After Life

by Jacquie Underdown

  The history of Olympus was fierce and frightening, full of sorrow and revenge. Some of this history, Zoe had trapped inside the brittle shell of her own memories, but most she had found in tomes authored by victors.

  But time had passed since that chaos was the way of things here. Complacency with life—peace, honesty, trustworthiness—had grown over the lenses through which she viewed the past until the terribleness of the past was no longer seen as possible, let alone real.

  Dionne’s blue eyes rolled back in her head as she ground her hips against the figure beneath her splayed legs. That figure was Marcus. Marcus, the man Zoe was in a committed relationship with.

  The barb of this reality stuck hard into her heart and was made worse because this type of betrayal—adultery—was a remnant from history. History that was no longer real. Yet here it was, betrayal, in all its viscerally, visually painful glory, playing out before her.

  Zoe’s muscles went rigid, her jaw tightened. Strumming in her gut were the strings of emotion she had felt all those years ago. It happened long before she fell in love with Theron. But the residual fallout was a part of her makeup now, as though Marcus’s betrayal had sliced her open and knitted with the fabric of her bones, blood and flesh as she mended.

  After her human experience, Zoe had come to expect that people were unethical, immoral, and untrustworthy, but in this new world, gods were not. So the unfaithfulness cut twice as deep.

  Veiling all of that emotion behind a smile, Zoe nodded. “Thank you.”

  She took Theron’s hand and led him out of the palace. They needed the privacy of his kingdom, and she needed quiet reflection to piece together the thoughts that were storming through her mind.

  Chapter 44

  As Zoe headed across the bridge toward the slope leading down to the city, she compared Olympus now to how she remembered it.

  The rows upon rows of buildings had been restored—no crumbled bricks tumbled over roads. There were no half-constructed houses anymore. Flowers grew again.

  “Such improvements,” she said. The Last War left this place devastated. And with the population of Olympus steadily reducing, the clean-up left for the remaining community was overwhelmingly great.

  Theron nodded. “I know. I could hardly believe the progress. When we left…” he hesitated, looked around, “when we left there was still so much work to do. But, we also need to remember how much time has passed while we were on Earth.”

  “You remember that time?” she asked, eyes wide.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “I convinced Marcus to give it back before we arrived here.”

  Zoe arched a brow, a slight smile on her lips. “Convinced?”

  “I can be persuasive when I want to be.”

  “Even before your god memories were restored?”

  Half his mouth curled with a grin. “Some things are never forgotten. And, besides, I owed him a punch in the mouth for kissing you.” He reached for her face and stroked a finger down her cheek, setting nerve-endings alive. “And you, I could never forget you, no matter which realm we live in.”

  They descended stone stairs bordered by vibrant flowers and delved into the thick of the village of Elysium. Elysium was beautifully restored, full of light and laughter. Love radiated through the air and bounced off the trees, flowers and cosy stucco buildings.

  But Zoe could barely concentrate. She wanted to know why before she left Olympus, she was told that Theron was dead, and believed Theron was dead when he most obviously wasn’t.

  He had been reincarnated, something he would never have freely chosen to do, which hinted at foul play. And if it was foul play, who could she trust?

  People were fluttering here and there, unhurried to arrive where they were going. A big market place was set up in the centre of a square. Many milled around, buying or selling wares.

  Zoe smiled as she watched a young girl dressed in a bright yellow dress that swept down to her ankles in petal-shaped waves of silk. The girl pointed to a giant lollipop, reached into her pocket and pulled out a coin. She handed it to the male stall attendant.

  Zoe gasped to see the man take the coin and put it in a tin filled with more coins. If she hadn’t just spent the last seventeen years on Earth where this was an everyday occurrence, she would have noticed sooner the incongruous nature of the scene.

  She peered up at Theron. “What? Olympus trades in money again?” After the imbalance of power created by currency, all trading in money was prohibited soon after the Last War. Along with many other changes.

  Only one exception to the prohibition existed—Marcus. And that was only because his coins contained human memories. Memories that were then weighed and balanced in order to determine if a soul would continue their rehabilitation on Earth or, for those who had shown a return of their godly goodness, were promoted to Elysium to live out the rest of their life in bliss.

  Theron nodded. “Trade has opened up to exterior worlds too. The Olympus coin is the standard currency.”

  She shook her head. Waves of anxiety pulled at her belly. “But why? It’s so Earth-like.”

  “It was a way to speed up the repair of Olympus—we could pay foreigners to help. They would have, otherwise, not assisted us. So the story goes.”

  Her lips were trembling now, with rage. “Who determined this?” Though she already could guess at the answer.

  Theron stopped, leaned closer and lowered his voice. “Dionne. She petitioned the Pantheon, and there was unanimous agreement.”

  “There’s only three of them. They should not be making such impactful decisions without us.”

  Theron frowned. “They thought I was dead. And you … well …”

  Zoe nodded slowly, not needing him to finish his sentence. “This does not feel right. Not right at all.”

  “I know. Come on,” he said, pulling her faster through the crowds. “We need to talk.”

  Down the bottom of the hill, they followed a small cobbled laneway that led to an underground tunnel. It was dark, but Zoe now understood what Marcus had told her during their voyage here on his boat while crossing the pitch-black channel.

  She had eyes, yes, but she didn’t need them. All her senses existed separate from her body. They bypassed the brain and were received and generated by the spirit. In essence, that’s what she was. That’s what they all were here. Spirits, but growing more and more mortal each day.

  She didn’t need light to see like human eyes did; she was capable of seeing forms under all circumstances.

  The tunnel dropped steeply until it flattened and a large cast-iron door appeared before them. Theron pushed hard against it and it parted, allowing them access into a candle-lit foyer made of sandstone—floor, walls and ceiling.

  Zoe smiled, recollecting the metallic, sandy scent of this place.

  The Underworld.

  Her home.

  Through another set of large metal doors, they stood at a precipice above a sprawling green valley of undulating hills, a protrusion of land surrounded by the pale blue sloshing waters of converging river systems.

  Their home was an ancient property handed down from previous generations, much like the Palace of Mount Olympus but smaller, and sat on top of a plateau only accessible by a thin timber-slatted bridge.

  Zoe watched the vast empty fields below.

  The Earth Project, a program she and the other ruling gods had implemented, meant that The Underworld should always be full—a stop-over point for souls freshly shepherded and awaiting their judgement before being reincarnated or given passage to Elysium.

  But, today, there were no dead here.

  Her mind ached with a memory. She squeezed her eyes shut and ground her teeth as pictures presented.

  She sat in the Great Room with the other gods. The dust of the Last War was still thickly coating everything. Their hearts were weeping from loss. But it was their job to clean up the mess and bring justice.

  “We can’t just imprison everyone
in Tartarus forever,” Agnes said. “We know from history that doesn’t work. There has to be some way to help these people ...”

  “Like rehabilitation?” Darian asked.

  “Yes, exactly like rehabilitation.”

  Dionne frowned. “How are we supposed to rehabilitate millenniums of bad behaviour?”

  “I don’t know,” Agnes said with a shake of her head.

  Zoe shrugged. “Perhaps the problem is that for generations we have been immortal. Perhaps this indestructibility breeds a culture of carelessness because the immorality is inconsequential.”

  Darian rolled his eyes. “I would not call the Last War inconsequential.”

  A shudder wracked her body. The grief that sat like a solid weight in her chest stirred. “No. I wouldn’t either. But it was only consequential this time because we are losing our immortality. Weapons were created that murdered gods. Our parents. We’ve never seen that before. The fact that there are now means to kill us, life is more precious. Our loved ones are more precious.”

  Theron met her gaze. “Like humans on Earth.”

  Zoe nodded. “Exactly. Their lives are immensely valuable because death finds them so quickly. I know. I see the pain and suffering death causes there.”

  “What are you saying?” Agnes asked.

  “We teach these gods a lesson.”

  And so the Earth Project was created, where the population on Earth was exponentially grown to accommodate the souls of the convicted gods who had to learn the consequences of their actions.

  Most gods, to this day, were still cycling through lifetimes, requiring lessons over and over and over until they stuck.

  Zoe shook her head. “It feels like my skull is splitting apart each time a new memory arises.”

  Theron frowned. “It was the same for me. It lasted days. Sometimes, even now, it still happens.”

  She stilled for a moment until the throbbing receded. Looking out over the valley, she sighed. “I’ve never seen The Underworld so quiet like this before.”

  Theron shook his head. “Me either. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. The cogs ground to a halt with both of us gone for so long.”

  The sky over The Underworld was pink and orange blending with purple hues. She had forgotten how exquisite this place was.

  Beneath all the heaviness of the day, an almost imperceptible anticipation hummed. Here she was, reunited with her soul mate and ready to embark on her life’s work again—ensuring a safe passage for souls from Earth to the Underworld.

  Working alongside this god was when she was her happiest. Blissful even.

  So many nights she shared his bed. On one such night, he was lying beside her. His chest was naked. His body was warm. He had stared into her eyes for a long silent moment, then leaned forward and kissed both of her eyelids one after the other. “I love your eyes because they see me—actually see me—for all that I am and tell your heart to love me still.”

  A flurry of beautiful emotion tingled beneath the surface of her skin and was chased by a leg-weakening relief that Theron was here beside her again.

  Zoe stepped closer to him, wrapped her arms tightly around his waist, and rested her head on his chest. “What the hell happened that I would believe you were dead?”

  His big chest expanded against her. “I keep asking myself the same question.”

  They kept moving. At the end of the bridge was a gravel pathway, the colour of crushed pearls. The sound under her feet brought such comfort. The scent of verdant grass and warm sunshine wafted through the air.

  After believing Theron was dead, she thought she’d never be able to face this palace again, but as she looked upon the ancient structure made of white stone, with Theron beside her, a sensation of homely warmth filled her.

  Theron pushed through the front door carved from ancient timber, and they went to the sitting room. The room was bare, floors made of dark polished stone, almost black in appearance yet glinted as the sunlight illuminated reflective facets. A large throne of ebony sat in the centre.

  Here they could talk with complete privacy.

  Unless by request, other gods didn’t enter this kingdom; it had been that way since the first King of the Underworld, Hades. A naturally sad soul, he preferred the seclusion of his own company, and so the culture was created.

  Though Theron was different in many ways to his distant relative, he wasn’t on this point. Privacy was essential.

  Theron sat in his throne and held out his arms for Zoe. She settled on his lap, pulling her legs up and over the side of the armrest and cuddled against his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him and kissed her head. “Goddess, I missed you so much.”

  She inclined her face and kissed his cheeks, lips, stubbled jaw, and soft skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder. The need to be with him in every way a goddess could be with her god rippled through her, especially when a sigh hissed from Theron’s lips.

  But there was something much more important to deal with first. “We need to make sure we are never separated again.”

  “We still found each other. We always will.”

  Zoe groaned. “But why did I think you were dead? I was told by the Pantheon, our most sacred of friends, you were…” her voice cracked at the memory of crumbling to the floor of the Great Room and feeling as though a part of her had died too.

  A tear fell onto her cheek.

  Theron stroked a finger down her face. “Hey, come on now, it’s over. I’m here, and I’ll never leave you again.” He bowed his head and kissed the tear away.

  “But you did. You have.”

  He stilled, eyes flaming with intensity. “I swear to you, I will break our vows before I let anyone do that again.”

  Hearing Theron mention vows, a piercing pain pulsed in her skull as a memory presented, and she was transported back through the years to when she was only a young goddess.

  Zoe sat huddled on hard rock in the cave at the farthest reaches of Olympus. She peered around at the mud-stained, drawn faces of the other children. Their hair was knotted, dusty. Though young in Olympus years, Zoe had lived more than ten lifetimes of those on Earth.

  Even at this distance from the city, the ground vibrated around them as blasts shook the sky above. Small rocks and trails of dirt crumbled and fell in streams from the cave’s ceiling.

  Darian stood and paced a path in front of them—never one to remain still. A clean trail had been cleared down his dirty cheeks from tears. His dark hair was pale from dust and dirt. “If we get out of here alive, we must promise that we will never let it come to this again. Never.”

  He jabbed at the air in the direction of Olympus where the war their parents and nearly everyone they loved was raging. “We must promise to never be so filled with hate and greed and pride and self-obsession.”

  Agnes nodded emphatically and stood beside him. Her dark hair was knotted, filthy. Her cheeks were pinched, limbs long and bony. “I agree. If we make it, it comes down to us to change this reign of terror.”

  Zoe peered up at her two friends’ faces and, despite the fear and hunger and anguish, saw the determination in their eyes. Determination that emanated from them like pulses of light. Zoe’s heart sped.

  With their words came hope. Hope that not only were they going to be able to get out of this dark hole and go home, but that they would be able to create a better life, a better future.

  “Are you with us?” Darian asked, holding out his hand.

  Agnes placed her hand on top of his. “I am.”

  Zoe crawled onto her knees and hauled herself from the ground. She was so weak her legs shook as she placed her hand on their hands. “I’m in. I promise.”

  Theron joined them forming a huddle, all hands in.

  “Dionne?” Agnes asked.

  Dionne wiped the grit from her cheeks as she looked up at them warily. But she nodded as she got slowly to her feet and placed her hand on top of theirs, the final hand i
n the small group. “I promise.”

  Zoe shook her head at Theron, his words stealing the breath from her lungs. “You must never break our vows. Ever.”

  “If it means—”

  “Never! You hear me. Never. If we break our vows, then it’s over. There will be no Olympus. There will be no us.”

  Theron drew a deep breath and released it. “You mean more to me than anything.”

  “You can’t think that way. You remember what we saw when we got home from that cave. A wasteland. So many dead. Our parents … murdered. Our rulers obliterated.”

  Theron closed his eyes. “I remember.”

  “Don’t forget it. There is more at stake here than me or you.”

  He met her gaze, unflinching. “I will do what it takes to keep you safe. Nothing you say will change that. Especially not now … not after I nearly lost you.”

  Zoe’s stomach clenched as anxiety brewed in her belly. “You’re frightening me, Theron.”

  “I don’t mean to frighten you. I’m telling you what lives in my heart.”

  The new era of gods was formed all those years ago in that cave. And when Zoe and the other children were finally safe to go home, they took charge. They had no choice.

  They created a new ruling pantheon who would not only restore peace but ensure that it was maintained.

  Wars, lies, and propaganda were the tools of the manipulative and those who wanted power by the most forceful means possible.

  Those were the traits of the old gods—adulteresses, liars, warmongers, troublemakers, and propagandists.

  The new-era would never resort to that. Never again would Olympus be destroyed by such ungodly measures. There were two acts that were forbidden: deceit and violence. Neither was ever acceptable in this world, and there was zero tolerance.

  Until recently, they had lived in Olympus in peace for many centuries. She was not going to destroy that. No matter what.

  “Let’s just think about this rationally, please?”