“I will make my own way back home from here then, with the help of this Messenger.”
His expression darkened with each word that left her lips, blue fire igniting in his eyes, rapidly engulfing his irises. The air around him chilled despite the campfire. His head slowly swivelled towards her, his jaw clenching as he flexed his fingers around the grip of his sword, causing his muscles to tense.
“You are… dismissing me?” he growled and she didn’t hear anger.
She heard pain.
Saw his barriers come back up to shut her out as he bared his teeth at her, as he sheathed his sword and turned on her, glaring down into her eyes as he loomed over her, dwarfing her.
Calindria squared her shoulders and stood her ground as that pain echoed inside her too, made her want to take back what she had said and remain with him. She couldn’t. The thought of leaving him hurt her, but she knew if she remained the pain would be a thousand times worse.
He couldn’t give her what she wanted from him.
She could see that now. She could see she had been a fool to think she could break down the barriers around his heart without help. They were impenetrable. If she was going to succeed in destroying the layers of walls he had constructed to protect himself, she was going to need help.
She was going to need to speak with someone who had shattered barriers far thicker and far taller than the ones guarding Thanatos’s heart.
Her mother.
By her mother’s account, her father’s heart had been locked within a thousand cages, each more intricate and tougher than the last. Persephone had broken through them all though to claim Hades’s heart. If anyone could help her with Thanatos, it was her mother.
Her family knew where Thanatos lived too. She could return home and learn the trick to winning his heart, and then go to his castle to lay siege to it.
Thanatos jerked to his left, scowling over her head in the direction of another tunnel, one that led deeper into the mountain. His face darkened further and his growl echoed around the cavern, sending a shiver down her spine, and then he was moving. She turned and began to lift her hand, let it fall back to her side as he stormed away from her, picking up speed.
He wasn’t going to follow her?
She began in the same direction, worried that Thanatos would be stuck in this realm for longer than necessary or might end up attacked by the Keres again. Who would tend to his wounds then? Who would have his back and help him fend off the death spirits?
The Messenger was quick to step into her path, his placid face an unreadable mask.
“Home is in the other direction, my lady.” He pressed his hand to his chest again, dipping his head.
She stared at his face, into his eyes, trying to see the feelings that Thanatos claimed he had. They were empty, no trace of emotion in them. She shook her head. Thanatos had been desperate to stop her from leaving him, must have said whatever had come into his mind in an attempt to make her wary of the Messenger and remain with him instead.
Messengers didn’t have feelings.
She knew this one well and could remember him clearly now she was no longer afraid of looking back at her life. He had served her for her entire life up until her death, and not once had she seen even the barest hint of emotion in him.
“But… Thanatos.” She pointed towards the tunnel, aching with a need to follow him.
The Messenger looked over his shoulder. “The god of death has made his choice.”
It struck her that he had.
She had given Thanatos an ultimatum, and he had chosen to leave her.
That hurt.
Calindria stared at the tunnel he had disappeared into, the ache to follow him becoming an ache to get away from this place. Hurt turned to anger in her just as it had in Thanatos, the darkness swift to latch on to it and fill her mind with wretched thoughts that carved great holes in her heart.
She turned her back to the tunnel and followed the Messenger as he led her towards the other exit, her thoughts swallowing her. She had given herself to Thanatos and had thought that what they had shared had meant something to him, but apparently not.
Calindria sighed as they stepped out from the tunnel, into the long valley, trudged along behind the Messenger as she thought about Thanatos, about how he had smiled at her, how happy he had looked when he had woken to find her watching over him. How loved she had felt when he had looked at her like that, as if she was the source of his happiness.
“It will not be long until you are home,” the black-haired male said, breaking into her thoughts.
She shrugged.
Felt his eyes on her.
He fell back into step with her. She didn’t bother to look at him, just kept walking, following his lead. She paid more attention to the ground than she did to her surroundings as she tried to figure out if she had been mistaken about Thanatos.
“The palace has changed much since you were last there, but we will be able to find a place for you. Your parents have built homes for all your brothers. I am sure they will build you such a home too.”
She nodded. A home of her own would be nice. She pictured the one she had always dreamed of owning, set in a wild and beautiful land, one that was green and bright, and colourful.
“I do not want to live in the palace.” She kept building the picture in her mind. Perhaps a little wooden building, with plots in the garden where she could grow things, and animals that would come by to see her.
Animals she couldn’t touch.
She ached at that, heart growing heavier, tears stinging her eyes. Thanatos could have taught her how to master her power, she was sure of it. She would have been able to lure and pet those animals without fear of killing them. Gods, she didn’t think her heart could take it if she stroked an animal only for it to wither and die before her eyes, an innocent life taken by her cursed touch.
“Then we will not live there.” The Messenger picked up his pace as they crossed the valley, heading for the trees. “Where would my lady like to live?”
“Somewhere not like this. Somewhere not grim and dark. I want to live somewhere as verdant and beautiful as the Elysian Fields.” She looked at the gloomy valley around her, imagined that Thanatos probably lived in such a place, in his grand castle.
Alone.
The thought of him going back to that life hurt her for some reason. Because she had seen that he was lonely and she didn’t want him to subject himself to that life again?
No. It hit her that it was because she wanted him to be happy. She rooted for him to make up with his twin, had seen how important that relationship was to him, and as she thought about it, she realised how important her relationship with her own twin was to her.
She wanted to live in a beautiful, remote place far from the Underworld, but that would mean being far from her twin too. Six centuries apart from him had been torture, even when she had thought him dead. Now that she knew he was alive, time apart from him would be a pain far worse than that. Once or twice in their youth, he had been sent away from her to train with their father’s legions. That distance between them had torn at her, had made her ache every second of the time they were apart.
“But it must be in the Underworld. I want to be close to my brother.” She tried to think of any place other than the Elysian Fields that she had visited that had been as green and as beautiful, and couldn’t think of a single one.
“Your brother?” The Messenger frowned at her.