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“Yeah,me. I was meant to be the one.” Fighting through the pain, I struggled upright, that warm sensation still tight around my ankle. As soon I managed to sit, facing the river with my palms splayed on the ground to support my weight, I realized it was a thin line of fire, anchoring me in place. “Why… why am I tethered to the fire river?”
“My name isPhlegethon,” the fire giant shot back in annoyance, though he was more regular-sized now. He was sort of moving back and forth, like the fire-person version of pacing, except he had no legs. His humanoid upper body morphed into flames from the waist-down, connecting seamlessly with the fiery river. Oh, hewasthe river. The river was a… god?
How hard had I hit my head exactly?
“You are tethered to me because you need a guide in the underworld or your soul will leave you and be lost forever. You are mortal, with your breathing lungs and your beating heart. This place is not meant for you.”
“Right. I hadn’t exactly planned on stopping here. I was trying to get toTartarus.” I glanced to my left, where the river ended in the giant pit. That was where I needed to go, and definitely wasn’t closed. I looked up at the purplish sky overhead, finding nothing to indicate there had ever been a hole there.
“You are too late. Someone has already gone in your place.” Phlegethon looked oddly pleased with himself, considering his facial expressions were almost impossible to read.
No. No, that wasn’t possible. Unless someone jumped in before I got there? There had been a few minutes between when I’d rendered Grace unconscious and the moment I jumped in. Perhaps someone had been falling ahead of me? Though it would likely be a human and no use to our cause at all. Fuck.
The rope of living flame around my leg began dragging me into the river, and I did my best to scramble backward with my weak limbs.
“Relax, I won’t burn you,” Phlegethon scoffed, sounding annoyed. “I’m going to be your chaperone for the time being. You will travel on my flames until we reach Akeron’s waters. Then he can carry you to Styx, and then through the Stygian Marshlands to the palace. Yes, that will work. Surely, your soul can’t wander on the short walk from the marshlands to the palace…”
“I really don’t think my soul will get lost at all,” I objected, being hauled into the flames completely. They didn’t burn, but they sort of tickled at my skin, and I had no idea how I was floating when I was pretty sure fire wasn’t buoyant. “And I don’t need to go to the palace, I need to go to Tartarus—”
“Someone has already gone in your place,” Phlegethon reiterated sounding annoyed. “You are tiresome. Would you let the Oneiroi’s sacrifice be in vain?”
I froze, vaguely aware that the underworld was passing me by as Phlegethon ferried me in the opposite direction of the pit. “The Oneiroi?”
It couldn’t be him. There must be thousands of Oneiroi in the underworld—Bullet was the only one of his kind whowasn’tdead.
“Yes,TheOneiroi. Your Oneiroi.”
“That’s impossible.”
Phlegethon made a strange noise that sounded sort of like a laugh. “He was half dead already, what is so impossible about it?”
“But Thanatos said he’d tell us if Bullet went to the underworld,” I replied slowly, wading through the sludge in my brain to find a coherent thought.
“If I were being charitable, I would point out that Thanatos is one of the busiest of all the gods. People die awfully frequently, you know. If I were being uncharitable, I would call you foolish to trust his word. This is the same god that stole your fellow consort’s voice, is it not?”
Fuck.
“And Bullet went to Tartarus?” Dread trickled down my spine. No. No, this wasn’t how it was meant to be. Bullet had suffered enough.
“Yes, as I have already said. In your place. If he returns, he will undoubtedly be welcomed into Hades’ halls as a hero, which is why you should make for the palace. Do you understand now? Do I need to explain it to you again?”
What a dick.
“No, no, I got it,” I grumbled. We traveled in silence for a long while, and I wished I could at least take in the view, but the flames either side of me were too high to see anything, so I just stared up at the purple sky overhead, wondering if Bullet was okay. Of all of us, he knew the most about the gods. He’d been studying them his entire life, and he was used to conversing with deities.
Maybe…
Maybe this was a good thing? Or was that just my selfishness talking?
Suddenly, the flames morphed into water, and I gasped at the shock of the cold on my skin.
“A live one! What have you brought me, Phlegethon?”
“Akeron, this Philotes daimon must make it unharmed to Hades’ palace. See that he gets there.” Phlegethon could not have sounded less interested, rushing away in a sudden burst of flames back in the direction we’d come.
Okay, see you later then, I guess.
“He is tempestuous, that one,” Akeron told me, as though he was bestowing a great secret on me. I looked around, but Akeron was ushering me along the river, and apparently had no interest in showing his face. While I didn’t think we were moving as quickly as I had been with Phlegethon, water sprayed up on either side of me, blocking my view. “I won’t terrify you by tarrying, on these shores are The Restless Dead, those whose souls had no payment for Charon. It is very crowded right now, and not a pleasant sight.”
