Heart

by Higginson, Rachel

  Her dead eyes returned to mine. “I, too, loved once.” Fury radiated from her and her hair lifted from her shoulders as if she had been hit with a gust of wind. “But he took it from me!” she screamed. Her mangled finger pointed to Hades. “He took everything from me to make me his queen! And this is the kingdom I rule? This is the life he gave me after he destroyed the one man I loved?”

  More tears streaked my cheeks, but this time I shared my grief with Persephone. I could relate.

  In so many ways.

  “You have given me justice,” she said in a more level tone. “Justice I never expected to have. For that I shall give you a gift.” With a wave of her hand, she lifted Ryder off the ground and floated him over to the edge of the path.

  My breath caught in my throat and I clenched my hands into fists to keep from reaching for him. I tore my hopeful gaze from his still body and showed my gratitude to Persephone through my watery eyes.

  “Only once will I do this for you,” she warned. “If you wander into my kingdom again, I will not be so gracious.”

  I nodded. I understood. But she had to understand that nothing would bring me back here again. Not anything.

  “Thank you, Siren. You are free from my realm today.” With a flick of her hand Ryder collapsed on the path in front of me.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I forced myself to acknowledge Persephone for a second longer before I rushed to Ryder’s side. Instinct screamed that I should show the Queen of the Underworld respect now that she had assumed complete control, especially while she appeared beyond insane from the trauma of her imprisonment in the Underworld.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave Ryder untouched for a moment longer. I had watched my world, my entire existence, implode and shatter into a million unfixable fragments when he fell over the veil. I had lost everything I had tried to protect and given up everything I was trying to accomplish.

  I had died with him.

  Now he was back. We had been given a second chance and I refused to be separated from him for a moment longer.

  At my feet, he curled into a ball and coughed up blood. His body trembled violently, unable to recover from his brief encounter with the land of the dead. His lungs gasped for breath while his hands tore at his exposed skin and throat.

  My heart squeezed and panic flooded me. I didn’t know what to do or how to help Ryder.

  I felt Persephone’s absence as she threw herself on Hades. Medusa was at her side a moment later. The two females let out battle cries of revenge and attacked whatever was left of the god of the Underworld.

  I didn’t let myself look. I couldn’t handle this place for another second.

  With whatever strength I had left, I pulled at Ryder. Small bits of clarity reached his addled mind and he struggled to help me drag his limp body the rest of the way to freedom. By the time we reached the mouth of the tunnel, we both had to crawl on the ground, escaping inch by slow inch.

  As soon as fresh air covered our bodies, I threw myself on him. I wrapped my arms around his neck and sobbed into his chest. His arms enclosed me weakly as his body adjusted to life, to being alive again.

  We lay like that for a very long time. Gravel and sharp rocks dug into our backs and exposed skin; our cuts and bruises stung and pulsed with pain. But neither of us noticed. It was more important to let our hearts press against each other and beat in tandem than worry about our physical needs or whatever else this mountain had in store for us.

  Stars blinked down at us while we held each other in front of death’s door. The crazed adrenaline that fueled me through that ordeal drained away and exhaustion took over. My heavy eyelids slipped closed and with Ryder’s steady breathing lifting his chest, I gave into the heaviness that pressed down on me.

  I didn’t move again until the sun peaked over the mountain and light danced on my face. I blinked awake slowly at first, realizing how cold and sore I was. When realization of where we were reached my hazy mind, I jerked awake completely.

  We hadn’t moved the entire night. Our bodies had stayed tangled together while we slept off our too-close call.

  I lifted my head and rubbed my eyes until Ryder came into focus. He stirred, stretching at first, and then groaning as the sharp, painful reminders of our struggle twisted in his muscles and bones.

  “We survived?” His eyes bulged wide and his voice croaked from underuse.

  My voice was just as dry and throaty. “Apparently.” I looked around at the jagged cliffs rising on either side of us and then back at the dark cave we had barely survived. We were still in the heart of the mountain. Our path had yet to end and there was no way we would go back the way we came if it meant wandering through the Underworld for a second time. A shiver snaked down my spine and I pointed out the obvious, “This was probably the worst place to spend the night.”

  I slowly sat up and rubbed at my sore neck. My arms, heavy with lack of good blood flow, moved sluggishly while I waited for feeling to return.

  “Or the best,” Ryder mumbled. He sat up too, wincing with the effort. “Seriously, who would look for us here?”

  I craned my neck back to peer at the sky, squeezed between two spiky overhangs. Ryder had a point. With Nix inhabiting Olympus, I couldn’t trust Hermes to keep me safe. There was nothing to keep me protected from Nix now that he found me.

  Not that last night had been easy, and truthfully we nearly hadn’t survived, but it had been Nix free. So bonus points to the Underworld.

  Plus, Hades was out of our hair for the foreseeable future.

  He was out of everyone’s hair for the foreseeable future. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of consequences his death would cause.

  I shuddered, remembering how brutally Hades had met his demise. Was it truly the end for him? Was it possible for him to survive something so gruesome?

  As far as I knew, the only way a god could be killed was by another god or the god-killer, a deadly, ancient sword my mother once possessed.

  Persephone had been the only one able to end Crete’s life. Had she? Or had she damned him to suffer the same eternal emptiness he had forced on her?

  I looked over at Ryder and felt the pressure release from my lungs. He was alive. He was still with me.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered in a rush of emotion.

  His head cocked back in surprise. “For what?”

  Tears wet my lashes as they slipped down my cheeks. “For leaving you. I’m sorry for… for… for leaving you in the hospital after Nix nearly killed you and for never calling or checking in. I’m s-sorry for not coming back sooner and for-” I stopped apologizing because emotion clogged my throat and I couldn’t speak beyond my racking sobs. I covered my face with my hands and let the burn of regret and embarrassment sear through me.

  My emotions jumbled together in regret and confusion. On one side of the argument I had to leave all those months ago, I had to get away. On the other side, after everything Ryder and I had been through tonight, I couldn’t believe I’d left him and left our relationship up to chance.

  Somehow, on the island, I had always known I would see him again. I had always known we would be together again.

  But, last night had been final.

  If Persephone hadn’t felt generous or had been too consumed with her fury to notice Ryder, I would be sitting here by myself.

  I would have had to face the rest of my life by myself.

  Strong arms wrapped around my torso and tugged me against a familiar chest. Ryder’s warmth enveloped me, comforting and promising at the same time.

  “Ivy,” he murmured into my ear. “You’re not going to lose me again. It won’t happen again.”

  I trembled in his arms, but let myself listen to his words. I let his promises take root in my soul. I let them build something inside of me that was permanent and lasting. I would not lose him again.

  I would not lose him again.

  “I love you,” he told me, softly at first. Then with more intent, more
clarity, “I love you.”

  I jerked in his arms, rocked completely by the violent, life-altering weight of those words. They were so simple. So short and sweet. And yet they had a power over me that should have scared me.

  I had never been loved before. Not in my entire life.

  I had never known love until Ryder, never felt it or breathed it or bled it. And yet with him, it had become this defining entity inside me. My love for Ryder consumed my thoughts and dictated my actions. I would do anything for him. Go anywhere. Sacrifice everything.

  But none of that, nothing I could do, think, or feel compared to the effect being loved by Ryder had on me.

  “Ivy,” he murmured, with his lips against my temple and his arms bracing me to his body, “I love you.”

  More tears clogged my throat and stole my words. Emotion fought with the fierce desire to return his feelings until I finally clawed through the weighty heart-bending joy and whispered, “I love you, too.”

  He pulled back so he could cradle my face with his rough hands. He stared into my eyes as if they could tell him everything I couldn’t say out loud.

  “Say it again,” he demanded.

  Regret kicked my chest as I took in his desperation, his neediness. “I love you,” I swore to him.

  “Again,” he rasped.

  “I love you, Ryder.”

  His lips crashed against mine with greed and devotion. He took this kiss from me, demanded that I give him everything with this connection. Our lips bruised and our teeth scraped as we poured everything into this moment; every delayed touch, every ounce of feeling that had built and built over our months apart, every aching moment that we’d had to miss.

  His hands moved over my body, memorizing the feel of me and mine did the same to him. I felt his chiseled arms and hard chest, his corded neck and muscled stomach. I dug my fingernails into his cut shoulder blades and pressed my pounding heart against his.

  Then finally, finally when I could take it no more, I sunk my hands into his tangled hair and came home.

  Just like with love, this was a first for me.

  I had lived in a prison my entire life, where love was replaced with sinister expectation and home was substituted for fear. I had slept in a place I dreaded and grown up in a house I hated.

  I hadn’t known anything different. I couldn’t imagine anything different.

  Until Ryder.

  Until this.

  Now I knew what it was like to be loved and cherished. I knew what it was like to have my heart settle and finally relax. I knew what it was like to release the debilitating terror that had clutched my chest and lungs for the entirety of my life and finally… finally breathe deeply.

  I had been alone all of my life.

  But now I had Ryder.

  Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes and slipped down my dirty cheeks. My heart raced in my chest with new feelings and restored emotions. My chest swelled and expanded freeing up space for my shriveled lungs, coaxing them back to life once more.

  When Ryder pulled back my lips were swollen and my breathing was ragged with passion. He pressed his forehead to mine, with eyes still closed, and smiled.

  He smiled and I had never seen anything more beautiful.

  “I love you,” he whispered again, his voice grating against the depth of his feelings and heat of our shared moment.

  “I love you, too.” There had never been sweeter words spoken.

  “And God, have I missed you, Ivy.”

  I couldn’t speak again. Tears started falling and I nodded frantically so he knew I felt the same way. I had missed him. I had missed him more than I knew it was possible to miss someone.

  He wrapped me in a hug again, this time to comfort my inconsolable tears. And finally… finally it worked.

  I felt better.

  I felt healed.

  I felt restored.

  After a little more time, I finally pulled myself together. It wasn’t easy. I wanted to sit with Ryder for the next five years and sort through all of the things I had to cry about. It wouldn’t always have been about him or what we went through, but I had plenty of trauma rattling around in my head, desperate to come out in some form of wet sorrow.

  “Ready to find your mom now?” he asked in a gentle voice.

  His eyes moved over my face, carefully calculating if I could do this. I was a hot mess in so many ways. But in this way, on this crusade, I was surprisingly pulled together.

  I was ready to get my mom. I was ready to face the Fates.

  If for no other reason than I needed some goddamn control in my life. I needed to take these evil witches out and assume the reins of my life for the first time.

  I was sick and tired of running… of being afraid… of letting other people tell me how I should live my life.

  Ryder and I had a future to live out that was as far from this freaking mountain as humanly possible. And these crazy hags were standing in my way.

  I also felt the stirring need to rescue my mother.

  Ava didn’t deserve my help. I knew that. I felt it in my bones. But I couldn’t leave her here either.

  She claimed to have saved me through her godawful treatment of me. She claimed to have neglected me on purpose. That every time she handed me over to Nix, every moment I had endured abuse and mistreatment, that every time my innocence was ripped away and replaced with something vile, she had wanted to motivate me to leave.

  I couldn’t help but feel skepticism. I mean, how easy would it be for someone to come up with those excuses after everything that had happened? Pretty damn easily.

  But whether she was lying or not, the outcome was the same. I was motivated to leave. I was more than motivated, I was obsessed. And I had not stopped trying until I left Nix and everything else in this insidious world behind.

  “I’m ready,” I told Ryder. “Let’s get her and get the hell out.”

  “Have you thought any more on how we’re going to do that? I really would like to avoid going back the way we came.”

  I slipped my hands into his and let him pull me to my feet. His skin had gone icy with the mention of the Underworld. “I’ll call Hermes,” I said quickly, hoping to dispel the worst of his fears. “He’ll come get us.”

  Ryder pulled me along with him, down the path that would hopefully lead us to the Fates. “Will he be pissed that we took off without telling him?”

  I laughed, but it sounded bitter and empty even to my own ears. “He’ll be furious.”

  “And you’re not afraid?” Ryder asked with just the smallest hint of amusement coloring his tone.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  He shot me a wide grin. “Atta-girl.”

  “You’re so smug,” I scolded. “You probably take credit for all of this, don’t you? You think you had something to do with my transformation.”

  When he gave me another smile it was sweeter than the last, sweeter, kinder and infinitely full of love. “I know I had something to do with this transformation,” he teased. “Which makes me love it all the more.”

  I smiled back this time and let the butterflies that had been caged and dehydrated for far too long free. They erupted through my blood like a frenzied swarm of happiness. Their big wings flapped ecstatically and created a tingling sensation that made me want to stretch and fidget.

  We hiked the rest of the way with purpose. The road became steadily more treacherous. It narrowed until we could barely walk side by side without brushing against the ragged cliffs on either side. In some places, the path had been completely blocked off by rock slides and debris. We had to pick our way over the rubble and hope there was clearer road on the other side.

  I was out of breath and cursing our difficulty when the road suddenly ended. The gravelly, debris-polluted path ran straight into the jagged side of a large cliff.

  I pressed my hands against the cool rock face, shadowed from the sun. My frustration simmered until it became a raging boil. I beat my fist against the rock
, wishing I was as strong as a Titan. I would rip this mountain to pieces with my bare hands.

  Ryder’s hand landed on my shoulder and pulled me back against his chest. “Hey,” he soothed. “We’ll find another way.”

  I stared at the cold granite. There wasn’t another way. This was the only one.

  I couldn’t say how I knew that, but I did. I knew it with conviction.

  We’d taken the only path out of the main city and followed it here. I felt like a mouse trapped in a maze. We’d made it this far. Where was my cheese?

  My senses prickled with unease and I squared my shoulders, bracing for the attack. I could feel them watching us as we stood here helplessly.

  If they were here, then there had to be a way to get to them.

  If they could see me, then somehow I could see them.

  I tipped my head back and craned my neck toward the sky. The rock wall in front of me went straight up for a long time, before jutting out with a long, narrow cliff. The mountaintop came to a sharp point above that, cresting with snow and ice.

  How far up were we?

  As if in answers to my thoughts, an ice cold gust of wind rushed down from on high and skittered over me. I shivered violently from the frigid air.

  “What’s up there?” Ryder asked cautiously.

  I followed his gaze and stared at that thin piece of mountain. It almost looked like a runway, it was so long and narrow. Towards the back side of the cliff, near the body of the mountain a large black smudge opened up like a mouth.

  A cave, I realized.

  A tuft of black hair flapped in the aggressive wind. A small face peered down at me.

  “There,” I pointed up for Ryder to see. The child-Fate hurried out of our sightline, but I saw her first.

  They were up there.

  Waiting for us.

  “Then let’s go,” Ryder suggested. His hand found my lower back and nudged me toward the wall.

  “You want me to…”

  “Climb,” he finished.

  I blinked up at the impossible distance. “I think I quit instead.”