36. Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
Markus
T hree months had finally passed, and Markus knew Correlia would be here any day, pulled back down to this place against her will. Because of him.
The guilt was a constant source of pain, on top of the throbbing physical pain that accompanied him every second of the day. When he opened the door to his chambers each night, after a long day of training, the pain was made so much worse. Because, every day, he foolishly hoped she’d be there, sitting on his bed with a smile on her face and a roll of bandages in her hand, ready to wrap him up and take away the pain.
She was a balm to his soul that nothing else could match. He wasn’t sure what had healed him more—the cleaned wounds and bandages she’d wrapped him in or the gentleness of her help, the careful way she’d cleaned his cuts and frowned in concern at the state of his pain.
He wasn’t used to that. Sympathy. Thanatos only ever expected more cuts and bruises, inflicting many of them upon Markus himself. But Correlia cared. She cared about the cuts. She cared about his pain. She wanted to heal him.
But ever since she left, and he found that Correlia was, of course, not on his bed or folding towels into flowers on his floor, the wound in his soul gaped open all over again. The pain of what he’d done to her rushed back. He remembered what he doomed her to because of his pull to her and the danger she was now placed in. That same danger he had to face, day in and day out. And he probably wouldn’t get the chance to see her. To protect her from any of it.
He slammed the door behind him, staggering into his room. Like always, it was cold and empty. He struggled to pick up an old pile of bandages at the foot of his bed. The pain from his latest gash was bordering on unbearable. He hated to touch it, but he had to stop the bleeding.
Markus grabbed hold of the long, winding gauze Correlia had used on him months before and tried ignoring the pang of homesickness that pulled at his insides when he inspected it. It probably wasn’t the smartest thing to do—to reuse this bandage over and over again—but using it comforted him. It brought him a tiny pinch of solace as he tended to his injuries. And he couldn’t get himself to throw it away and let it go. Maybe he was afraid that once he did, the memories of her would leave with it.
He pushed down the thoughts of her and rinsed the bandages in the fountain. He barely had the strength to stand right now. He couldn’t afford the hollow feeling that gutted him when he remembered her absence. So he focused on the water falling onto the old material, but the thoughts of her returned. Her dimpled smile and her sunflower eyes. The warmth of her soul. The comfort of her body. The beauty that radiated from every pore. Every inch of skin and bone.
He blocked off the spout and toweled the gauze down until he could use it to wrap himself. He winced as it pressed against that gash, every swipe of the bandage made the festering wound slashed across his ribs wail. The creature he fought today had poison oozing from its claws, so any contact with the gash on Markus’s skin was a recipe for both instant and lasting pain. But it would only get worse— feel worse—if he let it stick to his sheets and brush against everything he touched.
The minutes ticked by, and he was unsuccessful in every attempt. He couldn’t get the bandage to stay in place, partly because it hurt too much to tighten, and partly because he was losing consciousness. The peeled flesh was too tender, the gash too raw. His left arm was useless, too. He couldn’t move it without nearly blacking out.
He finally sucked it up and tightened the bandage around his torso, even after his face drained of blood and his forehead turned cold and slick with sweat. He let his right arm drop after he tied the ends of the bandage together and let out a long sigh. Carefully, he placed himself on the bed, lying completely straight on his back. The room was spinning, and his forehead was still clammy and cold, but all he could do was rest. There was no other respite for him here.
He let out labored breaths and begged his mind to stop racing so he could sleep. If the pain hadn’t made the task difficult enough, he also had to lie as flat as the sheets beneath his back to avoid any zings of pain. With another labored breath, he closed his eyes.
Of course, the first image to pop into his mind was Correlia, but he welcomed it. His favorite part of the day was this tiny spot of time between work and rest when he could let all his guards down and just think of her. She’ll be here any day , he thought, smiling for a fraction of a second until that dreaded follow-up question surfaced in his mind and left him melancholy.
Then what?
Corre
“I can manage this myself, thank you,” Corre said curtly, pulling herself onto the back of the glossy black mare. The freshly embroidered crest of Phineas’s new army was a stain on the side of its leather saddle.
“I was only trying to help,” the red-headed soldier scoffed.
“I can take care of myself,” she said, keeping her eyes forward. She hid the struggle of straddling a horse in the dress she’d chosen to wear today. It was one she’d insisted on wearing, despite her mother’s skeptical remarks. Corre had no choices of her own to make today. Everyone had scheduled and dictated what was to happen, who was to escort her, and everything else before her descent into the Underworld. Once she was down there, there was no telling what would happen, but it was safe to say she would have no choices of her own to make.
The only choice she could make for herself today, without anyone being able to protest, was what she would wear and how she would present herself. So she chose the most beautiful gown her limited amount of saved money could buy: a long, layered dress of light blue silk that fell like feathered flower petals from her shoulders to her feet, with slits just above her knees. The sleeves fell off her shoulders and flowed down into the careful folds of the iridescent skirt of the dress. She looked like an upside-down rose, blooming with soft, opulent petals and covered in star-lit dew.
The young, red-bearded god huffed again, and a familiar voice joined in his frustration. “She’s been like that for months now,” Phineas said, coming up behind him and slapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t take it personally.”
Corre rolled her eyes. “What are you doing here?”
His expression fell, something sad sitting in his dark brown irises. Despite everything, she felt sorry for him, and guilty. About what, she wasn’t sure, but it was always accompanied by the fear that their friendship was beyond saving. They hadn’t spoken since that day in the forest. She had nothing left to say to him, and perhaps that was where the problem lay.
She fixed her gaze on a tree before her and silenced her thoughts. She couldn’t think about this today. Today wasn’t about Phineas. It was about Markus. She was finally going down to Tartarus, and she would do everything in her power to see him again. Even if it risked her being punished by Thanatos. She had a way out of that place. Markus didn’t. She could endure the pain before coming back to her cottage on Mt. Olympus.
The risk was worth it. She needed Markus to know she didn’t blame him for anything. That he wasn’t guilty of what Thanatos had accused him of—of what she’d accepted as truth the last time their eyes had locked, and she’d left him. She had to apologize and wipe away the tears that had formed in his eyes that day when she’d told him she couldn’t trust him.
The thought made her sick.
What if he didn’t want to see her?
She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t.
“It will be okay,” a light voice reached Corre from below. It was her mother, whose bloodshot eyes were swollen from tears. The sobs kept Corre up half the night. She wondered if the older goddess had slept at all.
She forced a smile and leaned down to kiss her on the forehead. “I know it will be. Don’t worry about me. I was thinking about something else. I’m not worried. I’ll be okay. I promise.” She tried to make her smile convincing, but her mother knew better.
She took her daughter's hands in hers, kissed them, and then patted her on the cheek. “I love you. I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you, too,” Corre said, straightening on the horse and grabbing hold of the reins. “I won’t be gone long. Before you know it, I’ll be back.” She widened her smile, but her mother only nodded somberly.
“We have to go,” another voice said, and Corre turned to Hermes, who was leading the group to the River Styx on his own horse—the fastest and finest on Olympus.
“Okay. Bye, everyone. I’ll be fine.” She waved and smiled at the small group seeing her off, and when she met Phineas’s gaze, she narrowed her eyes and added, “And don’t do anything stupid.”
He rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything. He knew better by now.
Then Hermes let out a ‘Hiya’, and his horse was off, and before Corre could process it, so was she.
The journey to Styx couldn’t have been long, but it felt like an eternity. Corre couldn’t hear anything other than her heart pounding in her ears, and she couldn’t stop thinking about Markus. She feared for his safety, as well as her own. Thanatos might decide to make an example of him in front of her, just for fun. Or maybe the other way around. Or both.
But there were also moments when her heart flitted at the thought of seeing Markus again, even if all they shared was a single glance. She hoped seeing him would heal her of the constant aching she’d felt since she last saw him. That constant pain that ran from her chest into the pit of her stomach, rooted in the fear of not knowing where he was or what he was going through. Or what he thought. How much pain he was in.
Finally, they made it. This time, she let one of the guards of the small group help her off the horse. She was almost too weak to stand, and her hands had turned cold. She stared at the cave’s mouth, her eyes falling and finding the black water. She’d never drifted over any waters in Tartarus. But the one she’d touched that day . . . That blinding, green pool . . .
She nervously gathered her skirt in her hands. Hopefully, this river wasn’t like that one. She knew the journey wouldn’t be joyful regardless, though. She was about to travel the river that escorted the dead to the Underworld. And she was alive.
The hooded ferryman appeared from the tunnel, guiding his boat to the mouth of the river. When he stopped, his shadowed face turned to hers. A chill scuttled down her back. He lifted his arm and revealed a skeletal hand, palm facing up. “Payment?”
Corre blanched. “Um, I don’t—”
“I have it,” Hermes said, handing a peculiar, brassy coin to Charon.
The cloaked figure turned slowly to face her, and despite her inability to see what lay beyond his drooping hood, she made out a smirk. “Come in,” he said, his gravely voice lined with something sadistic.
Corre looked back at the party of four gods and two goddesses on horseback behind her. None of them were faces she recognized, other than Hermes, and that was only because of his fame on Olympus. Maybe Zeus didn’t want her to feel at ease today, because even Athena wasn’t among the appointed group. Punishment for her irresponsibility—for getting herself into this mess in the first place. She wouldn’t put it past him.
Since no one was there to truly see her off, she stepped inside the rickety boat, her stomach flopping at the unsteadiness of the wobbly water beneath her feet. No more words were exchanged, and before she could ready herself for whatever lay ahead, Charon moved the boat forward, and she was swallowed by darkness.
For an agonizing lifetime, it seemed, Corre couldn’t see anything. Her bearings were lost. She sat in her impractical dress, shivering either from fear or the cold rising from the chilly, unpredictable water and feeling the slight waves ebbing from beneath. Only a thin board kept her body from the abyss below. With no way out or light to guide her, she’d inevitably drown, and since she wasn’t mortal, she’d likely drown forever, lost to everyone who knew her. Even to herself.
She swallowed and sat as still as she could, begging her legs to stop shaking. The creaks of the boat were the only sounds other than the sporadic rush of water whenever Charon’s staff pushed them farther along the river. Relief washed through her when a light appeared in the distance. It was small at first, but she watched in anxious anticipation as it grew.
The relief vanished in an instant when she heard the chorus of moaning at the site of that light. The closer they got to it, the harder it was to ignore. Screams, cries, and sorrow so palpable Corre could feel it in her soul. One terrifying element was swapped with another.
The boat glided forward, and the moaning intensified. Her body curled in on itself, her hands pressed tightly against her ears so her eardrums wouldn’t burst, but even so, she couldn’t stop the aching. As the sounds grew unbearable, they were bathed in that light, leaving the tunnel behind.
For the briefest moment, Corre looked up, straitening her back to see where they were.
Big mistake.
The moaning turned to fierce growls and snaps as the souls leapt at her from the water. They were everywhere. Illuminated and bright, but the thing of nightmares. She could see right through their gaunt faces, but their transparent mouths were deformed and falling apart, their bony hands much like Charon’s, but twisted and bent in unnatural ways. One crooked hand grazed her back, singeing it with something white-hot, but she managed to scoot to the middle of the boat before it pulled her in.
As her back hit the other side of the small boat, another hand grabbed hold of her wrist. When she shrieked, Charon turned around and slapped the soul’s hand from her skin. Its withered spirit melted away, but even after she was safely back in the middle of the boat, she could feel its clammy grasp on her skin, seeping into her bones.
She rubbed the spot over and over, trying to erase the eerie sensation, but a new chorus of moaning erupted. She looked up and saw an enormous field of souls that looked just like the ones in the river, but these ones were walking aimlessly on a wide patch of dead grass. As they got closer, Corre’s eyes started to burn. The air was putrid, smelling of sulfur and burnt hair, and there was a feeling of death in the air. The jarring absence of life was so tangible that it soaked Corre in a blanket of melancholy until her stinging eyes gushed with tears.
Charon continued sailing them along as if nothing was amiss.
She was still crying when the noises ceased, and they glided into an empty grotto.
Then, finally, they docked.
The boat bobbed as the ferryman guided it onto the land. His long, spindly body stood at the bow. It seemed like he was going to speak when, instead, he stilled. His body almost twitched before he spoke to whoever was standing opposite him on the shore. “Where is General Nikias?”
“He got tied up with something,” the voice said and, instantly, Corre recognized it. She suppressed a gasp and waited behind the hooded being.
“Do I know you?” Charon crowed.
“Of course,” the man said, somehow both gruffly and nonchalantly. “I live here. I work here. I’m sure you’ve seen me.”
“I was instructed to stay with the girl until the general arrived.”
“Things change sometimes, and I was commanded to retrieve her instead.”
The hooded figure was still for another moment, standing there without saying another word, until he finally turned around and faced the goddess at his feet. Pointing to the shore, he said, “Go with this man to the general. Do not wander.”
Corre nodded swiftly and stood to see her escort. Her heart soared at the face of the familiar old man—the familiar mortal man. The one who’d helped her when she snuck down here over three months ago. She never thought she’d be so happy to see this scruffy man again, but as he took her hand and helped her out of the water, she beamed. Because something wasn’t right, but in the best way. It took all she had in her not to smile and give the old man away.
She turned to Charon and said, in her best fake-somber, faux, meek voice, “Thank you, sir.” The figure let out a groan and pushed his boat back into the water, leaving the way he’d come.
“Follow me, miss,” the old man said authoritatively, and Corre did as she was told. She didn’t dare utter a word until she knew they were safe, and since she wouldn’t know when that’d be, she waited for the old man to speak first.
But the silence between them lengthened, and as they walked deeper into the tunnels of Tartarus, her stomach turned. What was once relief at the prospect of being rescued was now uneasy uncertainty. Maybe she’d gotten the wrong idea. She had no idea who this man was. For all she knew, he worked for Thanatos.
But . . .
She thought back on their conversation all those weeks ago.
“Thanatos is a monster. He should have never been given the throne. Even as a placeholder. Zeus just agreed to the Titans’ demands. He didn’t care.”
The man didn’t seem to like Thanatos, and what he’d said lined up with what her mother told her about that night her birth mother died. She studied the back of the man’s head as she followed him. He’d helped her before. He had to be helping her now. But they were getting deeper into the heart of the Underworld, and still, he said nothing. Something was wrong.
Without thinking, Corre blurted out, “Who are you? Where are you taking me?” She didn’t mean for the words to come out so loudly. She suppressed a yelp, lips curling inward, wincing at the words now echoing across the cavern. The man froze, and Corre studied the gray hairs on the back of his head.
There was something familiar about this man. The way he stood. The way he spoke. It wasn’t from when she’d met him. It was like she’d seen him in another life.
He turned around and, with a stern expression, looked her in the eyes and lowered his voice. “You listen to me. Keep quiet and remember everything I say. You hear me?”
She stared at the man in shock, still trying to place where she’d seen him. “Who are you?”
His stern expression didn’t change, but he took a moment before responding. “My name is Thomas. I’m Markus’s father. And I finally know how he can take down Thanatos.”