23. Chapter 23
Chapter twenty-three
Theron
T hey were almost to his quarters when that insolent guard reappeared. Theron sprawled his hand out behind him so Correlia knew to not take another step. “What is it, Therius?”
“Sir, Thanatos wants to see you right away.”
“I know, but—”
“Right now,” the creature urged. “He wants to see you now .”
Theron’s jaw clenched. “How dare you speak to me like that? I’m your master.”
Therius bowed, but Theron’s eyes flashed with fury. Most of the demons and creatures crawling through Tartarus were afraid of him, but General Nikias and some of his soldiers didn’t seem to think he was anything more than a glorified general.
“Forgive me, sir,” the soldier said stalely, standing upright. “But Master Thanatos wants to see you immediately.”
Theron’s fists tightened, but his body was only rigid for half a second before the pain of his split side struck through him. He bent forward slightly but bit into his tongue to avoid making a sound. Even after the taste of iron pooled through his mouth, he didn’t budge.
“Psst. Theron!”
He shot up in panic at the sound of Correlia’s voice, but when he noticed Therius had left, he relaxed slightly. He’d been so focused on keeping himself together that he hadn’t seen the creature flee.
“Psst! Theron!”
“Stay in my quarters, Correlia,” he replied icily. He moved forward, preparing himself to look and feel strong before Thanatos. To reveal no weakness.
His thoughts needed to be stuck on nothing. Reveal nothing. He needed to get as far from Correlia as possible, in every way, until he left the throne room. He just needed to get through the conversation with his master, take whatever he needed to be given—no matter how unpleasant that might be—and then hurry back before losing too much blood.
To his surprise, Correlia didn’t follow him as he fumbled down the hall. Each corridor grew harder to tread, the walls around him blurring as a high-pitched noise pierced his eardrums. Finally, he made it. He wiped the sweat off his forehead before entering the throne room.
“Ah, there he is,” Thanatos said as Theron entered the chamber, his voice drawn out like the sound of a door slowly unhinging. “And you’re injured .” The last word was drenched in disgust.
Theron didn’t let it phase him. “I’m sorry for missing our meeting. I tried to pick up another match—”
“‘Tried’ is right, by the looks of it.” Thanatos scoffed and looked away.
Theron paused briefly, then said, “I beat it, master. I believe it was worth the effort.”
The giant deity laughed. “I don’t find making it out barely alive a feat. Do you truly think you could rule Tartarus in such a way?”
Theron bowed his head, eyes fixed on the floor.
Thanatos continued, “I suppose it is noteworthy that you chose to take on another battle. So, I will let you go with a warning today. Butdo not disappoint me again. You will dine with me in one hour. Get yourself cleaned up. I can wait to converse with you until then.”
The young god’s spirit soared. He looked up at his master, trying his best to hold back a smile. “Thank you, sir,” he said calmly, then turned around and strode to his room.
I can’t believe it. I actually did something right.
He was on cloud nine all the way to his quarters, almost forgetting to stop at the infirmary for supplies to patch up his wounds. He was so consumed with what had just transpired that it took him a second to register that Correlia was talking to him. He looked over his shoulder and saw her there, concern etched across her face.
He opened the door. “I thought I told you to stay in my quarters until I came back.” He allowed himself to finally let go of his tough facade once he walked through the threshold of his room. His body bent forward, his hand clasping his bleeding side, as he limped to the bed.
“I wanted to know if you’d be okay.”
“And you thought you could protect me if, what? If someone were to attack me on my way there?”
Correlia sat at the foot of the bed, but she was still frowning. “No. I was afraid of what Thanatos might do to you.”
He shot her a glare. “Thanatos is my master. My teacher. He raised me.”
“So? I’ve seen the scars on your back.”
Something rippled through him. Not anger, but something like it. “It’s for my own good.” Correlia stared at him but said nothing. “Besides. You saw him today. He didn’t hurt me even though I disobeyed him.” His face softened, his mouth curving into a smile.
“How did you disobey him?” Correlia quipped. Theron’s smile faded. “You simply forgot an engagement because he’s working you so hard. Because he’s in your head so—”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” His voice came out louder than he’d intended. He could still hear its echo as Correlia’s mouth clamped shut. But he was shaking, and annoyed. Or sad. Something.
She took a breath before quietly breaking the awkward silence. “Does he always treat you like that?”
Theron’s head jerked back. “Like what?”
“He puts you down and treats you like rubbish.”
“He does what he must to shape me.”
“And he must do it through putting you down? Through making you feel guilty for doing the things he asks you to do?”
“He didn’t—” Theron stopped and lowered his voice. “He didn’t ask me to do anything.”
“He doesn’t ask you to fight until you’re tattered to shreds every day? He doesn’t ask you to train until you nearly bleed to death?”
“I’m a god. I can’t die so easily. And I’m the God of Death—”
“So?!”
He shook his head. “Why do you care how my master treats me?”
They stared at each other, their gazes locked, until Correlia finally looked down at her hands. “We need to get your side stitched up.” Her voice was quieter. She reached for the supplies in his hand and didn’t look at his face. “Take your shirt off. We don’t have much time before you must present yourself in front of him again.”
Theron’s brows furrowed. “What’s . . .” What’s wrong? He couldn’t say it. Maybe he didn’t want to know the answer. He slid off his shirt, despite how much it hurt to feel the cloth peel from his gaping side, and watched Correlia’s face as she investigated the wound. The subtle lines on her forehead wrinkled, the space between her eyebrows puckering.
“I’ll get some wet cloths. Do you have anything for the pain?”
“Like what?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some medicinal herbs I can dab the wound with before I stitch you up?”
He let out a half-laugh, then winced. Laughing was not an option right now. He rested his head against the headboard, closing his eyes and hoping his vision wasn’t blurry when he opened them again. “No. I don’t use anything for pain. This is how I can become Hades. Surely, you’ve gathered that’s a big part of my training by now.” He waited to hear her quip back, but all he heard was the distant running of the spout and the absence of her breath.
He opened his eyes when he felt her dab the cloth on the gash. He tried not to let out a groan, instead studying the wound himself. It was like the creature had infected half his body. His left side was covered in so much blood it looked black, except for the occasional curls of flesh that were bunched between each claw mark.
“Then this might sting a bit,” Correlia said, taking the needle and carefully prodding it into the swollen skin.
He silenced a cry as she weaved the needle through the tender outline of the wound, doing her best to seal up his mangled torso. Neither one of them said a thing as she patched one side of his wound until he finally couldn’t take it anymore. “My master does what’s best for me.”
She kept sewing.
“He wants me to be strong.”
Correlia’s hand stilled. “I don’t think he wants you to be anything.”
“What? What are you saying?”
Finally, she looked up at him. “Just that. I think he puts you down to make himself feel superior. I think he gets off on hurting you.” She looked back down and continued to sew.
Theron’s jaw clenched. “How would you know how a god of the Underworld is made? All you have to do is grow flowers and live in your little na?ve bubble up on Mt. Olympus. Safe from everyone and everything. Safe from reality.”
Her eyes snapped up. “I know more about pain than you think.” There was a slight rattle in her voice. It made him uneasy—angered him, even. Not at her. At something . It was accompanied by a slight twinge of guilt, too.
“Forgive me,” he said, his gaze falling to her delicate features as she sewed. Watching her mend him—care for him, for whatever reason—made the pain so much less intense. It made him feel warm, despite the icy patches of his exposed skin.
“What are you hiding?” he asked before realizing it might have been a bad idea to ask. But he had to know.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re caring for me. Me . Why?”
She let out a long sigh. “Does everyone need an ulterior motive to do something nice for someone else?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly.
“Well, I don’t.” She tugged on the string as it made its last ascent from his skin. “And maybe you should learn that, too.” She tied the thread and broke it free from the needle. Her gold-green eyes looked up into his. “Maybe you need to learn that not everyone is a monster. That there are actually people capable of compassion.” She stood up and took the bloodied cloth and needle to the fountain.
“Thanatos could have hurt me today,” he called out. She blocked the spout, cutting the water off and creating a brief silence between them. “I did something wrong. I’d forgotten an obligation. But he spared me.” He followed her gait from the washing room. “That shows the compassion he has for me.”
“You need to put on a new shirt,” she said, looking through his things to find one. “You have to leave soon.” She opened a trunk made of tightly knit black straw that stood next to his wardrobe.
“ Correlia .”
She closed the lid and looked at him.
“You don’t know me. You think you understand my life, but you don’t. You can’t. You’re from a completely different world. So don’t judge me. And don’t judge my master for something you don’t understand.”
The silence was suffocating as he awaited her reply, but she said nothing as she got up and walked back to the bed, tossing him a shirt. He expected her to have that fiery look in her eyes. For them to fight. But as she sat next to him on the bed, there was only a sadness in the way she looked at him. “I know that I don’t understand your world or what you’ve been through,” she said, “but there’s something I understand that you don’t: you don’t deserve to be treated the way he treats you, and you’re stronger than you think.”
He scoffed and looked away. “I know I’m strong—”
“Not like that. Inside . He can’t break you, and he probably sees that. So don’t let him.” She gave him one last look before standing up again. “Now, tell me where the rest of your clean clothes are. You need to change completely before you go to dinner. You reek.”
He glowered at her, but there was nothing real behind it. He didn’t know what to say to her. He didn’t understand her. He thought about Thanatos. About his punishments. About the rigorous training he’d put him through. He wanted to believe her that he was strong enough not to break. Maybe then he could finally take up the mantle and be Hades once and for all.
But she knew nothing about this. About him or anything of his life here.
“I’ll get it myself,” he said, but she vehemently shook her head.
“No, you need to save your energy for when you’re gone.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not—”
“Who do you think you are?” he spat, and at the sight of her wounded expression, wished he could be the one hurt instead. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “You just don’t understand.”
“Stop saying I don’t understand! You can’t tell me this life has made you happy.”
“This life isn’t supposed to make me happy.”
She gaped at him, her eyes wide. “Don’t you want to be?”
“I— Of course, but . . . Being crowned Hades will make me happy.”
She placed a hand on his face. The warmth of her palm against his cheek opened a part of him he didn’t know existed. “You are Hades. Whether or not you’re on the throne doesn’t change that. You’re allowed to be happy. You’re allowed to dislike your master and admit to yourself that you’re worth more than what he says you are.”
Tears stung his eyes, but he blinked them away and turned away. He took her hand from his face, though he hated the cold nothingness that replaced it. “No. This is how it’s meant to be for me. My master knows what’s best, and I enjoy my life because I know I’ll become the god I’m supposed to be one day, and it will be because of him.” He looked back at her, his eyes no longer threatening him with tears.
Her eyes narrowed, that sadness still inside them. “You can’t tell me there’s never been a time in your life that you wanted something else. That you wished he treated you differently.”
The words cut through him and resurfaced a memory he’d thought was lost. From when he was a boy. Just a year after he’d come here.
After one of the evenings in that room . . .
“No. This is my life. I’m perfectly fine with it.”
She cupped his face again and looked tenderly into his eyes. He studied her back, unsure of what she was thinking or doing. A look of pain flashed in her sunflower eyes. “I’m so sorry that all you’ve known in your life is pain.”
Something in him flipped. Snagged. Tore through him like claws.
He looked away, shoving down the feelings twisting in his chest. He shifted in the bed and got to his feet. “I have to go. My master is waiting for me.”
He half-expected her to say something else as he slipped into the clean shirt and fished for a cowl in his wardrobe adjacent to the front door. When he pinned his cape across his chest, he left without saying anything else. Trying as hard as he could not to think.