I hear whispers that swell and rise into a crescendo – the souls, the humans. Which means … yes, there – the rift I created. Petty, inconsequential, hardly deeper than ink on parchment.
‘I’m not feeling whatever it was you described,’ Hades says. His breath floats on the air, the sound of his voice surrounding me, every vibration dancing on my skin.
A spark, two flickering flares, one near and one further, tangible and enticing, like I might burn myself if I get too close. I reach out and grasp them both anyway.
Power – their power – arches through me like my father’s lightning and before I can get lost in the swirl of this world I reach for the rift and I tear it apart. Styx gasps and I take her river and I push it forward. It floods in, filling the rift separating the two lands.
‘Stop,’ Hades gasps, his hand on my shoulder, but I’m too aware of too many things and my body hardly registers him.
I reach towards the whispering souls and I search for their fear. The moment I hear a single fearful voice it starts screaming – not out loud, but in my head – until their fear is all I am aware of. The souls that are screaming are so easy to find among the others. I flick my wrist and in one fathomless leap they fly across to the other side of the river.
My body shudders and I feel my own tiredness like an echo.
I wrench my hand from the earth and cut off my connection to the realm. My own senses collide and I am on the groundwith Hades above me. My head is pounding, my lungs ache, and I’ve never felt better in my life. I feel like I could do anything, even as I struggle to my feet.
Hades grasps my arm and I jolt as a flare reignites. I recognize it as him – I felt him and his energy. I used his own power to rip his world apart. He looks exhausted but still he helps me up, then he lets go of me like it’s an afterthought.
‘What just happened?’ Styx asks, staggering back to us. Then she sees the land beneath and gasps. ‘It worked?’
‘Apparently,’ Hades says, eyeing me warily.
‘Thank you,’ I say, my tongue clumsy and heavy in my mouth. My words slur. ‘For sharing your power. I couldn’t have done that without you both.
Hades and Styx exchange a look I can’t read. ‘You collapsed,’ he says. ‘You weren’t moving.’
‘I was focused. It’s fine,’ I say. With every second, my tiredness ebbs away.
‘I’ve never felt anything like that.’ Styx shakes her head.
‘I think you were right,’ I say to Hades. ‘We were stupid to try to do it all in one day but we got it done, didn’t we?’
We did. I stare at my work, the rift between the humans.
It’s such a tiny thing. The human souls are still decayed remnants of thought, and the Underworld is largely unaffected – just this tiny part where humans linger split in two. But it’s important. Already their fear is fading. It’s not disappearing entirely, but they’re no longer afraid of running into those who caused them such terror. A tiny thing, yes, but important. The first important thing I’ve ever done.
If my father snatches me away now, at least it will have been worth it. And he would be so angry, more furious than I caneven imagine, because he’d have to admit that, despite all his efforts, he could not contain me.
Who’s your little girl now?
I’m done. I’m not answering to that bloody name any more.
‘Styx, you heard that too, right?’ Hades asks. His jovial tone sounds forced. ‘She said I was right?’
‘I heard it.’
‘I can admit when you make a valid point,’ I say. ‘You simply make them far too rarely.’
‘I’m going to go lie down for a few hours,’ Styx says. ‘I need a very,verylong nap.’
She practically falls into her river, the current now forking into two separate streams that reunite on the other side of the humans.
‘Come on,’ I say to Hades. ‘This is just the start. I need to get back to the library and work out what to actually do with this space.’
‘You can’t be serious,’ Hades says. ‘Whatever we just did exhausted me.’ He raises his hands to show the sputtering smoke he wields. It barely clings to him before vanishing entirely. ‘Don’t you need to rest?’
I did, but not any more. I can still feel that whisper of the world against my ear. I feel eternal.
‘Not really, no.’
