Hades
Chapter thirty
Iglanced out the window of my offices, staring out at the millions of souls under my care on the far side of the shore.
Those who hadn’t crossed the Styx yet. Those who had not yet been judged.
Those who hadn't been sorted into their respective afterlives.
My brow furrowed as my thoughts snagged on one afterlife realm in particular: Tartarus. The most problematic of them all.
A relentless stirring reclaimed my awareness not for the first time. I frown. The essence of the Underworld itself was restless, like a starved animal pacing its cage with nothing to soothe it.
What is wrong? What troubles you, old friend?
Of course, there was no reply.
A storm of wind and shadows screamed in the hall outside. The air flickered, the sconces shivering as if in fear as Hecate manifested, her cloak trailing mist and debris of shadows.
The other thing that caught my attention was the grim line that set Hecate’s mouth.
She was in a foul mood.
“The wards,” she said with a voice cold enough to turn fire to frost. “They’re thinning.”
I froze as the entire world shrank down to a needle point where only Hecate and I existed. “Excuse me?”
The wards? Thinning? Impossible.
“Was I unclear?” Hecate bit out. The strange thing about the mother of magic was that even when she lashed out, she remained stoic and calm, the picture of grace. It was unsettling, but not as unsettling as her words.
“Where?” I demanded, going still as stone as the implications bled into me. “How is that possible?”
The wards kept all the living out. They kept out even the strongest of gods or goddesses.
Even the Titans couldn’t break the barriers into the Underworld.
Even if the barriers could be broken, the Phlegethon would incinerate anyone who crossed.
It had even stopped the Morningstar’s pocket realms from encroaching too far into my territory, burning everything it touched into nothing and bleeding his realms in a riot of singed magic.
But through it all, the wards remained unchanged.
And then there was the Phlegethon; the river of punishment for those who deserved it, and a measure of protection, one of my better moments of genius.
The wards, though, should have held forever.
Hecate stitched the barrier with the help of Nyx herself before she disappeared into her own domain on the borderlands to rest for the last millennia.
Those wards were crafted with primordial magic, shimmering with living night, the essence of Nyx herself.
Nothing should have been able to affect them, let alone bring them down.
To protect the realm, one must appeal and give fealty to what predates even us. That’s what Hecate had said to me when I first took up the throne. When those who called themselves family because we were all born of monsters put me here and decided it suited them.
“I don’t know.” Hecate’s jaw clacked, as if rejecting the admission, or trying to keep it behind the safety of her teeth.
Hecate knew everything, and what she didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing.
To find her standing here as lost as I felt was a grim turning point.
My hand shot out to the left corner of my desk where a black scrying sphere sat waiting.
It took my magic hungrily. Light shot out around us, flickering as it displayed every nook and cranny of the Underworld before us.
Even the borderlands where my domain ceded to Nyx. Hecate immediately began pointing.
“There are signs of stress everywhere within the barrier.
" She indicated the shimmering ley lines, the magical divide each afterlife's respective realm within the Underworld, before landing on one with a sober expression, "In Asphodel—faint distortions in the barrier. I thought them a fluke at first, a misfire. It happens, but the Elysium followed, an echo of the first. But the barrier’s biggest potential for failing is here.” Her stare hardened into stone as she pointed to the center of it all. “At House Hades.”
A central part of the Underworld. Control this part, you’d have access to the majority of it. Except, thankfully, for Tartarus. That would remain entirely under my control. And should I die, Tartarus dies with me.
I would not risk those who dwell there setting loose in any realm. Not in any future. Not in any timeline. I’d let everything die first.
“But the barrier still holds?” Though I froze, my mind moved fast, going over possible scenarios. “Who attacks it?”
“They hold, for the time being,” Hecate blessedly confirmed. “I’ve done what I can to reinforce it, but something pressures them from the outside.”
“What kind of something?”
“Neither mortal nor divine,” she answered, though maddeningly leaving me with more pertinent questions. “There’s no physical or magical trace. I explored the wards through ley lines. The wards shiver, but don’t yet fray.” Hecate paused, chewing her words.
“What are you not saying?” I prompted her. She eyed me a long moment before taking a breath.
“I don’t understand it. It’s as though the wards are slowly unravelling, like the slow fraying of a rope. It feels… like metal corroding into rust.”
It was my turn to be shocked. Something was attacking the wards. Bringing them down. Someone was attempting to do the impossible. And it was working. And worse yet, they left no trace, no clue how to fight it.
“What of the borders between the realms?” I asked, studying the image of the Underworld as if it may unveil a clue. I went still as the braziers muted their fires, shivering into little more than embers, as though fearful of what all this meant.
“They still hold strong, for now. But Lord Hades, if this worsens, it could infect those boundaries. If that happens—”
“Each realm will spill into the other,” I finished. Asphodel. Elysium. House Hades. All would bleed into Tartarus until it devoured them all. The Underworld would devolve into chaos and become a safety concern for the entire cosmos.
Especially if what they wanted was in Tartarus.
The Titans.
I gave her a hardened look, even as grief wrapped itself around my ribs. I had built this place, guarded it, had dominion over this realm, but still my shoulders heaved against reality's onslaught. “I won’t lose this realm.”
Hecate fixated the full weight of her attention on me through narrowed eyes. “You already have an idea.”
Not a question. An observation.
I nodded. “Yes, but you’re not going to like it.” I sighed, steeling myself for what I was about to suggest. “Divide it all.”
Hecate, for the first time in her immortal life that I'd known her, balked. Paled. Something akin to fear flickered so quickly across her face, had I blinked, I'd have missed it. “Divide?”
“Compartmentalize,” I amended, pointing to the ley lines that separated each afterlife.
“Each dominion sealed with its own barrier. If the main one is corrupted, let’s focus on minimizing the damage.
Asphodel, Elysium, even the borderlands.
No shared veins. If one fails, the others remain intact.
The Morningstar has two divided, separate realms, maybe we take a page from his book. ”
Hecate went silent for a long while, her eyes unfocusing as she considered my strategy.
It was a big ask. The barrier was impenetrable and was supposed to hold forever.
The barrier's failure was never supposed to be an option, but here I was, dividing my realm in hopes of saving it. At least if we separated everything, we’d stop the spread, or at the very least slow whatever it was down and destroy whoever was responsible for this.
My suspicions of who orchestrated this move ground on my consciousness, drawing a growl from me. The room darkened further, deepened as my shadows emerged in angry swirls of ink. If I had one guess as to who was behind this, it was that soul thieving bastard.
The Morningstar.
He wanted Persephone badly enough that he would rattle the bars of this realm to get her?
What had he to gain?
Any of the answers I came up with left me feeling cold. Nothing good could come from his access to this realm and drastic measures need to be taken.
I could only hope this was entirely unnecessary.
“You’re asking to reestablish millennia old barriers and boundaries.” Hecate’s voice drew me from my reverie. “And there’s no saying that without Nyx’s aid they’ll be strong enough to hold against whatever we’re up against.”
My answering nod was as grim as the press of my lips. “Go to her. Give her whatever she wants in exchange for her aid. Start now.”
Hecate nodded, turning to go.
“Wait.” She halted, not turning. “Make sure that if someone breaks in, they choke on the threshold.”
Her head turned, allowing me to see her shock. “You would destroy a section of the Underworld?”
If the Morningstar did breech the wards, whatever section he breeched would fold in on itself. It would become the ultimate tomb, no way to come or go. “I’d rather not, but I’m thinking of it as a failsafe.”
Hecate gave a measured half-smile. “You’re turning the Underworld into a bomb. A labyrinth of punishment.”
“No,” I corrected, straightening the books on my desk. “A fortress. Every soul, every stone, shielded by its own teeth.”
Hecate studied me a long moment. The air between us hummed with all we didn’t need to speak—the wars we’d weathered, the ghosts that both haunted them and were commanded by them. “You mean she’ll be shielded by the Underworld, is that not right?”
I gritted my teeth, ignoring her insinuation. “This realm is my burden. My oath. My dominion. I would watch eternity burn before I watch it fall.”
“That wasn’t a no.” The words hung between us. Not an accusation. Another observation. A heavy one.
I inclined by head, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge what she asked. Her own expression was solemn.
“She’s the only change in the Underworld, Hades.” Hecate’s tone was a flare of warning that licked up my spine.
“I know.”
Hecate's words were like careful steps through uncertain ground. “So you know she could be complicit.”
I examined the thought. Her naivete could see her swayed to the Morningstar’s charm, his whims. But her fear. That day in the garden, she was genuinely terrified. I’d seen enough of it to know when it was fake, and hers wasn’t.
“I’ve seen her soul. The weight of it.,” I shook my head in earnest. “I can see her intentions. I see no darkness weighing her. She’s terrified of him, Hecate. I can’t see her having something to do with this.”
A satisfied nod from Hecate, placated for now.
“I go to seek Nyx. I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.
We build your fortress, Lord Hades.” The flames in the sconces grew, reflecting in her depthless gold eyes, as though agreeing with her.
She didn’t wait for my reply, vanishing into the void only a heartbeat later, leaving me as she found me—alone.
I glanced over the Underworld once more, this time alarm blaring down every corner of my mind.
I meant what I said. This realm had been my only love for millennia, since even before mortals.
Even the other Olympians knew better than to threaten what was mine.
The Underworld herself shuddered, loosing a breath—not in weakness or peril, but in fear.