The wraith hadn’t been the one to kill him. Another male had done it, one who had reeked of death.
“I think that because Keras almost killed himself, he straddled the line between the dead and the living.” Thanatos looked at her, pulling her gaze to him. “I have a theory that you saw Keras because of your connection to death.”
She didn’t like the sound of that, but it made more sense than her theory.
“I am still not comfortable being so close to death,” she whispered and rubbed her arm as she walked, stopped when Thanatos didn’t move and looked back at him. “Not you, Death. I mean this darkness inside me… It murmurs sweet alluring things to me, purrs and cajoles me, and often I find myself sinking into it. Is that darkness the source of my power, one warped by my apparent death and the things that have happened to me?”
Thanatos shook his head. “That darkness is your father’s blood in your veins. It speaks to your brothers in the same way, turns them possessive and vicious at times, has had more than one of them baring fangs at me for saying something wrong.”
Fangs.
She lifted her hand and prodded her canines. They were dull right now, looked much the same as his canines, but when her anger got the better of her, they sharpened and grew longer.
“I have fangs.” She dropped her hand from her mouth.
“And the bite to go with them.” Thanatos chuckled softly.
She frowned at him, but didn’t mean it. It was nice to see him lightening again, the darkness that had come over him falling away once more.
“What other things has this realm shown you?” He fell into step beside her again, not keeping his distance this time. “I would like to be prepared in case it begins to affect me.”
“It might be affecting you already.” She looked across at him. “You would not know. I would be surprised if you could tell the difference between reality and the illusions.”
“Humour me.”
She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug, getting the feeling she wasn’t the only one that liked keeping the conversation rolling between them. “Very well. Hundreds of times, it has shown my family to me… has tormented me with images of them that I believed at first. I have seen them turn their backs on me, have seen them refuse to my face to release me and save me… I have heard them disown me and point out all my faults, belittling me and making me feel useless… unwanted.”
And every time it had wounded her, despite the fact she had told herself they were lies, that none of it was real. It was all an illusion.
“Calindria,” Thanatos started, his voice softer than she had ever heard it.
She shook her head and steeled herself, brought up walls around her heart to stop the hurt from flooding it again.
“Be on your guard, Thanatos.” She looked him right in the eye, her tone grave. “This realm is a living thing, and it will use your deepest fears and darkest memories against you.”
Chapter 12
Another distant shriek rang out, echoing through the tunnel to make Calindria tense. Her small shoulders hunched up and she flicked a look over them, her blue eyes landing on him.
Thanatos was beginning to wish he could teleport, or at the very least that Calindria would allow him to fly her. It would make their journey to the edge of the realm faster and would get her away from whatever was making those noises.
She quickened her already brisk pace as another long, howling shriek reached them.
The urge to grab her and run with her was strong, almost undeniable as he flexed his fingers around the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at a moment’s notice. He wasn’t sure whether the creatures that made those noises were ahead of them or behind them. They echoed too much, making them seem as if they were all around them.
Maybe they were.
Maybe he and Calindria were trapped between two groups of the beasts.
Calindria muttered things beneath her breath, an obvious attempt to keep her mind off the fact they were most likely being hunted.
“What was your daily life like in the cage?” he murmured, keeping his voice low so it didn’t draw attention to them, but unable to resist the need to give her something to focus on other than the creatures.
“The guards would check me regularly, but after the first few… centuries, I suppose… they grew bored with tormenting me every visit. One would simply come and stare at me in a way I did not like. The other would make him leave, would speak of not touching me.” She chuckled softly, the sound out of place given the gravity of what she was speaking about. “At least I know why he was repeatedly told not to touch me. They knew of my powers.”
Which made him suspect she had touched someone at some point to reveal them, only she either hadn’t seen what her touch had done or she had blocked the memory or believed it another illusion.
She looked back at him, a solemn edge to her beautiful face as her brow furrowed and blue eyes glittered with something familiar to him—shame.
“I could not leave the cage…” She hesitated and he sensed her nerves, was on the verge of telling her that she didn’t have to tell him any more when she continued. “I could not leave it even to bathe or… other things.”
Thanatos wanted to growl at how she had been treated, knew without her saying it directly that she was talking about going to the bathroom. The bastards who had held her for almost six hundred years hadn’t even allowed her to do that in private and he would make them pay for that, for humiliating her.
Her cheeks reddened and she gazed at the ground before her. He wanted to walk beside her, to touch her blushing cheeks and tell her she had no reason to be ashamed, but while the tunnel had smooth walls and was free of stalactites and stalagmites for once, it wasn’t wide enough for him to walk beside her.
So he would settle for another way of making her feel better.
He would show her that she wasn’t the only one who had dark days in their past.
“I was captured once.”
She immediately looked back at him, her beguiling sapphire eyes wide and bright with a spark of interest. “You were?”
He nodded and adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword as he thought about when the demigoddess had captured him and lost his nerve.
“Zeus sent me to retrieve a male named Sisyphus and bring him to Tartarus, where he would be chained.” It seemed like a safer way to make her feel as if she wasn’t the only one who had been through the terrible trials she had. “The bastard asked me to demonstrate how the chains worked and I was tired of him resisting me, so… I explained them. It was not my finest hour… you must understand that. Sisyphus was swifter than I had expected, bound me with the chains instead.”
“What happened?”
He shifted his wings, restlessly flapped and furled them. “When no one died in the mortal realm because I was bound, unable to do my duty, the god of war grew irritated that his battles had lost their… fun… because what good is a battle where no one will die?”
“The god of war freed you?” Her eyes leaped between his and when he nodded, she frowned at him. “It does not sound the same as my captivity. I doubt you were tormented in Tartarus. I am surprised my father did not release you.”