‘Come,’ I say before she can spin another riddle. ‘I’ll take you to the mortals.’
I bring Hecate to the same ledge that I stood on with Styx and Hades. No other flowers have joined with the asphodel. It has claimed the field as its own and left no space for other roots to grow. The land is a sea of ivory petals. Some of the souls are whole now, a little more solid – grey mist against the white flowers and the black sky. Hades is intent on filling the afterlifewith colour – every painting he’s drawn of paradise practically bursts with it – and looking out now I miss him more strongly still. This will be ours. I want to create it together.
The healed souls sit talking in groups. I can’t keep them like this much longer – they’ll get bored and restless. But if my plan works I won’t have to worry about that. On the other side of the Styx is a second field, and all the souls there are hazy and insubstantial. I’m not healing more until something can be done about them.
In the very distance I can see Charon and a boat full of new souls on the Acheron. I swear more come through every day.
‘This is a petty use of your power,’ Hecate says, ‘sorting through a handful of souls.’
She’s right. Hazy, fading souls outnumber the repaired ones even on the side of the Styx I’m prioritizing. I could spend all day healing and I still wouldn’t get through them as quickly as more arrive.
‘I don’t want it to be a mere handful. I want it to be all of them.’
‘Then will it so.’
‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Is it not?’ She turns on me, a challenging gleam to her eye.
‘I tried – when I split this place. And it didn’t work.’
‘Did you believe you could do it?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Believe in yourself? Really? That’s your grand advice?’
‘Heal them if you want to. Or don’t. I don’t care.’
If trying and failing is what will convince her I can’t do this, then very well. I think about how I have repaired the souls before. I suppose I haven’t really acknowledged it as an activething – the souls heal around me, so I focus on that and force the process to quicken. It doesn’t seem like much, but if Hades and Hecate are correct it’s an enormous thing that I’ve been doing.
I have been turning them one at a time. Could I truly turn thousands at once?
I close my eyes and, because he’s on my mind, I think of Hades. He said I’d swept the souls across the divide like it was nothing. And I did, didn’t I? It was instinctive. I reached out … and then there they were.
All right then.
I do notsearchfor connection to the realm, like a hesitant girl desperate to make this work, listening for distant footsteps. I summon it to me, call it here, demand its attention like I know it will give it, like we are one, this power and me.
You ran to each other.
It snaps like a band, pulsing beneath my touch. I feel charged, crackling with energy, and I wonder if I’ll be able to contain power so momentous or if it will spark from me, hotter and more fervent than even my father’s lightning.
The souls flicker in front of me like candles in the dark. I hear whispers of memories and feel their emotions reaching out, desperate for connection. I gather the energy swirling within me and pull at its core like wool, separating the strands. Just as I’m on the verge of wrapping the souls in its cocoon, I feel something else pulsing at the edge of my vision: a small golden beam, closer than the humans, and familiar.
Hecate.
I sense her in the way I sensed Hades and Styx. I thought I was feeling them connect to the world but I wasn’t. It is amagnification of what I feel with the humans because as gods theyarea magnification of the humans – their souls, their auras, their very lives.
Goddess of life.
As the thought flickers it cements itself, solidifies, declares itself true.
I take those human souls, and I twist the energy thrumming through me and surge it towards them, make them burn brighter, make them burn like they are almost alive. And they are whole again.
My eyes snap open.
‘I don’t see the need for the dramatics,’ Hecate says like something incredible did not just occur. ‘But if closing your eyes helps then very well.’
My heart is pounding but I feel … like a flower, roots dug deep, petals open to the sky. I feel centred, certain in who I am for the first time in my life.
