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“Indeed, it has been eons.” Zeus tilted his head to the side. “At your insistence.”
Riot was squeezing my fingers to the point of pain, his panic at how this was going to play out clear. I was strangelynotworried, though. Maybe that was just hope speaking. Hope that we could finally find some sense ofpeaceafter all the suffering we’d experienced.
“I won’t apologize,” Gaia said, somewhat petulantly. “The mortals had grown tired of The Twelve. Their meager worship did not sustain you. It was nothing for Typhoeus to drag you to Tartarus.”
She glared at T with blatant hatred and betrayal in her eyes. Had the dragon been a response to T fighting on our side?
“It was nothing for Typhoeus to drag us to Tartarusafterwe’d already successfully fought off a horde of yourGigantes,” Ares growled, everything about his body language ready to attack. He had a surprisingly angelic face, with soft blonde curls just visible beneath a shining golden helmet, but his expression was fierce and unyielding. “Don’t pretend you didn’t wage a full-scale war on Olympus to get what you wanted.”
“A war you wouldn’t have lost if you hadn’t been so weak.”
“Come now,” Zeus said cajolingly. “We can let bygones be bygones. Our strength grows by the minute—more so now the plants grow again, and mortals seek someone to pin their gratitude on. Thanks to the Prophêtis, word of our names, our roles, has never been more widespread.”
“Let bygones be—”
“Of course, you will need to spend a small period of rest and relaxation in Tartarus to cool off.” Zeus observed the broken rock pile at the base of the plateau with disinterest.
Gaia scoffed. “I don’t know how you got out, what was going through Tartarus’ head, or what trick you played on him, but he would never entrapme. I am his beloved.”
There was a burst of outraged flame over my head that had Riot, Wild, and me ducking for cover. T obviously didnotagree with that assessment. Gaia spared him a scathing look but didn’t attempt to speak to him or defend herself in any way.
“Then what harm is it?” Zeus pressed, shrugging his shoulders. “If you aresoconfident of his obsequiousness—”
“Hislove.”
“Of course, of course. Hislove. Go and visit, say hello. If he lets you walk free as you’re so confident he will, then your reign in the upperworld continues—how can we possibly defeat you?”
I held my breath, waiting to see if Gaia would walk into this neat little trap. But she had been wooed by appeals to her ego before, and I got the feeling that this was her biggest one. Tartarus. Her own personal prison guard.
Was I meant to get involved here? On the one hand, I was the Prophêtis. On the other, a wise person knew when to keep their mouth shut, and this seemed like one of those times.
“Fine,” she hissed. “I will return here shortly, wearing Tartarus’ ring as a symbol of his devotion, and you will bow to me and admit my preeminence. You willyieldto me, and you will never challenge me again.”
“We have a deal, Mother Gaia,” Zeus replied serenely, inclining his head respectfully.
Gaia didn’t break eye contact as her root-like feet sunk into the ground, followed by the rest of her body, staring at the King of the Gods until her eyes disappeared into the dirt.
Chapter 28
IfollowedtheStyx’sinstructions to the letter, staring determinedly at the palace as I approached through the marshlands, rounding the building to get to the front steps.Don’t take your eyes off it for a moment, the Styx had whispered.Or your soul will wander.
My legs wobbled slightly beneath me as I climbed the steps, the gnawing hunger in my stomach growing to an acute pain while I’d been down here. In some ways, it felt like no time had passed at all while I’d been traveling on the rivers, but my body begged to disagree.
As I made my way up the final steps and passed through the white columns to the interior, I stumbled into the middle of a party that I definitely wasn’t invited to.
I’d crashed plenty of parties in my time, usually with Riot along for the ride, but being glared at or gasped at in horror by a bunch of what were clearly dead people was definitely a new experience.
There was definitely no sneaking in, no discreetly trying to figure out where Bullet was and subtly getting his attention.
“Alive! It’s alive!” one of the souls gasped, pointing at me in disgust.Rude. They were the ones who were unsettling to look at. While they were all human enough—and came in all different shapes and shades and sizes—they had this uncanny valley-look to them that clearly separated them from the living. It wasn’t just that they were all dressed in the same plain black toga thing, either. It was that there was something intangiblemissingabout them.
Considering how unsettlingly odd the souls were, the palace itself was remarkably ordinary, in a grand, divine power sort of way. Maybe it was because I’d been expecting some gothic nightmare with chandeliers made of human skulls, but the white marble palace, tinged a faint shade of violet from the purple sky, seemed pretty tame. Boring, even.
“Get away,” another soul hissed, leaping back at my approach.
“You’re the talking dead guy, I don’t know whyyousound so grossed out,” I mumbled, weirdly offended that everyone was jumping away from me like I smelled bad.Was Ma here?I couldn’t imagine her partying at the palace; she’d probably find the whole thing gauche and beneath her, but I hoped she was nonetheless. It’d be nice to encounter a dead person who was actually happy to see me.
A veritable sea of souls parted down the center of the grand hall, revealing two thrones on a dais at the front of the room. There was an onyx throne on one side, while the other was made of interlinked vines, with dark red flowers growing along the back of it. That throne was empty.
