31. Chapter 31
Chapter thirty-one
Berenice
“ C orrelia’s been taken to the Underworld!” Berenice said, and the goddesses around the throne gasped. They chattered amongst themselves as Zeus stroked his silvery beard and peered down at the slight goddess by his feet.
“Are you certain?”
“N-no, but no one knows where she is. Can you look? Please? We don’t have much time! Hades could be—”
He lifted a hand. “I will check, but I’m sure there is no cause for alarm.” He snapped his fingers, and one of his aides came to the throne. “Check the looking glass for Persephone. Find where she is located.”
“Yes, sir, right away,” the young god said with a bow, then fled across the room and out into a hall.
Zeus’s palace was said to be the most elegant and intricate in the entire world. She’d been to it at least half a dozen times before, but each time was just as breathtaking as the last. Except for today. The beauty of the palace seemed so frivolous at a moment like this. Her world was dark right now. A cold, barren wasteland. She needed to find her daughter. Fast.
“There,” Zeus said, but Berenice was still wringing her hands. He sighed. “If she is there, Demeter, we will bring her back. There is no need to worry.”
“But what if he’s captured her?”
“I assure you she will be fine, even if we have to go down there ourselves.”
Fear twisted in Berenice’s stomach. There was no way even Zeus could assure her that Corre would be fine. If she was indeed in the Underworld, there was no telling what could have happened to her. She could have gotten lost in any of the rivers, eaten by Cerberus, or killed by Hades himself. Or Thanatos.
“Sir, we have word that the goddess Persephone is, indeed, in Tartarus.”
Berenice’s blood turned cold. “Oh, no,” she whimpered. “Correlia, no.”
Zeus sighed. “Prepare our forces,” he said, gesturing to one of his guards. “I suppose we’re going to war.”
Corre
Markus’s chains shattered at his feet. His shoulders were back, and his eyes were focused as he stood against his colossal master. There was a blind rage in Thanatos’s eyes, but there was a greater surge of power breaking through the room, rushing with a force beyond her understanding.
And it was coming from Markus.
Despite the fear sinking deeper in her gut, she had hope. She watched the god she loved move with flawless precision and believed he could do this. She knew how much it meant just to see him try.
It wasn’t enough to try now, though. He had to take his master down. Thanatos wouldn’t hold back if he felt the need to split Markus apart. And if that happened, she didn’t know if she could live the rest of eternity knowing that the one soul who truly understood her had been condemned to a god-death and that it had been because of her.
God-deaths were especially atrocious—one great drawback of being immortal. They weren’t something that lasted a moment, as the only option for death in the human world was. God-deaths were eternal sentences, often spent in Tartarus. The god would either be tortured, thrown in solitude, or in great pain for all eternity. That was her understanding, anyway, and since it was up to Thanatos to decide Markus’s fate, she couldn’t imagine he’d spare him with an easy sentence. It would be an eternity of everlasting torment and torture of the cruelest form.
So Corre chose to believe in him. She couldn’t let Markus feel her waver through the space between them. In case he sensed what was in her heart, she was strong. He needed her to believe in him. Because no one else ever had.
When Markus took his first lunge at his master, her stomach lurched. She instinctively moved forward, reaching out to help him, but one of her captors tugged on the electric chains around her wrists. They singed her skin as they clanked against her bones, and she bit her lip so she wouldn’t make a sound. Any indication she was in pain might make Markus falter, and that one moment could cost him his life.
You can do this, Markus. You can do this.
In almost the blink of an eye, he leapt forward and pushed the growing energy at his master. The great creature moved his massive hands over his face to block the attack, but the power was too great. It knocked the leader off the throne and left him skidding across the floor. Markus moved faster, throwing another unseen blow. His hands were in a tight position across his chest when he dealt another one. And another. And another.
A few of the guards ran up behind him with their spears. “Markus!” Corre cried, but he’d already sensed them coming. He whipped around and smacked the guards with one sweeping motion that pushed his power in a cutting wave across their chests. The handful of gold-plated demons crashed in a heap on the other side of the room.
When Corre felt the chains attached to her wrists fall, she expected the guards behind her to rush at Markus next, but she didn’t see them pass her. Instead, she heard the great doors they’d come from slam as they escaped. She got to her feet and rushed to one of the fallen spears. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thanatos rising to his feet. Panic surged through her. Her adrenaline spiked. She pushed the spear over to Markus and called to him.
He turned and grabbed the metallic object, flipped it, turned back to face his master, and then stabbed the weapon through Thanatos’s side. Corre’s face lit up, and she ran over to Markus, but he held out a hand to her. She stopped as the cuffs around her wrists clattered to the ground. Even while focused on his master, he’d been able to unchain her. She smiled, unable to suppress how much he impressed her. Was it wrong that she was so attracted to him right now?
He repositioned himself and took one more stab at his master, but Thanatos’s hand grabbed hold of the staff and snapped it in two. The deity tossed the pieces to the side and sent his own sweeping wave at Markus. Terror swelled in Corre’s abdomen.
The apprentice fell to the ground before Thanatos pushed him back farther. Markus struggled to get up but was soon back on his feet and rushing at his master, screaming with his hands raised and his body rigid. Thanatos jumped forward but staggered because of the wound gaping at his side. Black blood trickled out of it. He held one claw against it and stumbled as he leapt toward Markus again.
“You worthless child!” he growled. He took one long leap his apprentice couldn’t dodge. His nails slashed across Markus’s face, forcing him to the ground. Corre gasped.
“Markus . . .” She kept her eyes focused as she ran to him. He bent forward in pain, holding his face. He groaned through gritted teeth. Blood leaked out from between his fingers, falling in thick droplets onto the floor. “Oh, no,” she whispered and wrapped an arm around his back. “Markus, let me see.” She tried peeling his hand away, but it was as though it was sealed to his face. The amount of blood dripping to the floor told her he was probably afraid of what would happen if the wound wasn’t held together by the force of his hand.
After one more moment of soul-sucking worry, she decided to do something. She got to her feet and stared Thanatos down herself. Her legs wobbled, but she couldn’t sit here and do nothing.
She looked at the horrid beast of a god now flopped back onto the throne. His evil eyes were irritated, but his mouth was carved into a smile. This was the evil master who had tortured Markus for over a decade. This was the one who stood in the way of his happiness and freedom and of the life they could have together.
She moved her hands out at her sides, gathering all the energy she could from the space around her. The surge of instant power squeezed her bones as it flooded through her. It felt like stones were pushed against every part of her, and she yelled—a growing yell that boomed louder by the second—but she withstood it, focused on Thanatos, her hands now outstretched and her mind beckoning two of the spears to come to her palms.
The cool, slick metal hit her skin in both palms. She curled her fingers around them and took a step toward Thanatos. She remembered the combat training with Phineas. Of the sparring she had always done at Athena’s. Of the techniques Markus had taught her here. And of course, she thought of Markus, and the blood forming a pond around his knees.
With an ear-splitting war cry, she ran to Thanatos, both spears in hand. She jumped at the throne, the end of one just about to hit his eye and plunge through his skull when the giant monster broke into laughter. He swiped a hand in one unstrained motion that left Corre falling to the floor. Her back nearly snapped as she hit the hard ground, and she let out an earth-rattling, involuntary cry—one far less threatening than the last.
“You bastard!” Markus roared, struggling to his feet. She rolled to her side to look at him, but she could only see his slightly bent form and the back of his head as he staggered to Thanatos. He grabbed one of the weapons she’d dropped and limped toward his master.
“Markus,no!” she cried, but he kept going. Despite the pain. Despite everything.
He lifted the weapon, and his master laughed. But Markus’s body was tight again, one of his hands outstretched in a hard line, the muscles on his back constricted. His master was focused, too. And laughing. He was an expert caster of deception, but Markus wasn’t biting this time.
The two powerful beings stayed locked in a match of power until Thanatos jolted forward and struck Markus across the side that had only recently started to heal. The young Hades let out a cry, and Corre gasped in horror, running to him as he fell in a heap on the floor. Her back throbbed with every step, but she didn’t care.
“Markus—” Her voice failed her as tears welled in her eyes. She pulled his upper body onto her lap and gently moved his head so she could see his face. When she brushed the black hair from his eyes, her throat tightened. He was covered in blood, and his eyes were squinted shut. He was shaking. “No,” she whispered, tears breaking through and falling into his hair. She put her forehead on his and cried softly. “Please, don’t give up, Markus. Please. I can’t lose you.”
He lifted his hand and gently grabbed her elbow. “I’ll be okay,” he whispered, and she lifted her face to look at him. His eyes were open. He was smiling through the pain. “I promised I’d keep you safe, remember?” His face fell, and he broke into a fit of coughs. Blood spewed from his mouth, and her stomach constricted even more.
Corre brushed her hand along the side of his face and tried to smile for him. He lifted his hand to cup her cheek. The pain seemed to vanish in his eyes as he looked at her, which made the situation hurt even more. He lifted his face to hers and kissed her.When she felt the familiar sensation of his lips, her mind momentarily fell into numbness. But then he was gone. When she opened her eyes, he was back up, and she was too stunned to know what to do.
Markus grabbed hold of a spear and threw it at his master’s chest with precision, but he was too weak. The weapon barely pierced Thanatos’s thick, grey tunic before the great god slapped it away and grabbed hold of Markus’s arm.
“Let him go!” Corre yelled as she got to her feet.
The deity’s eyes shifted to examine the quaking young goddess before him. Her breaths were shallow, her anger rising again. Then, surprisingly, he let Markus go and cackled at her baffled expression. “My dear.” His booming voice was rickety, like a claw scraping across cobblestone. “Why do you care what happens to my apprentice?”
Corre’s fingers curled into tight fists. “He’s more than your apprentice,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong. “He’s a bigger god than you .”
“Correlia—” Markus started, but Thanatos cut in.
“My dear, I am one of the Great Deities that came before your kind. Theron is no match for me.” He swiveled his yellow eyes to Markus. “And you . Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about your little secret?” He snarled as he uttered the last word.
Markus’s face lowered. “I—”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out about her?”
Markus’s head snapped up. “How did you?” He scowled at his master, and Corre had to blink a few times to see if Markus was still trying to defy him. A part of her was impressed, desperate to believe things could change for him, but the rest of her went cold.
Markus. Don’t.
His master leaned forward. “I. Know. Everything !” The roar blasted through Corre’s ears. Markus flinched. “And you !” Thanatos’s soulless eyes shot to Corre. His crooked mouth lifted in a smile. He let out a quick laugh, wheezed, then said, “How did he manage to fool you?”
“He didn’t fool me.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Ah, he told you then?”
Nausea formed in her gut. “Told me what?”
Thanatos chuckled and nestled deeper in his seat. “Do you think he gave you that cursed gift by mistake?
The nausea thickened. “Gift?” She looked to Markus, but he wasn’t looking back. His gaze had fallen to his feet. His eyebrows were drawn together.
“That pie,” the deity bellowed.
The blood drained from Corre’s face. “What?” Her eyes were still on Markus. “What is he talking about?”
“I don’t know,” he said, finally looking back at her. “Truly, I don’t.”
Thanatos laughed. “My, my. You do know how to trick her, don’t you?”
“I am not tricking her. What—”
“Come on, boy . You know the rules of this place. You will be the god here soon.”
As if something struck him, Markus’s face changed. He took a step back, shaking his head. “No.”
“What? What is it?” Corre cried.
Thanatos laughed again. This was clearly amusing him. Corre and Markus were two bugs beneath his magnifying glass.
“My apprentice, as you know, is the mighty Theron of Tartarus.” He took his time between each word, but Corre couldn’t stop looking at Markus, her body growing colder by the second. He wouldn’t return her gaze. “He knows the ins and outs of the Underworld better than anyone. And yet he gave you that pie.” He guffawed and turned to Markus. “Does she truly believe that you did that by accident ? You? The feared Hades ?”
Markus’s face twisted in anguish, and Corre couldn’t take it anymore. “What? What did he do? What’s going on?”
“What my apprentice failed to mention, I’m sure, is that that pie he gave you—the one swiped from the kitchen earlier this evening—was made of pomegranate.”
“S-so?” Her skin was cold, her fingers trembling in lackluster fists at her sides.
“ So, you are bound here now.” The wicked creature’s mouth curled. “There’s no escape for you. You are stuck here. Just like he is.”
Her cheeks burned, but her body was still cold. “Markus, is this true?”
Tears brimmed in his eyes. “Correlia, I’d forgotten. I swear—”
“This has been his plan all along, dear,” Thanatos said, but Markus snapped back.
“That’s not true!”
“How can you believe him?” the deity barked, his eyes on her, “when he also lied to you about that day.”
A ringing sounded in her ears. “That . . . that day?”
Thanatoschuckledand sat back in his seat. “As I suspected.” He let out a dramatic sigh. “He never told you.”
“Told me what?” she said, but the words came out shaky. A lump formed in her throat. She looked to Markus. “Told me what ?” But he was staring at the ground again, as if in a trance, or maybe searching for something.
“That he was the one who ripped you from your parents. Who murdered them before your eyes that day.”
The words filled Corre’s ears like bags of sand. Her mouth went dry. “What?” she whispered, but that day rushed back to her like a flash of lightning. Like a missing part of her mind had been found, and the memories were sliding back into place.
She saw the fire. She heard the screams. And she saw her —the beautiful, blonde-haired woman with eyes like her own. The woman who’d sung to her every night and told her she could be anything.
She saw destruction. Countless cottages set ablaze. Children being torn from their homes. Gods and goddesses of all stations and ages being executed. She remembered shadowy figures draped in billowing cloaks. She remembered swords. And crying. Her mother’s cold body hitting the ground, blood spilling from her lips.
The mother she’d forgotten about.
The day before her life with Berenice had begun. Before the only memories Corre had ever known.
But now there were more. There was too much.
Too much.
She swallowed a sob, but the tears broke through, and she turned to Markus. His head was bowed. She couldn’t make out his expression. “Were you there that day?”
His body shifted, and his eyes found hers. “I don’t know,” he said, but the words were liquid. Like there was nothing behind them.
“You’re lying,” she whispered. “Markus . . . you’re lying.”
“No! I—”
Thanatos laughed. “Don’t let him fool you, girl. He remembers. He’s remembered for some time now.”
Markus’s hands clamped the sides of his head. He let out a loud growl. “What are you talking about?” he yelled, baring his teeth to his master.
“You know, boy !”
Something stung Markus’s face. He sucked in a breath, but his eyes went to Corre’s. Horror filled his gaze. “Correlia, I—”
She staggered back. “No . . .” This was some kind of dream. A horrific nightmare. It had to be. “Markus, what is he talking about?” her voice faltered as more sobs crept up her throat.
He opened his mouth to say something when Thanatos boomed through the room. “He did keep it from you, then. All of it.” The giant creature laughed. “I figured as much.”
Corre’s blood turned cold. She felt like vomiting. She kept her eyes on Markus for an explanation, but all he gave her was a look that made her want to cry.
“You took my family from me?” she whimpered, a tear escaping down her face.
“Correlia, I didn’t know. Really, not until this very moment—”
“But you did do it?”
Sorrow was deep in his eyes, but it was too late. Corre let out a half-sob. In disgust. In disbelief. Disgust in herself that she had trusted the God of the Underworld. Disbelief that her hope of a future with him had been an illusion. A lie.
She sniffed as more tears fell down her cheeks. “What did you do to them?”
“Correlia, I told you about those dreams. Those nightmares of that day. I didn’t remember much until now. . . And I-I didn’t know what I was doing. Thanatos had just taken me from my parents—”
“Stop making excuses!” she screamed. “What did you do to them?” The words echoed through the room, hanging in the air.
Tears streamed down his face. “I’m so sorry, Correlia. I was a child. I don’t remember. I don’t remember you or your parents, so I can’t tell you either way. But I do remember that day. And that song. I’m so sorry.”
Something hardened in her chest. “That song?”
“The one you sometimes sing at night. When you fall asleep.” His voice wobbled, and that pain in his face intensified. “I . . . I think it’s the one you told me about. I didn’t remember it then, but I do now. I remember a goddess singing it to a little girl—”
“Before he executed her,” Thanatos finished.
Corre let out a small cry and covered her mouth. This isn’t happening. Tears streamed down her face. This can’t be happening.
“No, I didn’t!” Markus cried. “I was there that day, but I never executed anybody!”
“You’re sure of that?” Thanatos bellowed, but the young god fell silent.
When Corre looked back at Markus, he shook his head again. “I’m so sorry.”
She staggered back. She wanted to get out of here. She needed air. Needed escape.
“Correlia, I don’t remember. And whatever happened, I didn’t know—”
“Stop!” she cried, falling to her knees and covering her ears. She sobbed into the ground, huddled in a tight ball. This was all too much. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. “You lied to me.”
“No, Correlia, please—” he said through tears.
Her gaze shot up. “I trusted you. And you didn’t even tell me you knew about that song! I was there for you!”
“I didn’t remember where I’d heard it until now!”
“How can I believe you? When you hadn’t told me anything and then trapped me here under the ruse that you wanted to do something nice for me?” She scoffed and looked away. “A pie for my birthday. I was such a fool.”
“Correlia,” he whispered, but she didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t even look at him. Because if she did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from running over and holding him until the tears stopped falling down his face. But he was the one who’d ripped her life from her. Who’d deceived her.
“I really did want to give you something special.” His voice was little more than a whimper as he continued to cry. “Nothing I ever said or did to you was a lie.”
She couldn’t look at him. She didn’t know what to think. And the worst part was that she didn’t even want to go home. But she didn’t want to be here. Her whole life had been flipped upside down.
Happiness had been within her reach for the first time. Because of him. Because she thought she’d found belonging. Someone who understood. But it had just been an elaborate fabrication all along. A foolish dream.
She didn’t know what to do anymore. Where to go. What to think.
A cry splintered through the air. Not one of sorrow—a wail of pain. She looked up and saw an arrow piercing Markus’s left shoulder. It only took her half a second to recognize whose arrows they were.
The kind that could strike through anything.
She jumped to her feet. “Markus!”
“Stop!” a familiar voice shouted, and she turned, hoping it wasn’t who she thought it was.
Holding one of Apollo’s bows was Phineas, standing armored before a cavalry—a group of well-suited warriors, some from Athena’s academy, some Corre had never seen before. Then there were Apollo and Athena. Phineas was leading an army as Ares for the first time. And it had to be here.
“Phineas, you don’t know what you’re doing!” she called to him, moving toward Markus.
“No, Corre, you don’t know what you’re doing. He’s beguiled you.”
Corre shot Phineas a glare and walked to Markus anyway. Every arrow was pointed toward him, and every warrior with a spear or an ax was standing at the ready. She kept her gaze locked on Phineas. He knew better than to cross her.
When she saw that the arrow in Markus’s shoulder was leaking something into his skin, she gasped. “It’s poisoned!” She grabbed hold of the golden body. She tried tugging it out, but the young Hades stopped her.
His hand was on hers as he slowly turned to look at her. “Leave while you can,” he said. His voice was strained, and the agony on his face made more tears fall down her cheeks. “Please,” he whispered.
“Markus, no.” The words were barely audible. Another arrow struck his back, and he fell limply to the ground.
She looked at Phineas in horror. “What are you doing?”
“We need to take you back,” he said, sliding another arrow in place on the bow.
Her cold blood started to burn. “Don’t you dare hurt him again, Phineas, or I will not come back at all.”
Thanatos let out a long, drawn-out cackle. “No need to worry, dear. You cannot leave here anyway.”
“She can, and she will,” a voice said, but this one filled Corre with relief. She turned to see her mother, walking alongside Zeus.
“Mother—”
“You cannot keep her here, Thanatos,” Zeus said, his deep voice rattling the broken chains on the throne room floor. His silvery beard fell halfway down his chest. He was almost as tall as Markus’s master and about ten times more robust.
Thanatos’s mouth pinched shut. “She has eaten the pomegranate. She cannot leave.”
Berenice gasped, but Zeus lifted a hand, gesturing for her to be at ease. “The pomegranate only ties her here. It does not force her to spend every day here, so she will be returning to Olympus today.”
“She lives here now,” Thanatos said firmly, but Zeus shook his head.
“She’s leaving here with us. You and I can discuss the details after she is gone, but for now, she is leaving.”
Thanatos narrowed his eyes on the god, tapping one sharpened nail against the throne. “If we must,” he growled.
Corre looked down at Markus again, but he wasn’t moving. His eyes were squeezed shut. “Markus?”
He flinched before peeling his eyes open to look up at her. “Go, Correlia. Just go.”
Pain stung every part of her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. “Did you do it?” she whispered, but his eyes closed again. “Markus?” She let out a sob. “What’s happened to him!?”
“It’s just the poison,” Phineas said, and she whipped around. Her friend let the bow fall to his side. “He’ll be awake in an hour or two.”
She gritted her teeth. She’d never wanted to smack someone harder than she wanted to hit Phineas right now. “How could you do that?” I still had so many questions.
“You’ve been through a lot. Let’s get you home.”
Corre’s fists tightened.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Thanatos said with a smirk. “You will be back here soon enough.”
“Come on, Corre,” Phineas said, grabbing her wrist.
She snatched her arm away and glared at him. “Don’t touch me, Phineas.”
He frowned, wounded, and she wished she could wound him even more. She looked back at Markus, but one of the guards was chaining him again, his limp body soaked with blood and sticky, black poison.
“Take the arrows from his back,” Thanatos said lazily to another of his guards.
The demon did as the deity commanded. Markus let out grunts of pain as each arrow was plucked out. Tears stung Corre’s eyes. She wanted to leap over to him, but she wasn’t even sure who he was anymore. She was stupid for thinking she knew him so intimately after such a short time.
But still, as Phineas and the others escorted her out of the throne room, she couldn’t stop looking at Markus and wondering—after she was gone, who would be there to stitch up his wounds?