Chapter 22
The Second Lock
LYRA
When Iapetus drops me into the abyss, I try to teleport out. Even with my undeveloped skills, I should at least be able to stop the downward trajectory, so I try again. But it’s like gravity has a fist around me and is yanking down hard.
I don’t give up, though. At least this time I’m not screaming and bracing for death.
I have a feeling that will come later.
Suddenly, with no transition whatsoever, I’m not falling anymore.
Instead, I’m standing on what feels like soft dirt that’s been tilled until it’s fluffy, and I sink deep, it’s so thick.
My eyes go wide as I take in my surroundings.
If my heart wasn’t already pounding from the fall, it would start now.
Is that…sky I see?
I appear to be inside a long hallway that has a series of arches leading outside. Maybe twelve of them, with a larger one in the center. Each arch is closed by a wooden gate that comes up about four or five feet, leaving the top of the arch open to the outside.
Outside. Like I’m in the Overworld.
There is a cloudless, perfect blue sky. I’m so taken with that, a few seconds pass before I register the rest. The stalls, or gates, or whatever they are, seem to lead into the center of a structure that reminds me a lot of the Roman Colosseum where we played Athena’s game in the Crucible. But…this isn’t quite the same.
Instead of circular, from what I can see from here, the structure is oblong and bigger.
It has stands with stadium seating built all around it, only they aren’t ruins, like the Colosseum.
They are in pristine condition…and as empty as a wise man’s tomb.
I’d guess it’s at least fifteen hundred feet from where I stand to the other end and maybe two hundred feet across at its widest point.
There’s a large walled platform in the middle decorated with towering statues and maybe even more seating.
It effectively creates a center divider like a spine.
A track? Is it a racetrack?
Boone appears so suddenly beside me that I yelp, hopping back.
When I realize who it is, I peer at him more closely, reaching out to poke a finger in his arm. “Are you real? Or are you part of some new illusion?”
He doesn’t even look at me, let alone notice the poke, scanning the area like I just did. “Real,” he says grimly. “It wasn’t exactly hard to guess where Iapetus was going to take you.”
“He’s an unoriginal bastard. That’s for sure.”
I swallow hard as I realize Boone intentionally jumped off the bridge to follow me.
I take in his new clothing, then glance down to find I’m similarly attired. “What are we wearing?”
Leggings, a tunic over them, both in a rough-hewn material.
His is black, mine close to white. Leather strapping binds around our chests and stomachs and thighs, and we’re wearing leather gauntlets around our wrists and close-toed shoes that are a cross between half-boots and flip-flops, with the woven leather strapping covering most of our feet, but with patches and holes in between.
My axe is gone, but there’s a curved knife in a sheath strapped to my leg. Boone has one, too.
“Looks ancient in style, but…” Boone sniffs at his gauntlet. “This leather is brand new.”
“Something a soldier might wear in ancient Greece, maybe?”
Now we’re both looking around. Hestia showed up pretty much immediately when I arrived in her Lock. Are we going to get a different god or goddess this time?
“What is this place?” I ask.
Boone shakes his head. “It reminds me of the Circus Maximus in the movie Ben Hur, when they race—”
Hades appears before us not ten feet away. I suck sharply and take a step toward him, a move that feels as natural as breathing, only to get pulled up when Boone grabs my wrist.
“Don’t,” he says in a low voice.
What my heart wants to do is tug against him and argue that it’s Hades. That he’s here. But I already know that’s not true.
Not real.
Because the Hades standing before me is not my Hades. Like Hestia, he is a copy, a recording, or whatever they are down here.
He looks only slightly older than he did when I saw him with his family—twenty-three, maybe.
Not much younger than he looks in present day.
But I can see the differences even so. And his clothes are not modern but like ours—a tunic and leggings with leather strapped shoes, I think.
It’s hard to tell because he’s wearing a dark-brown hooded cloak that covers most of what he wears. It’s giving Obi-Wan vibes.
“Going to try again, are we?” Hades is at his most arrogant and taunting.
Wait…he doesn’t sound pre-recorded like Hestia did.
“Try again?” The words just sort of pop out. “I haven’t been down here before.”
I wait for him to glitch. To start over. But he doesn’t. Instead, he tilts his head, lips tipped slightly up. “You always say that, little goddess, but I assure you that you have attempted to unseal my Lock many times.”
“The fuck you say.” Boone growls those four words.
Hades’ silver eyes flash to him and narrow. “You, however… This is your first time.”
How is it possible for a recording to know that? Hestia flickered and blinked her way through the same generic message and couldn’t stray from it. At least that’s the impression left on my very befuddled mind from that encounter.
But Hades…
He feels so real. I know I should be terrified, particularly of whatever comes next. After all, the Titans implied that there are multiple Locks. This is the second one. Another test. More deadly shit.
I know the Hades before me is not real.
But he sounds like him. And he looks like him. Even the sharp narrowing of his eyes is him. And an ache is setting up in the middle of my chest that makes me want to rub at the spot.
Because it’s not him.
“I know you are not really Hades,” I say, jaw tight, frustrated by all the unknowns. “But you should know that he fell in love with me and made me Queen of the Underworld. He wouldn’t want you to put me through whatever this is. He wouldn’t do that to me.”
Hades’ gaze returns to me, and for maybe a second, I think it softens. I know it softens, the silver turning from a knife’s edge to silk. Only to sharpen again as his face hardens into a stubborn cast. “Sometimes you say that, too,” he murmurs, almost too soft for me to catch. “But no matter.”
No matter?
He’s not going to unseal this Lock and let us out without testing us. I wouldn’t even have to know him that well to see that much is true.
And to him, it’s no matter. I’m no matter.
I close my eyes, because I need to not see him when I say this next part. I need to not believe that it’s my Hades putting me through yet another potentially deadly trial.
“Then get it over with.”