Outside, the seasons settled, flowers dying as late autumn finally took hold again.
Keras’s eyelids fluttered and for a painful heartbeat, Enyo thought he would wake, but he remained asleep.
She leaned over, cleared his hair from his forehead and kissed it. “Sleep. Rest.”
He moaned softly and rolled his head towards her. She stroked his cheek.
Time trickled past, the hours blurring as she tended to him, as she watched over him and bathed his forehead, keeping him cool as he began to burn up. Megan and Marinda brought her a fresh bowl of water and more cloths and towels, taking the old ones with them. The sun dipped below the horizon again and the world fell quiet.
Peaceful.
Keras suddenly jacked up off the bedding and twisted to his left, and she teleported in a heartbeat, lifted the only thing she had available as he retched. He emptied his stomach in the bowl of water, thankfully nothing more than a mouthful coming up.
Esher appeared behind her. “He’s sick. You didn’t tell me he was sick.”
“He was only just sick,” she snapped and then issued him an apologetic look as he glared at her. “It is to be expected.”
Keras had held her hair from her face when she had vomited for three days straight.
He slumped back onto the bedding, still out cold.
She wished she had been unaware of vomiting everywhere like he was. She still thought about it at times, shame sweeping through her together with embarrassment whenever she did.
Esher disappeared and when he came back, he had an armful of buckets. He set them down by Keras’s head and gave her a pointed look, and she had to wonder.
Was he bringing buckets because he was concerned about Keras’s welfare, or because he was concerned about his brother being sick all over the tatami mats?
Aiko appeared behind him, took one look at Keras as he writhed on the bedding, and said, “I will get some water.”
Enyo nodded her thanks.
Cassandra brought a fresh bowl of water together with a bundle of herbs and a dish. Enyo mopped the sweat from Keras’s chest and face as the sorceress lit the herbs, as their scent filled the room.
“They should help bring down his fever,” Cassandra said with an understanding smile. “I will look for something that might help with the other effects.”
Enyo’s throat felt too tight to speak and thank her for her help as Keras launched towards the nearest pail. She grabbed it for him and held it, guilt tangling tightly around her heart as he retched. His shoulders shook as he clutched the bucket, as he lingered over it, breathing hard and muttering things.
She did her best not to listen to his jumbled words.
Because she feared what she might hear.
Cass left them.
Enyo sat with Keras, stroking his back, pouring her love onto him and not holding any back. She tended to him through another long night, into the pale hours of morning.
A familiar deep voice came from the other room.
Ares was awake.
She was glad to hear it, that the brothers would have some good news to tide them over while she tended to Keras. She listened to Megan insisting that he rest, fussing over him with warm words filled with love.
Enyo was also glad that Megan didn’t tell him about what she had done to Keras. If there was a brother who would really confront her about it, it was Ares. He was fiercely protective of all his brothers, especially Keras.
The mansion fell quiet again.
Keras fell quiet too.
She stroked his brow, frowned as she noticed something. His colour was returning. He was looking brighter.
She tensed as a sensation shot through her, like someone yanking on her insides.
Her brother was summoning her.
She cursed him. She didn’t want to leave Keras, not when he was starting to look better. She wanted to be here when he woke, so he could see that she had stayed with him, that she had been the one to look after him and help him through this initial phase of his withdrawal.
The summons came again, practically tugging her forwards. She braced her hands against her knees to stop herself from moving and sighed as she realised something.
She had to go.
If she didn’t go to Olympus and see what he wanted, he would be furious, would probably come here and take her home by force, and punish her when she got there. She didn’t need to find herself shut in the lightless cell beneath her home, kept there for weeks until she was ready to beg to be let out, willing to do anything to achieve freedom. She needed to be here with Keras, so she would go now so she could return as quickly as possible.
She dropped another kiss on his forehead.
Lingered a moment.
And disappeared in a swirl of white-blue smoke.
Deeply aware her brother knew she had disobeyed his orders not to come to the mortal world, and not only that but she had entered the Underworld without his permission and confronted Hades.
The basement cell beckoned.
She knew it in her heart.
Only this time he would keep her locked up forever.
Chapter 12
Fire.
It consumed him, ate the flesh from his aching bones, made them burn too.
Keras shifted restlessly, trying to escape the flames, seeking the comforting cool touch that had been with him, had been keeping the inferno at bay. Liquid fire scoured his throat and his insides, dried his mouth out and had him fumbling, desperate for water.
For something to quench the fire.
But the cooling presence that had been with him was gone.
A shudder wracked him. Sweat slicked his skin and he shoved at the covers, pushing them down his body. Chilly air washed over his overheating flesh, bliss that he savoured as pain devoured him. He tried to lift his hand to his throat. It trembled and shook, every bone and tendon in it aching as it fell back to his stomach.
Keras lay there, trapped by weakness, too tired to even open his eyes. He drifted on a dark, turbulent ocean, rocked by each wave that crashed over him, in danger of falling back into the endless abyss beneath him.
He mustered his strength, refusing to let the weakness win, to allow that black abyss to swallow him again.
Acid burned his throat and he swallowed it back down, regretted it when it only made it worse, spreading the hot sharp feeling to his stomach. He blindly reached around him, his entire body quaking as he struggled to move his arm, to convince his body to follow his orders.
His wrist knocked against something.
It tumbled and fell with a soft clunk, and cool liquid washed over his skin.
Keras muttered a vicious curse.
Gathered his strength again.
Battled the weakness, determined to win.
He was done with this.
He was strong, a god, the firstborn of Hades.
And he had shamefully allowed himself to be vanquished.
By nothing more than a pill.
Keras grimaced as he managed to open his eyes, as his lids scraped like gravel over them. His blurry vision painted the world in sombre hues of black and grey. He blinked to clear it, grateful when the action made his eyes water, washing away the gritty feeling. His gaze fell to his wrist and the spilled glass.
He frowned.
Struggled to focus.
When his vision cleared, his frown deepened.
A bracelet he didn’t recognise encircled his wrist, a delicate weave of black, silver and gold, knotted together to form a band no more than a few millimetres wide.
It was beautiful.
Had an ache forming behind his breast for some reason, a yearning for that comforting cool touch that had been with him.