“What is the meaning of this?” Cassius asked, his confusion plain.
“You cannot feel it?” Kierson asked sadly.
“Feel what?”
“The connection. She is one of us. She is PC.”
“Impossible,” he whispered, bringing his hands up to clutch my shoulders. He closed his eyes, willing himself to feel what he would have felt so easily in life. Then his arms fell heavily to his sides, a look of dejection marring his expression.
“What he says is true,” I concurred. “I am what he says I am.”
“But there are no females born of him.”
“Khara is the exception,” Kierson told him, a note of pride in his voice. “She is the exception to many, many things.”
“She must be, to still be alive,” Cassius said tightly, undoubtedly knowing the rumors that the others long believed to be true as well. “Who is her mother?”
“Celia.”
Cassius’ eyes widened dramatically at the mention of that name.
“So she’s—”
“Yes.”
“Does Sean—”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit, Kierson.”
“I know, right? It’s a total mindfuck.”
By the time the two had finished sorting out the implications of my being born of Celia, the rest of the crowd had tightened around us, engulfing us with their curious stares. When Kierson noticed this, his body became rigid and he pulled me closer to him. He was protecting me from some threat I did not sense.
“He cannot find out about her,” Kierson said, his voice stronger and more authoritative than usual.
Cassius looked at the brothers surrounding us; his eyes bored into theirs. He then nodded to the group once, held his right hand over his heart, and looked back to Kierson.
“On our honor.”
Kierson mimicked the hand gesture and inclined his head.
“Good.”
I realized that his sudden change in mood came solely from the fear that he had just exposed both me and my secret to over one hundred of our brothers. His childlike excitement had gotten the better of his judgment, as it so often did. But there was little for him to fear. There was no one for the fallen PC to share that information with who had ties to the world above and the ability to freely go there. With the exception of Deimos and Aery, the inhabitants of the Underworld were as cut off as the dead were, with little to no ability to expose me and my secret, even if they had desired to.
“You have little to fear, brother,” I said softly to him.
“Ugh,” he replied with a roll of his eyes. “You and the no-fear thing again. You’re like a broken record, Khara.”
“Your argument does not negate my point,” I countered. “Besides, I am hardly without the ability to defend myself now.”
“True,” he acknowledged grudgingly. “There is that—not that you have a fucking clue how to do whatever it is you can to protect yourself yet.” He smiled brightly, his relaxed nature easily sliding back into place. “And I’d suggest keeping your newly acquired powers—whatever they are exactly—to yourself down here for a few reasons, not the least of which is me not wanting to be on the receiving end of them.”
“You wouldn’t be,” I replied flatly. “Not intentionally, of course.”
The twinkle in his eyes returned.
“Of course not.”
A cold hand on my shoulder snapped my attention to the dead warrior behind me. He looked young. Far too young to have served a brotherhood wrought with violence. To the human eye, he would have appeared only a teenager.
“I’m Thomas,” he said shyly.
“Khara,” I said in return.
What then followed could best be described as a mass introduction to my brothers that had fallen. Some recently. Some centuries ago. But all had one thing in common: They were all sent to the Underworld. It gave me little hope that any of my brothers would ascend. That thought plagued me. They deserved better than that—even Casey. My home was acceptable to live in if one’s soul was not bound to it. To be eternally damned, however, was a different matter entirely.
It seemed like hours had passed by the time our brothers dispersed, heading back to their eternal home. Though it was not rare to see souls from the Elysian Fields roam about when permitted to, it was strange to see so many of them out at once. In my experience, it was unprecedented. While I considered that, Kierson collapsed into a chair across from me at one of the countless wooden tables in the eating area. He no longer looked as though he wished to eat.
“So this is it? This is how my fallen brothers spend the rest of their existence?” he muttered under his breath, holding his head in his hands as though he lacked the strength in his neck to support it. “It does not seem right.”
“Now that I know you and know what you and your brothers do, I must agree. I think that you should be better rewarded for doing the job you have been charged with.” My words did little to console him; the creases of worry remained etched deeply around his eyes. “At least you do not have to fear for them, Kierson,” I said softly, taking his hand in mine as he had done with me so many times. It was not for my benefit, but his. Contact seemed the best way to soothe my sensitive brother. “They are not tormented as you might expect. I think I may have done a poor job of illustrating just how complicated the Underworld and its many layers can be.”
“So, they’re okay? They’re treated well?”
“Those that we saw here today, yes. Though I imagine there are others who met far less enviable fates.”
“How does it all work, then? How do you know where you’ll go? Where I’ll go?”
“You,” I said commandingly, “will go nowhere because you are far too strong to be taken down. As for the brothers I have not yet met above, they will likely go where the other noble warriors we met today went: to the Elysian Fields. It is a relatively pleasant place compared to all others here. I can take you there if you’d like to go. Perhaps there are even more fallen brothers there whom you might know. Others that you would like to see.”
“I would like that,” he replied, lifting his head up to smile weakly at me. “But if they don’t go there . . . ?” Worry furrowed his brow; his countenance betrayed his unease with the subject.
“Then they are relegated to realms for the far less savory of souls.” I did my best to deliver my words delicately, but there was no gentle way to tell someone that their brothers in blood and arms may be bound to an existence of great torture and pain.
“Can I go there?”
I shook my head no.
“It is not a place for you, Kierson. I know that you are a fearsome warrior in your own right, but I also know that your emotions run deep. Seeing someone you know there would wound you in a place that could not heal. I will not subject you to such a fate.” His expression fell. “Perhaps there are particular individuals you suspect to have gone there. I can check for you if you like. I can travel to virtually all of those realms freely and without personal consequence. I bear no ties to those that suffer there. For you, I would do this.”
“Thank you,” he replied, reaching across the table to lightly squeeze my hand. Then he leaned across the table awkwardly, pulling me toward him to kiss my cheek. He pressed his forehead against mine after he did. “I would feel better knowing where my brothers are. Having been here . . . seen all of this. The uncertainty is starting to wear me down.”
“I knew it would,” I said somberly. “I wish you had not come. This is a place far better suited for Pierson or Casey. I fear Drew would not have accepted my home well, either.”
“You should have seen how torn up he was about not being able to come here, Khara. He was so distraught about your disappearance.”
“I will do my best to make it up to him when I see him again,” I assured Kierson. I thought about my time above and realized how heavy my heart had become in the absence of my brothers. “I miss him. I miss you all.”
“Then come home,” Kie
rson whispered in a soft plea. “Check on my brothers, get Casey, and let’s go. There’s nothing for you here. This place is death, Khara.”
“There is everything for me here, Kierson,” I countered, pulling away from him. “There are secrets here that I must learn—and that I can learn. All save the ones that Demeter holds dear; I doubt that she will ever be forthcoming with me, whether she is able to do so or not. So I must stay until I learn them.”
“If you think Demeter has answers, then why can’t we go to her? Start there?” he continued, his concern once again etching lines in his boyish face. “I will make her talk.”
“The Underworld is both the path of least resistance and a land of plentiful resources. There are many here who potentially know things about my past. More than I had originally thought. I will do all I can to learn what they have long kept secret. Then I will leave.”
“Did you ask Hades about this?”
“It was difficult, but yes.”
“Then who is next?”
“Persephone.”
“Right! You said that,” he replied, shaking his head a bit as if to jump-start his memory. His lack of food was affecting his cognitive functions. “Great! Then let’s go find her, make her tell you what you want to know, and leave.”
“Your plan could work, but you seem to be overlooking one small but crucial detail, Kierson. We cannot leave on our own.”
“Fine. We’ll get that crazy nymph chick to take us out.”
“Aery is a fickle thing. She may or may not do this. Not unless Hades orders it.”
“Then we’ll get Oz to—” He did not finish his sentence, the reality of what he was about to suggest sinking in too quickly to allow the words to escape him. Even Kierson, in all his optimism, could not keep the incredulity from his tone. He knew that beseeching Oz for anything was an ominous task at best. Dark One or otherwise, Oz was hardly the accommodating sort. “Okay. I see your point. But isn’t there someone else that could?”
“Yes, though you will enjoy that option even less.”
“Ugh,” he groaned. “I forgot about Deimos.”
“A dangerous oversight indeed, brother.”
“Yeah. I kinda gathered that back in Detroit.”
Frustration overtook his countenance, and he abruptly stood to pace the room, thinking of a way to rescue me from the home I did not yet want to leave.
“When the time comes, we will find a way,” I told him, hoping to ease his worry. “If it would please you, I could see if Aery would take you back now. She likes you. I think for you she will make an exception . . . though it may cost you.”
“I’m not leaving you here!” he shouted, wheeling around to glare at me.
“Then let us go find Persephone. Perhaps we can learn from her what I came to the Underworld to ascertain. If not, surely she will know from whom I can obtain the information I seek.”
“And then we can go home?”
“Possibly.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said with a wan smile.
I rose to join him, and we headed for the corridor to the Great Hall. Kierson fell into step beside me, flanking me protectively. I wondered if it would be wise to tell him that I was not the one that needed protection in the Underworld, but then I thought better of it. That knowledge would have changed nothing for him.
“You said it would cost me if Aery took me back,” he recalled while we strode down one of the narrow and winding channels that cut through the rock of the Underworld. “What did you mean by that?”
“I meant you would have to pay her whatever she wanted in return for escorting you out.”
“Any idea what that would be?” he probed.
“Yes.”
“Care to share?”
I felt the increasingly familiar tug at the corners of my mouth when I thought of what the nymph would seek as compensation for her efforts.
“Just know that it is something you would be more than happy to give her, Kierson.” He looked down to find me smiling wryly as we turned the corner, nearing my father’s quarters. “Something you are more than happy to give many women . . .”
“Ooooooh,” he drawled, before laughing to himself. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Hell, I’ll pay for all of our rides out of here, no pun intended.”
“You are a thoughtful one, brother.”
“What can I say?” he replied with a shrug. “I’m a giver.”
“And Aery is a taker. Perhaps you two are a match made in heaven, as they say.”
“Maybe. We’ll have to see about that.”
As I continued on, I soon realized that Kierson was no longer with me. When I turned to see where he had gone, I found him standing motionless in the center of the hallway, a blank expression on his face.
“Kierson?” I called, turning back to approach him warily. Something was very wrong with him, though I could not tell exactly what. He said nothing, his eyes remaining fixed on something in the distance that did not exist. At least not in our realm.
“Kierson, please. What is happening?”
“Drew.” It was his only response.
“What about him? What do you see?”
He paused for a moment.
“Blood.” His voice was barely a whisper.
Then his piercing death cry rang through the corridor; echoes of it bounced endlessly off the stony surroundings. It was only seconds before we were engulfed by Father and his men.
“What is the meaning of this outburst?” Hades demanded, accosting Kierson.
“Father, please,” I said softly, placing my hand on his arm. His dark eyes fell on mine, confusion and anger tightly packed into his glare. “Kierson, is Drew all right?”
His head dropped in dejection, avoiding my gaze as well as my question. When I stepped closer to him, he took me roughly into his arms, burying his face in my shoulder.
“No.”
“Is he—”
“Yes,” he bit out, his admission muffled. “He was ambushed. Pierson arrived too late.”
“But,” I started to argue, not willing to accept the truth in Kierson’s words, “Pierson sees things before they happen. Perhaps there is still time.”
“No. Not this time.”
“How do you know?”
“Because that scream was not my own. The banshee cry signals the death of someone important.” His words ran through me like ice down my spine, and I shivered involuntarily as he spoke. My brother had been lost, and all because those that had so often been there to aid him were down in the Underworld trying to bring me back. In my selfish quest for answers, I had failed Drew. I had failed them all.
Panic. That is what I felt when my mind finally accepted Kierson’s words.
“Father,” I called beseechingly. “Is this true?”
He closed his eyes for a moment as though he was reaching through his mind to the fields that spanned far and wide below the Earth’s surface in search of my fallen brother. When his eyes shot open again, they instantly fell on mine. Sadness abounded within them.
“My princess . . .”
His words were both an apology and an affirmation.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
“Khara,” he began, his tone patronizing. I would have none of it.
“I will search every realm until I find him myself if you do not disclose his location.”
With a heavy sigh, Hades conceded.
“He will be in the Elysian Fields, as he should be. He was one of the PC’s most noble warriors. I will see that he is treated as such.”
Without a word, I started off in that direction, running faster than I had known my legs to be capable of. In my frenzied state, I did not notice any pain when my wings shot forth. But shoot forth they did. Narrow though the hall was, they spread wide, rubbing against the stone walls that surrounded me. They should have been a burden, but, inexplicably, they were not.
Kierson’s shouts faded behind me while I sprinted for the fields that now housed
my brother. In truth, it housed many of them. But he was the only one I needed to see. For whatever reason, I had to see him with my own eyes to fully accept his passing.
I also had to see if there was a way to get him out.
9
When I arrived, it took me a moment to retract my wings into a manageable position behind me. It was a pause I should not have taken. Just as I went to step through the thin veil that separated me from the Elysian Fields, a voice near me caused me to falter.
“He will not know you,” Oz said frankly. His breath was hot on my ear, and it caused me to shudder. “You must remember that when you see him.”
“I do not require your escort in this.”
“I am aware of that,” he said snidely. “But have it you shall. Like it or not.”
“Infuriating,” I muttered under my breath, pushing through the membranous border. His response was muted by it.
Once on the other side, I realized the magnitude of the task I had embarked upon. Hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of men and women occupied this particular realm of the Underworld. If Oz was correct and Drew would not recognize me, I stood little chance of finding him.
“It’s as if you don’t know the advantage of having those things,” Oz groused, gesturing to the mottled-gray wings folded behind my back. In a grand show, he snapped his own out wide, creating a gust of wind that blew my hair back wildly. His obsidian wings were an awesome sight indeed. “Care to join me? In the interest of saving time, of course.”
“In the interest of saving time,” I agreed, focusing to unfurl my wings and take flight. It still required effort to connect with that side of my nature—that portion of my DNA. “How will we find him, even with an aerial advantage?”
He shot me a backward glance.
“Let’s hope we get lucky.”
With that, he leapt forth into the eternal dawn of the Elysian sky, and I followed his lead, soaring just above the valley of souls. We covered miles upon miles without catching sight of my fallen brother. Hours passed. My body tired. And still, we could not find Drew.
“There are too many,” I called to Oz as I pulled up to flank him on his right. “Our search is in vain.”
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