It was a cold thought, but I found myself wondering why he didn't. Surely as the King of the Underworld he had that ability, if he cared so damn much about her why didn't he trade places with someone like her. She didn't deserve this kind of end. She had such a long life ahead of her. My thoughts rolled away with themselves and I snapped myself back to reality. This wasn't Griffin's fault.
Actually, it was Savannah who reaffirmed it.
But Griffin didn't believe her, "You don't know that. You weren't there."
"No, I wasn't. But I learned recently you would've never done something to deliberately hurt her. She told me, and she believed that strongly. Whatever you think happened, is your mind spinning your guilt. But you shouldn't let it win. It wasn't your fault and none of us here think it was your fault."
I wondered if he saw the change that had occurred amongst us in the few days since the takeover had happened. I would've never imagined a week ago Savannah would be defending Griffin from himself. But Valentina had that kind of effect on us. She was good and pure, she showed us what kind of person we all wanted to be. Despite being wronged so many times by this man who had given her all of his heart without telling her, she had forgiven him again and again. It was a lesson maybe Savannah had learned from her.
But the realization made my heart ache more.
"She didn't deserve a death like that."
"She shouldn't have died in the first place. Asher must've done something, it makes no sense why she died when she was immortal. Asher is the only one among us that knows the magic better than we do, almost as well as Atlas. He did something, I'm sure of it."
Everyone around us shifted uncomfortably as the memorial had shifted from a group event to something far more deep and personal for Griffin. But they were enraptured, like I was, maybe waiting for Griffin's train wreck to crash and burn or maybe they wanted to understand. Whatever it was, no one had the courtesy to walk away and give him the space he clearly needed. I was about to move them when Griffin spoke again.
"I have an idea." We all watched him move to his throne, lower himself and I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. Who was he going to summon? What use would that prove to have. He answered my question with a single name turned my blood cold, "Soren-" He didn't know his last name.
"Rogers." I spoke and we made eye contact. I didn't know what he hoped to get out of this, but maybe the human side of Coeus would be more helpful than his power-hungry Titan had ever been. I nodded, encouraging Griffin to go on.
"Soren Rogers, I summon you to the throne room." By now everyone was watching this unfold, desperate to see what was going to happen. But Soren didn't come, at least not like my mother had. I glanced at the door, expecting a knock at any moment. Griffin lost his temper, bellowing, "Soren!" His voice shook the hall we stood in, the stalagmites shaking and small rocks from the wall coming loose. The nervous energy around me grew as everyone waited with baited breath.
To my left Zane withdrew his sword, tensing ready for the fight. It came, three short knocks. Everyone turned to see. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a couple people conjure their own magic in case there was more than Soren beyond door. I couldn't fault them for being on edge.
Griffin gave the all-clear and Zane approached the door cautiously, he didn't hesitate as he pulled the door open and brandished his sword so the person beyond knew the weight of the situation. Beyond it was Soren looking as alive as he had been in life. There was nothing that might distinguish him from the Titan who had overpowered the mortal, he looked the same as ever.
"Enter," Griffin commanded and Zane stepped back enough to allow Soren to squeeze through the threshold and beyond Zane's muscular form. He looked nervous, and for good reason too.
"Hi... Everyone."
Chapter 6
Unadulterated rage coursed through me as he sauntered into the room, looking sheepish. He wasn't allowed to feel guilt, he wasn't supposed to be able to trick me into pitying him. To Zeus and myself, it didn't matter that his mortal self was nothing but a pawn in Asher's bigger game. Victim to the whims of his power-hungry Titan.
No, he wasn't allowed to feel bad for what he had done. If he had been stronger, if he wasn't weak-willed, none of this would've happened and I would not allow myself to feel sorry for him.
No one moved as he moved further into the room, his eyes glancing around as he took everyone in. No one moved. No one breathed as they watched him. Perhaps it was out of fear that if they were to move first, Griffin would mislay his grief and anger on them instead of on Valentina's murderer. For this was him - was it not?
I didn't know the whole story and I knew Griffin would never be able to tell an unbiased tale of her demise but I sensed Griffin wouldn't have brought this man here if he hadn't played an integral role in her death.
His eyes finally found Valentina, laid out on the sarcophagus like a decaying statue. He couldn't bear the sight of her as he looked away, anywhere but there.
"I suppose you're going to-"
"No." Griffin's voice was surprisingly firm, commanding. It was the voice of a king. The King of the Underworld. "I'm not here to cast judgment on you. I have half a mind to leave you wandering for the rest of your existence because you don't deserve the reprieve of knowing your judgment has been cast."
I wasn't savvy on the affairs of the dead but I could only guess leaving him to wander for the rest of his existence may be a harsher punishment than that of sending him to Tartarus. Soren winced accordingly and nodded his head as if he was accepting of his lot.
"I'm sorr-"
"Do not talk unless directly asked a question. Do you understand?" Once more Griffin's voice was firm and commanding, leaving no room for argument. Myself, as God of all the Gods, I felt myself awe under his power here within his domain.
Soren nodded, his eyes dropping back to the floor as he avoided any more eye contact with Griffin. Where had this man been for the last two months? This was someone I could've sided with, someone I would've happily stood next to and defended beside all the other Gods. Instead he had let someone else, someone more cowardly, take his place.
"Good. How did you kill Valentina?" I flinched at the words. Knowing them and hearing them proved to have two different effects. My eyes sought out Valentina's murderer once more as I stared at him, trying to figure out why he could've ever killed the one true and wholly good person among us. What sort of scum did you have to be to kill someone who would've never defended herself for fear of hurting her assailant?
"It wasn't me, it hasn't been me for a while."
There he went with his attempt to make us pity him again. A few people in the crowd shifted and I saw many eyes glance away as they softened with sorrow.
But Griffin felt the same as me, "I don't care about your conscience, or your attempts to absolve yourself from what you did. I want to know how you killed her."
He said it again and the pang clenched my stomach as well as my heart this time. My hands drew themselves into fists. Morbid curiosity wanted to know how he had done it as well, if only to protect Savannah from any future attacks. But at the same time, I didn't think I could handle hearing the specifics of how Valentina died.
The man in front of me might already be dead but I couldn't be held accountable for any reaction I may have to his tale.
"It's a little more complicated than that." My feet moved without my brain, stepping closer to Griffin. Savannah seemed to have moved as well, either at the same time or before me but she was the one who wasn't taking his avoidance passively.
"Start from the beginning." She was snappish and cold. Her Queen must've been hovering nearer to the surface than usual. I, myself, was shaking with barely controlled rage. People were still watching. They were still watching me for their leads, to know what to do. I had to control him but he was aching inside. The pain in my chest was both my own and his. I had lost a friend but he had lost a daughter.
There was no way of bringing her back, not her soul or her body. Tha
t much I could glean from the horror that filled Zeus' mind. Something like this had never happened under his watch before. I had failed him as a vessel.
"Okay, alright." Soren remained unsteady and nervous as he stood before us, "Well, Atlas came to get me while I was at work."
"Past this, to the point when Coeus took over."
"Yeah, okay, well Coeus was always there. He was this voice in the back of my head. Sort've like Jiminy Cricket, you know? He would tell me to do things and other times, tell me not to do something. I thought it was like my conscience and never thought much of it. Until he started asking me to do things I didn't think were morally correct. When I didn't do it, he stepped in and did it himself. I think that was the point when he realised he didn't need me as a middle man; he was perfectly capable of doing it all himself without my help. He came more and more frequently, until it was at the point where I couldn't send myself back into control. I had to succumb to him. I was stuck in my own head, watching my hands do things I would've never consented to do. I could hear everything they were planning and I couldn't stop it."
He still refused to admit his part in what happened to Valentina. He spoke generically, avoiding the specifics. I opened my mouth prepared to say something and demand the truth from him when Griffin spoke again.
"If you feel bad about what you did, now is your chance to set things right. Tell us everything you know about Asher."
"Asher is... old. He's been around since the 1600s or something. I think that was the first time Atlas released the souls into the world, and during that time Zeus impregnated a lady. Asher was born in the lap of luxury. He was never denied anything, but by the time he was sixteen, he realised it wasn't because of who his "parents" were that made people's wills bend to him. He had this uncanny ability to make people do what he wanted by telling them to do it. It was the Zeus-affect. The Godliness inside of him people recognised and innately answered to. Atlas came to him when he was twenty and told him about his real father, telling him he would be able to live for a long time, but he wasn't immortal. To become immortal, he had to kill his own father, contain his father's immortality and he would be able to live forever."
This... was all my fault. Well, not my fault but my God's fault. All of it. Valentina, the usurping, the war, the destruction on Earth. If I had managed to keep it in my pants the one time I needed to, none of this would've ever come to pass. I felt cold and numbed with the painful realization of this truth.
Savannah and Hera were right, if I could be an honest man for once, half the troubles that found their way to me would've never existed.
As though sensing where my thoughts were taking me my Queen reached out, curling her dainty fingers around my broad wrist and holding it tightly. Like she could ground me to this moment and keep me here.
"Is that what this is all about?" I blinked, trying to understand her question while I continued to work through the things Soren had said. His words came back to me, the more important ones... To become immortal, he had to kill his own father, contain his father's immortality and he would be able to live forever.
Asher was after me. Not anyone else in this room. Just me. He wanted to kill me, claim my immortality and live to rule as the God of the Universe over Gods and Men.
But he was still mortal himself. I could kill him first - couldn't I?
"Yeah, but he was orchestrating most of everything that was happening. When the souls were released - this time around - he worked with Atlas to find the Titans. He leveraged his ability to persuade Atlas to work with him by convincing him he was going to restore the Titans to their rightful power and he'd never have to bow to Zeus again. A millennium of servitude, I suppose, got to him. Atlas helped him find all the Titans before we came to Olympus. He gave us all missions before we met any of you. To us humans, we didn't understand what we were being told, but the Titans inside of us understood the severity of what we needed to do. But Coeus didn't want the Titans back in power. He wanted to be King of the Titans - a role he believed he was entitled to over his brother, Cronos. It was only further cemented when you killed Lincoln. To Coeus, that was Cronos' fault, he wasn't strong enough to lead the strongest race in the pantheon. He convinced himself that if he played along with Asher, he would be able to claim his throne once he was done doing the Demi-God's bidding. But it became more than ruling the other Titans. He wanted to rule the humans too, he wanted to prove to them - and maybe himself - that the Titans were the rightful Gods that should be worshiped and loved. He wanted temples built in his honor, people throwing themselves at his feet. It wasn't about power, it was about glory. He wanted the world to worship him, even the other Titans. But the more Asher saw him slipping away from the original plan-"
"What is the original plan? You're stalling."
"Asher's plan was to infiltrate you, get you to trust and like him, while the Titans played the bad guy. But Coeus lost control, he led us to do things that blew Asher's cover. Like taking Valentina, that wasn't a part of the plan. But Crius was starting to worry once he had done everything Asher asked him to, Asher would have no use for him anymore and would take his powers. It was Asher who taught us how to take powers from the others, you see."
"How long was Asher on Olympus?"
"From the beginning. I let him in on the first day I moved in. He lived in the shadows, watching us all, figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses were. No one noticed him, no one would. He made himself invisible to us. Only Atlas knew he was there, because Atlas had sheltered him in his office."
All this was good and well. We knew now for sure Atlas wasn't on our side, Asher knew more about us than we did him but there was still one solid fact circling in my head. He was mortal. That's why when I struck him during the battle he had fled. He knew I could kill him.
Savannah and I spoke at the same time, "But the plan, the full plan, what is Asher up to?"
"He ran when I started hitting him with my lightning bolts, they were hurting him."
Soren turned to face me, nodding, "Yes. He's still not fully immortal and that's his greatest weakness. He thought if he took Valentina's immortality from her, it might work, I suppose that's why he ran."
When he couldn't take her immortality and he saw we were winning, the coward had fled. More unbridled anger coursed through me and my fingers flickered with electricity.
"Because Valentina is also of the Zeus bloodline." I didn't need the confirmation but Zeus wanted to hear it. His children were in danger as long as Asher sought his immortality.
"Yes." A crackle echoed around the room, several people jumped and it was only then I realised I had released a small lightning bolt into the ground. I stepped onto the blackened spot to cover it as I looked back at Soren. "He never intended for Earth to turn out like it has, that was... My doing. The Titans resented the humans Zeus created. They're seen as lesser beings and yet our magic is intrinsically tied to their faith. Their power within their non-power."
None of the humans who had been taken captive and left alive in the shambles of the cities Soren had left had done anything. Just like Valentina hadn't done anything. Once more, someone with far too much power for their own small brains had punished the innocent for their own desires.
"Well, with the humans enslaved in the cities, and the monsters given free range, he's going to use them. He knows you're hiding here and he's coming with them. Minotaurs, Centaurs, other creatures that believe they have been wronged by the Gods and want to see their justice done. He's going to use them to kill you and because you can't die in the Underworld, he's going to take your immortality."
That was the plan. Trap us here like sitting ducks and come, ripping from us our powers and our lives.
"You can't die in the Underworld?" Savannah was fixated on this fact, her hand tightening more around my wrist with fear.
Griffin answered her morosely, "No, it's a realm of death, not life. You being here right now means you're essentially dead, but you're not, because I'm allowing you
to be here. If you were to be fatally wounded here, your soul would be trapped in your body but your body would be dead. You're dead, but you're not dead."
"That's complicated."
"That's death," Griffin said softly, looking away from us as his eyes fell to Valentina again. Absently he made his way over to her, looking lost. Savannah followed him, pity flooding her eyes. She wanted to help him, I sensed, but she was at a loss of what she could do.
"We need to kill Asher before he kills us," I distracted her from her thoughts, "and we need to fix Earth before he kills off the human race and there's no faith left for us all to survive." I ran my fingers through my hair, shaking my head in disbelief. All on the back of our grief over losing Valentina.
"We have a lot of work to do." Savannah looked at me and I forced myself to offer her a half smile. Even without powers she was still willing to stand by my side.
"And no time to do it." We both turned to look at Griffin who sank to his knees, bowed over the stone coffin that held his beloved. A sinking feeling filled me with dread. We didn't know how much time we had until Asher came. The only things we had learned was danger was imminent and as always, time worked faster on Earth.
He had more time to come up with a plan to destroy us than we did to come up with a plan to defend ourselves and save the world.
Savannah pried herself from my side and walked over to Griffin, curling an arm over his shoulder like he was a little brother. She whispered something of encouragement in his ear and I forced myself to turn away. They needed me to take control again, I turned to Soren.
"Thank you for your knowledge, you're dismissed." He nodded, his body becoming ghostly once more as he drifted for the door and disappeared beyond. Whether Griffin's threat of leaving him listless for eternity was real or not, we weren't going to worry ourselves over Soren's afterlife when our future was at risk.
All Hail the King: Modern Greek Gods YA/NA Series (Grace of Gods Book 4) Page 5
