Chapter 94
Nightmares
LYRA
“No!” Theia’s scream pierces the void of nothingness as the Titaness hurls herself out of a teleport and straight at Hel.
The Norse goddess is on her feet and manifests her famous Nightsword in an instant, slicing through Theia’s leg. But the Titaness heals as fast as the sword cuts. And by the look on her face, she’s going to kill Hel.
We can’t lose more.
It’s not Hel’s fault. The glamour made her believe that she was right to do this.
With only one thought in my head, I teleport closer. When I rematerialize, Anubis is there now, facing Theia with Hel. He backhands me, sending me flying across the room.
I teleport again to avoid crashing into the rock wall of the chamber, then instantly try again, aiming for Hel’s other side. And go flying yet again. The hit comes from her this time. They must feel me approaching when I teleport.
Now they’re facing three Titans—Theia, Phoebe, and Iapetus.
Wait. Neither Anubis nor Hel used a weapon on me when they both possess them.
“They can’t kill me,” I say to myself. “They need me to stop Hades.”
If I end up dead, I don’t know what he’ll do. Not when he’s already so out of control he doesn’t know I’ve escaped Tartarus already. Not when the violent tunneling smoke-and-fire tentacles behind me are still ripping into the remains of the prison, trying to dig me out.
I wince. What I’m about to try is probably going to hurt.
I teleport again, and this time I aim for right where Hel is thrusting her sword. I reappear in the world just as it slices straight into me.
Hel’s eyes go wide. So do Anubis’, and I swear even his black fur pales when I cough and golden blood comes spurting out of my mouth, blade still lodged deep in my chest.
“No,” the jackal god whispers.
Feeling every slice, every scrape against my flesh and nerves and insides, I push my body into the blade, closer and closer to Hel, until the point pierces through my back.
“You’re the only one who can stop him.” Her voice is laden with disbelief. “What are you doing?”
Bonus—Anubis comes in closer, too, maybe to stop me, or maybe to keep Theia from getting to Hel.
I don’t care. I just need him within reach.
“I’m the only one who can stop you.” I grip at the veils covering both of their faces and tear the glamours away, tossing them onto the ground where, just like with Phoebe and Persephone, they burn up in a fit of hissing until they turn to ash, joining the ash raining down on us from the fire and smoke Hades is still drilling into the ground.
Anubis stares at me with dawning horror darkening the browns and golds of his jackal eyes.
“It’s not possible,” he whispers in a voice turned feral.
But it’s Hel’s response that I can’t look away from. With a cry, the goddess lets go of her sword, still buried in me, backing away and turning to look at Tethys’ body on the ground.
“No.” The word is a moan. “Please, no.”
Her back is to me, but it’s impossible to miss the way her shoulders shake and heave. She knows what she’s done. She knows she can’t take it back. Even if it wasn’t truly her fault, she’ll have to carry that with her always.
I look at Anubis. “You have all been glamoured to believe something that is not true.”
The Egyptian god of the Underworld bares his sharp canine teeth at me. I don’t know what I think will happen next, but it’s not for him to grab the hilt of the blade still buried in me and yank the weapon out.
I pitch forward, trying very hard not to vomit or pass out.
On a gurgle of pain, the intensity of it drops me to my knees.
And then Anubis is beside me, his hands cupping the entrance and exit wounds.
A glow emanates from his hands, and warmth grows inside the wound, passing all the way through me as if it’s traveling down the hole left by the sword and knitting me back together.
Because when he stops, all the pain is gone and I’m able to rise to my feet, I peel back the tear in my clothes to find my flesh perfect again.
A thousand times faster than even my goddess healing. I look up at the god.
He shrugs. “Some gods of death aren’t only about death.”
“How is it possible?” Hel asks from behind him.
The others are still fighting all around us, I realize. I’m not even sure they know what’s happened.
“I don’t have time to explain. Protect the Titans and get me to the others so I can remove their glamours.”
Anubis nods, then disappears, only to reappear again holding Hermes by the arms.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hermes jerks against the jackal god’s hold but can’t break it.
I reach for Hermes’ face yet again.
Hermes engages his sandals, dragging him and Anubis out of my reach. In the same instant, someone tackles Hyperion.
Shit. This is going to take too long, even with help. We’re risking even more losses.
“What the fuck is going on here?” A gruff and grumpy voice sounds in my head, followed by the echo of two very different voices saying the exact same thing.
“Cerberus!” I’m across the room and burying my face in what’s basically the three-headed hellhound’s armpit, my arms splayed wide as I try to hug the big oaf.
“Lyra—” The three voices of Cer, Ber, and Rus all break on my name, and the dog is suddenly curling around me, heads cuddling me as he makes squeaky doggy noises of relief.
I grin and laugh into his sulfur-smelling fur. “You’re here.”
“I’m here,” Cer assures me.
“I felt you reenter the Underworld.” Ber’s snarl is almost accusatory, and a small flame shoots from his nostrils.
Rus nuzzles me. “But I have felt that before—”
He suddenly breaks off, and all three heads growl. A sound that is scary as hells on a good day, but with my ear squashed against his chest and his heads down by me, the hair-raising noise surrounds me like the rumble of thunder.
I don’t have to pull my face out of his fur to know what he’s looking at, though.
“Wait.” I push back, intending to remove the veil from all three of his faces, but… “There’s no glamour?” The words pop out of my mouth.
Rus tips his head to the side in dog for what?
“What does this mean?” Cer demands, his gaze still fixed on the Titans and fighting all around us.
I swallow, then explain as fast as I can. I’ll fill him in on details later.
“This can’t be right, tiny immortal,” Ber snarls. “Hades would not have been fooled—”
“I’ve seen the glamour on his face. He has been.”
All three heads shake at that, their jowls flapping. “No.”
“It’s true,” Anubis says. The Egyptian god has stayed right where he was, daring to come no closer to us. “I wouldn’t believe it if she hadn’t removed the veil from my own eyes.”
One of the heads—Ber, I think—huffs. A hellhound version of a grunt of acceptance. At least I hope so.
“That explains it,” a voice says from the other side of Cerberus, and the hellhound rounds with another hair-raising growl.
“For soul’s sake,” Hel mutters, unsheathing her sword.
But neither attacks.
I duck to look under his belly and see the bottom of Yeomra’s hanbok.
When Cerberus remains unmoving, hackles raised, I work my way around him to find the Korean god, the fifth king of their Underworld, gazing over the open pages of a massive leather-bound book in his hand and staring not at Hel or Anubis but at the Titans.
“My mind is trying to tell me that the Titans are evil incarnate and deserve imprisonment and every punishment they get. But the book is showing something else.”
The book of judgment.
Heavens above, whoever glamoured the world missed something.
“I trust the book,” he says.
Patting Cerberus to let him know it’s all right, I move out from under him to approach Yeomra. “I can remove the glamour that is clouding your eyes, if you like.”
He glances from me to Hel and Anubis and back, then nods. With a flick of my fingers, I pull the spiderweb-fine netting away.
While Yeomra is blinking and readjusting to real memories, I turn back to Cerberus. “Can you protect the Titans without hurting the other gods until I can remove the glamours from the rest of them?”
Cer lowers his head to peer at me closely. “Hades needs you more than they do, my queen.”
My heart cracks. “I know. But I can’t go to him until I know they won’t be harmed, and we can’t let this fighting continue. No more deaths. Not for a lie.”
As if the Fates heard me, a boom ricochets even over the roar of Hades’ smoke and fire, and out of the rubble of Tartarus burst familiar winged creatures.
“Nightmares!” I hear Eshu, I think, yell.
I grin. The Nightmares pledged their loyalty to me.
I put two fingers to my lips and let out a high-pitched whistle. Like a flock of birds, the Nightmares wheel in the air toward me. I don’t want them to be attacked, and we don’t have time.
“Stop the gods from attacking us!” I yell to them. “Do not harm them, but be careful. Bring them to me.”
At my command, the Nightmares disappear. All except one. Like a lone arrow, he arcs through the air, then plunges to the ground, barely flaring his bat-like wings before he lands directly in front of me.
“This will take only moments, Mistress.”
Really? That would be impressive. I nod, then blink, because before me stand all the gods and Titans, a Nightmare at the side of each one. Each powerful being stares into space, glassy-eyed.
“That is…”
The head Nightmare at my side sounds amused. “I know.”
Mental note to make sure to give them rules before I loose them on the world. “You can let the Titans go.”
Those who were influenced immediately blink, then inhale sharply as if they’ve been underwater a little too long. “That is quite unpleasant,” Mnemosyne murmurs as she glares at the Nightmare who had her. She also takes a small step away from it. It might smile. Hard to tell with those blank faces.
“We can’t hold on to gods’ minds for long, though,” the one beside me warns.
Right. With them all still, it doesn’t take me long to remove all the glamours, each Nightmare releasing their captive from whatever hallucination they had them in as I do. The same blinking-and-sudden-breaths reaction happens with every single one, followed by the shock and confusion.
Rhea moves to my side. “We’re safe now and can explain everything to them. You need to go to Hades.”
Safe. I can’t look toward the Titaness on the ground. “Tethys…”
“We’ll honor her when the time is right,” Rhea assures me.
She’s lost a husband and a sister today. How is she still standing?
“We can’t go with you.” Rhea glances around the others. “We shouldn’t be seen yet. Not until you can remove the rest of the glamours.”
She’s right about that. I nod.
Then Rhea leans down and kisses my forehead, the same way Cronos did before sacrificing himself, and I squeeze my eyes shut. How can she bear to look at me? I’m the cause of her greatest loss.
Then she folds me into her arms, squeezing long enough that I get the sense she doesn’t want to let go. Thieves don’t like touch, but what I want to do is lean into her, draw this out—but I can’t. Not yet.
With a sigh, she releases me. “Go, daughter.”
My eyes flash open at the words to find her looking at me with a mother’s love. I can’t hold back the tears, letting them slide silently down my cheeks even as I’m shaking my head. How can she call me that?
But she brushes them away with the pads of her fingers and offers me the softest smile. “Don’t let Cronos’ sacrifice be in vain. Time can’t reset now that it’s been healed and is yours. Go show Hades you’re safe. Stop him before he does more than try to dig your body out of the rubble.”
I glance away, toward Boone, seeking him out. We’ve been through this together. He meets my gaze steadily and gives a single, low whistle. Go.
With a swallow, I return my focus to Rhea. “I don’t know how.”
“Just let him see you. Truly see you.”