I steeled myself for the burn that would come, bracing myself before propelling faster into it. As my fingertips brushed the edge of the flames, it crawled up my arm and encapsulated me in its warmth. I was pulled further in where it was hotter and hotter, making my skin ache. I wanted to tear it from my bones to save my muscles from the discomfort, but that meant giving in to the current and I’d rather burn than drown.
I pushed on, grabbing the water with my hands and hauling my body through its waves. Each pull dragging me to the center of the heat where I found myself screaming, choking on the water that jumped into my opened mouth. This was it; I was about to die.
Coughing and spluttering I tried to take one more deep breath before pushing myself under the water, looking for relief from the flames. The water bit at my ankles, trying to take hold again it could have me for itself while the flames chased me underwater. They wouldn’t stop either. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block both out as I kicked and pushed and fought to move forward, the only way out was forward. I couldn’t give up now.
Chapter 19
I gasped for air as soon as I resurfaced. My arms reaching out and pulling myself up onto the bank of the river, falling backward and coughing for more air. I was afraid to look at myself, afraid to see what my arms and upper half might look like. My arms were shaking from the exertion as I lifted them up slowly, opening my eyes once more and taking in my appearance. I expected something grotesque and out of a horror film, but I was fine. I twisted and turned my hand, looking for any sign of damage, but I was perfectly healed.
Atlas hadn’t been kidding about being able to heal quickly. I let out a small laugh of excitement, closed my eyes and laid back again on the edge, feeling the river lap against my legs where they were still submerged. Then after a moment or two I opened my eyes again, lifting my hand quickly and gasping in horror.
Griffin’s thread was gone.
“No.” I stood up as fast as my body would let me, frantically searching from side to side for the frail golden thread, but it was long lost. “No.” I stared at the ground in defeat, slowly lowering myself I could sit. How could I have let it get lost?
After a moment of reflection and remorse, I regained my composure and looked around the bank for sort of indication of where I was. I had given up long ago on any signs being plastered around to make it easier for me, but I found I wasn’t at the gates where Cerberus had taken me.
Shaking my head, I stood up, looking out over the river to see if it went any further. All the water led forward toward me, washing up against my toes and pulling itself back with each wave. It seemed that wherever I was supposed to go, I was at it. I turned back around to face more rocky walls as I reached up and twirled my hair around my fingers and squeezed out the water from it before I started walking.
The river had taken quite a bit of energy out of me. I was ready to call it quits and find somewhere with some semblance of comfort to try and sleep. I hadn’t once seen anything that looked like it was there for the comforts of a human, not that this place dealt with the affairs of the living.
The more time I spent here, the more I realized why Persephone had come to dislike it, it wasn’t even that it was unwelcoming, it was bleak and hopeless. You could get lost easily here and there was no one around, literally no one, who could help. And those who you did find only wanted to judge and define you. I didn’t mind being alone much as I didn’t enjoy the isolation. They were two distinctly different things. I had never been this isolated in my entire life and the hopelessness of the situation was beginning to rub off on me.
I kept walking, nothing about where I was appealed to the idea of lying down and sleeping for a few hundred years. Soon the sounds of the water were left behind me as I ventured further and further back into the belly of the Underworld.
“You’re going with your uncle.” I stopped walking, twisting around to find the source of the voice. “But dad...” It was my own voice it was unmistakable. “Shh, it’s alright. You’re safe.” That voice sent shivers down my spine, making my body tense and freeze where I was. “That’s fine, we have all night later.”
I reached out, grabbing the wall to brace myself as I felt my legs go weak. I didn’t want to hear this; I didn’t want to relive it. “God punishes liars Valentina. He’ll split that wicked tongue of yours in Hell for lying.” “It’s not a lie!” The words echoed through my head, drilling themselves into me like little knives. My fingers curled into a fist as I started to run, and I ran as fast as my muscles would let me, trying to escape the voices that followed.
“Come here Valentina, come back... It’s alright.” It’s not alright. “Shhh, it’s okay, we don’t have to tell anyone.” His voice felt like someone was dragging his fingers down my spine, making me shiver and convulse in disgust. I hated him; I hated what he’d done to me. Why was this place making me relive what I tried hard to forget?
“Don’t lie, you like it.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do, I can see it in your eyes. You’re a filthy little whore.” I shut my eyes, however, dangerous that was and kept running as fast as I could.
“GET ON YOUR KNEES. BEG FOR FORGIVENESS.” He screamed and I jumped, tripping over a rock on the floor before landing sprawled there. I clasped my hands over my ears and squeezed my eyes shut trying to keep out the noises, to block him and to get away from him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I could hear myself answering him, my own lips moving and whispering the words repeatedly. But I wasn’t apologizing to him; I was apologizing to myself for not being stronger, for not having had the will to fight back then.
I had thought through all of this that I was strong and that I had changed from that naïve little farm girl that Atlas had rescued. But the Underworld wanted to remind me that I couldn’t change and I would always be that sad little girl. I wasn’t a Goddess... I was pathetic. I deserved to be swallowed up by these walls and forgotten about by the people I knew if they hadn’t already forgotten me.
These thoughts swirled around my head, biting and tormenting me. After a while, I started to believe them too, sure that this was Persephone speaking to me. She had witnessed it, she was appalled and I was disgusting.
“Get up Valentina.” My voice was strong, commanding: “the hallway of echoes will devour you if you let it. Get up and keep moving, you must get out of this place before you fall victim to it like the others.” I removed my hands from my ears and slowly looked around. That’s when I saw it: all the other bodies strewn on the floor like me with hands over their head trying to block out whatever horrors had once haunted them.
“What is this place?” I murmured to myself, a frown creasing my brow as I forced myself to my feet. The effort was substantial as my muscles shook, wanting to stay lying on the ground. I didn’t want to know, all I needed to know was it was another level of my personal hell. Persephone was right. I had to keep going, I couldn’t become a nondescript collection of bones underfoot of those who would succumb to the voices as well.
I curled my arms around my body, trying to retain some warmth where there wasn’t any and carried on. Each step ached my bones as my feet felt like they were surrounded by cement blocks. It was an effort to get out of the hallway of echoes, but I wouldn’t become a fixture to its evil anytime soon.
The echoes continued to follow me, laughing at my back as I resumed moving, but it didn’t take long before I couldn’t hear their words and they became ghosts of my past. Even the sad thoughts that had plagued me became forgotten as I walked. It didn’t matter where I ended up if I ended up far away from that place.
“Thank you,” I whispered to Persephone as we left the hallway completely and entered a massive cavernous room. I stopped and looked around trying to find the next place I was supposed to go. The further I moved into the room the more I realized it was sprawling in all directions with no walls, or doors, in sight.
“Great, now what?”
I walked
because it seemed like the only other thing I could do. There was nowhere for me to go the longer I walked, the more space it revealed. I gave up after a while, deciding that it was useless. Maybe this was it; this was the point when I had to stop trying. I sank down to the ground, pressing my palms into the floor as I looked out at the vastness ahead of me.
My fingers curled and scratched against the stone beneath me when I looked down in surprise at it. I narrowed my eyes in thought and shifted around until I was on my hands and knees, pressing my palms into the cool flooring.
It was a long shot but besides giving up I was rapidly running out of options. I pushed as hard as I could, thinking that to someone else I probably looked stupid when nothing happened right away, then like that, it opened.
“Yes!” I shouted gleefully, grinning with pride as I peered down into the dark. “Lights.” A candle appeared to guide me and I grinned more, pleased that I was getting the hang of this place finally. “Okay, here goes nothing.” I guided myself into the hole, half expecting another trampoline incident as I let myself get lower and lower until I finally had to let go with my hands and began to free fall.
The wind rushed around me, pulling at my already worn out dress and I immediately wished I had used the wardrobe Hades had given me. But before I could worry too much about that I landed, in a heap, on another stone floor. I groaned with pain and rolled onto my back I could take a good look around. It looked like any other place here and I found myself sighing in annoyance. As frustrated as I wanted to be though, there was one distinct difference between this place than the last... I could hear hissing up ahead like air slowly being let out of a balloon.
Picking myself up I made my way carefully through the darkness toward the noise, not wanting to draw attention to myself in case it was something dangerous. I came out of the first room I’d landed in and entered what looked like a stereotypical witch cave. Three women, or I assumed they were women, were hovering around a pot staring down at the bubbling contents.
“Oh yes, he’ll get his...” One of them muttered while another one cackled in pleasure, “yes look at that. Oooh, yes!” Another round of hissing filled the room as I looked for the source of the sound. The one woman turned and I gasped in horror as a pair of massive black wings spread out from her back, stretching themselves and curling around the air before flicking back out. All three of them turned to me, squinting into the darkness as another hiss echoed toward me.
“Go see who it is.” None of them moved though, but I distinctly heard the ruffles of something as it left the pedestal and moved toward me. I swallowed hard, stepping backward and casting my eyes to the ground to see what was coming for me. A snake slithered toward me and I gasped slightly, covering my mouth tightly before pressing myself to the wall in hopes that it didn’t see me nor came closer. It slithered into the darkness and I lost sight of it quickly before it hissed, not menacingly but as if to warn me it knew where I was.
“It’s a girl...” The hiss whispered into the darkness and I felt my heart speed up, pounding hard against my chest I was sure it was about to leap out.
“A girl, well obviously, but who?” The witches’ question hung in the air and I heard the snake hiss again. I shrieked once more, panicking that it might be coming toward me and leaped from the shadows that were concealing me. The action revealed me to the old hags gathered around the pot. I looked up sheepishly at them, gnawing slightly on my bottom lip before waving hello.
I didn’t have any reason to feel nervous or scared really, not if I was truly the Goddess of the Underworld. It felt like I had been caught spying and the sheer embarrassment at that idea was enough to set me on edge.
“Valentina.” One whispered.
“Valentina.” Echoed the other.
“Persephone.” Said the last one and each old woman bowed low with a dramatic flourish, their wings spreading out and fighting for space as the snake slithered past me toward them. My eyes flicked to the serpent as it crawled up their legs, entwining itself once more around one of their ankles. I noticed then that each of them had a snake wrapped around their ankles, and others too that were wrapped around their wrists.
“Hello,” I said again bleakly, trying to offer a smile before moving forward into the room. For the third time, today I felt myself grow awkward with the idea that these women knew who I was when I hadn’t the faintest clue who they were. “Nice to meet you.”
“We are the Erinyes.” I nodded my head like I understood what that meant, but I didn’t. At least they knew I was Persephone, which was a step up from the other triplets I had met today. “Your children.”
I shrank back slightly; they all looked more like they should be my grandmothers instead of my children.
“I have triplets?” I asked sheepishly.
“Persephone and Hades bore us.”
“And you never went to sleep with the others?”
“No use.”
“Yes, no use.” I couldn’t tell anymore who was speaking. None of their mouths seemed to move and they all sounded alive when they answered. I decided to go with the flow, far that had served me well.
“Right, well, sorry I didn’t remember you...” I said a bit awkwardly, offering them a smile as a sign of peace. “Would you mind reminding me what your domain is?”
“We are interested in crimes against Gods... We serve justice where we see fit.”
“Oh, and what were you watching?” The women stepped away from their caldron, signaling me forward. I felt a knot grow in my stomach at the idea of approaching these hideous, winged and serpent infested women – but I was curious.
Moving forward tentatively I took a deep breath and climbed onto the platform with them, trying to keep as much distance as I could as I approached the caldron. Looking down into it I immediately recognized the walls of the throne room but it looked different. Things were strewn around the room; chunks of the murals and statues were shattered on the floor. I pulled away quickly, turning to look at them in surprise.
“What is this?” I demanded, pointing at the image. “The Titanomachia.”
“The what?”
“Titanomachia, the battle of the Titans.”
“Why are the Titans fighting, where are the Gods?” “When Atlas freed the souls of the Gods he also freed the souls of the trapped Titans in Tartarus.” “Tartarus, what is that?”
“It is the prison that Zeus sent the Titans to live in after the first Titanomachia and they were overthrown by the Olympians.”
“The judges were trying to put me in Tartarus,” I said with disbelief.
“The judges are corrupted, they have been corrupted by the Titans to help them with this new war.”
“Where are Aidan and Savannah?” “Zeus has been captured.”
“Captured, what do you mean captured?” I felt the panic rising in my chest. The women stared at me as though the answer would come to me. All I felt was a growing panic at the chaos I observed in the caldron. All this time I had been wandering around the Underworld lost and taking my sweet time while my friends were fighting a battle for a war I didn’t even know was happening.
Chapter 20
“Alright, I need you to start from the beginning.” The women exchanged a glance between them as if deciding who was going to start. Then, one of the snakes hissed and spoke.
“For thousands of years the Gods ran Olympus under the rule of Zeus. When Zeus decided to put the Gods’ souls to sleep until the world needed them, the Titans agreed to go to sleep as well. This would give them the opportunity to be freed because their souls would need to ascend a vessel when the time came. before they went to sleep, they concocted a plan to overthrow Zeus and the other Olympians to return the power, as they believed, into their rightful hands.”
“Lincoln, I mean, Cronos tried to overthrow Zeus. It didn’t work, he was killed.”
“Cronos plotted out of turn. He was power hungry and still angry with his son for winning the battle the first time. His pride made
him act rashly. He wasn’t supposed to make the first move; the other Titans knew he would be the obvious choice to try and do that. They were biding their time, getting friendly with the Gods to find the weaknesses they needed to make it the most effective blow the first time.”
“Two weeks ago the Titans-“
“Two weeks? That can’t be possible; I haven’t been down here that long. What day is it?” As soon as I asked the question I knew it was hopeless, I didn’t know what day it had been when I had been brought down here. I didn’t even know the day Atlas had brought me to Olympus because
I had lost track of time much earlier than that. “Never mind, carry on.” I didn’t like the idea that I had been down here for two weeks when it only barely felt like it had been a single night.
“Two weeks ago, the Titans attacked Zeus during his first court session. Atlas was to turn over the keys of the Heavens to him that he and Hera might properly rule the mortal world. Zeus was to learn his fate from the Moirai; they were going to recall the prophecy Atlas had enacted when he first, mistakenly, released the Gods.”
I frowned, “Atlas released the souls early?” The three women nodded their heads repeatedly. How had he managed to collect them all and put them back to sleep without causing significant damage?
“Atlas was going to tell him why the Gods had been awakened a second time and what they needed to do, but the Titans attacked, stealing the key for themselves.” The snake continued, “Since neither Atlas nor Zeus had the keys it was out of their control to stop the Titans. They cast the Gods out of Olympus and sent them back into the mortal world where their powers can only be used much without full ascension.”
“They’re trapped on Earth? How can that be? Atlas said most of the Olympians have ascended with their Gods, even I’ve united with Persephone now and as far as I know I was one of the last having trouble. There must be a way back into Olympus.”
Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series Page 42
