by Eva Brandt
Fortunately, even Charon needed to breathe, so I took advantage of a moment when he stopped his furious monologue to step in. “I can understand your frustration and if we can help, we’ll happily do it. I have some pull in The Voievodat. As a rule, we do not import sacred olive wood, but I’m sure we can figure something out. And if that doesn’t work for you, we could pay our fare just like everybody else and cover your costs.”
Much to my surprise, Charon burst into laughter. “Oh, I like you, little dhampir. Fine. Get on the gods-be-damned barge. We’ll discuss pricing when you try to get out.”
I exchanged a look with my friends. Making such an open-ended deal, and with Charon, no less, was a bad idea. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much choice. We got on the barge in silence, hoping this wouldn’t be a horrible mistake.
The Styx was not what we had expected when we’d come here. Considering all the fuss everybody made about the famous rivers of the dead, I had imagined it would perhaps glow with the internal essence of all the souls that had passed it. I’d seen that happen often in some lakes and rivers in my homeland.
Instead, the Styx was silent and still as the grave, its surface as dark as tar, or perhaps, a burial ground. It was appropriate, but a little bland.
As the barge traveled over the dark waters, Charon grinned at me, displaying several missing teeth and a forked tongue. “I bet you feel right at home, don’t you?” he asked.
“Well, yes and no,” I replied. “Usually, our waterways contain the ghosts of drowning victims, so there’s always something to see. This is a little... anticlimactic, really.”
The right word for it would have been underwhelming, but I was trying to be tactful. It worked because Charon didn’t seem to mind my comment. “It is, isn’t? It’s such an uninteresting view too. On slow days, I get so bored. There’s nothing to see down here. I’m really not paid enough for this nonsense.”
“But there aren’t a lot of slow days, are there?” Adrian pointed out. “People die all the time.”
“You’d be surprised. A lot of mortals pick other underworlds as their afterlife resting places. At this rate, the gods will begin new wars just so we can keep Hades in business.”
Well, that was an interesting piece of information. I wondered if we could use it in some way. Probably not. Otherwise, Charon would have never told us. His loyalty was and would always be with this realm, and we were intruders in the underworld.
The conversation faded into an awkward silence broken only by the sound of Charon’s paddle against the waters. I wanted to offer to help him since he appeared to be moving as slowly as possible. Sadly, he was more likely to throw me out of his barge than he was to accept my thoughtful suggestion, so I kept my mouth shut and waited.
I was very grateful when, what seemed like an eternity later, we finally reached the dark shores of Hades. Everything was quiet on this second dock, and I could spot no other souls or guards lingering about. Even so, as soon as we jumped off the barge and our feet made contact with the ground, we felt the difference in the environmental magic. A pulse of power shot through us, and almost instantly, I felt heavier, as if someone had strapped weights around my ankles.
I had never realized how much the Grand Lich’s spell had helped me until it was gone.
“Well, shit,” Baltasar said. “I guess it would’ve been too much to hope it would be smooth sailing from here.”
“Sailing is never smooth in any realm of the dead,” Charon replied. “I’d have thought you of all people would realize that.”
He pushed away from the shore and nodded in goodbye. “Good luck finding your soulmate, young souls. I do hope that you’ll at least make our near future a little less slow.”
I might have found that comment—and its similarity to our mindset—amusing if not for the far more important word he uttered. Soulmate. Oh, shit. Of course. It was the only possible explanation. How had we not realized it before?
As a rule, outsiders believed that vampires weren’t capable of having soulmates. It was, naturally, a misconception, since the only requirement for having a soulmate was being the proud owner of a soul. Most undead—those who weren’t merely animated corpses, at least—all had that.
Regardless of this theoretical ability, vampires found their soulmates very rarely. Even my parents, who loved one another so much, weren’t soulmates. It just... didn’t happen.
I still felt like an idiot. My friends and I should have noticed the connection, should have realized the truth about what we shared with Eranthe.
“Well, I feel pretty dumb right now,” Baltasar said, echoing my thoughts. “How did we miss this?”
“I don’t know, but it’s more than a simple mistake,” Adrian whispered. “This could be bad.”
I frowned at my friend, wondering what could have possibly determined him to say such a thing. “Bad? What do you mean?”
“In Tír na nÓg, it is said that when someone is trapped in an underworld—whatever underworld that might be—his or her soulmate will end up in the same place. Souls that are created for one another are naturally drawn together. And while that isn’t normally a bad thing, we’re undead. If we don’t get out of Hades...”
He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Baltasar did it in his stead. “She’ll be trapped here as well.”
A horrible suspicion stirred inside me as I took in the implications of their words. If Charon had known about this, Fufluns and Hades must have, as well. That could only mean one thing.
“We were lured here. We were lured here to tame her and trap her.”
I didn’t know to what extent Eranthe’s friends had been involved in the scheme, but their intentions no longer mattered. The truth was staring at us in the face and we could not deny it.
Adrian nodded. “They probably couldn’t bring us here against our will because of the Grand Lich’s enchantment, but now... Now, we don’t have that anymore.”
The knowledge that we’d played right into the hands of our foes burned me, but we had made our choice and turning back because of the consequences was not an option. “Nothing’s really changed. We always knew it would be difficult to get out. We can still do it.”
My friends agreed with me. Together, we pushed past our apprehension and readied ourselves to continue on our journey. We could already see a path snake away from the dock, leading deeper into Hades and toward the woman we now knew was our soulmate.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get very far. We’d barely managed to leave the docks when a sudden pulse of magic swept over us, sending us falling to our knees. An image of Eranthe popped into my head, crystalline and vivid, cutting me like the edges of a sharp diamond. I saw her smile as she knelt in front of a glowing river. I saw her body light up as she took a sip of the water. I heard her voice in my head, so clear and beautiful.
“I believe in you. I will always remember.”
The anchor we had cast on her lit up brighter than the sun, and just like that, I knew what I needed to do. Eranthe had given us all the answers. Now, we just had to take this quest to its natural conclusion.
Eleven
Reunion
Eranthe
Forgetting was a funny thing. It wasn’t like pain, sorrow, loss, or fear. Forgetting was dangerous, because three-quarters of the time, people did not realize they’d forgotten anything in the first place. Pain could be overcome with willpower or medicine. Sorrow could slowly fade if countered by time and the affection of others. But forgetting was a battle you did not realize you were fighting at all, and more often than not, ended up losing by default.
I had known this very well when I’d decided to drink from the river that robbed the dead of their memories. But I had also known that some types of magic were simply more powerful than others, and it was for that exact reason that the river could not beat me.
I felt the Lethe’s insidious power try to sneak into my mind, and I made no attempt to bat it away. Instead, I embraced it, pulled it in, absorbed it
, and showed it what I was, what was in my heart and what I truly wanted.
Even in Hades, there were things beyond the control of its current king. This was a realm of souls, and as such, its powers amplified the bond between soulmates. It was exactly what my would-be captors had relied on when they’d brought me here, and it would have worked if not for the help my vampires had unknowingly given me.
The enchantment of the Lethe made contact with the threads of power my soulmates had left behind. Every single inch of me seemed to burst into flame, only this time, it wasn’t an elemental power like I had used to push back the centaurs.
This fire was different. It held the same purifying quality my father’s abilities possessed, but it worked on a different level, one not even a sun god could reach. I felt it wash over me, cleansing me of the chains Fufluns and his ilk had tried to trap me in. The withered parts of my psyche bloomed back to life, and my magic returned to its full potency.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, I could see my vampires, kneeling on the ground in front of what looked like another waterway of the dead. They were indeed here, just like the centaurs had said they would be. I would not allow them to be enslaved because of their decision to help me.
When I opened my eyes and got up, I had never felt stronger. I had never felt more secure in my own skills and in the rightness of my actions. I knew where I needed to go and what to do. It might be only a temporary side-effect, but the Lethe had granted me access to the power of this realm. I would use it to gain my freedom and that of my soulmates.
I looked at Orthrus, who was still standing there, staring at me with panicked eyes. “See? I told you I was resourceful.”
“But...” one head started.
“I don’t understand,” the second finished.
“You should have forgotten about...”
“Your true self. You shouldn’t be like...”
“This. How is this...”
“Possible?”
Apparently, Orthrus was really incoherent when he was surprised. I found the display both satisfying and endearing. “Let’s not get back to that,” I told him. “I don’t have time to discuss something we’ve already talked about. Thank you for your help, Orthrus, and goodbye.”
When I summoned my magic, a pleasant spring breeze responded to my commands, sweeping me away from Orthrus and from The Islands of the Blessed. I left the centaurs behind and flew over the rest of Elysium, heading in the direction of the Styx. The geography of Hades was a complete unknown to me, but all I had to do was follow my close link to my soulmates.
Much too soon, my journey was interrupted. I first felt the interference when a surge of power tugged at my midsection, trying to drag me down from the air. “Fufluns!” I heard a male voice shout. “Don’t be so rude. Remember the rules.”
I followed the sound to its source, and my eyes fell on three figures standing beneath me, in the shade of an olive tree. As expected, Fufluns was there, accompanied by two other people, a woman and a man.
The man—who had obviously been the one to reprimand my kidnapper—stepped away from his companions and waved up at me. “Eranthe! Down here.”
I should have probably been more surprised at his behavior, but at this point, I knew very well that gods did whatever they pleased, even if everyone else rightfully deemed it foolish or insane. Considering the most likely identity of the man who had addressed me, I decided it would be in my best interest to approach this tactfully and accept the potential invite for a peaceful resolution to the situation.
As soon as I landed, the stranger welcomed me with a smile and a hug. The embrace took me by surprise far more than waking up in The Islands of the Blessed had. Mercifully, he released me before I had to push him away myself. “It’s so wonderful to see you, Eranthe,” he said. “Welcome to Hades. I’ve heard so much about you from Helios. He talks about you and your sisters all the time.”
“Does he?” I asked. “I can’t imagine he has that much to say.”
The man let out a low chuckle. “On the contrary, he never stops. I think it’s mostly because he’s among the few gods who is on good terms with his spouse. But, anyway, that is beside the point. Forgive me. I seem to have forgotten my manners. Let me introduce myself. I am Hades, king of... well, Hades.”
I’d already guessed that due to his rather unique look. His eyes alone were a dead giveaway, burning like fiery coals despite his kind demeanor. Also, I suspected no one but the king of the underworld could pull off that particular combination between skull-decorated body armor and something that looked alarmingly like sleep pants.
“Hello, Your Majesty,” I replied, trying not to stare too blatantly at the three-headed dog pattern on his clothes. “I appreciate the welcome and the greeting, although I admit I would have preferred my visit to be under different circumstances.”
Hades grimaced, and the dogs on his sleep pants echoed his mildly displeased expression. “Yes, I can see why you would say that. I’m afraid it was a regrettable necessity.” Before I could address that, he perked up and offered me a wide smile. “I have to say, though, that I’m impressed. I didn’t expect you to use the Lethe of all things. Wonderful, absolutely wonderful.”
I shot him a look of disbelief. “You’re impressed? I broke out of your little prison and sent your guard dog away.”
The reply came out far ruder than I had wanted it to, but in the end, it didn’t matter. Hades waved a hand, dismissing my words with a huff. “Technically, Orthrus isn’t my guard dog.” He winked at me and pointed at the Cerberus decorating his pants. “Cerby is. And besides, believe it or not, you’re doing me a favor.”
My exasperation and shock must have been pretty obvious, because he leaned in closer to me and elaborated, “Persephone and I had a bet going on, you see. If I lost, I’d leave the throne of Hades to you and Fufluns and we’d move to her mother’s. If I won, we would stay here without her making her regular trips.”
I twitched in irritation. “I assume this means you believed I would escape.” And he had used me so that he could keep his wife by his side all year round, not just half. Wonderful.
“Yes, of course. There was never a doubt in my mind that you were perfectly capable of making your way out, no matter how hard we might have tried to keep you.”
I appreciated the vote of confidence, but I would have appreciated it even more if it hadn’t meant that he’d thought kidnapping me was a good idea. Then again, this was a bit of a pattern for him, so perhaps it wasn’t that shocking.
Considering the direction the conversation had taken, it also didn’t surprise me that his wife finally decided to intervene. “She hasn’t escaped yet, Hades. She might have left The Islands of the Blessed, but that doesn’t mean anything. Her vampire soulmates are here, just like I said, which means she’s going to have to stay as well.”
I arched a brow at her, doing my best to not let my temper flare again. I could understand where she was coming from better than anyone, as she had not asked to be stolen from her realm and brought here by the king of the underworld. However, I was not selfless enough to take her place, and I didn’t appreciate her dismissive behavior either. “Oh? What makes you so certain? I do believe you might be underestimating both me and my soulmates.”
A flicker of uncertainty flashed over Persephone’s face. It quickly faded away, hidden under a sneer of self-satisfaction. “Please. What could you possibly do now?”
I could do plenty, and I was very tempted to show her just that, preferably in a way that would slap that smug look off her face. Fufluns stepped in before I could do something Persephone would regret far more than I would.
“Dearest Eranthe, you have to see this is for the best,” he said. “There is no reason why you cannot be perfectly happy here, with me. I do not even mind sharing you with your undead. I might find them distasteful, but I can understand why the Cosmic Tree decreed that you are supposed to complete them. Their natures are imperfect, and it is our duty to guide t
hem into being better. Nevertheless, you cannot set aside your own happiness because of their inferiority.”
Was he joking? I really hoped he was joking, because I’d never heard anyone sprout a dumber series of sentences in my life. If he really believed his own rhetoric, my estimation of the general level of intelligence among deities would decrease even further.
“I appreciate your concern,” I replied, “but I don’t really need it. My relationship with my vampires has nothing to do with you. And even if it did, I don’t see how you forcing me to be the queen of Hades is supposed to help me.”
“I’ve told you before, Eranthe. Here you’d have all the support you were denied on the surface. Everyone would love and appreciate you.”
“I already have plenty of people who love and appreciate me. I’m not going to leave them just because you think they are inadequate.”
Fufluns didn’t give up so easily. “Eranthe—”
“Stop,” I cut him off. “Don’t call me that. I didn’t give you permission. I will leave this realm, and you will not get in my way.”
He didn’t take my rejection well. Perhaps he was finally realizing that I wasn’t going to miraculously change my mind and accept his marriage offer. “I bound your powers when we were in your own realm, in Tis Ánoixis. What makes you think that you can beat me here?”
“Things change every day. As a deity of growth, you should know that.”
I had been stupid when I’d failed to see what was right in front of my nose. I suspected it might have been a huge part of the reason why Fufluns had found me so vulnerable, to begin with. I’d gotten my wakeup call now, and I would not make the same mistakes again.
“Besides,” I added with a smile, “I’m not the only one you have to worry about. You have three pissed off vampires to reckon with, remember?”
“And you think that makes a difference, Eranthe? Surely, you must be joking.”
“What a coincidence. I could say the same about your opinion about my choices in life.”
