Chapter 29
The hallway stretched before them, its length veiling the promise of an end. With every step, the oppressive weight of despair
thickened. Ten minutes bled into twenty, the corridor mocking their progress with its interminable reach. Yet, paradoxically,
an inexplicable calm wove through their anxiety, a serene assurance that Sophie’s aegis was at work—they were drawing closer
to divinity. The faint, pervasive scent of olive trees continued to mark their path.
Gradually, the monolithic smoothness of the marble walls fractured, giving way to a procession of Doric columns hewn from
the same obsidian stone. Atop each column, a single lantern glowed with a dark blue light that grew more assertive with each
measured step, eventually chasing away the need for their artificial beams.
“I’m terrified,” Aida whispered as they stowed their headlamp and flashlight. “But at the same time, I’m . . .”
“Completely calm,” Luciano concluded. His gaze was locked on the path unfurling before them. He gave her a weak smile. “It’s
a strange feeling, isn’t it?”
“Will we ever get to the end of this hallway? My feet are killing me.”
He helped her put her pack back on. Before she could resume her weary trek, Luciano cupped her cheek gently, pulling her into a kiss. It was a kiss filled with desperation, stirring a tumult of emotions within Aida, not the least of which was fear that the kiss might be her last.
“Aida, I might be falling in love with you,” Luciano confessed as he pulled away. “So it would be better if you didn’t die
on me up there.”
Aida’s heart jumped—not just from his words, but from the enormity of what lay ahead. Love had no place in what they were
about to do. And yet, here it was, unexpected and impossible to ignore. She searched Luciano’s face, half expecting him to
take it back, to brush it off as a fleeting thought born from fear and adrenaline. But his eyes held steady, the truth of
it anchoring her when fear gnawed at the edges of her mind, urging her to turn away, to run—but she didn’t. She concentrated
on the steady weight of the aegis and forced a breath past the tightness in her chest. He loved her. That, and there was no room for despair. Not now.
“And by the way,” he added, “you still haven’t told me if you meant it. Back at the apartment—you said you loved me.”
The memory struck her in the chest. She had said it in a rush, half panicked, but she had meant it. The oppressive sorrow
of the catacombs threatened to swallow her, but the warmth of that memory, of Luciano’s presence, cut through the darkness.
“I meant it,” she whispered, her voice trembling. Love and fear collided in her chest. “I meant it then, and I mean it now.
I love you.”
Luciano’s smile widened, though the darkness around them seemed to deepen. “Good. Because if we survive this, I want to hear
you say it again.”
She nodded, unable to articulate her whirlwind of feelings, and followed him as he beckoned her onward.
Time seemed to dilate as they navigated the seemingly infinite corridor, nearly an hour passing before the ambient light began
to transform. No longer confined to the lanterns, it now bled from an expansive chamber ahead.
Despite the sadness that assailed them, Aida and Luciano quickened their steps until they reached the opening to a massive chamber of shining black marble.
They dropped their packs at the door and stepped into the vast opulent room.
Aida’s breath caught in her throat. The chamber was colossal, its grandeur dwarfing even the Sala del Maggior Consiglio in the Doge’s Palace in Venice—the largest room in Europe at one hundred and seventy-four feet long and eighty-two feet wide.
Yet it was not its size alone that was so shocking, but the macabre carpet of bones that blanketed the floor, a sea of human remains stretching across the marble expanse.
There wasn’t a single bare spot without a rib cage, a femur, a skull, or some other part of a former human.
Piles of bones, some as towering as the room itself, jutted out like grotesque monuments, bathed in the ghostly luminescence of massive chandeliers fashioned from skeletal fragments.
At the chamber’s heart lay two harrowing sights: a massive stone altar stained with the echoes of countless sacrifices to
the goddess of misery. Draped across the slab, a skeleton lay askew, its arm dangling off the edge in silent testimony to
its final despair. In front of it, an ancient ornate chair glowed amid the gloom—a stark anomaly in this somber space. It
was Hera’s golden chair, and in it sat a figure, small and still.
Aida tentatively stepped forward, her movement sending a cascade of bones clattering across the marble floor. Euphrosyne lifted
her head, her ebony hair cascading over slender shoulders, framing a face of ethereal beauty. “There she is,” Aida breathed.
Buoyed by the sight of her, Luciano pushed forward, the noise reverberating off the distant marble walls. Aida followed in
his wake. Every step felt like torture. When they were within twenty feet of the chair, she faltered, the idea of pushing
through the remnants of countless lost souls becoming all too much for her.
Trying desperately to disassociate, she attempted to imagine herself on a movie set, with bones that were mere props, until she remembered with horror that in the early days of cinema they used to buy real cadavers for films. The thought filled her with a deep aching sadness.
Envisioning the despair that drove so many to this final resting place under Miseria’s influence, she crumbled, her cries echoing in the vast, cavernous hall.
“Aida?” Luciano turned. “Come, we can’t stop.” He reached out, attempting to coax her to her feet, but in her frantic state,
she stumbled over a femur, her fall sending a cascade of skeletal fragments tumbling around her. Panic surged through her
veins, her heart a tempest of dread and desperation.
A mocking voice cut through the din of her despair. “What do we have here?”
Aida looked up. Momus stood a few feet away amid a pile of bones. “Mo!” she cried. Despair ripped through her; their mission
seemed doomed beneath his mocking scrutiny.
“Aida!” Luciano tried again to pull her forward, but her legs were like lead, her movements jerky and slow. How could they
have ever thought they could save Effie?
“Aida.” Mo’s voice was behind her now. She whirled and almost fell into him. He looked out of place in his stylish blue jacket,
white shirt, and perfectly pressed trousers. A dark curl fell into one eye. “How did you find this place? And how do you know
each other?”
Luciano yanked her forward. “Don’t stop, Aida! He can’t hurt you.”
Suddenly Mo was in front of Luciano. He folded his arms and cocked his head as if in thought. “Now, who told you that?”
Momus lifted his arms into the air with a casual, almost bored gesture, and all the bones around them rose with them. Then,
he demonstratively pushed his hands toward the ground, sending them crashing down. Aida and Luciano shielded themselves, trapped
in the eye of a skeletal storm.
“Please, don’t do this,” Aida begged when the bones had settled.
“I have so many questions, Aida,” Mo said, shaking his head like a disappointed father. “I thought we were friends.”
“We are.” She hated how desperate she sounded.
“Are we?” Mo flicked his hand toward Luciano. “It seems he might be a better friend to you than me.” He scowled.
She tried to reason with him. “Mo, people have more than one friend.”
He scoffed at her. “Do they now? I’m curious to know which friend helped you. There’s no way you reached this sanctuary without
someone’s aegis.”
Aida caught a glance of Euphrosyne behind Mo. The goddess closed her eyes and smiled. The air was suddenly even more deeply
suffused with the fragrance that evoked memories of love and an acute sense of longing. It filled Aida with a resolve she
didn’t know she had.
“That doesn’t matter. But you are right. If we had truly been friends, Mo, I would never have had a reason to come here. My
happiness would have mattered to you. But look!” She spread her arms wide, indicating the thousands of bones around them.
“Does this look like happiness? Do you think I want to be here? I loved my MODA job. I was so happy. And I was happy about
our friendship,” she said, lying about the last part. “But then I discovered you were busy taking it all away. Tell me, Mo,
what did you think our understanding was?”
Aida couldn’t read his expression, and he didn’t respond. Instead, he stood there, arms crossed, contemplating her. She caught
another glimpse of Effie. Her eyes, a piercing crystalline blue, a striking contrast with her dark skin, met Aida’s with an
intensity that propelled her forward.
Aida stepped around Mo, hoping Luciano would follow and Mo would take pity, allowing them to pass. She reached her hand into
her pocket and closed it upon the mechanism Vulcan had given to her. She just needed to get close enough . . .
Luciano, quick to understand, moved ahead of her, guiding her through the scattered bones and clearing a path toward the chair. Aida pulled her hand out of her pocket and was just about to throw the ball against the black marble of the dais when suddenly hands were on her shoulders.
Skeletal hands.
Aida was ripped backward to the floor with a painful thud. Vulcan’s precious sphere fell from her hand and rolled into the
bones. She scrambled after it, not caring what force had pulled her away from Euphrosyne. Desperation lent her vigor as she
pushed her hands through the osseous fragments. Their only chance was to find that device.
Instead, her hands hit a leather boot. She looked up to see Disa standing above her, garbed in one of her outlandish haute
couture dresses—a wild ankle-length bloodred tulle piece, the torso wrapped in wide elastic bands, with the bodice and one