Chapter 18 Diantha #3
“Mom?” I call out again, turning slowly in a circle. There’s no noise but the wind. I know I should feel anxiety or fear—maybe even physical pain from being on the ground. But I don’t feel anything.
Am I dead?
When I turn back toward the kitchen table, there’s a woman there.
She has soft features—a pointy chin, pink lips, wide-set eyes fixed on the cards she’s shuffling between her hands.
Her long brown hair is pinned up, away from her face into a sculptural bun on the top of her head.
Her features shift, and I gasp. The same features flicker into view when she turns her head to the right and again when she turns to the left.
Like the pattern on a butterfly’s wings, there is perfect symmetry between her three faces.
I recognize her immediately.
Hecate. Asteria’s daughter.
She continues to shuffle the tarot cards in her hands as I approach, the golden bracelets around her wrists clanking together gently.
When I reach the table, she looks up at me and smiles.
“Sit, Diantha.”
My breath catches in my throat. I swallow. “You know who I am?” My voice comes out hoarse and shaky.
“Of course.” She extends an elegant, pale hand toward my usual chair. “Please. I know you have many questions.”
I do. I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start, truthfully. If everything I just saw is true—that would mean I’m…
It feels ridiculous to even think. There’s no way.
“You’re very clever, using your mind to get into the catacombs rather than force. I know it couldn’t have been easy to be so patient.”
I nod. “My mother always told me I would end up here, in Echidna. I just never knew why. I don’t think she did either.”
Hecate smiles. “She didn’t. She saw and knew many things, but she never knew about the portal. She also didn’t know what she agreed to, the day she shook Hades’s hand. He is, after all, a complete bastard.” She says this with, I think, vague affection.
I shiver at the sound of his name. I didn’t want to believe it. “What did she agree to?”
“Well, first of all, she could never reveal to you who your father was. Which was an easy enough agreement for a human woman to make. After all, how many would believe that she’d had a child with a god?
Let alone an ancient god.” Hecate chuckles.
Her laughter is like soft music. She turns over the top card from her deck. The Lovers, reversed.
“But Hades knew that eventually you would reveal yourself. You are half his, no? You would eventually develop some interesting abilities.”
“That’s why I can move between realms—why I’m able to exist in two forms?”
She nods. “Spirit and body. Above and below. You have other talents, as well. Resilience, for example. A path forward always presents itself. You are able to evade danger. You present as magic, even to those who are unable to name what it is they see in you.”
“So he knew my mother would be unable to keep her side of the bargain, because eventually…” I trail off. It hurts too much to say.
“That’s what Hades thought, but your mother never told you why you had special talents or where they came from. She simply let you become…well, you.”
The ache in my chest explodes to a full-on gripping pain. She just let me be me. That’s exactly what my mother had always done. Even though I was meeker than her, more rigid.
“And that angered him even more,” I say, my voice trembling.
Hecate nods. “His precious ego was injured. He couldn’t just let you believe your magic came from her, a lowly human.
” Hecate smirks, lifting her brows in a conspiratorial look that says: Men, am I right?
“He sent his demons after you and your mother. They chased you neighborhood to neighborhood, state to state. Those losers were meant to remind her of his power. Hades wanted your mother to know she was never safe.”
Realization takes hold in my chest, an icy fist around my heart. I bring my fingers to my throat. “She tried to tell me. She mentioned the demons.”
“It wasn’t easy for her, Diantha. Believe me, she prayed to me and my mother many times asking for strength and guidance.”
“Did you help?” I ask, almost afraid.
Hecate leans forward and her eyes—all three pairs—open wide and turn their attention on me, stalling my breath. “Of course, but it was too late. She’d shaken his hand. She’d accepted his terms.”
My shoulders drop under the weight of her words. “And there was only so much you could do.”
“Exactly. And that brings us to the second part of their agreement.” She flips over another card from the deck. The Empress. “Your mother put her soul on the line. She promised him that if you were ever to begin to show powers and abilities, he could take her soul as collateral.”
“That’s why she started getting sick…”
“She tried to hide you, to shield you. But the demons were fast and strong, and you…” She smiles. “You are so brilliant. It was worth the sacrifice.”
“So this wasn’t a family curse,” I whisper. “He trapped her soul here to remind her of the time she spent wandering.”
“She knew this would happen. And she knew you would try to save her, to help her, and she knew that would bring you to the truth.” Hecate’s face breaks into a smile.
Her teeth are dazzling. Bright and straight.
On either side of her, her two other faces rest peacefully.
“You are special, Diantha. Born from a simple human witch wonderful enough to seduce a god and powerful enough to make him fall in love. A father may take many lovers, but no matter who he lays with, any fruit of that love affair is always his. There is no way to break the chain. There is no blood bond stronger than family.”
“He could have killed me in an instant, but he didn’t. He wanted my mom to suffer. He couldn’t face me,” I say, strength building in my voice. “His own hubris was his undoing.”
“You showed him his own weaknesses, again and again. First, you took from his well of power, and then you stole his heart.”
This stuns me. I actually pull back like she’s slapped me in the face. “You think he loves me?”
“He has no choice.” She pulls another card from the deck. The Chariot. She pushes it toward me.
I pick it up, watch the stars dance in the gold foil. The card of triumph. My destiny. “Now what?”
“You have to finish your mother’s work. Do not let her sacrifice be in vain. Take your throne. Face him as an equal—goddess to god—and set your mother’s soul free by sacrificing his scoundrels in my name.”
“Your name, not Asteria’s?”
She reaches across the table and takes my hand in hers. It’s not a human touch. I see her fingers moving mine—unfurling them to stroke my palm—but her touch is like air. “In my name. For both our mothers, both survivors.”
Her words are an instant vise grip on my heart. Survivors. Warriors in a battle with no foreseeable ending. “Where’s my mom now? Is she okay?”
Hecate smiles softly, gently. “She is safe with your ancestors, Diantha.”
“They’re trapped too?” I try not to let my voice crack with anxiety.
“No. They are here to protect her. We never abandon each other. So, you focus on the task at hand. Return his foot soldiers as dust, and then the universe will be hers.”
“I can’t do this alone,” I reply in a hurry. “I can’t do any of this.”
“You don’t have to. You have everyone you need—they’re all around you, as we speak. Tell them what you are and trust them.”
I swallow. “Like Orfeo?”
“And others.” Her eyes glint. “But you want to know about the Italian vampire.”
I nod. A quick, curt nod. “Please.”
She flips another card. “The Fool.” A smile pulls at her lips. “A fresh start, a new beginning—this time with no fear.”