Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  We would make it.

  We were so close. I could feel the outside. I could sense the clean air from beyond this awful place. It floated over my skin like a summer breeze.

  I wanted to weep tears of relief.

  Just a few more steps and we would be free of this place. And we would never come here again. We would find a new way back. No matter how long it took or what we had to do.

  I would scale the mountain before I ever stepped foot in here again.

  The moonlight infiltrated the darkness and landed on the path in front of us. Three more steps and we would reach it.

  We were so close.

  The moonlight disappeared beneath a huge shadow. I would have cried out if I could make any sound.

  “Leaving so soon?” Crete’s cold, sleazy voice boomed through the cavern, directed at us.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out. If Ryder’s pinky hadn’t squeezed mine so tightly, I would have toppled over.

  This was the Underworld. And Hades was king.

  Somehow Ryder and I had wandered straight to the gates of hell and Hades had come to greet us.

  “That won’t work here,” Hades chided me. “I’m afraid powers are restricted once you cross the threshold. Could you imagine if this place fell into the wrong hands?” His sick amusement twisted my insides. I remembered what happened to Evaleen when she had spent time with him last year. He hadn’t even taken her virginity before she lost herself in agony and despair.

  Images of her unseeing eyes and catatonic state made me shiver.

  “I have to say,” Crete continued. “I’m pleased to see you here. You’ve simplified so much.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I grabbed at my throat with my free hand, desperate to get my voice to work. My face turned red and my eyes bulged as I tried to force sound from my mouth. If I could just sing... If I could just use these stupid powers at my disposal…

  My other hand still clutched Ryder’s and I refused to break that contact between us. I wouldn’t let Crete take him. I refused to let him suffer here for the rest of eternity.

  Crete sneered at us. His soulless eyes full of greed and possession examined me unflinchingly. He watched me struggle to speak with a sadistic amusement that churned my stomach. I wanted to be sick; I wanted to purge myself of this icky feeling that infected my entire body.

  “Betraying Nix already?” Ryder rasped. It sounded like it was an effort for him to speak too. Not because the ability had been stripped from him, but because it was hard for him to focus his thoughts and turn them into words. His mind was half lost to this place already.

  My heart clenched and frustrated tears pricked at my eyes. Crete reluctantly tore his attention from me to Ryder. I could see the utter distaste Crete felt for him. Hades did not want to possess Orpheus.

  Hades wanted to murder him.

  “You wandered into my realm, Musician. You basically gift-wrapped her for me. Poseidon will understand.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes. Sure he would.

  Nix was well known for his understanding nature.

  Ha!

  Ryder turned his head to the side and took in the ugly creatures lining up to watch the show. Centaurs, Ogres, Harpies, Dragons, giant carnivorous animals and all kinds of nightmarish monsters that would tear us limb from limb if we stepped within their reach.

  Ryder’s voice was stronger when he spoke again. He sounded clearer, more awake. “What do you want with her here?” Ryder demanded. “What can she do for you but rot and fade?”

  Crete’s thin lips curled into a smile. “You think this is where I want to spend eternity?” His hand swept to the side. “You think I want to be trapped down here with these vile creatures? I deserve more than the dead for patronage. I deserve the souls of the living too. I deserve Olympus.”

  “You would take the mountain?” Ryder stepped forward, pulling me with him.

  “I would storm the mountain,” Crete grinned.

  “And this is your army?” Ryder looked at the monstrous crowd again and his whole body jerked with disgust.

  Crete canted his head to the side and looked at me again. There was a calculating gleam to his careful expression, but there was also more. There was ambition there. There was a hunger so deep and permanent I thought he must be rotting from the inside out from it. I understood his empty eyes now. He was an empty husk too. His Underworld had scraped away whatever soul he started with and left him a mindless vessel that would do anything to breathe fresh air again.

  If Medusa was filled with murderous rage, then Hades was consumed with it. If Persephone had succumbed to madness, then Hades had drowned in it a long time ago. These creatures had been here a long time, but Hades had lived here the longest. They were still in the beginning stages of what this realm would do to them, Hades had long since submerged himself in every horror the Underworld offered.

  “It could be,” he explained. His army bristled beyond the path. A ripple of anticipation washed over them and sent fear tearing through me. Hades smiled at me and said, “With the right persuasion.”

  Oh, my god. He wanted me to control these… these things? He wanted me for this?

  No.

  I would never unleash these things on the world. Not even Olympus.

  They belonged here. With him.

  I wasn’t sure if they had any humanity to begin with, let alone after centuries trapped in this place. They would destroy Olympus without hesitation, but that would never be enough for them. The Underworld had fed off their fear and pain for who knew how long. They were empty and desperate. And they would turn that hunger on the rest of the world.

  Hades wouldn’t stop until he dominated every last living thing on this planet.

  Nothing could make me give him what he wanted.

  But if he captured me now? If he took me against my will and trapped me down here?

  I thought back to Persephone. Would I really have a choice? What if he sucked out my soul and left me an empty shell?

  He could use my powers and I wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop him.

  “No,” the word was the barest whisper on my lips.

  Not even Ryder heard me. But it was something.

  Ryder wrapped his free hand around my waist and pulled me tight against his back. “You will not touch her,” he growled at Hades.

  Hades’ grin became deranged. “And who is going to stop me? You?” His sharp crack of laughter punctuated his point. “I am a god!” he roared. “What are you?”

  Ryder’s shoulders jutted back, readying his body for the fight. “I am Orpheus,” he declared. “And you are only the first god I will kill today.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath while time simultaneously slowed down and sped up. Ryder’s hand pulled from mine. My arm was left dangling straight out in front of me while I grasped for his fingertips in horror.

  Crete met him halfway. They crashed together on the narrow path, lightning shooting from their fingertips and ricocheting off the cavern walls.

  Screams erupted from the dead watching. They shrieked ugly words and terrifying wagers. They wanted a body. They wanted blood.

  It was everything I could do to keep my eyes open and watch the battle between a god and the man that I loved. Hot tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.

  I refused to believe that Ryder didn’t have a chance.

  Power vibrated through the cave. It pressed down on my skin and vacuumed the air from my lungs. I wanted to scream out for Ryder to be careful. I wanted to sing and force them all under my authority so I could give him half a chance, but I couldn’t move.

  And I couldn’t speak.

  Crete hit Ryder with a blast of lightning to his chest. Ryder flew backwards catching himself just before he landed on me. His toes scraped across the loose gravel, miraculously keeping his body from falling backward.

  He landed on his heels and then launched himself at Crete, shooting lightning from hi
s fingertips as if he had been able to do that his entire life. Bolt after bolt left his hands in rapid succession, barely giving Crete a chance to block or protect his own body.

  Crete’s face flashed with surprise before the promise of victory slammed down on him. He believed he would win. He believed there was no other outcome than Ryder’s dead body and my unwilling, but eternal servitude.

  A low flash of power hit Ryder in the thigh and he stumbled to the right. His toes skidded off the path, shooting up gravel and dirt. He pulled back just as a mammoth Centaur swiped the air with a battle ax and narrowly missed Ryder’s leg.

  My mouth opened in a hysterical scream but nothing came out. The Centaur had been standing to the side a second ago, but the moment Ryder’s body crossed the line, the Centaur had been there. He missed Ryder by a millisecond.

  I wanted to weep.

  All it would take was one more misstep and they would have Ryder. I realized then that Hades didn’t even have to kill him. All he had to do was get Ryder over the line. His army of dead monsters would do the rest for him.

  I looked down to see that I had sunk to my knees and hadn’t even realized it. I moved to stand up, when Ryder threw his hand behind me and a bubble of something thick and unrelenting landed on top of me.

  A shield.

  It was the same thing he had thrown to protect me against Nix last fall. I was safe behind Ryder’s protection.

  I just didn’t know if I wanted to be.

  I could help him if he would let me out of here. I tentatively touched the force field and reared back when a hot jolt of electricity zapped through me. My bones vibrated from the strength of it.

  What the hell, Ryder? Let me out!

  Please!

  He couldn’t hear me, obviously.

  Crete hit him on the shoulder with a knife of electricity. The blade of light tore at Ryder’s exposed skin, cutting a huge gash over his collar bone and down to the center of his chest.

  Ryder retaliated with a bolt of his own, just in time to keep Crete from plunging the lightning into Ryder’s chest.

  Ryder’s lightning hit Crete dead center in the torso, pushing him back several steps. Crete wobbled off balance. His dirtied toga flapped over the line of the path. The subtle whip of clothing screamed through the cavern. The Centaur from before flashed to where Crete stood, slicing his ax through the air.

  Crete pulled back just in time. The ax cut through the fabric, but Crete was safe.

  The Centaur didn’t retreat back to his place this time. Instead, he stood at the edge of the path, watching Crete with the kind of greed and insatiable hunger Hades watched me with.

  Interesting.

  Was it possible that Crete had to stay on this path too? Was the Underworld as dangerous to him as it was to anyone else?

  I turned to look at the crowd of nightmarish creatures, a sight I had been terrified of until a second ago. They watched the fight with open-mouthed voracity. Their dull eyes danced with something like hope.

  I hadn’t been able to look at them, too afraid that thirst was for me or for Ryder.

  But now I saw it for what it was. They wanted Hades. They wanted to rip him apart and drink his blood.

  They wanted to end their suffering as badly as anyone would in their situation.

  Ryder realized this too. His attack became more thoughtful as he stopped trying to kill Crete. Instead, he tried to push him over the line.

  It would only take a second. One second of his feet falling over the path’s edge for something to grab him.

  If I had my voice I could compel him to step over the line, but the Underworld had taken it from me as if it had anticipated that.

  It probably had.

  Ryder lunged forward and put his hands on Crete, wrapping them around his throat. Crete didn’t hesitate to do the same to Ryder. They stumbled and fell against each other, both desperate to end the other.

  Ryder’s foot came down and slammed onto Crete’s knee. Crete buckled beneath him and let out an agonized shout. It only took him a second to recover though.

  Crete was bigger than Ryder. He was bigger than the human version of himself I had come to recognize. Crete had personified himself as the god he was and his larger body and bulking muscle dwarfed Ryder.

  Hades grew as I watched him. His eyes darkened into black holes of depravity. His teeth lengthened until they looked like fangs dripping from his mouth. His skin cracked and split and his fingers became crushing boulders held against Ryder’s throat.

  Ryder looked like a doll in Crete’s hands. Hades shook him like a boneless puppet, strangling the life from him. Ryder’s face reddened with the effort to breath and I stopped breathing with him.

  I pounded against my force field. Electricity zapped my skin and jarred my bones, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks as I watched the life drain from Ryder’s face.

  His eyes fluttered as he struggled to keep them open. His arms lost their hold on Crete’s bulging neck and hung limply at his side. He fought to look at me and I blinked quickly so I could see him through my curtain of tears.

  He mouthed something that I couldn’t understand in my grief. Then his eyes fluttered closed and he collapsed against Crete’s body.

  Hades stood up straight, still holding Ryder’s body in his crushing grip. He looked at the body in his hands and a slow smile slid over his mouth. His soulless eyes danced with victory and something like the evil-version of joy wrapped around his entire body.

  “You sent him to stop me?” he bellowed at me. “This human? This weak, pathetic human?” Crete tossed his head back and barked out laughter. “You are mine now, Siren. Mine. And this,” he threw out one of his large hands, “is your new home.”

  With horror like I had never known, I watched Crete toss Ryder’s body toward the salivating crowd waiting for flesh.

  An agonized sound ripped from my throat, burning and cutting as it fell from my lips. I wanted to turn away, but I couldn’t. I had to watch this until the last moment. Until I joined Ryder on the other side and we both succumbed to the mindless emptiness that would destroy us.

  Ryder’s back arched as he crossed over the invisible line that separated the Underworld from the path. His fingers reached out and grabbed Crete’s wrist at the very last moment.

  Hades hadn’t been expecting Ryder to still be alive, let alone capable of any kind of strength. I watched confusion contort Crete’s features. Absolute fear gripped the god of the Underworld as Ryder’s surprising strength pulled Hades with him over the line.

  The Centaur was there waiting for Ryder. The entire crowd had moved forward, hungry for him. But the moment Crete’s body crossed the line with flailing arms and screaming lips, Ryder was forgotten.

  Ryder’s back hit the dirt ground and nobody spared him a second glance. They were all too busy pulling Hades over the last of the barrier.

  Ryder’s chest heaved with the effort to breathe on that side of the line. I could hear Crete’s ungodly screams echoing around the cavern, but I only had eyes for Ryder.

  The light immediately dimmed from his eyes and his skin paled in seconds. This place was already sucking the life out of him and he had only been dead for a minute.

  My heart split in two as I watched him lie there. He struggled to come to terms with where he was and what had happened. His fingers clutched at the dirt beneath him in an effort to hold onto something real and tangible.

  His terrified eyes met mine and stared at me with horror. The force field around me slowly disappeared, taking my heart with it. I hated that he’d locked me away so I couldn’t help him, but I would have done anything to have it there again. I would have done anything to have Ryder back again.

  A silent, choked sob ripped from my chest. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and tried to breathe. It was getting harder and harder. I couldn’t get oxygen into my lungs. I couldn’t do anything but suffocate from this pain.

  I tried to hold h
is gaze. I tried to silently beg him to stay with me, to hold on to everything that we were and everything that we could have been.

  Don’t leave me, I begged him with my eyes. Please, don’t leave me like this!

  The sound of flesh being ripped from bone and agonized screams echoed in the background, but nothing could penetrate my sorrow. I had lost Ryder.

  On a stupid whim to save my mother, I had lost Ryder.

  Oh, god. What had I done?

  Something interrupted my view of Ryder and it took a few seconds for me to figure out what it was. A body had stepped in front of me so I couldn’t see him anymore. She stood right at the edge of the path, the only thing separating us was the border between the living and the dead.

  The veil. I recognized it now for what it was. The veil between life and death. Between the real world and the Underworld.

  I strained to peer around her before I realized she wanted me to look at her. I didn’t know how I knew this, but I did.

  Slowly I settled my desperation and lifted my eyes to meet Persephone’s crazed eyes. Her cracked, bloodied lips were tipped in a smile. Her wild hair frizzed around her face and fell into her black eyes. A giggle of deranged laughter bubbled out of her. It sounded like nails scraping on a chalkboard.

  “You have delivered us,” she rasped. Medusa stood just behind her, but I held Persephone’s gaze, knowing that if I looked at Medusa I would die.

  I could smell her rotting breath from here and nearly gagged. “Not me,” I managed to mouth.

  She looked over her shoulder contemplatively. Ryder’s shoulders had relaxed into the dirt. I wondered if he would lie there for the rest of eternity.

  Would he know to stand up again? Would the creatures move onto him after they were finished with Hades?

  “You love him?” she asked. There was something in her tone that made me hesitant to answer.

  But I couldn’t deny the truth. I wanted to scream at her that I did. I wanted to shout that I loved him with everything that I was and that I would do anything to trade places with him. He didn’t deserve this. But without a voice, all I could do was nod. It felt so inadequate; it felt like a lie because the gesture couldn’t begin to explain the depth of my feelings for him.