Chapter Forty-Three #2
Rio Hawthorne studied the two men before her with quiet fascination. They bore a resemblance to one another at first glance; black hair, pale skin, the elegant sweep of wyverian horns crowning their heads, and yet the likeness ended there.
Kage’s features were softer, almost gentle; his face rounder, his dark eyes heavy with an old sorrow that seemed to cling to him like mist. His stare was as black as the abyss itself. Not merely dark, but endless.
Zagreus, by contrast, was all sharp lines and cutting angles, carved as though by a harsher hand.
And his eyes…his eyes were the strangest she had ever beheld.
One burnt red as fresh blood; the other was a deep, fathomless shade.
It gave the uncanny impression that two souls stared out from the same skull.
‘Why did a goddess give you her eyes?’ Kage asked at last.
They had drifted from the riverbank and were now making their slow way towards Tartarus, the air thick with the hush of the Underworld.
Out of the silver mist, a wolf emerged, padding towards them with calm assurance. Rio had met an enormous wolverian wolf before, on mortal lands—the creature accompanying Kage Blackburn when his lungs had still breathed in air. She wondered if the beast was one and the same.
‘My father struck a bargain with her,’ Rio replied. She paused when the wolf drew close, then smiled a warm, unguarded thing, and buried her dark fingers into the wolf’s thick fur. The creature gave a pleased rumble and promptly licked Rio’s face with enthusiastic devotion.
Zagreus pulled an expression of obvious distaste.
‘Jealous?’ Kage asked lightly, curiosity lacing his tone.
It was innocent enough and yet, at Zagreus’ low grumble and the way his shoulders stiffened, a small flicker of satisfaction sparked across Kage’s face. Rio tilted her head, regarding them both with interest. What a curious duo.
‘She seems to like everyone,’ Zagreus muttered, casting the wolf an irritated look.
The beast huffed in response, clearly unimpressed with his attitude.
‘Why would a goddess make a bargain with your father?’ Kage asked, pointedly ignoring the silent contest unfolding between Zagreus and the wolf.
Rio’s fingers remained threaded through the wolf’s fur as she answered.
‘She needed a vessel,’ she said. ‘Someone young. Someone powerful.’ Her voice held no tremor, only memory.
‘She didn’t ask for permission, if that is what you’re wondering.
A god would not lower themselves to such courtesies.
We did not realise my sister’s body had been taken over by Nyx.
Not at first. It took six months, perhaps.
We began to see it in the way she moved, the way she spoke.
The way she looked at us.’ Rio’s mouth tightened faintly.
‘It then became obvious she was no longer my sister.’
The Underworld wind sighed around them as they walked.
‘My father saw opportunity where others might have seen tragedy. He threatened to drown her in the river and with her death, the goddess would have been cast from her vessel once more. Nyx did not wish to risk it. So she struck a bargain. She granted him the power of her eyes… and he promised to keep her safe.’
Kage absorbed this in silence before asking, ‘Why didn’t he keep the eyes himself?’
Rio gave a sharp, humourless snort. ‘And be blind? Why would a king sacrifice his own sight when he could simply store such power inside one of his daughters?’ There was no bitterness in her tone. Only fact.
‘What if you had refused?’ Kage pressed quietly.
Rio frowned slightly. ‘Refused? One does not refuse a king.’ A pause. ‘Besides, I was ten. I was not consulted. I was… forced.’
Ahead of them, the towering gates of Tartarus loomed like the ribs of some colossal beast. As they approached, the iron doors groaned open, the sound shrill and ancient—a warning cry that Zagreus had returned.
‘What exactly can you do with this sight?’ Kage asked, his dark eyes fixed upon her.
‘I can see the different realms,’ Rio replied simply.
Zagreus tilted his head, interest sharpening his mismatched stare. ‘Every single god realm?’
‘Every single one,’ Rio confirmed, without hesitation.
Kage studied her a moment longer. Rio found it amusing. ‘But you don’t merely look into them,’ he said slowly, piecing the truth together. ‘You enter them.’
‘I visit them, yes,’ Rio answered. ‘If I just observe, I cannot be harmed, but if I visit physically...The story changes.’ A pause. ‘I cannot remain for long. The strain returns to my body. If I linger, it begins to hurt.’
A strange silence settled between the three of them, heavy with implication.
‘So I must leave now,’ she continued, her voice turning brisk. ‘We are nearly at the wyverian castle.’ Her green eyes settled meaningfully on Kage. ‘Once I deliver your body back to your father, I will request an army. Then I shall return with them to Velunthar.’
Zagreus went still. ‘Velunthar?’
Rio inclined her head. ‘It is our most vital city now that Floridia has fallen. If it collapses, so does everything else. We must protect it at all costs.’
Zagreus’ expression darkened. ‘Then you ought to hurry,’ he said grimly. ‘Eris intends to go there. She seeks your sister. She will bring witches with her and she will raze it to the ground.’
Rio’s composure faltered. The colour drained from her face.
She gave them both one final, assessing look, committing them to memory.
And then she was gone.
No swirl of smoke. No flutter of shadow.
One moment she stood before them. The next, she simply did not exist there at all as though the world had blinked and forgotten her.
Rio awoke with a sharp intake of breath, her heart thundering against her ribs as though it meant to escape. For a fleeting, disorientating moment, she had been seeing—realms layered upon realms, colours too vast to name—and then there was nothing but the familiar velvet of darkness.
It always stole her breath away, that violent shift from sight to shadow.
She pressed her palm against the surface beneath her, fingers tracing the woven texture, grounding herself in what was real.
‘Carrier,’ Elowen supplied gently.
They were no longer moving; Rio could feel it in the stillness of the air, in the way the world no longer swayed beneath her. She pushed herself upright and slipped from the carrier with careful grace, landing lightly upon her feet. She lifted her chin and inhaled.
The wind struck her full in the face.
It howled across the land with a ferocity that nearly drove her backwards, tearing at her clothes, tugging at her short dreadlocks, carrying with it the scent of stone and storm and something ancient.
Rio froze.
Rowan’s laughter rang out beside her, bright with mischief. He delighted in moments like this, in catching her unguarded.
‘Oh yes,’ he said, unable to contain his pleasure. ‘We’re here.’
The wind roared again, as if in greeting.
‘Welcome to the Kingdom of Darkness.’