Chapter 19 #3
Our descent slowed as we neared the floor of an unfamiliar forest. Thanatos caught my eyes and grinned at me, apparently finding great amusement in the intense expression my face had made. “Fun, isn’t it?” He gave me a playful squeeze.
I delayed any comments until his feet reached the brush-covered earth. “Dear gods,” I groaned on landing. “I’m…I’m going to need to catch my breath.” I stumbled over to a nearby tree trunk as soon as he set me down, leaning against it for support.
“How do you feel?” he asked worriedly. “Just breathe.” That advice wasn’t incredibly helpful, but luckily I managed to collect myself on my own.
“Oh, man. I think I’m alright now, but that was…weird.”
“But fun, right?”
“I—you know, I’m not sure,” I reported, gasping. “Well, I guess I can take another stab at it on the way back.” I shook off most of my windedness and returned to him while I spoke, smiling when he took my hands. “Come on. Let’s go back to the garden one last time.”
Thanatos squeezed my hands and brought us there with a flick of his wings. One moment, we were standing among the forest trees; the next, we appeared in the gardens of the temple at Halieis, right beside the stone bench where we first used to meet.
“She’s there!” came a sharp yell from nearby, followed by a much softer “Oops.” My three sisters stumbled out from behind the trunk of the towering oak tree, having clearly waited there a while.
“Oh my gods. Cyrie!” squeaked Alex in a frantic whisper.
Before I had a chance to respond, Sophie sprang forward and hugged me ruthlessly, incentivizing the others to join in as well.
I was quickly smothered by excessively worried priestesses.
I endured their squeezing patiently, remembering that yesterday had surely been horrible for them to endure. I bore the guilt for that.
“Leon was telling everyone you were dead!” Sophie said, right on cue. “He said he was totally certain of it!”
“I’m okay,” I squeaked out through the constriction of the group hug. “It’s okay—just let me explain!”
They released me with obedient anticipation, and I took a nervous breath.
“Um…well, Thanatos probably told you what happened last night, but…this is almost unbelievable, so I understand that you need to hear it from me. The thing is, Leon was right. I did die while I was trying to help him. Which worked, as you all can see,” I added defensively.
When nobody dared to speak a word of comment, I swallowed hard and let out the truth.
“Thanatos saved me. He was supposed to end me, but he broke nature instead.” A grin spread across my face as I said it, what sounded ridiculous but was somehow real.
“He put my soul back and got Hades to make me immortal.”
“What the fuck?” exclaimed Zoe, too loudly. Sophie made a noise I’d never heard before.
I turned and raised a brow at Thanatos. “You didn’t get to that part, did you?”
“I mean…I told them you were alive,” he stammered, “and that I had you with me. Really, how was I supposed to say these things?”
Though I shot him an expression of teasing disapproval, I accepted that revealing it this way was probably best for all of us. It was my perspective that they needed to hear. I looked back to my sisters, one at a time, each directly into her eyes.
“Well…” My voice faltered, and I tried again. “I’m…it was difficult to comprehend for me, too. But it’s true: I’m immortal. I’ve been to the Underworld and back.” I glanced anxiously at Thanatos again, needing his reassurance. He came to my side and acknowledged my tale with a nod.
“It is true. I have defied myself, just this once. Do not imagine that I will ever do so again.”
“So…um, now I’m going to return with him,” I continued. “I mean, I’m going to live in the Underworld, where we can be together. It’s really quite nice down there. So…I think…really, it would be for the best if everyone around here just believes Leon about how I died.”
A heavy silence hung in the garden air as I finished my tale. Alex shifted on her feet. Her brown eyes, usually so readable for me, were flooded with emotions that I couldn’t distinguish. Zoe and Sophie shared a glance, then returned to scrutinizing Thanatos and me.
The life we’d all shared together must have been flashing before them, just as it was for me: our friendship, and the depth of our sisterhood.
Our perseverance together in the fight for a hand in our own destinies.
My branch on the tree of life was a beautiful thing, knotted by struggle and intertwined irrevocably with each of theirs.
It would mean great sorrow to let it be snipped away completely.
But then again, here I was. Dressed in color and painted with black. Loved by the man of my choice. Endless, and at peace. I hoped they could see the person I had chosen to become.
Zoe broke the silence. Her words were not ones I had expected, but when I heard them, I realized that I probably should have.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
Intrusive tears welled in my eyes, and my voice wavered in my throat. “I—I already miss you so much.” I sniffed, the emotion threatening to ruin my perfect makeup. “But…yes. I’m happy, Zoes. I’m happy.”
“Well, that’s all we need to know.”
Her response was so pure, and so genuinely loving. She was my family. They all were, and they always would be, no matter what I became. I exhaled deeply and let the branch of my mortal life fall away. I was free.
Luckily for the four of us, this meeting would not need to be our last. I would still be able to visit their realm so long as I could endure the intensity of the flight between our worlds.
The flight that awaited me tonight. The one that would return me to the city of Hades, where Persephone’s pomegranate was waiting for me.
I took Death’s hand.