Chapter 44
A Ticking Time Bomb
LYRA
Time drops me off right at Hades’ feet this time, but I go tumbling to land on my ass on the docks of the River Styx.
“Damn, that’s jarring.” I rub at my backside where I landed a little too hard.
Hades grabs me by the arm to haul me to my feet and off the dock to stand at the side of the rocks.
There are way too many people jerking me around today.
“Hey—”
“You need to get out of here, Lyra. Now.”
His grim urgency cuts through my irritation. “What—”
My surroundings finally sink in fully. Not the river with the swirling, glowing blue currents. Not the stars in the mountain cavern high overhead. Not Charon’s pirate ship.
It’s the ships. As in multiple. There are dozens lined up down the river, waiting their turn. And thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of souls mill about on the shores, already landed.
“What happened?”
Hades doesn’t answer for a long moment, too busy peering into the eyes of one after another soul. For most of them, he simply waves a hand, and they disappear. Sent to one part of the Underworld or another. But he pauses at one. “Confess,” he demands.
Only because of what I am now—Queen of the Underworld—do I hear the soul speak, see his ghostly features move as though opening and closing his jaw and forming words with lips that no longer exist. And what he says is too horrible, too ugly.
When he’s done confessing, Hades leans forward and whispers his judgment in the dead man’s ear. The soul’s mouth opens on a scream I don’t hear because he disappears as well. To the bowels of the hells.
To Tartarus?
Is that asshole down there with me now? Locked in one of what I’ve estimated to be thousands of rooms off the tunnels, being given a punishment commensurate with his crimes. He’ll suffer for eternity no matter where he ends up.
I know Hades will have given him a fair punishment.
Hades continues sending souls away, and I have a chance to study him. His clothes are more ancient-style robes with a hooded cloak thrown back over his shoulders. So, not current day. But when? Why the fuck is he doing this outside of the gates to the Underworld?
“You need to get out of here, Lyra,” he snaps over his shoulder.
“Why? What happened?” I ask again, quieter.
He doesn’t even look toward me. “It’s been a long time. Things have happened here that you may not know of yet.”
I scan his features and see…he’s afraid for me.
I can’t explain why he doesn’t need to be. “You and your siblings trapped your parents in Tartarus and now rule Olympus. Is that what happened?”
It’s rare to see Hades surprised, but from the way he freezes slightly before continuing with the souls, I know he is. “So you do know things.”
I glance away. “I know more than I would like and sometimes less than I need.”
“Cryptic,” he mutters. Another soul disappears at a wave.
My huff of a laugh is entirely sarcasm. “As a god with many secrets, welcome to how it feels on the other side.”
There’s a sudden dull boom, and the ground under our feet shakes slightly, sending fine dust raining down from the rock ceiling high above. It makes a soft hissing sound as it hits us and the ground.
“What was that?” I ask.
Erebos has never done that when I’ve been there. It is a haven of beauty and peacefulness. No booming. No rocking.
“Get out of here,” Hades snarls.
“Tell me why first.”
“I can’t do this and protect you, too. We’re overrun.”
My frown deepens. “Why are so many souls coming to you?”
He can’t answer, too busy dealing with those souls.
The boat that Hades has been filtering through moves away from the dock, and another comes in. On its decks, I recognize a figure.
A true pirate.
Charon.
I tuck myself behind Hades, not wanting the ferryman of the dead to see me.
In my future life, he never once indicated that he recognized me, and Charon, unlike Hades, has a tendency to offer me the truth.
Sometimes more than I need. He would have said something if he’d met me before. I’m mostly sure of that.
“Hades?” I prompt. “Why so many souls?”
The kind of frustration that only Hades can show with a mere twitch of his mouth flits across his features. “My brothers and sisters have decided to fight over the Olympic throne.”
My eyes flare wide. The Anaxian Wars. That’s what I’m in the middle of? I don’t say the words, but I do mouth them.
Hades finally looks at me more closely, just for a second, his sharp gaze taking in every nuance before he continues dealing with souls. “What do you know of it?”
I bite my lip. I shouldn’t tell him anything. But…he also once said I told him to stop the wars, or deal with them, or something like that. The way he worded it wasn’t entirely clear.
“The devastation my siblings are causing is wreaking havoc down here,” he says. “Mortals are dying in droves. If there’s something I can do, tell me now.”
I can’t. I can’t do it.
Partly because the ending of the Anaxian Wars was the start of the Crucible Games. Trading one terrible thing for another doesn’t seem like a solution.
Another boom ricochets through the massive chamber, so violent that a wave rushes through the waters, tossing all the lined-up boats around like they’re toys, then coming straight for us.
Hades jerks me into his arms, curling around me protectively, and I’m sure he’s going to stop the water. Except, the way I’m angled, I can see Charon. On the deck of the ship, the ferryman drops to one knee, both hands coming up, and the waters calm.
“Wow.” I breathe the word. I didn’t know he controlled the Styx as well.
I don’t move out of Hades’ arms and behind him fast enough. Charon meets my gaze.
And I tense. Hard.
Charon knows all souls, as the first person to usher every single one to the Underworld, and the god never forgets. Mine included.
He knows me. When he meets future me, he knows, and he never said…
Another boom. Charon’s hands are still up, so the river doesn’t move at all. But an ominous series of rumbles groans overhead.
I drop my head back, searching the cavern high above, just as one last ear-splitting fracture cracks, and then it feels as though the entire ceiling caves in on us.
Hades covers me, so I can’t see what he does, but I can hear it.
The grinding of rock on rock growls like thunder.
Dust rains down on us in a fine layer, but nothing hits.
Hades is breathing hard when he grabs me by the shoulders.
“I told you to get out of here!” he yells.
I swear he wants to shake me, but he doesn’t.
I look up to find the ceiling back in place.
“Damn it, Lyra. I can’t do this—”
“I can help,” I tell him. I can send the easier souls to their destinations, at least.
“No! I’ll be too distracted if you stay. I’ll worry—” He cuts himself off.
I know he means that. That he’d worry about me, despite the fact that at this point he’s only met me a few brief times.
Logic is finally overriding the sense of panic the milling souls and constant booms and danger here are generating.
I can’t show him my power as Queen of the Underworld.
He won’t understand why I can also do what he does.
“Where?” I ask. Where is safe?
“My room in Erebos.” He glances at my lips, and I almost raise a hand to touch them.
He knows. He can see that he, or someone, has given me a kiss that protects me down here.
It remains on my lips to this day even though I don’t need it anymore.
He knows I can safely pass through all the nooks and crannies of the Underworld.
“I’ll go—”
A howl sounds from just inside the gate.
No. Not a single howl. A trio of howls.
“They’re overrunning the gate!” Charon shouts from the deck, pointing. “This isn’t working. You have to end this.”
Hades goes so still and pale. If he weren’t immortal, I would worry death had claimed him. He closes his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Fuck,” he mutters.
Then he’s gone.
I stare at the space where he was—the empty space that the souls rush to fill, trying to push and shove their way to their afterlives.
“Go!” Charon yells from above me.
I meet his eyes again. Eyes with a thousand questions he doesn’t have time to ask. Why didn’t he ask them when he met me again ages from now? He gave me information Hades would have probably preferred he’d not given me then, but not a single hint that we’d met before.
I give him a single nod, then teleport to Hades’ bedroom in Erebos. Our bedroom in the castle he’s built in the Land of Shadows. The deathly quiet of the souls drops away for a different silence. It should be comforting, peaceful here.
Instead, it’s just empty.
I wrap my arms around my waist, closing my eyes. Because I know what the King of the Underworld just chose to do.
“Hades,” I whisper. “I’ll wait for you this time.”
If I can.
I have a feeling he’s going to need me.
Almost immediately, there’s an urgent knock at the door.
I rush over and swing it open to find Charon standing there.
He is a little different from the god I know in my current day, mostly because of his clothes—a dark tunic covered with leather across his chest and around his wrists and shins.
He’s definitely not the gruesome bag of bones most myths depict him as, but in this moment, the approachable guy with laughing eyes is nowhere to be seen.
He also has no problem reading the panic on my face. “Hades isn’t dead,” he rushes to say. “I’d feel it.”
“But you don’t know what he’s doing?”
He pauses, looking at me closer, then shakes his head. “I wanted to make sure you made it here, so I got Hecate to spell me for a bit. I can’t stay.”
“Why?”
“I had a feeling he’d want you to be safe.”
I snort a laugh. “Liar.”
His scowl is so swift and harsh, and so not like the Charon I know, that it reminds me he doesn’t know me in return.
Holding back a sigh, I give him a contrite smile. “I’m sure he would, but I’m guessing you’re here to make sure that I came directly where Hades said to be and nowhere else.”
The scowl lets up slowly. “Maybe,” he finally admits.
He checks over his shoulder like he’s being called back. There are purple shadows under his blue-green eyes. It takes a lot to make a god look haggard, and he’s there. Tension rolls off him in waves.
I swallow. “Can you send Cerberus to him?”
Charon’s frown is sharp. “There’s no way for me to handle the souls on my own.”
“Right.” I glance away. So fucking tempting to offer my services. He’s seen my face now, but when he meets past me in his future, knowing what she can do later—despite being human then—is going to be a big problem for him.
So I don’t offer.
“Do you know what Hades is doing?” he asks, voice turning as sharp as his earlier frown.
I have a guess. “Not entirely.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
What am I supposed to say to that? Nothing. Nothing is all I can do. I’m really not a fan of nothing.
“So you’re the one.” Charon says the words so softly, I almost miss them.
“What?”
His gaze on me is strangely assessing, curious. “He waits for you. In the water gardens.”
The words reverberate through me, not only with shock but as if warmth consumes me in a rush. “He told you that?”
“No—” Charon suddenly straightens, cocking his head like he’s listening to something far-off, and his shoulders adjust like he just took on a heavier load. “Hells. I have to go.”
He disappears so fast, he leaves the door hanging open and the hall empty.
Abandoning me to a thousand new worries and waiting for Hades to return to me.