Heart of Stone

by Kelly Keaton

  I wouldn’t be surprised if that was Ares himself.

  Beyond the statues, I found a break in the wall and got my bearings. The temple sat in a grove of trees near the corner of the main lawn. Quickly, I darted across the edge of the lawn and used the trees as cover to make my way down to the lake. At the shoreline, the rocks and trees gave me cover until the deep woods and the ruins of Athena’s temple came into view. From there, I oriented myself to the west, using my father’s directions to guide me away from the lake and into the hills.

  Despite popular belief, Olympus did not sit on the very top of the mountain. Rather, it had claimed a high plateau with fields, the lake, woods, and the hills that led one farther up the mountain.

  My father had said I’d know Mel’s temple when I saw it. Not much to go on, but my guess was a small temple that would be different than the others I’d seen on the mountain, some feature that showed her light and dark nature.

  The woods had grown thick, making the travel slow. I’d gone at least a mile or two and hadn’t come upon a path or road, though I did see a few temples here and there. None of which suggested they might be home to Melinoe.

  A stick snapped nearby.

  I froze, staring through the maze of trees, the hairs on my arms rising. Someone was following me. Before I could decide my next move, a whistling sound pierced the air and an arrow whizzed in front of my face, sinking into a nearby tree.

  Damn.

  Heart in my throat I dove for the nearest tree. A flash of black caught my eye, but with the sudden rain of arrows, my attention was focused on staying alive. I had to see where the archer was, but every time I ducked out for a look, an arrow drove me farther into the woods.

  Like it was herding me.

  Screw that. I began to circle around in the direction I’d been forced. An arrow flew inches from my head.

  I lurched aside and collided with a small, black clad something that immediately burst into a cloud of black mist and then wrapped itself around my body, encasing me in gorgeous black armor.

  “Violet!” I yelped in surprise.

  But there was no time to deal with her now. I ducked behind a tree and leaned back against it, catching my breath as silence descended in the woods.

  It was a weird feeling, knowing she was there, knowing that I carried her and any second, she'd take the brunt of an attack.

  I made a recon of my surroundings and didn’t see anything approaching or hiding in the trees around us or above us. There was a high ridge through the trees. If I could make it there, I could possibly get a look at the archer.

  Deep breath in and then I ran like hell, the armor incredibly light.

  The ridge was steep and covered in thin trees and rocks. My thighs and calves burned as I scrambled up the incline. When I made it to the top, I dove over, spun around, and belly crawled to the edge to see what might have followed.

  Nothing.

  I waited, barely able to breathe, staying there until my sweat turned cold. Nothing moved. Nothing came. If the archer wanted me dead, he’d had the time. Still, I waited another twenty minutes before relaxing.

  “Violet. Front and center.”

  Like a cold sheet of silk sliding off my skin, Violet removed herself. Her form gathered in front of me, a dark cloud that solidified into the little girl I knew. She gazed up at me defiantly with those round eyes as she righted her Mardi Gras mask.

  “You’re not sorry at all, are you?” I ran a hand over my face. I couldn’t exactly turn back now, not with Robin Hood out there somewhere. Damn it. She had put me into a very bad position.

  Her small pink lips thinned. “You wouldn't have let me come otherwise.”

  “You lied to me, and you lied to my father.” She must’ve hidden in the house and gone through the gate after my father left. “Come on, there’s another ridge over there. We might be able to get a better look at things from there.”

  We slid down the steep ridge, picked our way over a rocky gully and stream, then began the climb to the next ridge.

  “What if Mel’s not there at the temple?” she asked.

  “Then we make our presence known.”

  “You think she remembers me?”

  “I’m sure.” I helped her over a fallen log, still in disbelief that she’d come after me, still angry and wanting to shake some caution and sense into her.

  For a while we climbed in silence. But eventually, my ire deflated. Violet was making good on her promise to protect me. She’d done what she thought was right. While it was completely over the top, it was hard to fault her. It wasn't like she’d grown up being sheltered by parents and adults. Violet had grown up in the bayou, mostly caring for herself, doing what she wanted. She had no concept of turning her life and decisions over to others.

  “You liked her, huh?” I asked.

  “Who, Mel?”

  I nodded. Violet had met Mel in our old home in the GD. I wasn’t sure what had fascinated Violet the most: The fact that Mel’s skin was two different shades or that she had the ability to send souls to the afterlife or crush them to dust in her fist.

  Violet seemed equally impressed by both.

  “She was okay. Different. Like me.”

  Cresting the ridge, I saw the woods below gave way to a small clearing surrounding a small temple. “I think that’s it.”

  And I was pretty sure the archer had driven us here. There was no other explanation for the arrows that had guided me through the woods.

  “Take my hand.”

  Once Vi’s hand was in mine, we slid down the other side of the ridge.

  SEVENTEEN

  MEL’S TEMPLE WAS SMALL, tiny compared to the others on the mountain, faced with four columns and lined six columns deep. It sat in the small clearing, protected by the woods. The stone was white marble with gray striations. Hestia would’ve had a fit at weathered, dirty marble. The grounds were unkempt, sticks, leaves, branches littering the ground.

  “Should I shield you?” Violet asked as we stopped at the edge of the woods.

  “Mel is not our enemy,” I said. “But just in case, yeah. Once we’re inside and check things out, we’ll part. Sound good?”

  With a nod of agreement, she dispersed into a dark cloud and shielded my body in her kick-ass black armor.

  I took a moment to listen and scan the area before rushing to the temple steps, up the five long stairs to the massive doors. The hinges gave a loud creak as I pulled one side open just enough to slide through, then pushed the door closed behind me.

  The air was cold and stale. It was dark, the only light coming from the center atrium beyond the main hall. Mel’s temple was more abandoned and forgotten than Ares’ temple had been.

  I headed for the light, hoping the inner sanctum behind the atrium showed some sign that Mel still called this place home. The atrium was open to the sky, surrounded by high marble walls. An overhanging roof projected out by a foot, protecting the marble and the strange murals that had been painted on opposite walls. In the center of the atrium where it was open to the sky, a small fountain trickled water into a pond filled with small white and blue flowers.

  The murals were strikingly different. One was dark with a scene of a stark, barren landscape with a black sky and fields of corpses standing like stalks of corn. The fields seem to go on for miles, disappearing into a mountain range of blackness and fire. The opposite wall was all light and life. Blue sky, meadow, bright white sun...

  The disturbing thing about each of the murals was the figure that didn’t belong. A being of light stood watch over the field of corpses, and a being of darkness stood in the meadow of wildflowers, gazing off at the blue sky.

  A shiver went up my spine, along with a sense of sadness. This was Mel’s life. A being of two worlds, not belonging to any, never a whole part of one or the other.

  Leaving the atrium, I entered the goddess’s inner sanctum. An old couch sat to one side, anchoring a worn rug and two comfy leather chairs. A huge fire pit held center
stage in the room. From the looks of it, a fire hadn’t been burned there in a while.

  The sanctum resembled a studio apartment. One area was a living room, one was a bedroom, one held some kind of altar table.

  Mel wasn’t here and I wasn’t sure, from the looks of things, she was ever coming back. “You can come out now,” I told Violet.

  Violet reappeared and then scanned the room, adjusting her mask before going to investigate the atrium. She paused at the passage, eyes fixed on one of the murals. No doubt, she understood Mel, related to her in a way that not very many people did or ever had.

  “Do you think she likes being different?” Violet asked me with a glance over her shoulder.

  The question surprised me. “I don’t know.” I thought of the times I had seen Mel and interacted with her. She’d appeared comfortable in her own skin, but, then, looks could be deceiving. People could smile and work a room like they didn’t have a care in the world while inside they were dying.

  “Let’s look around, see if we can find anything personal, anything that we could use to bring her here.”

  Not that I found anything useful. It was bare bones. Even the altar and the niche in the wall behind it was empty.

  Invading Mel’s private space gave me a highly uncomfortable vibe. It was a major no-no in the land of the gods to do such a thing. No one dared.

  But all I had to do was think of Archer...

  As I moved through the open space, stopping to examine a few insignificant items, I had to wonder if Mel was ever really welcome in Olympus. The gods of the Underworld, from what I knew, weren’t exactly tight with those who made their home on the mountain.

  Mel and those like her didn’t receive love and devotion from the faithful. They got fear and respect. Never love. And with her light side, I had to wonder if she felt an extreme need for that love, since it was an innate part of her as well.

  I sat down on the couch, leaning down to rub at a sore spot on my shin where I’d hit a rock scrambling over the ridge. Violet sat on the rim of the fire pit, took off her shoe and dumped out a few small pebbles.

  My body relaxed into the cushion. A yawn rising from my chest. I closed my eyes, hoping for some inspiration on what to do next.

  I never should’ve closed my eyes.

  As soon as I did, I was thrust straight into a nightmare.

  A foul, hot wind blasted my face. Small particles of dust hit my eyes before I could close them, stinging like a dozen burning needles. I spun away from the wind, rubbing my eyes. When I opened them again, my vision was watery, but slowly the scene became all too clear.

  I was on a barren black road. In front of me were fields of swaying corpses. Their bodies, spectral shells of their former selves, swayed in agony, hands reaching, begging for a release that would never come. Fear slammed into me, tunneling down deep and grabbing my soul in a tight fist.

  Hell. I was in hell.

  A figure weaved through the field, an ethereal image with long hair split in the middle, one side white, the other side black as night. The split continued right down her forehead, her entire body split by two colors. Light and darkness. Only her eyes were the same, a ghostly gray shot with blue.

  Melinoe. Daughter of Persephone and Hades.

  Her steps were unhurried. She wore a silver gown studded with gleaming jewels, the ends of which were made of spirits, sheer ghostly forms that floated out behind her to form an ever-moving train.

  I swallowed the lump of panic in my throat.

  I’d never seen Mel like this, not in all her Underworld soul-crushing glory.

  She cast a knowing glance my way

  I started toward her, but my feet were stuck as though they’d grown roots in the dry black earth. Gripping my leg, I jerked, using all my strength, but only succeeded in losing my balance and falling to the ground. Stark, vivid images came to me then of my future stuck there on the ground. Starving, dying, my body drying, shriveling away into a waif-like flag that waved in the harsh wind. But, worse, were the emotions. The fear. The regret. The despair.

  Suddenly the images were gone. My great sigh of relief was cut off by a hand around my throat. “You dare defile my temple.”

  Mel leaned over me, her eyes cold and brittle.

  “It was the only way to find you,” I forced out.

  She shoved me back. My feet were free of the dead earth, thank God. I regarded her with a mixture of apprehension and hope, slowly pushing to my feet. “Is this a dream or am I really here?”

  “A dream. Nightmares are one of my specialties,” she informed me, emotionless, as she gazed out over the field, tilting her head to something moving through the field. “See.”

  Oh no.

  The strength left my legs. I sank to my knees, shocked and gasping, unable to find my breath, unable to look away from the horrific vision--the ethereal corpse of my mother swaying through the field. Her skin was sunken; her eyes nothing but empty black sockets, her white hair stringy and full of thin white snakes. Raw misery tore through my chest and petrified my body. She was calling out, looking for something, but she had no tongue in which to speak, but I could see the name clearly on her shriveled lips.

  Ari. Ari. Ari.

  “Stop,” I begged, choking on tears. “This is cruel. Just stop. I don’t want to see this.” Then a terrifying thought occurred to me, worse than what I was seeing. “Is this where she rests?” I cried. “Is this her afterlife?” This everlasting agony.

  The vision faded. “No. It is merely your nightmare. One of them anyway.” I curled into myself, shaken and overwhelmed.

  How could she do that to me? How could she do that to anyone? My fists clenched. I lifted my head and glared at her.

  “Do not think to take me in my own realm, gorgon,” she warned, sensing my anger.

  “I’m not a gorgon.”

  “Perhaps not, but you have the power of one. Stand up,” she said. “Shake it off, it was just a dream.”

  That only made me glare at her even more.

  She moved away and stared over the field, her train flaring out behind her, the ghostly shades in a never-ending dance around their master.

  I pushed to my feet, weak and strung-out by the nightmarish bitch-slap Mel had given me. I received her message loud and clear. She had a cruel side and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  Duly noted.

  “Look, Mel... Archer is here in the Underworld.” She twisted her body and gave me a disbelieving look. “Thanatos put Apollo in a coma and took Archer.”

  “And you know this how?”

  I proceeded to tell her everything that had happened.

  “Lamia,” Mel breathed. “That is a surprise. Are you certain she named Thanatos?”

  “Yes. Can you take me to him?”

  A laugh burst from her pale lips. “Very few people have ever asked to face Death. It is a rare request.”

  “He has Archer,” I said simply in answer.

  She returned her attention to the fields. After a long moment, she said, “I will take you there. But I want something in return.”

  Of course she did.

  “I want the Blade of Cronus.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  She frowned at my sarcasm. “You wouldn’t have. After I take you to Thanatos, I want you to find it and deliver it to me. That is my condition.”

  “Aim high why you don’t,” I said. “The Blade of Cronus. You’re asking the impossible.”

  “Hardly.”

  I was pretty sure this blade was right up there with Zeus’ thunderbolt and Poseidon’s triton. “Sounds like a shot in the dark. I thought you liked Archer.”

  “I do. He is . . . an interesting child, much like your Violet. I don’t wish him ill.”

  “You have the power right now to help him.” My fists clenched. “But you won’t do it without a price, will you?” Sometimes I hated the gods. I really did.

  “Why would I do that? The blade is attainable. I have seen you do things no
one thought possible. You have a need. I have a need. It’s a simple matter.”

  I laughed. “Right. Look, even if I could get you what you want . . . you think it’d hand something like that over without knowing what it does or what you plan to do with it? I won’t trade world destruction for your tour guide services. I’d rather find another way.”

  I started to walk past her. She spun in my direction, her train of specters flaring out and snapping in front of me, their faint moans carrying on the wind. “I won’t even consider helping you unless you spill right now. I’ll find my own way.”

  As she weighed my words, I knew she didn’t have to tell me jack. And I’d be no closer to Archer than I was right now. But then she wouldn’t get her hands on the blade either.

  She faced me and drew in a breath. “My quest for the blade is not driven by power or the destruction of my kind or yours. It is purely self interest. I need it for another reason.” A flash of pain came into her eyes. “To fix that which is in conflict inside of me.”

  “You want to be whole.”

  She gave a curt nod, her chin proud and stubborn. “Imagine a war that erupted within you the moment you were conceived, the moment you took your first breath. Like them,” she gestured to the field of corpses, “it is ever-present, ever-lasting, ever-consuming. They could have saved me,” she continued, “my parents, could have eased my suffering and made me whole.”

  “Why didn’t they?”

  “Neither one wanted to relinquish their . . . contribution to my make-up.”

  So they’d let their own child suffer. I would never understand how callous and selfish the gods could be at times.

  “The blade will erase the darkness from you.”

  “Yes. It is a . . . dark weapon...”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you can’t exactly do your job here in the Underworld if you’re a creature of light.” Besides being the goddess of nightmares, Mel also dealt judgment to souls.

  “Once I am whole, I will give up my role and appoint another to take my place.”

  A shiver went through me because who in their right mind would be okay with the job Mel had? “You’d force another?”