on the page.
“Hyrax, I do not have much longer. I will not leave you here alone.”
“I am not alone,” he protested, avoiding her gaze. “I have the souls. I have Caldrius.”
“You need love,” she insisted, pushing the paper towards him again.
He turned away, walking towards the throne and shoving a hand through his grey hair. His eyes sparkled with dampness as he threw himself down onto the bone-filled seat. Weightlessly, his arms hung off either side.
“You need family,” Pasnia said, her tone ever so gentler than before. She moved to bow before him. “I know you, my darling. I know how much you long for your brother, even now all these eons later.”
Hyrax avoided her gaze. “Zion abandoned me.”
“She won’t,” Pasnia told him, waving the paper in front of him.
And without seeing the shape that had been expertly traced onto that parchment, I recognized it. I knew the widow’s peak on the hairline, the tilt of the nose, the fullness of the lower lip.
Apparently, the truth I needed to see was the moment Hyrax had decided to father me.
“Please,” Pasnia pleaded, approaching him from behind, desperation in her voice. “If I cannot share this life with you, then I want you to have everything you have ever dreamed of. Family. Power. All of it.”
He lowered his chin to gaze upon her before reaching down and pulling her into his lap.
He exhaled as he rested his cheek on top of her head.
Tears rolled unabashedly down his face, trailing into the curls of her red hair.
“I have lived an eternity. I have conquered enough. The Mortal Realm does not hold the appeal for me that it once did.”
Pasnia twisted in his grasp, lifting her head to meet his gaze. “But she does?”
“I have never resented you for not being able to give me children.”
“I know that,” Pasnia sighed. “I believe you when you say my love has been enough for you, but it has been an eternity since the Veil was raised and you last saw your Descendants. No more of them even remain. And Caldrius, as loyal as he has been, is not yours. I know you look at him and see your brother. He is not your blood, my darling. He is not your family. I want that for you. You have far too much love to give than to let it die with me.”
Hyrax released a heaving breath that left his chest quivering. He held his wife as if it were the last time he would be able to.
Maybe it had been.
It hadn’t been long after this that Pasnia had left him to go to the Mortal Realm, determined on giving him dominion over it in her death.
She had... cared for him. Her death had been inevitable, and in preparing for it, she had attempted to give her husband everything she thought he wanted.
But there was no lingering desire in the depths of Hyrax’s eyes when he protested he was uninterested in the Mortal Realm. Those words had been true. He really hadn't wanted to claim my world as his own.
So, what had changed?
When Pasnia pulled away, standing and lifting that parchment in her hands once more before extending it towards him, he looked at it for a long moment, jaw working as he considered, before he finally, slowly, took it from her grasp.
He took it between his fingertips and clung to it, staring down at the image with a quiet sort of resolve.
A million emotions passed over his face, all at once, and yet only one remained even as the others faded.
“A daughter?” he asked.
“Your daughter.” His wife whispered.
Hyrax’s eyes didn’t lift from that paper as he ran a hand over his jaw. “Eckna died recently. There’s great magic in those bones.”
When he lifted his head, his eyes met mine. And even though he couldn’t see me, I could most certainly read the emotion welling in his blue eyes.
Athene’s hand on mine was gentle as she pulled me away, flames sparking around us as this vision faded into the next.
“Do you know the truth now?” she asked.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t have to.
I knew two important truths now.
First, Hyrax hadn’t come to the Mortal Realm because he wanted to force his rule over us. He came because Pasnia had forced it upon him in her dying breath.
And second, Hyrax loved me. That look in his eyes had been a perfect mixture of hope and passion, and an undeniable amount of love. He had created me with love in his heart.
No matter what evils he had committed—no matter what crimes were in his past or his future—that was a truth I now accepted.
My father loved me.
Blinding licks of white fire erupted around us, burning away the image of Hyrax and Pasnia until we were back in that empty white space between worlds.
Realization clicked so suddenly that I gasped, staring at this strange space with a new sense of wonder.
The Veil.
We were in the Veil.
“What comes next?” I breathed, swatting away the salty tears that rolled down my cheeks.
Athene touched my shoulder gently, her skin on mine a reassurance. “Now, you must face what you fear.”
Blinking my eyes open, I took in the scattered books lingering on the floor and end tables surrounding the overly large bed. I approached one slowly, smiling at the title. A mystery.
The room was lit dimly, with only two or three candles offering flickering light.
And even though my heart soared at recognizing the sword casually leaning against a worn desk and the crown next to a golden jacket, I frowned at the eerie stillness of the space.
An unnatural chill hung in the air, as did a stale stench of illness and encroaching death.
I swallowed against the uncomfortable feeling of premonition settling inside me.
This was truly my greatest fear brought to life.
Violent coughing sounded—dry and booming, and I jerked in surprise, attention focusing on the thin frame supported by several pillows atop the gigantic bed.
The man held an ivory napkin to his mouth, keeping it pressed tightly to his face as the whooping coughs continued to shake through his too-thin body.
When the fit finally slowed enough for him to pull away the towel and place it aside, gasping for air as he did, the tips of his fingernails were black.
I stumbled backward, barely missing Athene in my rush away from the bed.
I didn’t want to see this. Truth, fear, possibility. I didn’t care what this vision was; I only knew it was something I couldn’t face.
“You must not turn away,” Athene warned, completely unfazed by the way my lower lip had begun to tremble. “I must admit, of all the things you have to fear, I am surprised this is what troubles you the most.”
The door swung open, the wood bouncing against the wall as the woman who entered didn’t seem to care enough to be gentle.
Both of her arms were full as she rushed towards him with a bucket of water, a plate of food, and another pillow.
He smiled at her as a stool slid across the room towards her, arriving just in time for her to lower herself smoothly onto it.
She dropped the bucket on the floor, and began arranging the pillow behind his head.
“I do not need another pillow, love,” the old man told her, reaching out to grasp her hand and still her.
No wrinkles or spots of age decorated the skin of her hand.
She frowned at him, her concern obvious. Avoiding his gaze, she pulled her hand from his grasp. The steel bands around her wrists scraped his thin skin as she instead reached for the loaf of bread she had brought. Silently, she began tearing off a small chunk.
“You should eat something.” Her voice was empty and utterly defeated, so soft that I struggled to even hear it.
He scoffed, waving a hand at her dismissively. “I am not hungry. Come. Lay down with me.”
She shook her head. “You haven’t been hungry in days. You must eat something.”
“The dead don’t need to eat.”
Pain shot through the center of my chest, piercing me as violently as it pierced the version of me that sat at his bedside.
“Do not say that!” she—I yelled at him.
Athene turned, effectively blocking my view of Clay and the other version of myself as I struggled to catch the breath that had lodged itself in my throat.
I didn’t need to see anymore to know what was happening, though.
I’d seen this scene play out dozens of times in my nightmares.
Still, I covered my eyes as he coughed once more, the sound endlessly violent.
And I felt it.
I felt his soul.
It had been so long since my powers had latched onto another soul that I almost didn’t recognize the sensation of my magic connecting to another person with that unseen golden thread.
When I realized what was happening, when I pulled my hands from my face and shoved aside Athene, it was already too late.
Both versions of myself, identical in appearance, felt the moment his soul left his body and crossed through the Veil to the Underworld.
He was gone. Clay was dead.
“No!” I hissed, turning away again, the backs of my eyes burning as the future version of myself wailed, her sobs a torturous melody of grief.
Athene’s steps rang out behind me. “You fear his death?”
The fire was already rising to burn away this image, as if the flames could simply wash away the image of him dying before me.
“No,” I whispered. “I fear my life.”
My life, and its endlessness. The immortality that would preserve me while everyone I knew and loved withered away.
Of course, I feared that.