The Death King Read online

  Then time sped forward suddenly, and I was the one in the dominant position. I was on top of her, somehow, though I didn’t remember moving. Her very own soul blade was in my hand and pressing dangerously against her throat.

  She gasped, eyes going wide, all color draining from the fleshy side of her face.

  “Hades?” she trembled, and for just a second, just one second, she sounded so much like my female, my dark heartbeat, that I lost focus on what I’d been about to do.

  I quivered to hear her say my name in that way, just as she used to, all soft and breathy and lovely. It was my Caly again.

  “Hades, please. Please.” Her eyes were shining, their color still dark and stormy, but she sounded so bloody real. But she was a master manipulator, or had been in another life. Always for the good, then. But what if she’d retained those skills and was just waiting for me to lower the blade so that she could end me permanently?

  My brain and my soul fought a vicious battle for dominance. My brain told me this was nothing more than a lie. But my soul said this was really her, that she was still in there, maybe buried so far down that not even she was aware of it. But I had heard it. I heard her. It had to be real.

  Right?

  I blinked, staring at her, brows furrowed. I’d heard something in her tone that I’d lamented of ever hearing again.

  When I looked into her eyes again, it was not the monster I saw—her irises were clear blue and the anger had vanished. There was another emotion there, though, and I recognized it instantly—a bottomless pool of endless and unimaginable pain.

  “Please,” she whispered and then leaned forward, causing her impossibly sharp blade to sink through even the glass of her like a knife through hot butter and I finally understood.

  She was not begging me for her life. She was begging me to end it.

  Horror stole the breath from my body.

  “No!” I cried and tossed the blade away. It clattered on the rocky soil beneath us. Then I crawled off her and moved away, lost, scared, and alone. She’d wanted me to do it. She’d actually wanted me to kill her.

  “Damn you!” I snapped in my fury and pain, she’d come to me not for her bloody heart but to force my hand. I saw that now. How dare she?

  “Hades,” she cried, looking stunned and shocked as she slowly sat up.

  Wrapping my arms around my knees, I pulled into myself. I had thought I could do it. I had thought I could do the impossible, the miraculous, just as Rayale had. But I couldn’t.

  I could not do it.

  I lowered my head and sobbed silently into my armor.

  “I’ve been so lost, Calypso. So lost without you,” I mumbled, the words so low that I doubted she could even hear them. But I thought I would shatter if I didn’t say them. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore,” I shuddered.

  A soft hand fell onto my shoulder, and I jumped, startled and sure that she’d picked up that blade and would sink it deep into my breast.

  And I was partly right. She was holding the stiletto in her hand, but her eyes were fixed on my face, and the agony that’d stolen my will from me was still glittering in her eyes.

  “Why do you have my soul blade?” she asked almost gently, so different from the cold and calculating sea hag she’d been just a minute ago.

  I scrubbed at my cheeks, staring miserably at the object of my heart and affections. “Because you gave it to me, Ca… Thalassa,” I said and shuddered, hating the sound of that name in a way I never had before.

  But she was right. This wasn’t my Calypso. My Calypso had never before felt deader to me than she did in that moment. My Calypso would have never tried to trick me into doing the one thing that wouldn’t end just her, but would have killed me too. It would have shattered me so completely that Olympus would have lost two great gods.

  She nodded. “And why would I do that?”

  Her look was earnest—broken, but earnest. Did she not remember giving me the blade? Did she remember me? I wet my lips and stared at the object of ultimate destruction in her hands.

  “I sense that this blade wishes to return to you, but if it feels this way, then it’s only because I…” She swallowed hard. “I gave it to you in truth. Tell me, lesser god, why I would do such a thing?”

  I cringed. “Because you loved me.” I spat the words out like a poison, angry at the curse. Angry at her. But mostly angry at myself for dropping my guard as I had. “Do what you want with me, then, primordial goddess of old. I am far too weary for these games.”

  And I stared down at my feet, scowling because I truly was a lesser god if I could just roll over in this way. With anyone else, I’d have struck true. But I couldn’t do it with her. I would never be able to kill her. She was my priestess. My one true love.

  The blade clattered by my feet. I looked at it, then up at her, shocked.

  She had her arms wrapped around herself and was not looking at me, but over toward her waters, vulnerability tight on her face. I knew enough of Caly to know she’d never shown her vulnerable side with anyone else but me.

  After what had just happened between us, I was loathe to hope that maybe she really was still in there. I clenched my back teeth, too conflicted and torn up to speak with her right now.

  “The blade is no longer mine,” she said softly. “It is yours now. I only wish to be reunited with my heart. Give it to me, and I will leave you in peace.”

  I blinked, having a hard time believing that she’d so willingly hand back to me the only key to her destruction. Why would she do that? And why was she really here?

  For her heart?

  Because just a second ago, she’d been pleading with me to kill her, to take her precious life and snuff it out forever, which made me believe that somewhere inside of her, she must have known that I’d had that blade. And if she’d known that, then was she really here for her heart or because I was the only means to ending whatever agonies she suffered?

  My empty chest ached at the idea that she could actually be in such torment. I had a minute to decide what to do.

  Instinct had always been my guide in the past, and my instinct had never led me wrong. It was why I kept my distance from most of the Olympians. They were backstabbers and traitors, nearly all of them, and I was too bloody old to deal with such nonsense. All I wanted in life was peace and some sliver of happiness. For a time, I’d found so much damned happiness that I wondered if I’d used it all up and now I was destined to become that bitter, angry old man I’d once been, like the Fates had finally realized that the god of death could never truly know such joy.

  I studied her face, noting the fine worry lines around her eyes and the way her pretty pink lips were tight and tense, neither of which looked fake. For months, I’d watched her, seeing this conflict in her eyes and an endless pool of sadness that would quickly turn into a wave of rage at the mere drop of a hat.

  Again, I found myself asking the one question I had no actual answer for—why had she really come to me in the first place? If she’d wanted to kill me for daring to “steal” her heart, she could have done so. But she hadn’t.

  I’d told myself that it was time to be brave, and I’d meant it.

  Snatching up the blade, I hid it deep within a ley line and then got smoothly to my feet and stared at her face.

  She looked at me, and there was still pain in her eyes, but I could see it was already fading. A small grin curled at the corners of her mouth.

  She was going mad, flipping between the darkness and something else with cruel rapidity.

  “Who are you?” I asked slowly.

  She opened her mouth, but at first, no words came out, though her throat worked as if she were trying to say something. Finally, she sighed and shrugged.

  “Sometimes, I think I know. Other times, I know nothing at all. Do you know where my heart is?”

  Suddenly, I heard words whisper through me, not in my voice or even in hers, but in something else, something fuller and deeper and alien to me, b
ut not alien at all, as if I’d known that voice forever but hadn’t remembered it until just now.

  When the world says, “Give up,” hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”

  My breath stuttered through me, and my skin shivered because that voice hadn’t been my imagination.

  “I do.” My voice came out gruff. “I know where your heart is, Thalassa.”

  She shuddered, long lashes flickering against the tops of her pale cheeks like a fanned paintbrush. “Then take me to it.”

  I suddenly understood my dream of the past few nights. It’d been this very moment. The dreams had shown me the beginning of the end. Or rather, the end and the beginning. This was it, the start of another us, and whether we were as one again was entirely up to us. Up until just now, I hadn’t remembered where the journey would begin. But I knew now. And I also knew where it ended.

  But the middle… the middle was the part that really mattered. The middle was where I’d make her love me again.

  The middle was where we’d be reborn.

  I stepped to the side and crossed my hands behind my back. I knew what to do now. Dipping my head, I whispered, “After you, goddess. A long journey awaits us.”

  She hissed, face contorting into one of extreme rage and fury. “You lie! You do not know, and you—”

  I shook my head. “I would never lie to you, Thalassa. I never have and never will. If you wish to find your heart, then you must trust me.”

  And in a blink, that madness was gone from her. In its place was the broken shell, the woman that I loved, but who was scared and alone and fighting to make sense of her new normal. She was still in there, and it was that woman that I would save. I would save her. Just as Rayale had done, I, too, would manage the impossible.

  Thalassa trembled. “I do not understand myself.” Her confession was small and tremulous and came out sounding broken. She looked down at her feet, but not before I caught sight of the tears rolling down her cheeks.

  Telling myself I should not touch her because I did not know what kind of madness I’d ignite if I did, I ignored all caution anyway and tipped her chin up with my thumb and forefinger.

  She hissed, face once more a mask of intolerable hate. But she did not move to strike at me. Thalassa could break me, but she didn't, which meant she was fighting in there. Calypso was still in there. I had to believe that. I had to.

  Ignoring my own pain at seeing her like this, I smiled gently at her. “Trust me as you once did, sea goddess. Believe in me, just as you did when you gifted me your soul blade. Trust that I can help you. You believed it then, so believe it now.”

  “I don’t. I don’t believe in you,” she said, ripping my soul in two.

  But though her words were laced with cruelty, she reached for my hand and gave me the gentlest of squeezes.

  I thinned my lips, but I nodded. She’d told me once that she was dual natured. Dual meant she was two at once. Somewhere inside of this beautiful shell, my woman fought to regain control of her true self, her real self. And if she needed me to fight, then that was what I’d do. To my dying breath, I’d fight for her.

  I would always fight for her.

  I turned us toward the trail that would lead us out of the Underworld, and we took that first step into the unknown together.

  Thalassa

  * * *

  I would make him believe in this kinder, softer version of myself, and then when he least expected it, I would kill him for stealing my heart and for having my soul blade. I let him keep the soul blade because as long as he did, he thought himself in control, but he wasn’t. Not even a little.

  I hated him.

  A flutter of something roiled through me, leaving me breathless and weak in the knees. But I locked the emotion down tight. I did hate him for making me feel things I’d never felt before. I’d not lied when I said I’d felt him watching me for months, studying me, keeping a distance, and yet somehow pulling me in. It hadn’t been hard to figure out who’d taken my heart.

  I peeked at him from the corner of my eye and frowned deeply. He was a problem that I needed to rid myself of. And then… then I’d be free. Free of the torment of him.

  Of the dreams.

  Free to be me.

  7

  Hades

  I stood in the above lands for a moment, reacquainting myself with the feeling of sunlight upon my skin. Apollo was in a fiery mood today. I knew it had been months—since the curse had struck, if I was being technical—since I’d come out of the Underworld, but it was so bloody hot out that it felt like my skin would soon blister. Even the trees wavered with the image of a heat mirage above them. The air was redolent with the warm scent of berries baking right on their branches. The jewel green grass rustled from a hot, northern breeze that cut through the meadowlands as sharply as a knife.

  Our first stop on our journey toward reclaiming our hearts would take us right through the center of centaur lands. The forest we were in would soon give way to rocky fields, a sea of lilac heather, and flatlands that rolled for as far as the eye could see.

  It’d been a place she’d once dearly loved to explore with me back before our world had imploded. She was a being of water fascinated by the strange and wondrous creatures of land, and for some reason, the centaurs had always intrigued her most. I suspected it wasn’t simply their bodies but their above average intellect that had always inspired her. To an outsider, Calypso might have seemed silly and child-like in so many ways, but she had never thought as a normal person did. She was an elemental who’d seen the world through vastly different eyes than any of us could or would. She was ancient with an ancient’s knowledge, and if one had ever taken the time to know her, they’d have seen just how quick-witted my bride had truly been.

  I frowned, wiping at my brow with my heavy black gauntlet as the miserable sun continued its cruel assault on me. For months, I’d been surrounded by dark and ice and cold, so I was utterly miserable in the heat. It was like my own personal brand of hell. I grimaced and tugged on my chest armor.

  Calypso—no, she wasn’t my Caly anymore, but Thalassa—stepped beside me, and I felt her looking me up and down.

  “You know,” she said softly, with a hint of teasing behind it, “I don’t think armor is what one wears when one goes on a long march.” She shrugged and held up her hands in a defensive pose. “Or maybe they do. I hear sweating like a stuck pig is the height of masculinity these days.”

  Her eyes sparkled just like they used to when she’d tease me before. But her lips frowned, and her brow wrinkled in obvious consternation, as if she wasn’t quite certain why she was acting and doing as she was.

  Not sure whether she was sincere or acting, I was wary in my response to her. “Is that so?”

  Twitching as if she suddenly recalled where she was, her eyes shot to mine and she nodded. But she seemed much less flirty than before. “Why do you wear such ridiculous looking armor, anyway? I’ve already proven that scrap of metal cannot stand against my might. So you might as well take it off and cool yourself down.”

  I stared at my arms. I’d never really questioned why I’d begun wearing it again with such frequency. I was the god of death and as such, rarely had enemies to worry about. Except for when I’d gone to war against the Titans in the previous life, I’d never once worn my war suit. But there was a type of security that came from being encased in steel. Even though she was right, she had stabbed me right through it as easily as sticking a knife into hot butter.

  I narrowed my eyes. “I did leave my helmet at home, Thalassa. Surely, that counts for something?”

  She snorted. “Well, while you swelter in your metal oven, I’ll be nice and cool and enjoy the warmth.”

  As she said it, her flesh, which had been half water, transformed yet again. She became wholly fleshy, and the dress she’d been in was gone. Now she wore the tinniest pair of white shorts I’d ever seen. She was barefoot and only had on a seashell bra, loosely tied together with a thin strand of br
aided kelp. Her hair, now a shade of sea-foam green, was threaded through with dozens of miniature buff-colored starfish and glittering mother-of-pearl shells. Her eyes were extraordinarily green-blue and as fathomless as the waters she called her home. Her nose was pert, tipped up slightly more than usual, and her jawline looked even rounder than normal. She was like a teenage version of herself.

  I frowned because I did not wish to walk with a teenage version of Caly. By comparison, I must look like her doddering and ancient uncle.

  She rubbed her arms, looking around, her features full of innocent trust. Shading her eyes with her hand, she looked first in front of her then turned to looked behind.

  “Which way, wayfarer?” She turned to me, and I almost grinned, because that had definitely been reminiscent of the Calypso I’d known.

  Snorting, I shook my head before planting my hand on the back of my neck, now coated in so much sweat that anyone might think I had just crawled out of a pool. Damn Apollo. I had no doubt the god had known I’d be coming to the surface. He and I had never gotten on, but then I wasn’t exactly chums with any of my peers save Dite.

  “Wouldn’t you just love to know,” I murmured, not sure I could completely trust her. That was the whole reason I continued to wear this bloody armor, not that it had helped at all. My insides was still tender from where she’d stabbed me earlier, though I’d almost fully mended at this point.

  Like it or not, I had to admit to myself that the woman who lived and breathed inside of me and meant the whole damn world to me was someone I could also least afford to trust.

  She punched my bicep. “Well, Death. Lead on then, since you’ve decided to be a curmudgeon about it.”

  Her smile grew wide, but there was something behind it, something forced and unnatural, something that caused all the blood in my veins to freeze. It was the kind of smile that someone with no soul or humanity would give, something to make themselves appear more human than they actually were, and because it was so forced, it only made them look even more unnatural.