Chapter Eighty-Two #2
Viveth never looked back to see if we followed, her steps light and certain, moving quickly through the throng of people.
She said nothing to us as she led us to the largest building I’d ever seen that wasn’t a temple.
Something that didn’t rival Moonfall, but honored it.
This was something of worship, but unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Somewhere between the Morningstar’s temple and the temples of the Olympians, this cathedral boasted a collection of ivy digging into the fading onyx bricks that clung to life despite the chill, stained glass windows weaving splashes of color everywhere, but the building itself was massive.
My neck craned to see the scope of it, the towering spires hiding in the clouds.
“Welcome, Viveth said without facing us, without slowing her pace, “to the twin spires of Skyreach.”
“What is this place?” My breathy tone couldn’t convey my awe enough.
The intricacy of the architecture was so alike to Moonfall.
Not that I’d say it aloud, but it rivalled some of Olympus’s most lovely spots.
A tugging on my heartstrings made my homesick.
It reminded me of House Hades too. Flashes of memory greeted me hand in hand with the most cutting type of nostalgia, glimpses of Hades and I running through the Underworld, laughing.
Hades squeezed my hand, a silence gesture that he was having similar thoughts as Viveth led us up the stairs.
“It’s the place where Hecate blessed the first mortals with magic.” Viveth answered, her tone stubbornly remaining unreadable. Emotionless. “Now come. Matriarch Minerva expects you.”
Still reeling from Viveth’s revelation, I steeled myself, unsure what to expect as Hades and I followed her inside the colossal building.
Greeted by vaulted beamed ceiling, floating firelights, and the smell of parchment and something sterile, every step echoed loudly within.
The air was charged with magic, with devotion, with expectation.
“You’ve come at last.” An unfamiliar voice spoke from ahead of us.
Hades and I looked to see a woman in fitted black robes remove her hood revealing red hair slowly yielding to streaks of grey.
She must be Minerva. Brown eyes assessed our every step, every acknowledgment, every flicker of our attention in turn.
The Matriarch was outfitted in thick layers over her black dress that dusted the ground as she walked, though her fur cloak was thicker and warmer than Viveth’s.
Wavy hair fell loose down her back in a wave of silver. “The ones Hecate spoke of.”
“You’ve spoken to Hecate?” Hades was the one to speak the question, though my mind also reeled.
“Not as such. She occasionally sends visions, and I knew that two travelers were coming our way. But we knew nothing else, and the number of mortals fleeing the strife in Inithilia increases by the day. The chasms scar the land, and the dead will soon outnumber the living.”
Hecate send visions. I reeled, thinking of my mother.
That wasn’t just an omen. It was a message.
“Why didn’t you get us out of the mist sooner?” I didn’t mean for my tone to be so venomous, but to see Hades still not entirely himself, so drained, the dark circles under his eyes, the restlessness that he couldn’t quite hide, how could they claim to be our allies?
Her expression yielded nothing. “I understand your anger, though it is misplaced. Hecate is the one who sent you those visions in the mist. She is the one who burned away your humanity and remade you as a goddess. Her final instruction was to end your curse.” The Matriarch cast her eyes down to our linked blackened hands where the curse touch had worked so highly up our arms, nearly licking our shoulders.
“The problem is that I’m not sure it’s possible to break it. ”
I felt my stomach plummet and attempt to force my knees to the floor. The air left my lungs. I heard Hades’ curse, I heard his voice raise, but I couldn’t decipher anything beyond the ringing in my ears.
I’m not sure it’s possible to break it.
“So, it’s over?” I sounded so pathetic, though I couldn’t bring myself to care.
A glance at Hades where his face fell into shadow, though the grinding of his teeth revealed the depth of his anger.
An anger I shared with him. Whatever fate awaited us at the end of this curse was just… it? “That’s it?”
No. The rejection echoed through every hallway of my consciousness. This couldn’t be our fate.
“I need you both to join your curse-touched hands if I’m to be certain.”
Confused, I stepped closer to Hades, letting him pull my cold, curse-blackened hand into his.
The Matriarch eyed us before stepping up to us, her hand outstretched over ours.
Her eyes fluttered closed, a spell vocalized under her breath.
The moment her hand hovered over ours, the air turned electric.
Almost burning, as if Zeus himself had sent lightning down from Olympus.
The Matriarch gritted her teeth against some unseen force, her hair drifting in the wind of an unknown origin. That same wind tangled my own hair.
Only a few heartbeats passed before the wind died and the witch’s eyes opened maniacally wide, the dread that lie there cutting me deeper than her words the first time. Dismantled hope hurt more than never having hope at all.
“I’m sorry,” she spoke. I froze, rather than fell, teetering on the edge of numb despair.
Pity softened her expression as she split her lowered gaze between us both.
“Truly I am. This curse was placed by someone more powerful than just any demon. If it were a demon from the chasm, even a greater demon, then we could break it. All magic is able to be wielded by mortals. But this? This is pure evil that no mortal can break.”
“Surely there is something,” Hades persisted. “A loophole or something.”
Violence. Heartbreak, and death.
That was what awaits us.
“If only time could stand still,” I whispered, looking down at the curse etched in ink with disdain.
If we could stop time itself, we could live peacefully.
Silence stretched as we pondered our fate, Hades refusing to relinquish my hand.
They say acceptance comes slowly, but I couldn’t even see it on the horizon.
I would fate the fates with everything I had, I just didn’t know how to fight them this time.
Despair had all but gutted me hollow until I had no idea how I was still standing when the Matriarch’s widened gaze snapped to me.
“You might just be onto something, spring goddess,” she whispered. She muttered to herself, her fingers moving wildly as if sorting through invisible debris. “Don’t hold to hope, but I might have a plan.”
That plan the Matriarch mentioned turned out to be a locket.
And an ordinary looking one at that. I held it up in the firelight, eyes scanning for anything remarkable about it.
Black and gold glittered as it swung from the delicate black chain, but there was nothing mystical about it.
It did, however, remind me of Hades’ eyes—the way it caught the light, like flickers of an ember before an inferno.
“It’s a talisman. It won’t hold magic until the spell is complete.” Viveth’s voice made me jump.
Hades looked from one witch to another as they gathered their supplies. “What magic are you planning?”