Chapter 18
Persephone
“Why can't you just show me a map?” I asked Hecate as she tried to explain to me what the Judgment Hall was and what it looked like. She'd been trying to teach me the key monuments of the Underworld for what felt like hours, and I was still having trouble laying it out in my head.
“Argh, Persephone, pay attention! Everything in the Underworld moves around all the time, the rivers are alive. The only constants are the things I'm trying to tell you!”
“Morpheus is driving and you'll be with me, why do I need to know?” Under any other circumstance I would love to have learned about Virgo, but with less than an hour before the Trial began, nothing was getting through my nerves and into my skull. I was practically vibrating with energy.
Possibly against my better judgment, I had eaten the last seed.
Unlike all of the other times I could feel the difference, swirling energy pulsing through my veins, desperate to latch onto something. I almost felt like I needed to grow my own body, become bigger, in lieu of being able to make anything else burst to life.
“You need to know in case anything happens, or you get lost,” ground out Hecate.
“I'm sorry, I just can't concentrate. I need to do something. Do you want to train?”
“No, you need to save your power.”
“Hello?” called Morpheus from the other side of Hecate's closed door. My brother groaned from where he lay on the other sofa, a pillow over his head.
“Serves you right,” I told him as Hecate leaped up to open the door.
“Heal my hangover, please,” he moaned. I rolled my eyes, and sent my vine out towards him. He jumped in surprise when it coiled around his limp wrist, then yelped as I sent my magic toward him.
“That feels weird as fuck!”
“Yeah, well, it works so quit moaning.” The vine disintegrated as Morpheus strode into the room. His swirling skin was positively glowing.
“Are you ready?” he asked me enthusiastically. “Because the chariot is, and I want you to see it before we start.” A bolt of excitement shot through me and I jumped to my feet.
“Definitely.”
“Can I come?” said Sam, struggling to a sitting position, the pillow sliding off him.
“No,” I said. “Shit, who's going to stay with him whilst you're with me?” I asked, whirling to Hecate, panicking suddenly.
“Calm down, Hedone has volunteered.” With a sigh of relief I looked to Sam.
“Just in case I do die, give me a hug,” I told him. He pulled a face as he stood up, wrapping his arms around me.
“I saw what you did to that gross thing in the cave, you're going to do great,” he said. “And once this is done, we can talk about what happens next, yeah?” he added quietly, looking down at me.
“Yes. I promise.”
“Good. “Cos cool as it is here, I need some sunshine.”
“You and me both,” I said, squeezing him.
“Good luck, Persy.” He kissed me on the top of my head and let me go. A fresh wave of trepidation rolled over me as I moved to Hecate, and she flashed me, Skop and Morpheus out of her rooms.
I found myself in a bare, rocky cavern, the walls glowing with pretend daylight. Set in the middle of the narrow space was a wooden chariot and I felt my eyes widen as I took it in.
It looked sort of like the pictures of ancient Greek ones I'd seen in my classes, except the front was raised and peaked exactly like the front of a small boat, and there were no wheels. In fact, it looked a bit like someone had cut a boat in half and made the bottom flat.
The decoration and the grand spiral trim across the wood looked every bit ancient Greek.
There was no back to it at all, the wooden planks making up the base just stopping dead.
Six foot-long spikes jutted out of each side of it, and attached at intervals on the high sides were chains with angry looking spiked balls.
My memory flashed on the skeleton and the flail I'd used in my very first Trial. It seemed appropriate to have a flail in my last Trial too.
“It's awesome, Morpheus,” grinned Hecate, walking around it slowly. “Persy, whatever you do, don't fall off the back.”
I blinked at her, then nodded mutely. It looked like it would be a pretty tight squeeze for three people.
“Shall we take her to the start line?” Morpheus looked at me. His eyes were alive with excitement. The tiniest bit of me resented him for it. For me, this was not a game. It was life or death, and more than he knew besides.
But more of me was grateful for his help. I mean, where the hell would I have found a chariot? Least of all had the time to learn to control one.
“Definitely,” I told him.
“Step aboard.” He gestured at the wooden vehicle.
This was it. I patted my dagger at my side, and stroked my hand over the pocket I had put Poseidon's pearl in, checking it was still there.
I'd worn the leather corset today, deciding protection was more important than maneuverability. My hair was braided out of my face and my boots were laced tightly. I had nothing left to do. I was ready.
With a big breath, I gripped the side of the chariot and stepped onto the planks. Morpheus strode up beside me, positioning himself at the front, where the wooden sides met in a sharp peak. The prow, I supposed.
Hecate hopped on behind me.
“Hold on,” she grinned, and the chariot lifted off the rocky ground.
I suppressed the yelp that tried to escape my throat, and gripped the side hard. Just like the ships soaring around Mount Olympus, the boat shaped chariot was flying, on mind-power alone. We hovered for a moment, and Morpheus looked back at me, his skin sparkling.
“Ready?”
“Uhuh,” I replied, pulse racing and heart hammering. With a whoop from Hecate, the chariot raced forward.
For a terrifying moment I thought we were going to smash straight into the cavern wall, but as we approached it, an opening started to form in the rock.
We burst through and shock stilled my nerves as the most incredible view materialized before me. With a jolt, I registered what I was looking at.
The Underworld.
All the time I had been living in Virgo I'd been flashed between rooms, and although I'd seen many places; my bedroom, the throne room, the training room, the conservatory, the ballroom, the breakfast room, even Tartarus, I'd never been able to imagine Virgo as an actual realm.
It had just been a series of caverns and pits to me, and the way it was all connected had just been a vague description from Hecate.
But the view I had as we soared through the air in the chariot...
It was as though we were in a giant cavern, one as large as a city, and as mountainous as the Rockies. We were flying over a river of blue light, similar to the light that came from Hades when he was in god mode.
The river was gouged from the dark rock and it seemed to have sources everywhere, waterfalls of light pouring down the many slopes into the main, rushing body of water.
On my left and dominating the landscape was a towering mountain, and at its peak, a palace. Hades' palace. I felt my jaw drop further. Huge skulls, visible for miles, were carved into the walls and fierce gothic-style towers and balustrades were wrapped with thorned rose carvings.
The very tip of the palace reached up past the ceiling of the cavern, and I realized with a start that that must be where the rooms with windows were, the rooms that were above ground. The breakfast room.
As I dragged my eyes down from the palace I saw a glowing band wrapped around the middle of the mountain, shimmering gold. As I squinted into the light I realized there was an island floating just off the mountain.
“That's Elysium, and the Isle of the Blessed. Where the good guys go,” said Hecate, reaching past me and pointing.
“I can't see clearly,” I said, and she laughed.
“The only way you can see into paradise is by dying, so be careful what you wish for. Over there you can just see the river of fire, Phlegethon, that leads down to Tartarus.” She pointed at the flicker of red far in the distance.
“And down there are the Fields of Asphodel and the Judgment Hall. Where the dead come to be judged.” She pointed below us.
I peered hesitantly down, over the side of the chariot. My head swam for a moment, but I dragged my healing power up and around me, forcing out my body’s reaction to the height.
I simply couldn't let vertigo affect me in this Trial. It wasn't an option.
I was a damned goddess, and I was in charge of my own body. My vision steadied as I channeled my power, and I took long breaths as I focused.
Below me was a massive washed-out meadow. Hundreds upon hundreds of figures ambled slowly around, and though we were too high to make out details, I could see no color. A gleaming white temple sat between the blue river and another one that glowed purple until it merged with the blue.
“What are these rivers?” I asked.
“The big blue one is the Styx. She's hatred and honesty. The purple one is Acheron, who is woe.”
“Nice,” I mumbled.
“The river Cocytus is over there today. That's lamentation.” She pointed at a green glowing river streaming through an uneven section of rock far to our right.
“And the Lethe?” Hecate shrugged.
“She's always a bitch to find.”
“What color is she?”
“Can't remember,” Hecate grinned at me. “And I've given up trying to. That's her power, after all.”
“It's quite beautiful,” I said, staring out at it all. “If a little dark.”
“Yeah. I think so too. See over there? That's the main entrance, for folk who can't flash.
That's where Cerberus guards the gates and the ferryman collects the dead.” She was pointing to the top of the cavern, at the opposite end of the river Styx to the palace, where the river seemed to disappear into the rock.
“OK. So where will we be racing?”
“The starting point is the Judgment Hall,” said Morpheus without turning around. We were dropping in height, the spectacular view disappearing as high outcrops of dark rock grew up around us as we moved lower.
“Where are the demon's lairs, like the Empusa and Eurynomos?” I asked Hecate.
“They move around, but they're all hidden throughout the rock.” I stared down at the dark, jagged surface as we raced over it. There could be any kind of creature right below us, and I wouldn't know.
“How do you find them?”
“I'm tethered to them, like Hades. They are bound to us.”
“Would... Would they be bound to me if I became Queen here?”
“No. You'd be giving yourself to Hades, not Virgo.”
I thought about what Hades had told me the night before.
He said he was part of Virgo, that he and the Underworld were one now.
So maybe Hecate was wrong, and if I gave myself to Hades in marriage, I would be wedding the Underworld too.
If I became his Queen, perhaps I would have dominion in this place.
Did I want that? Did I want to know what was hidden in the rock, in this dark and toxic place? If it was a part of Hades, then I must embrace it. But it felt so very far from any part of me.
I was saved from my thoughts when the gleaming white temple loomed before us. It was massive, at least three stories tall, and just like all the throne rooms it had no walls.
The left and right sides had a tight row of columns holding up the triangular roof, and the other two sides were completely open, allowing Morpheus to glide the chariot into the building.
We landed gently on the white marble floor and my gaze fixed on the chariot we had pulled up next to.