20. Not quite done
NOT QUITE DONE
WILLOW
For one glorious second, I think it’s over.
The chair crafted from shadows that Aiden created disappeared in an instant.
Now Kronos lies sprawled across the stone floor of the megaron, one hand pressed against the smoking hole in his chest. The bullet didn’t kill him—apparently even an ancient gun carried for eighty years has its limits when it’s aimed at an immortal titan pretending to be an ancient hero—but it’s done something almost as satisfying.
It’s wiped the smile off of his face.
I watch Aiden lower the revolver with a steadiness that doesn’t match the white-knuckled grip he has on the handle. Smoke curls from the barrel, sharp and acrid in the chilly air, while Kronos stares up at him in genuine disbelief.
I can’t blame him. In the games of gods and war, here in the Other, they use weapons like swords and bows and arrows.
There are hunters and archers, but as Aiden has always quietly confessed, he was a killer, and though he hasn’t taken a life in eighty years—and even Daphne doubted it was possible to kill Kronos with any weapon at all, though she hoped we could contain him—it’s only fitting that Aiden used that particular one on him.
I knew about the gun. I knew about the last bullet, too.
Aiden has carried both since his human life, saving that single shot after the discovery that all of the “bad guys” he was killing for an even worse boss were reincarnates meant for the Other and not the ruthless targets he was manipulated into believing they were.
He also had no idea that that boss was Kronos in disguise until right before he pulled the trigger.
Whoever the titan was to Aiden during his mortal life, despite the fact that he appeared to me as Theseus… this soul is Kronos, and though he’s not dead, the shock of a mortal bullet did something to the embodiment of chaos that I would’ve never thought possible.
Though I’m sure it won’t last, the oppressive power that poured off of him when he dropped his shield and revealed his true identity is currently banked.
Recognizing that, Aiden’s eyes flood completely white as he cedes control over to Hades.
The air changes. The man I love remains beside me, but something ancient unfolds through him, filling the cavern until the stone itself seems to bow beneath the weight of its king.
When Hades speaks, the sound rattles through my bones.
“Ages ago, my brother banished you to Tartarus. However you escaped, know that you will never do so as long as I remain Lord of the Underworld.”
The Kronos without a hole in his chest would’ve scoffed and mocked Hades for such a pronouncement. I know he would. But the Kronos with a hole in his chest… this one finds the ability to smile again.
And that’s when, thanks to Hades’s power and control over his realm, the pits of Tartarus open behind him.
The entrance to Tartarus is on the far end of the Underworld, at the mouth of the Phlegethon. But Tartarus itself? It’s so vast, the immortal prison extends deep under the palace of Hades and every inch of the Underworld beyond.
And its master is calling for it.
There is no slow crack in the stone or warning tremor beneath our feet. One moment, the ground is solid. The next? There’s nothing but an endless chasm, red and orange hellfire churning far below, and shapes moving inside it that I have no desire to look at too closely.
Black chains erupt from the darkness.
They wrap around Kronos’s wrists first, then his ankles, his waist, his throat.
He snarls when they wrap around his human form, but despite his earlier amusement, Aiden’s bullet has weakened him too much.
His power flickers around him in violent bursts, bending the air, changing the stone beneath his hands into water and then glass and then something that looks disturbingly like flesh.
Chaos.
That is what Kronos is.
Not merely a Titan or a tyrant, but chaos given a face and insanity in a pair of fractured eyes.
Aiden closes one hand into a fist.
The chains tighten.
Kronos slides toward the edge.
He doesn’t plead. I didn’t expect him to. Instead, that infuriating smile slowly returns to his face as his body begins to slowly tip over the chasm, feet first.
“This changes nothing,” he says.
Aiden’s expression doesn’t move. “It changes where you’re spendin’ eternity. Back to Tartarus with you. Back to hell, Teddy, where a monster like you belongs.”
He laughs. “I’ll only be in Tartarus as long as this realm exists. With no Olympus and no mortal world, there’ll be no Tartarus. Chaos will reign supreme when it’s all that exists, and I’m not done with you yet, Hades.”
Aiden flicks his fingers. “Maybe not. But I’m done with you.”
With that gesture, Kronos disappears into the pit, his nasty laughter following him all the way down.
The sound grows fainter and fainter until the roar of the flames swallows it entirely. The chains lash after him, vanishing into the dark, and the stone begins to close over the opening with a deep, grinding rumble.
His prison isn’t sealed, though. Not yet.
Aiden explained the difference to me shortly after the first time Daphne tried to get us onboard the “kill Kronos bus”.
Hades can condemn a titan to Tartarus and hold the gate, but Zeus has to close it completely.
Once the king of the gods seals that entrance, Kronos won’t be able to claw his way out again unless he eventually finds another way to escape again.
For now, though, he’s trapped, Aiden has some closure from his mortal life, and Daphne won’t have to worry about the worlds ending anymore.
For a reborn nymph with a human’s dose of anxiety, that was too much weight on her shoulders, and I’m so happy that the two people I love most in this world might have found some peace today.
A strange laugh catches in my throat. It comes out halfway between relief and hysteria, but I don’t care. The moment the pit closes, I cross the distance between us and throw my arms around my husband.
Aiden catches me automatically.
The old Colt is still in one hand, held safely away from my body, while the other locks around my waist and drags me against him. His face presses into the curve of my neck. I can feel the heat of his breath against my skin, too quick despite the calm he showed when he faced Kronos.
“You did it,” I whisper.
His arm tightens. “There isn’t anything I won’t do for you, Blossom. Including trying to kill an immortal if that’s what it takes.”
“And that’s why you’re my hero, baby.”
Aiden lets out a rough laugh against my throat before lifting his head. The white light has receded from his eyes, leaving them dark and human again, but Hades is still close. I can feel him in the chill rolling from Aiden’s skin, see him in the way the shadows curl protectively around our feet.
His eyes flicker back to white. “Hero, goddess? I am a god. I’m your god.
And should anyone threaten to take you from me, I will end them if I must. I swear it on the River Styx, my bride.
” Aiden blinks, coming back to me again.
Even so, I see the promise in his dark eyes, and I know that he only used Hades to make the most solemn vow a Grecian can to give weight to it, not because he doesn’t agree.
The empty revolver hanging at his side is proof of that.
I lean into him, almost giddy at how easy that was—and that’s when I notice the furrow to his brow, sense the hesitation in the way he’s holding me, and I think of that vow…
“What’s wrong?”
“Willow—”
Nope. “Look at me, Aiden. I know you. What’s wrong? We got Kronos. He’s not a threat anymore.”
He turns into me and bows his head, pressing his forehead to mine. “We got him, Blossom, but Hades noticed something when he opened Tartarus to throw Kronos into the pit.”
I don’t like the sound of that. “What did he notice?”
Pulling away from me slightly, Aiden holsters the gun beneath his coat, taking more time than the simple movement requires.
When he finishes, his hand finds mine. Another moment while I wait for him to drop the coming bomb on me as he rubs his thumb across my knuckles before he admits: “Three of the prisons are empty.”
What? How? Who? The only ones I know of who are imprisoned in Tartarus inside of cells are—
“Three titans?” When he nods, I ask, “Do you know which titans?”
As if that matters. As if it makes a difference…
“Hades does,” Aiden tells me because he can deny me nothing. “Hyperion. Oceanus. Crius.”
The answer comes with the slightest shift in his voice. Not enough to become the god’s deeper tone, but enough to remind me that Aiden isn’t alone inside his body.
“And are they the friendly kind?”
His mouth twists, and I know that’s pure Aiden. “Ain’t really such a thing.”
Crap. “That’s what I thought.”
I pull my hand away so that I can pace several steps across the megaron, all of my relief rushing away in an instant.
My husband can tell. He crosses to me and places both hands on my upper arms, holding me still even though I’m not going anywhere now that he has me.
“Kronos is in the pit. The gate’s holding. Soon as Zeus gets here, he’ll slam it shut for good.”
“And the other three?”
“They ain’t here.”
“They’re somewhere.”
“Yeah. Somewhere above us.”
His tone is calm. Too calm.
Understanding settles slowly.
Aiden isn’t saying the missing Titans aren’t dangerous.
He’s saying they aren’t dangerous to me.
“The Underworld is protected,” he continues. “Nobody gets in unless Hades lets them. Nobody reaches you. Teddy… Kronos found a cheat. I won’t let that happen again. You’ll be safe, Blossom. I vow it.”
Another vow, I notice. “What about everyone else?”
His expression hardens almost imperceptibly. “Everyone else ain’t my wife.”
That’s true. And, nine months after I watched Aiden order the Roman soldier to lower his sword before he lit the guy’s funny little leather skirt flaps on fire, I know that Aiden would watch every village and palace and person in the Other burn so long as the flames stopped at the border of the Underworld.
I know that about him. I have always known it, even before I accepted the crown or remembered enough of Persephone to understand how completely and obsessively Hades has loved her.
How completely and obsessively Aiden loves me.
He brushes one hand over my hair, fanning his hand through the fire of my crown. “You’re safe, Blossom,” he says again right as the dark shadows around us seem to surge in response to the golden light that suddenly floods one end of the megaron.
Aiden moves before I have time to react. He spins, shoving me behind him as wild flames erupt over both of his hands.
A moment later, he extinguishes them. I understand why he’s so protective of me, just like I understand why he reluctantly pulls his fire back.
Because the source of the golden light? It’s my cousin and her sun god husband.
Daphne’s red hair is pulled out of her face, done in a messy thick braid over her shoulder. Alex is wearing his usual outfit, only he has a golden quiver over one shoulder and a large bow in his hand. Daphne has a small golden dagger in hers, her lips thinned in a small line.
“Will,” Daphne calls out to me.
I slip around Aiden before he can stop me, hands outstretched as I rush toward her. “A knife, Daph? Why do you have a knife? What’s going on? I didn’t know you were coming today.”
She catches my right hand with her left, looking me over as though she’s the one who should be checking for injuries. “We had no choice. We’re at war.”
What?
“What? No. No, we’re not. Let me tell you… Aiden has Kronos. He’s in Tartarus—”
“It was a distraction.”
Okay. Again… what?
It’s Alex’s turn to talk. “I spoke to Cassandra.”
“She was just here—”
Alex shakes his blond head, cutting me off. “She was. She came to find me after she saw Kronos was in the Underworld. She knew Hades could handle the titan if he targeted his wife.”
Aiden’s stare hardens. “The prophetess was right. I did, and he’s in the pit.”
“I know.”
“Then whatever he planned, he failed.”
Alex’s expression turns unusually grim. “I wish it was so, but no. Whatever happened down here, he planned that. Kronos sacrificed himself for the sake of chaos.”
Silence falls over the cavernous megaron.
I don’t understand. “He wanted us to capture him?”
“He knew every powerful god who opposed him would focus on keeping him from targeting the Other,” Daphne says. “He made himself the obvious threat.”
“Because he is the obvious threat.”
“He’s chaos,” Alex says. “He doesn’t care whether he rules what remains. He only cares that the balance is broken. So while he was distracting you down here, knowing you’d open Tartarus to imprison him, he had already found a way to—”
Aiden’s eyes flash white again. “The other Titans. He freed them.”
Alex nods. “Yeah, and they’ve joined Ares at Olympus. Him and the entire damn Spartan army. There’s no stopping him. He’s going to storm the mountain and try to rip Venus right from Hephaestus if that’s what it takes. His mortal soul—”
“That fucker Troy,” sneers Daphne.
She explained this story to me. About a year back, the woman carrying the soul of Aphrodite arrived in the Other, destined to find her happy-ever-after with Hephaestus, the god of volcanoes and the forge.
Only one problem: she was a battered wife running from a murderous husband who just so happened to have the soul of Ares inside of him.
It didn’t matter that the latest incarnation of the legend of Aphrodite and Ares and Hephaestus ended with the newly christened Venus choosing to stay with Hephaestus in one of the habitable caves on Olympus, the large range of mountains in the Other.
Whether he was acting more as Ares or Troy, her former husband is refusing to let her be.
Like Daphne once warned me, he was raising an army to get his wife back. And now he has three titans on his side?
According to Alex, yes.
“That’s right, my dear Daphne. Kronos was a distraction so that Ares could get his army in formation. He’s determined—”
“He’s fucking nuts,” interjects my cousin.
Alex nods his agreement. “Yup, and he’ll turn the entire Other to rubble himself to get to his Aphrodite, and now he has three titans to back him up.”
Aiden makes a noise in the back of his throat. “He’s destroying an entire world over a woman?”
Alex raises one eyebrow at Aiden. “Careful. That glass house you live in looks expensive. Don’t want to start throwing stones or anything, huh?”
My husband’s scowl would be enough to set a lesser man on fire.
Daphne steps between them before we can find out whether Alex qualifies.
“Look. The point is that Ares doesn’t care if the Other is destroyed so long as he gets Venus. Kronos promised him that when the old ways die, all of the bonds holding the gods to their roles will disappear with them.”
“But we’ll all be destroyed,” I point out.
“Yes,” Alex replies. “Eventually. The Other goes first. Then the mortal world. Then the Underworld.”
Ah, crap.