Chapter Fifty-Four
I’ve never met a kind god.
I truly don’t think such a creature exists.
Tabitha Wysteria
It had driven Kage almost to the brink of madness to know that he must endure the whole day before he could return to Bryn.
He tried earnestly and stubbornly to believe the valkyrians would not harm him, yet with each passing hour the line between ally and adversary grew ever more indistinct, as though the world itself had begun to blur its loyalties.
He found Zagreus upon his throne, wearing an expression of quiet irritation, his eyes fractured and strangely adrift.
It was an odd sight upon such a severe face; the look did not belong to him.
Kage also noticed that Wren was nowhere to be seen.
Stranger still, considering how lately she had seemed almost physically tethered to Zagreus’ side.
‘She’s gone,’ Zagreus muttered, as though he had plucked the thought straight from Kage’s mind. ‘Mal has gone to Hell and taken Wren with her.’
‘And you allowed that?’ Kage asked, a little surprised.
Zagreus only shrugged, the movement languid. ‘I gave her conditions.’
‘Of course you did.’
‘You won’t have to persuade her to kill Eris for me. I’ve already done that for you.’
‘Lucky me.’
Kage wondered how long he would be forced to wait before he could return to Bryn’s side.
Time, in the Underworld, was an impossible thing to measure.
Indeed, it scarcely existed at all. The hours neither marched nor drifted; they simply were not.
And so dread crept steadily into his thoughts.
What if, by the time he returned, the goddess Eris had already come and gone, leaving ruin in her wake?
What if Bryn was already in danger? Kage had not warned him.
‘Hide,’ Zagreus said sharply. ‘My mother is coming.’
Kage opened his mouth to object, but the tightening of Zagreus’ jaw made it painfully clear that there would be no victory in such an argument.
Reluctantly, he slipped behind the throne of skulls; an immense, grotesque monument of bone, so vast and ornate that Persephone would surely never notice a man concealed behind it. At least, he hoped she would not.
Through the narrow gaps between the carved bones, Kage watched as Persephone swept into Tartarus, Thanatos following in her shadow like a silent echo. This time she did not claim her son’s throne from him, but remained standing instead.
‘A pleasure to have you here, mother,’ Zagreus said, though the languid drawl of his voice suggested quite the opposite.
‘Someone has entered Hell,’ she replied.
Zagreus did not answer at once. Instead, he remained sprawled across the throne, half-sitting, half-reclining, as his stare drifted idly to his nails as though they held far greater interest than the matter at hand.
‘I am the Queen of the Underworld,’ Persephone continued, her voice sharpening slightly. ‘Such things do not escape my notice, Zagreus.’
‘I’m aware.’
‘Well then?’
‘Well then what?’
‘Who entered?’ Her dark eyes narrowed to thin slits. ‘You are the keeper of this prison. You ought to know who comes and who goes.’ Her tone carried the crisp, cutting edge of a mother scolding a son for neglecting his duties.
‘Kage Blackburn,’ Zagreus replied at last, his voice loose with indifference, almost bored. ‘He went to do as you wished. To retrieve Makaria.’
Persephone visibly relaxed, satisfaction softening the severity of her features. ‘Excellent. Send for me the moment he returns with her.’
‘Will you keep your end of the bargain?’ Zagreus asked before she could turn on her heel and sweep away.
She paused, turning slowly back to face him.
‘Will you keep your word and leave Mal’s child alone, as you promised?’
Behind the throne, Kage stiffened the instant Persephone laughed.
‘Of course not,’ she said.
‘But you promised.’
‘So?’ Her expression twisted, something cold and venomous cracking through the surface of her beauty.
‘Mal Blackburn is the reason Makaria is trapped in Hell. She is the root of all this chaos. She deserves whatever fate finds her. And that child…’ her lip curled faintly, ‘would be far safer away from her claws.’
Kage noticed the way Thanatos’ entire body trembled with a fury so tightly restrained it seemed to shiver through his bones.
Those black, fathomless eyes slid towards the throne, towards Kage himself, finding him through the narrow gaps as though concealment meant nothing. The look was a warning. Do not move.
But the curse that bound Kage to both the living and the dead had begun to stir.
A sharp crack split through the silence as the stone beneath his feet fractured, the sound echoing across the cavernous hall and betraying the hidden presence behind the throne.
‘Who is there?’ Persephone demanded.
Zagreus was on his feet in an instant, crossing the distance to his mother’s side with swift urgency.
Kage forced himself to remain perfectly still, as though stillness alone might somehow undo what had already been revealed.
Yet he felt the pull of the mortal world, that relentless summons dragging at the curse within him, urging him back towards life.
But before it could claim him, Persephone had already swept around the throne.
Her eyes widened the moment she saw him.
The scream that tore from her throat was raw and ragged.
‘You lied to me!’ she shrieked, her eyes blazing with wild fury. ‘Who went to Hell if he did not?’
Silence answered her.
‘Tell me,’ she commanded, and the voice that rang through Tartarus was no longer wholly her own. It carried the weight of the Underworld itself, ancient and absolute, bending its servants to its will.
Thanatos fought it.
Kage watched him struggle, watched the god’s body shudder as though resisting an invisible chain, but the force drove him to his knees regardless.
‘Tell. Me.’
‘Melinoe,’ he whispered, his entire body trembling.
Persephone shook her head, a disbelieving chuckle slipping from her lips, though there was no mirth in it. Her gaze settled upon her son, betrayal gleaming sharp and cold in her eyes, before flicking to Kage and then returning to Thanatos.
‘You will go into Hell after her,’ Persephone commanded. ‘You will stop her. You will bring her back to me. And then you will bring me her child.’
Thanatos shook his head in refusal, but the moment he resisted, the Underworld itself seemed to bear down upon him with greater force.
The unseen pressure slammed into him like a crushing tide.
Black tears spilt from his eyes, carving dark paths down his cheeks as his entire body trembled beneath the weight of the command.
Kage opened his mouth to protest but by then the curse had already taken hold.
An invisible hand seized him.
In a single violent instant, he was torn away.
He landed hard upon the floor of an enormous hall, the impact echoing softly against high stone walls lit by the steady glow of warm lanterns. For a moment Kage remained where he had fallen, disoriented, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling and wondering where in the realms he had been cast.
The cold tip of a sword pressed against his throat.
He glanced up.
The valkyrian with the red hair stood above him. He recognised her immediately and from the narrowing of her eyes, she recognised him too. She watched him in taut silence, unmoving, the blade inching closer until its sharp edge split the skin at his neck.
No dark blood fell.
Of course it didn’t.
He was dead.
The valkyrian frowned, her eyes lingering upon his unbroken throat as though the sight unsettled her.
‘What exactly are you?’
Kage ignored the question. ‘Where am I?’
‘Velunthar.’
‘Where exactly in Velunthar am I?’
He had studied the place once, its strange nature spoken of throughout the kingdoms. Velunthar was a curiosity among cities, a place that puzzled travellers and scholars alike—because Velunthar was not truly a city at all.
No.
Velunthar was a vault, carved deep into the mountain.
The palace itself was vast, so vast that it might easily be mistaken for a city in its own right.
It stretched through the mountain like the bones of some ancient titan, descending deep beneath the earth before rising again towards the summit.
At the mountain’s face, broad balconies had been carved into the stone, overlooking the dense jungle that spread beyond.
From that green wilderness, enemies might creep unseen beneath the tangled canopy.
But between the jungle and Velunthar lay a great, barren expanse.
An enormous field of nothingness.
It had been crafted so with deliberate cunning by the Fae: a strip of exposed earth where no army could hide, where any force emerging from the jungle would be forced to cross open ground.
From the mountain’s towering height, Velunthar’s defenders would watch them approach like prey wandering into the open, clear targets beneath the vigilant glare of those who held the high ground.
And when war approached, arriving at Velunthar’s doorstep, the palace could be locked, turning into an impenetrable vault. No enemy entered. And no Fae left. Kage had heard whispers of secret tunnels that led out into wolverian lands, whispers of tales long forgotten. Or perhaps made so by the Fae.
‘In the central hall,’ the valkyrian said at last.
Kage knocked the sword aside with a sharp motion, the metal ringing faintly as it was forced away. The movement made the valkyrian’s eyes widen, if only slightly.
He ignored her reaction entirely.
Rising to his feet, Kage cast a slow glance around the hall.
The walls soared upward, broken by graceful arches that opened into circular windows of exquisite Fae craftsmanship.
Each pane was shaped like intertwining leaves and blossoms, delicate as lace carved from stone and glass.
The columns that lined the central hall were colossal things, great beasts of stone rising towards the vaulted ceiling, each one etched with the same intricate patterns that adorned the windows.