Chapter 24 No Human Woman
No Human Woman
The temperature dropped ten degrees. This side of the border was cloudy today.
The beating weight of the sun vanished at once, leaving only quiet light and cool shadows.
A breeze lifted. It combed through my hair.
Sweet dew from the grass blew against my burned skin.
It was like the underworld was welcoming me.
But I couldn’t rest yet. My back and triceps and thighs were screaming from carrying my mother’s weight. It was with a strong sense of guilty relief that I dumped her into the shaft Calix’s men had drilled two days ago. I heard the whump as she hit the ground.
The hole was still paired with all its machinery: the winch, the rope, the harnesses. But as I strapped myself into a harness and took hold of the rope to lower myself down, I noticed something else.
Cannons.
My stomach flipped uncomfortably. I remembered the massacre in the Lake cavern.
All at once I wanted to throw up. I hadn’t been able to dwell on it until now, but the gushing blood, the bayonets…
. The War Police had done so much damage just with small weapons.
What horrors could they work with cannons?
What had happened to Elke? What had happened to Hades?
I didn’t know what to do. I thought about running back to Limer, where perhaps I could force Calix to call off the invasion. Maybe if I did tell him in more detail about the underworld, he would realize that the chaosgotten were no threat.
But there was still the question of my mother’s resurrection.
I had already tossed her into the underworld. I could not leave her. Not again.
I resolved myself. I would resurrect my mother, escort her back to Limer, and then give Calix hell. In that order.
With that, I lowered myself into the Gestorbunlund.
Once there, I gathered my mother and paused. I hadn’t thought any farther ahead than this.
I wanted to run straight to the Lake. But I would have to enter it through the throne room, and the King might be there. The vast, monstrous, mountainous King who had regarded me with such hunger.
I shivered.
I thought again of the massacre. Hades had run after his father during the battle at the Lake. Perhaps he had caught him? Had… restrained him, somehow? Maybe now it was safe for me to go to the throne room?
But I couldn’t be certain of that. Besides, Hades had made it eminently clear that between me and his father, he’d pick his father every time.
There was no one I could trust here.
I hesitated, flipping through my mental catalog of every chaosgotter I’d met. Hades: No. The Vizeking: Absolutely not. Mackr: Dead. Mackr’s brother: Dead. The other workers: Mostly dead. Elke…
Maybe?
Yes. I thought I could trust Elke. She loved Hades, but she’d always gone out of her way to help me. Even when I’d brandished a spear in her face.
I decided it was worth the shot. But I didn’t know where to find her.
The only place I could think of to start was Hades’s bedchamber.
My heart began to pound. What if Hades was there?
Did I want him to be there?
I didn’t want to answer that question. Anyway, there was nothing for it.
I braced myself. Hiked my mother’s body up on my shoulders.
My blood had begun to beat in the pit of my stomach at the thought of seeing Hades again.
Hades in that deep, dark bedchamber, with its black silken bed and roaring fireplace.
His hair in his face. His corded forearms. Forearms that had held me underwater and tried to drown me.
Well, if I ran into him, at least I could give him hell.
I snuck near-silently through the catacombs.
I had never walked through them while wearing shoes before.
I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find the way with shoes on; I’d always relied on feeling the near-imperceptible thrum of the moving earth through the balls of my feet.
But it was easy: Left, right, left, left, down, down, down.
I was surprised to see the metal door of Hades’s room hanging ajar.
But why not? Now that I was gone, no one was being imprisoned there.
My blood beat even faster.
Shut up, I told it. I took a deep breath. I had been strong enough to stand up to Hades when he had kidnapped me, and I was strong enough now.
I strode into Hades’s bedchamber.
And found the Vizeking.