Chapter 57
Present Day
The lovely scent of honeysuckle surrounds me, silky caressing touches stirring me from my sleep. I stretch with a smile, my eyelashes fluttering as I blink my eyes open to take in the vast violet sky above me.
I angle my head on the ground, my brows drawing together. The sky isn’t normally purple.
I sit up, golden sunshine beaming down on me. Studying the little white star-shaped flowers that surround me on tall stalks, the leaves at their base the cushion I had been laying on, I glance around, nothing but flowers for as far as I can see.
I have no idea where I am. I have no idea who I am. Yet I feel unafraid.
I stand. White, gauzy swathes of material cover my body, pinned at my shoulders. A belt of golden rope gathers the dress in under my breasts, the globes of them exposed by the deep cut neckline, and the skirt of my dress cascades over my legs with a soft swish.
“That was quite a performance, my friend.”
I whirl, startled by the feminine voice. The blonde woman dressed in a similar fashion as me, but the color of her clothing is pitch black. So black that it seems to gobble up the sunshine. She’s stunning.
“Who are you?” I ask, breathless.
Her dark eyes twinkle with amusement, the color rich and multifaceted like the earth. “I always forget how you souls don’t remember,” she sighs. “Here.”
She walks forward, coming to stand directly in front of me. I watch her as she leans forward, pressing her lips to my forehead.
Millennia of experiences flood into my mind, and I stagger back, doubling over. Images and sounds, smells and tastes, touch and feelings—they assault me all at once, overwhelming my senses now.
Pleasure.
Pain.
Joy.
Sorrow.
I have lived more than a hundred lives, and I remember them all.
Me, but not me.
In this form, I am Nova. But I have been Guinevere, Juliet, and Eleanor. I started as Eurydice. I have been so many more, too.
Us—all of my lives intertwined together.
I raise myself, straightening, my eyes taking in my surroundings with a different perspective.
The Fields of Asphodel.
I shake my head. “We weren’t even close this time,” I groan, disappointed.
Persephone, my friend through the ages, gives me a grin. “I mean, you do remember they were all dead before you found them this time, do you not?”
I grumble under my breath, snatching a handful of Asphodel and ripping it from the plant. I pluck at the petals. “It’s been almost three thousand years,” I complain. “Can’t I catch just one break?”
Her smile fades, and she nods, looking down at her feet. “I had hoped…” she trails off, running her hand gently over the flowers around her, lovingly. “I had hoped my blessing would help. You had them all, for this time at least,” she adds in offer, glancing up.
Yes, I had. Rohan, Jimmy, Theodore, and Koda—made for Nova. I had given myself to all of them, even not knowing who we were to one another in that life, and they had loved me in return. It was what we had been fighting for, some of us longer than others. We had almost captured it fully so many times, only to have it ripped away from us with so much tragedy and blood.
Once upon a time—that is how all the grandest stories start, isn’t it?—a wood nymph fell in love with the musician that her father, Apollo, promised her at first sight. And he had fallen in love with her, too. And then the nymph died—I died—dramatically vowing to die a thousand deaths if it meant she could find him in every lifetime. The musician had gone to Hades, the God of the Underworld, to beg for her return, and succeeded.
But he turned too soon, before he and the nymph had both left behind the shadows of the Underworld, and in doing so, he had cursed them. Eurydice, doomed to die a thousand deaths, and Orpheus, doomed to watch it happen over and over again. The part of the bargain that Hades had not deigned to disclose because gods are jerks.
Orpheus failed and had almost immediately been killed, trampled by a bunch of women who couldn’t stand that he belonged to me, even in death.
My father had been right about one thing. Mine and Orpheus’ story has been told for thousands of years. There are sculptures, paintings, songs, and writings dedicated to us. What he didn’t get right was that my love story would incorporate so much more than just Orpheus. Throughout my lives, I have met others who have twined their ways around my soul, making them as unable to be severed as Orpheus.
The gods and goddesses called their version of that: mates.
Modern times might call them soulmates.
I just call it cruel because I am forced to leave them too early in every single incarnation of my soul.
“Persephone, are we ever going to get to Elysium?” I ask, twisting the stalk of Asphodel tightly in my hands. I’ve asked before about whether she knows if one day my mates and I will gain access to Paradise, the curse broken, able to finally have peace. She always just gives me that simpering smile and says…
“The Fates do not see such things. You know that.”
I nod at the expected answer, letting the mangled piece of plant fall to the ground. “When am I being sent again? Will they all be there this time, too?” I ask, studying my green-stained skin.
Her silence has me looking up at her. She’s normally more than happy to divulge how horrific my next life is going to be.
But I know why she has held her tongue when I see him standing next to her, his brow raised at that same simpering smile she gave me only a moment ago. She isn’t supposed to tell me anything that could happen within my next life because he likes to orchestrate them for his maximum enjoyment.
“Hades,” I greet, narrowing my eyes.
The wide grin he gives me is vicious, cruel. “Eurydice. Back so soon?”
Under normal circumstances, such disrespect toward a god would be considered punishable. But Hades finds my situation entertaining, and my attitude about it even more so. He tolerates my lack of worship, and I tolerate his adamancy to call me by that particular name.
When I refuse to answer him, glowering, he turns back to Persephone. “Tell me, Seph,” he purrs. “Have you taken back that blessing? Certainly, she does not need the ability to guide the dead anymore.”
She pouts at him. “I was about to.”
Rolling her eyes when he merely stares at her, she holds up a hand, slapping it down on top of my head with a scowl. I wrinkle my nose as I feel something inside me shift.
Hades gives her a victorious smirk. “There, now. That’s a good girl.”
Persephone visibly preens before realizing I’m watching with a raised brow. She throws me a weak smile. He offers his arm to her, bending it at the elbow, and she slips her hand into the crook.
He nods at me. “Until next time, Eurydice.”
“I’ll find you later,” Persephone mouths.
I have no doubt that Hades picked up on her not-so-subtle message.
They turn away, arm-in-arm.
The thought of another life is exhausting. The thought of finding my soulmates only to die or watch them die again is repulsive.
“Wait,” I call, halting them. I search Hades’ face. “I want to make a bargain with you.”
Persephone stiffens. “I don’t—”
“What sort of bargain?” Hades interrupts, ignoring the look he gets for cutting her off. His eyes gleam with interest—something different from me besides cynicism in the last three thousand years.
He’s bored. I know he is. With people not worshipping the gods like they used to in ancient times, the gods have become a near blip in the timeline of the world. In fact, the last time I was here, Persephone had told me about the lesser gods who had all but become extinct. Their immortal souls had ended up right here, in the Fields of Asphodel, and combined with mortal souls as they were reborn into the mortal world.
“I want this next time to be the last time.”
He appraises me. “What are the terms?”
I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly parched. “All five of us will be in this life, alive, and at ages that are relative to one another.”
I shoot him a look when he snickers, knowing he’s laughing about the time I was reincarnated and only found two of my four of my soulmates. That happens—I haven’t always found all four every time. The problem was, both of them had been on the cusp of dying from old age when I was barely entering my teens. That life had been immensely boring until the day I died in the train derailment before my sixteenth birthday.
“Fine, fine,” he agrees, holding his hands up in a placating gesture.
“I find them and keep them for…” I pause, studying him. “For two months without one of us dying. And you can’t meddle with their fate—can’t meddle with their free will so they do something like step in front of a runaway stagecoach,” I add quickly, glaring as I scour my past lives for all the things Hades has done to toy with me.
“Two months?” he scoffs, ignoring the latter condition. “A year.”
“Four months,” I relent, cocking my head.
It’s his turn to narrow those red eyes of his. “Eight.”
“Five.”
Hades, Ancient God of the Dead, rolls his eyes. “Six. Six months you will have to stay alive. I won’t interfere with the lives that are written in the Scrolls. You’ll all be within an appropriate range of ages. If you succeed, I will not only allow all five of you to enter Elysium upon your death, I will ensure you live a long, happy mortal life before then.”
I don’t want to ask, but this is the kind of question Orpheus should have asked. “And if I don’t?”
I brace myself for him to utter the word ‘Tartarus’—the modern equivalent being Hell—where we’ll be tortured for the rest of eternity. He doesn’t, but he might as well have.
“The count starts over,” he replies smoothly. I balk, but he continues. “You’re at one hundred forty-six lives, if I have calculated correctly. Only eight hundred fifty-four more to go. But if you lose this little wager, Eurydice, the count goes back to zero and I get to meddle as much as I care to.”
I stay silent, turning it over in my head, eyeing Persephone’s tight expression. In one of my many lives, I managed to stay alive for more than a year when I found Orpheus’ reincarnation. The ticking clock to our doom always seems to start with him. If I found him last… But there’s no way to know what order they’ll come into my life.
“I’ll sweeten the deal,” Hades says suddenly, as if he’s reading my mind. Which the asshole probably is. He smirks as I think it, telling me he is. “I will allow you to remember who you are. Everything from Eurydice to Nova. You’ll remember it all.”
“Why would you do that?” I ask suspiciously. “It gives me an advantage.”
It would. It would give me the ability to strategize—something I’ve never been able to do in my lives.
He shrugs. “Call it generosity. You caught me in a good mood. Didn’t she, Seph?”
The suggestiveness in his voice makes me cringe. “I don’t need to know. Really,” I groan. Persephone huffs a laugh.
I stare down Hades. There isn’t really a downside to this bargain that I can see. Sure, I’ll be back to square one if I fail. But at least I won’t be in Tartarus. The reward is greater than the risk.
“So?” he asks, already grinning because he knows my answer. “What will it be?”
I stretch out my arm, offering my hand. He strides right to me, clasping our arms together in agreement. I might regret this in another one hundred forty-six lives, but for right now, I can’t wait to be born.
Hades gives me a lazy grin. “Go get your boys,” he orders, “so the fun can begin. They’re still moping around that house you left them in.”
He touches my cheek, before what he says registers, and I feel a burst of power shoot through me. Temporarily sending me back to the mortal plane. Giving me the ability to guide the dead.
Just one last time.