Chapter 58
Chapter fifty-eight
HERMES
Hermes left the other gods to finish the creatures and stepped into Hypnos’ cave home. “Iliana?”
No answer.
He tried not to worry. She was in the bathroom, scrubbing off dirt and grime. Or sulking because he’d refused to take her back. Either way, it explained the silence.
Hermes moved through the rooms, irritated after everything that had happened in the desert, in Thanatos’ so-called safe house. He gritted his teeth. They couldn’t even keep worms from crawling up through the floor. Thanatos had sworn to protect her but hadn’t even warded the damned foundation.
You should’ve stayed.
He forced himself to stay calm. She was fine. Still here.
At least…she should’ve been.
“Iliana!” Hermes called out sharply.
When she still didn’t respond, he stretched his senses outward but found nothing. No breath. No heartbeat. A terrible sinking sensation filled him. He pushed his senses further.
Then he heard movement, but not from inside the house. From the cavern.
No.
Hermes appeared outside Hypnos’ home, seeing the stalactites extending down, and Iliana below, fighting alone.
She screamed, the sound full of pain and terror as she plunged the weapon he’d given her into Pasithea.
The goddess wailed.
Hermes launched toward them in a panic.
Pasithea’s hand swiped out—the crack making him nauseous. Iliana flew back toward the river.
He didn’t stop. He rushed against time, gravity, and death to catch Iliana before she could hit the Lethe.
Hermes caught her, arms encircling her warm body just in time.
He hit the riverbank and lowered her, already calling for Panacea. For a moment, he thought Iliana was dead. She didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Then—there was a weak beat of her mortal heart.
She was alive. Barely.
Pasithea gasped behind him. “Help me…”
Hermes heard her plea and the rattle in her lungs.
A goddess from his pantheon was dying. One of the Graces that he’d known for millennia.
But he didn’t look at her. He kept focusing on Iliana.
On her fragile pulse and the blood matting her hair.
The coolness of her skin as her body started to fail.
The god-killer had been his offer of protection, an ancient blade stolen from a forge that no longer existed.
He knew he might feel something about the goddess’ death at some point.
Maybe guilt or responsibility. He might think about the consequences of his actions or Zeus’ fury that would no doubt come down on him.
All of that could wait.
Iliana had used the dagger exactly as he’d hoped: to protect herself.
Pasithea’s death was his fault, and he didn’t give a damn. She’d made her choice when she attacked Iliana. Now, Hermes was making his. Pasithea wasn’t the one who made him feel alive. She hadn’t fought with no hope of winning against a god. She hadn’t fought without backup; without support.
She wasn’t Iliana.
The Grace took her last gasp of air just as Panacea appeared.
Hermes felt it when Pasithea’s life slipped away, her powers of relaxation and hallucination flowing from her lifeless body, returning to Chaos.
But there was something else. A foreign power that snapped out of existence the moment she died.
Its signature was too faint to place, but Hermes knew what its presence meant.
Someone had been pulling her strings.
The clue to who was after Iliana was right there, but he didn’t have time to pursue it. Didn’t have time to wonder who would manipulate a desperate Grace into attacking Iliana.
All he had time for was the dying mortal lying so still in his arms.
Panacea didn’t spare the goddess a glance, her eyes going straight to Iliana. Her friend.
“Fix her,” Hermes snapped. “She’s not dying.”
Panacea knelt close to them, her hands over Iliana’s head and chest. “Hold back your power if you want to keep her soul intact,” she warned.
She didn’t need to explain further. As a psychopomp, his instincts would urge him to fulfill his duty when she neared death. One wrong spike of his powers, and he could tear Iliana’s soul away from her body.
“I know,” he said gruffly, then turned his focus to Iliana, his fingers stroking her arm gently. “Stay with me, sweet girl,” he begged. “It’s not time.”
He didn’t dare touch her damaged face, already swollen and discolored.
The delicate bones were shattered underneath her soft skin.
He wasn’t sure what else to do with his shaking hands, so he held her, hoping she could still feel him there.
He hoped that, though she had faced a goddess alone, she wouldn’t feel alone now.
“Iliana!”
Hermes looked over to see Thanatos and Anubis bursting from the entrance of the home, with Hypnos staggering through behind them.
Thanatos was across the room in a moment, brushing away blood-matted hair from Iliana’s forehead. “No,” he said brokenly.
Hermes clenched his teeth, wanting to pull her away from him.
Death had left her at that pathetic excuse of a safe house. He’d let those things crawl up and attack their girl. From the look in his eyes, Hermes knew the god was suffering more than any barbed words or accusations could cause.
It wasn’t as if Hermes was blameless either. Staying in that yurt would’ve been the smarter move, but he’d chased a cure for her curse instead. He left her with only one protector.
That had been his call.
Even after that mistake, he’d pulled her out of the yurt and left her alone. Again. He should’ve known Iliana wouldn’t listen. She’d been desperate to help Hypnos, ready to fight for what she believed was right.
He carefully pulled Iliana closer. “She’s holding on,” Hermes forced out. “Pan, is she…?”
Thanatos flinched at the unspoken question.
Is she going to die?
Panacea didn’t look up, concentrating on Iliana as her healing powers made her hands glow. “Cheekbone. Jaw. Detached retina. Brain bleed…”
Hermes wanted to ignore her words, but they were carving themselves into his brain.
“I’m stabilizing her first. Then I’ll repair what I can.”
Anubis joined them, his jaw set in a firm line as he clutched Iliana’s limp hand in his own. “What can you not fix?”
Panacea didn’t answer him. Didn’t even look at him. She just kept working on Iliana’s broken body.
Anubis tensed. Hermes watched the god battle between rage and fear, but there wasn’t anything to fight. No enemy to punish. Only the wreckage Pasithea left behind.
Crunching footsteps announced Hypnos’ approach as he took a staggering step forward. His breathing was ragged. His eyes were transfixed. Not on Pasithea’s body. Not on his ex-wife lying dead mere feet away, but to Iliana, who was lying unmoving in Hermes’ arms, broken and bloodied.
Hypnos collapsed, as if nothing could hold him up any longer.
He reached out—stopped inches from her—then jerked back as if she’d burned him.
“I should’ve…if I’d just—” He didn’t finish.
Instead, a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob tore through his throat, raw and broken. Pure self-loathing.
Hermes recognized the conflict and guilt. He had left Iliana alone despite knowing how stubborn Iliana was. And Hypnos fought the knowledge that the wife he’d once loved had attacked the human he was supposed to protect.
“Hurry, Pan,” Thanatos pleaded.
Hypnos finally moved, pressing his hand against Iliana’s ankle and holding onto her as if she were the only thing keeping him anchored to reality.
Hermes turned away, unable to watch his own guilt reflected at him. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to Iliana’s heartbeat stutter and falter.
“I know!” Panacea snapped.
Hermes forced his eyes open, not wanting to lose a moment of seeing Iliana alive. Her skin was too cool, but he held her as if his grip alone could keep her in this world.
“Little one.” Anubis pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her hand. “I know you are tired, but fight. Do not let them win.”
Hermes should’ve found the image humorous and pointless.
Five gods begged a mortal to live, but there was nothing funny inside him.
Humans died every day, their brief existence giving them far more passion and fight than many gods.
But Iliana wasn’t just some human. She was theirs.
She was the girl who stood up to him. Refused him.
Who fought against a curse, and now, a goddess.
He refused to let her die.
Her soul clung desperately to her body. A faint smile came to his lips. Of course, she was fighting. Even her soul was stubborn, refusing to give up.
Hermes wasn’t sure when this human had begun to mean so much to him, but she did. As he looked down at her face, still so damn alive, he knew. He was falling for her, and that terrified him.
Iliana’s soul loosened its grip slightly. He fought against the tugging within his chest. His restrained instincts demanded action as her soul—
He clamped down on his powers, refusing to take her.
That one second seemed to last for an eternity, filled with hope that she’d win her fight against the inevitable.
Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He glanced over. They had an audience. A watcher. A Kabeiroi. He blinked, and it was gone.
Then—
He sensed it. Her soul fully latched onto her body, strengthening its connection.
The witness forgotten, he focused back on the woman in his arms as every god’s tension lessened, and Panacea’s hands finally fell away from her.
“She’ll live,” she said, relieved and exhausted.
Hermes finally exhaled. Thanatos crumpled forward, burying his face in his hands. Anubis bowed his head. And Hypnos pulled his hand away, his face impassive.
Panacea continued, “But she’ll be unconscious for a while.” The goddess looked toward Pasithea’s lifeless body. “That will be hard to explain to Zeus.”
Hermes didn’t flinch. She was silently asking where Iliana had gotten the god-killer. Hermes said nothing, returning the dagger to his stash of secret weapons with a thought.
Well, they could keep wondering. Let Zeus question him. They’d never set limitations on how the gods in this cave were supposed to protect Iliana, and he’d be damned if he apologized for keeping her alive.
“Can I move her?” Hermes asked. “I want her to be comfortable.”
Panacea nodded, but she looked uneasy. “Yes, she can be moved.”
He might’ve asked her about that emotion if his focus hadn’t been on Iliana.
Hermes stood, cradling her against his chest, pulling her away from Thanatos and Anubis.
He shot a look at Hypnos, who was standing but staring at the dead goddess with mixed emotions.
Hermes whistled, making the devastated god look up and meet his eyes.
“We need you to keep her asleep while she heals.”
Indecisiveness shone in Hypnos’ eyes, but Hermes didn’t wait for him to make the obvious decision, knowing Hypnos wouldn’t leave Iliana’s side. Hermes carried her back into the god’s home, and Panacea hurried after him down the hall.
At the bedroom door, Anubis blocked Panacea with an arm across the entry. “What could you not fix? What else is wrong with Iliana?”
“I felt something else inside her,” she said sadly.
The room went silent.
Hermes’ movements seemed sluggish as he lay Iliana on the bed, moving to her side and pulling her close to him as he waited for Panacea’s news.
Thanatos stopped behind Panacea, his arms crossed. “What?”
The healer bit her lip and looked at Hermes past Anubis’ tensed arm. “Did she fall into the water?”
Anubis’ arm fell from the door frame, as if he’d lost the strength to hold it.
The Lethe. The river of forgetting. One of the five rivers of the Underworld. It stripped memories from souls, those who touched it losing everything.
Hermes’ stomach plummeted. “No,” he answered too quickly.
He saw the doubt in Panacea’s eyes, and his grip on Iliana tightened. He had caught her in time. Hadn’t he?
“Hermes. Think,” the healer urged.
He closed his eyes, reliving the haunting moment.
Pasithea had slapped Iliana, followed by the sickening sound of breaking bones. The blow had thrown her body backward and she had fallen with her arms limp, fingers dangling down toward the water—
If she’d even barely touched the surface, Iliana’s memories were gone.
He’d been too slow. He didn’t catch her in time.
She was lost. Not to death, but to something just as devastating.
“Hermes?” Thanatos asked with horror lacing that one word.
“She might’ve touched the water,” he answered, pushing the words out through the tightness in his throat.
No one in the room spoke. No one moved. They all knew. The Lethe took memories from humans and spirits. All of them.
Iliana wouldn’t remember anything. She wouldn’t recognize him or the others.
Panacea’s voice was soft. “I’ll come back soon to check on her.”
He didn’t bother responding. Didn’t move. He kept Iliana tucked against his body, afraid she’d disappear if he let her go.
Hermes was usually an optimist and could make light of any situation. He tried to fight through his depression, to return his mask to his face. He looked up at Thanatos and Anubis, seeing the same dread and horror he felt.
He forced a brittle smile onto his face.
“Well, I guess the playing field’s level now.” He looked at them, his mask hiding the shattered god beneath his grin. “I’ll woo her before you two can stake a claim.”
Hermes held the smile, even as he felt Thanatos’ fury building across the room. Even as he saw Anubis’ fists clench at his side, and Hypnos flinch in the doorway.
Let them be angry.
It was easier than admitting the truth: he’d failed her.
As much as he wanted her to give him a second chance, her refusal might be exactly what he deserved.