Chapter 5 – Hecate
HECATE
I’m scarfing down the food, not even bothering to taste the roll, soup, or whatever the hell meat is on the side.
I drink the water in gulps. I’m panting when I finally finish and stare in disappointment at my empty tray.
Persephone’s lady waits on the other side with a nervous expression, and I push the empty tray and the cup back through the bars of my cage.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
She opens her mouth to respond when we both hear a sound in the distance. Within seconds, she’s darting in the opposite direction of the sound. I stare at the empty space where she once stood, feeling disappointed.
A long time ago, I’d tried to ration the food the Queen of the Underworld snuck to me, but I realized I was going to lose too much of it to the rats, and started eating it as fast as I could.
It’s a strange feeling to be hungry all the time, then strangely full, but it’s better than wasting away to nothing.
Still, I always like to steal a second or two with the queen’s maid when I’m done.
She visits so rarely that I look forward to it nearly as much as the food.
Having some small sound scare her off pisses me off.
It was probably nothing anyway. There’s always…
I hear a door open and a small movement.
Fuck. Someone is heading down the hall. It’s either someone to drag out a prisoner and torture them, or food.
It’s not time for food, so I already know what it is.
Drawing back from the bars, I try to make myself as small as possible in the corner of my cell.
Yeah, most of the time Hades had already asked for a specific prisoner.
But every once and awhile, I think he told his guards just to pick someone.
I don’t want to be that someone.
Outside my cell, I hear keys jangle. A second later, Andros is there. I leap to my feet, ready to run into his arms, but he has that stoic look that says this isn’t going to be a pleasant visit.
My hands curl into fists. “What does tiny dick want now?”
Andros’s eyes squeeze shut. He takes several deep breaths, then his eyes flash open. “He wants you at his party to entertain his guests.”
My teeth clench together so hard they hurt. If it was anyone else but Andros, I’d fight, but that’s exactly why Hades sent him.
“Okay.”
I try to hold my head high, even walking in rags. Even so filthy I don’t want to be near me.
Andros takes me down the many halls, where the skeleton guards soundlessly open the doors at our approach.
When the final door opens, I pause for a moment.
Stretching out in front of me is the beach covered in black sand and bones.
Beyond that is the river of souls, and the bank on the other side where the souls that don’t have the payment to cross stand for eternity.
To my side is the path leading up onto the wall.
“Keep going,” Andros says, no emotion in his voice.
I go forward. It’s strange. The air smells of coppery blood and brimstone, but at least it’s cleaner than in the cells. And being able to stare at something other than walls...it’s a gift in itself.
He leads me up the wall. There are trapdoors every so often, and he takes one, a familiar one.
We weave down a tightly spiraled stone staircase, with only torches lighting the darkness.
When we reach the bottom, he leads me away from the area of the Underworld that’s filled with people being tortured, and toward the area Hades and his people live. I’m led to an unfamiliar room.
There, Andros opens the door. Several of Hades’s women are standing in nearly see-through, white togas.
In the center of the room is a massive bathtub filled with roses, and the smell of roses fills the room.
I inhale deeply and shudder, just imagining what it’d feel like to be able to take a warm bath.
“Go on then,” Andros says.
I look back at him, frowning. “Go and do what?”
He looks straight ahead. “Hades wants you clean and changed before being seen by his important guests.”
My jaw drops open. I hate entertaining Hades’s guests, but they must be really important if he doesn’t want me coming in looking like a prisoner. That should worry me, but instead, I find it hard to care about anything except the warm tub.
I go to the edge, and the women help me to undress from the ragged shirt. A woman collects my clothes, wrinkling her nose, and walks away. The others wait around me, and I step down into the tub, groaning. The water’s hot, almost uncomfortably hot, and I sink down into it, then under the surface.
My gods. This is amazing. For years I’d imagined nothing could be better than a big chunk of chocolate, wrapped in a cookie, wrapped in a donut, but I take it back. A hot bath is the best thing in the world.
I’m running out of air, so I force myself to surface.
And when I do, a laugh explodes from my lips.
I look back at Andros, and he has that ghost of a smile.
I lift the water in the palms of my hands and let it fall down, then splash around a little.
I don’t think I’ve been this happy in longer than I can remember.
The women fill pots with the water and drop them over my head.
I close my eyes and my mouth and let my head fall back.
A couple of them climb into the water with me.
They scrub my hair and my body with soaps that smell of roses, and I watch as the dirty water running off my body is replaced by clean water.
They scrub me for what feels like hours, until the water begins to cool, and then they climb out of the massive tub and hold out a towel for me.
I climb out, locking gazes with Andros, and his gaze roams over my body, then lands on my face. In his eyes, I see a thousand words of a longing. Words he can’t speak. I smile back at him, wanting him to know that I know.
When I turn my back on him, he gasps. And I realize that out of the water he can see the lashes I gave myself. They’re mostly healed, just more scars to add to the others, but they still look recent enough that he’ll know.
I glance back at him and try to silently reassure him, but I can see a raw, horrible suffering in his eyes. It’s terrible to see him hurting, but I also know that we don’t get many decent moments, so we should enjoy this one while we can.
The women dry me with the softest towels, then put me in a robe.
They dry my hair by a fire, brushing my deep blue strands until they gleam, and then they braid them intricately, placing strands strategically on my head, before letting the rest fall down my shoulders.
They put rose perfume on my neck and my wrists, then put on a dark blue gown that is just a couple shades darker than my skin and soft as hell.
When they bring me to a mirror, I stare in shock.
They stand back and I shift, the slit in the long dress revealing my leg.
I continue moving in front of the mirror, staring at myself, shocked that the woman in the mirror is me.
Yes, I’m thin. Like, sickly thin to the point where I can see the bones in my neck and chest, but I also look like the first witch.
..the woman of legend that I’m known as.
It makes me feel strangely powerful after so long as a prisoner.
“You look beautiful.”
I shift in the mirror and stare over my shoulder. Andros is standing at attention, his face carefully blank. If I hadn’t heard the words, I’d have thought I imagined them.
“Hades will want you there now,” one of the women says, but her gaze softens and she gestures to one of the women.
The other maid lifts a bowl of fresh fruit, offering it to me.
My soul pangs at the sight, but I force a smile and say, “No, thank you.”
They all look surprised, but set the bowl back down.
I look at Andros and take a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
“One more thing,” the first maid says. “I almost forgot.” She rushes over and comes back with dark blue boots made of soft leather.
I lift my feet, and the women help put on soft stockings and then the boots, then lace them up.
A sigh escapes my lips as I wiggle my feet into them. Shoes. Actual shoes.
Andros opens the door, and I follow him down a quiet hallway.
Skeletal guards line the walls, as do flickering torches that burn red.
Otherwise, my boots softly striking the wood is the only sound.
Several times, Andros chances a look back and me.
Neither of us react in any way. There are just too many eyes here.
But his gaze burns into me, and I feel the overwhelming sense that I’m loved, even if the man I love is leading me to gods only know where.
Even though I have a good idea of the location.
Eventually, we come to two massive doors. At our approach, the skeletal guards open the doors, and the sounds of music and laughter come pouring out of the room. A shiver rolls down my spine and my ears seem to perk up. I’ve missed music. I’ve missed laughter and conversation.
I just wish it didn’t come with the devil himself.
“Come on then,” Andros says, his words clipped.
I stiffen my spine and remember that Andros and I can never show an ounce of affection toward each other even again, or Hades will find new and awful ways to torture us.
Following him into the room, I see that the throne room has been covered with massive pillows.
Blood-red fabric spills from all the pillars in the room, and easily a dozen servants move about, dressed in see-through white tunics, with platters of food in their hands.
The guests smoke from hookah pipes, but they’re definitely not smoking tobacco.
The sweet scent in the air is a special kind of drug that makes them act like giggly idiots.
I hate “entertaining” his guests in general, but throw in some drugs, and it’s just plain miserable.
My enjoyment over my new clothes and bath diminish.