Chapter 12
A Fate Worse Than Death
HADES
I pound on the fucking indestructible gates of Tartarus. The ones I helped create to hold back the Titans for eternity. With the wards, I know Lyra can’t hear me on the other side, but I scream her name anyway.
She’s trapped with the Titans. They’ll destroy her. First, they’ll play with her, like a killer whale plays with its food, and then they’ll eat her alive. Just like my father did with me.
“Hades?” Charon puts a hand to my shoulder, and a tsunami of shock barrels into me, obliterating any control I have left. I lash out, throwing him away from me.
“Lyra!” I pound the door.
Then I pound harder and harder, the violence of my fear shaking not only the Gates but everything around them, like the earth shifting its plates. Fuck the consequences of releasing those bloodthirsty, conscienceless bastards on the world and having to face fighting them again.
I have to get her out.
I have to.
I’ll obliterate everything and everyone who gets in my way, dismantle the world a stone at a time if I have to. End it all. Take it back down to nothing.
To chaos.
Sucking in hard breaths, I close my eyes, pressing my palms and forehead against the gate. This is the prophecy come true.
Lyra was wrong.
I don’t have enough control to keep my promise. I ball my hands into fists against the cold, hard steel and pound again. And again. And again.
Something slams into me from the side, and I’m thrown onto my back.
All three of Cerberus’ heads get in my face as the massive hellhound pins me to the ground with his weight.
Before I can toss him off like the traitorous rag doll I’m about to make him into, rock and earth cover me.
Demeter. She was with us for Persephone.
She doesn’t just control the plants of harvest. She controls the soil, too, and she’s burying me alive.
I shake my head, only partially covered, and spit out some dirt. I didn’t know my little sister was this strong.
Then Charon is leaning over me. “You’ve got to stop.”
“Let me up!” I put all the command of the King of the Underworld in my voice. As chthonic beings, both Cronos and Cerberus are unable to deny me.
Except they do nothing.
Because I’m not their ruler anymore. Lyra is. I gave her my throne to save her. And even though I replaced Zeus as King of the Gods, I can’t order them. They obey only one ruler.
The wrath inside me has nowhere to go, and I shout one long, thunderous, “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!”
Then I go deadly quiet. Only the sounds of my ragged breaths fill the cavern as I try to figure out how to get them out of my damn way.
“Got it all out of your system now?” Charon chides.
“I could kill you where you stand.” I damn well mean it.
He gives me a hard stare. “Look up.”
What?
He points. “Look the fuck up, Phi.”
When I do, it’s to see that the entire roof of the chamber surrounding Tartarus has collapsed and fallen in one piece, looming practically on top of us.
A swift glance shows Demeter standing nearby, one hand raised to the roof, holding it off us, the other pointed toward me, holding me down. She’s shaking so hard, I can hear her teeth chattering.
“I can’t fix it until I can let you go,” she says, voice strained.
“You’re going to bury Lyra down there if you keep this up,” Charon says baldly. And I flinch, the rocks on top of me digging into my flesh.
“She wouldn’t want this.” Cerberus’ most serious head, Cer, nudges at me. “You know she wouldn’t.”
Which is when I remember…
A day a long time ago, when she told me I could choose not to fulfill my grandfather’s prophecy. She was so sure that fate lines can be broken. She also once said that she was strong enough to get her own ass out of trouble if it ever came looking for her.
Did she know? Did she know then what was going to happen to her?
If she did, then why in the cursed name of all the Titans did she come with me down here? She could have broken that fate herself.
I want to rail at the world. Fight my friends, even kill them if I have to, to get her out. But Cer is right. She wouldn’t want that.
I close my eyes, seeking any kind of peace I can. But it’s so hard to find under the fury and terror. And then I picture her green-and-gold eyes and how she feels in my arms. Her kindness. Her intelligence. The way she says everything that pops into her head. Her.
And it’s over.
No burning down the world, but that doesn’t mean giving up. She’d want me to find another way. So that’s what I’m going to fucking do.
“Let me up.”