Chapter 34 The Meaning Of A Name
The Meaning Of A Name
LYRA
“I think it’s time for a break,” Boone says. And my head goes straight to a single idea that grows larger and larger by the second.
“She’s got to get this,” Cronos argues while I’m swimming over to the edge.
Boone sets his feet. “I’m not asking.”
Cronos’ lip curls. “Alani is the key to our escape. You are not.”
Alani. He called me that earlier. I was focused on other words coming out of his mouth, but it finally hits me…that’s the name my Nightmare father called me in Hestia’s Lock.
Then there’s a softly murmured conversation between the two that I can’t make out. A hand appears before me as I get to the side. Not Cronos this time. Boone hauls me out, sopping wet.
Cronos huffs. “She doesn’t need anybody’s help. Not yours. Not my son’s. Not even mine. Something she’ll learn soon enough.”
“What does that even mean?” I ask, still wondering if I can do this without Hades.
Boone leans in to murmur, “Now that we’re gods, let’s not do any of this cryptic shit. Let’s be clear. Yeah?”
“I was just thinking that.”
“Watch it, boy.” Cronos is snarling now. “You’re only alive because Alani seems to like you.”
Boone smirks. One of his hallmark, guaranteed-to-irritate-an-enemy moves. “Her name is Lyra.”
Cronos points at me. “Her birth name is Alani. The name her parents gave her, not your Order of Thieves.”
I lean back. “That was real?”
His hard gaze falls from Boone to me and softens slightly. “It was real.”
“Oh.” The word escapes me in a whisper.
So my parents really did name me that? How did the Nightmare know? I was born millennia after those things must’ve been trapped down here with the Titans.
No wonder I fell for Hestia’s Lock so hard at first. Thieves are taught that when you lie, you should use as much truth as possible. It makes it feel more real, harder to separate out the fiction, in addition to being easier to remember and less likely for you to mess up.
“Your name means death bringer,” Cronos tells me. “As Hades’ queen, it is your appropriate and true name.”
“Death bringer,” Boone mutters at me. “Of course that would be what your name means.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “I think it’s kind of badass.”
And Cronos smiles. Not a smirk. Not in triumph. A real smile. One that reaches his blue, blue eyes and crinkles the skin around them and tries to sneak inside me and make me feel something—kindness, warmth, connection—in return.
Worse, he suddenly looks so much like Hades, he might as well have slapped me.
I shut it all down. Hard.
The last thing I should forget is that the gods locked these monsters down here for a reason.
But the damage is done.
Boone heads toward the tunnel Persephone left down. “Come on. You need to rest.”
But I don’t follow. I need a break, but not the kind he’s talking about.
The thing is…I’m glad I’m not alone down here. It’s the most selfish I could be, and if I could make it so he never got trapped in here with me, I would. I’d never wish this on him, but…I don’t think I could do this alone, either.
But I need to be alone for a bit. Even in a den full of thieves, I was alone a lot, thanks to my curse. Down here, the Titans do everything in packs, and I think I’ve reached my limit of peopling. So I lie. “I’m going to keep trying.”
I shift my weight, and my shoes squelch. Not Boone’s, though. He never once landed in that damned water.
Boone makes a face from where he stopped to wait. “I think you need a break.”
“I’m fine.”
He snorts. “I’m surprised you’re not sparking by now, as many times as you’ve gotten shocked.”
“Oh. Haha. You’re hilarious.” I know he’s just trying to cajole me to rest, but I have something else in mind.
Boone sobers, considering me closely, then sighs. “I’ll stay, too.”
I shake my head. “I think the audience is part of the problem. Give me a bit to try it all on my own. Send Persephone back down if you’re worried.”
It’s a mean trick, but it works.
His expression goes flat at the mention of her name, so I know he likes that idea even less. “I’ll give you thirty minutes,” he says. “Then you stop.”
“Thanks.”
Boone shoots Cronos a look. “Come on, Pops. Your savior needs alone time.”
The Titan protests all the way past the pillars and into the tunnels. And then, finally, I’m by myself. The breath that leaks from me is pure relief.
I wait a little longer to make sure they don’t return.
I think maybe being around Cronos so much, with all the ways he reminds me of Hades, is starting to get to me. As if every similar glance, every tone of his voice, every move chips away at another piece of my heart, and I just need…
I won’t let myself say Hades.
Space. I need space.
Now that I have it, though, the loneliness builds instead of eases.
And it’s that loneliness that walks my feet to where I left my axe on the floor at the starting line—practicing the obstacle course without it screams of folly, but I won’t have it inside the Lock anyway—then out of the area we’re in and down the tunnels.
Straight to Hades’ Lock.