For the first time in my life, I am far from home. And I have no way of returning, not of my own volition at least.
I take in another shaky breath, and stand as gracefully as I can, having fallen from such a height.
‘I’d explain yourself quickly,’ a voice commands, deep enough to reverberate off the walls. ‘Before I come to my own conclusions about your … insult.’
Shivers arch down my spine and I force myself to push through. Fear is, I remind myself, something I can work with.
I toss my hair out of my face, smooth my dress down and look up.
It’s blinding: fires blaze in torches on a dozen pillars, the light bouncing off the bright white walls and the luminous golden floor. The bronze columns are long and winding, the frescoes so detailed they must have been carved with a needle. The edges are ringed with porticoes and a hearth crackles behind me in the centre of the room. It’s breathtaking and incomparable – except, of course, that it is completely comparable. It’s the megaron. It’s the acropolis. It’s Olympus.
Which means in the centre of the Underworld there is a replica of the palace of Zeus. And that means that Hades sits on a replica of my father’s throne.
I wasn’t expecting this, to have to beg at the same seat of power that damned me so many years ago.
Only it’s not the same, because everythingfeelsdifferent in a way I could never mistake for my father’s court.
I force myself to turn – and my throat closes.
I’m not sure what I was expecting. Power, probably, but a power built of swords and crowns and sceptres. And Hades has that – a rustic blade at his side, one that’s clearly not for decoration; a bird-tipped sceptre with a beak so sharp it could slash throats; a crown that ends in jagged, uneven points. But his power is more primal. His power is the kind of terrifying that roots you to the spot. The kind of power that has you falling to your knees and begging for mercy.
Waves of pitch-dark smoke emanate from him in coiling tendrils, like all that he is cannot be contained. I retreat from their touch, and I hate myself for it. He clocks the movement and smirks, but who knows what all that darkness might do to me.
And I see it’s not my father’s throne at all – no cloth-paddedmarble atop a plinth. Hades’ throne is an enormous slick stone of a black so dark I can barely make out its shape.
I try to look past it, to focus on him. He is everything the nymphs would adore: a face made of sharp lines, deep brown skin tinged gold under the torchlight, shoulders broad and rigid on his throne. Striking – it’s the only word that comes to mind.
At my silence, his eyes narrow with suspicion.
‘Well?’ he pushes.
I hesitate, trying to work out the best approach. My father would be shouting by now, of that I have no doubt. He would not be sitting still on his throne, but across the floor waving a thunderbolt in my face or demanding I bow before my king. But Hades doesn’t seem angry – there’s an edge of irritation but, beyond that, there is curiosity.
‘Hades.’ I nod, playing into his intrigue as though it might make him forget how rudely I requested this meeting. ‘Thank you for bringing me here.’
He raises an eyebrow.
‘It is not often a deity creates something in my honour,’ he says carefully. ‘It is even less often that they destroy it a second later.’
‘I required an audience.’
‘I can think of other ways to request one.’
‘It worked, didn’t it?’ I ask. ‘I couldn’t risk you ignoring me. I was desperate.’
‘Evidently, if you’re here at all,’ he says. ‘So do hurry up and tell me why that might be.’
I consider my options. I could plead, drop to my knees and beg him. Would that stroke his ego enough? Or would he seean opportunity to exploit? I could demand it, but would he react with dangerous anger? So many hundreds of paths open before me. I thought myself silver-tongued, able to navigate Cyane and the nymphs and my mother, always knowing what they want to hear even if I don’t always say it. Especially when I don’t always say it. Knowing what is wanted makes saying the opposite all the more enticing. But not now, not when I’m talking for my life.
Honesty, then. Until he reveals more of himself to me.
‘You’ve met my mother. You know the wards that bound the island.’
At this, the corners of his lips twitch. ‘Yes, no uninvited person may walk the land of Sicily.’ He examines the sceptre he holds. The sharp metallic tip catches the light and I wonder if this is a threat, as subtly as he can make one. ‘I assume she expected people to search for loopholes, though I doubt she thought her own daughter would be among those who did.’
I cast what I hope is a withering look. ‘She assumed much.’
Hades laughs. It is a short, quick laugh but one that reassures me I am, at worst, not far from the right path of conversation. The darkness emanating from him shrinks ever so slightly.
