'The shadows. He's in the shadows.' The voice was faint, but it was Skop's.
'How do you know?' I said, altering my course and heading for the kitchens I'd visited earlier. There was no reply. As I got closer I could see yellow sparks in the darkness, and I raised my dagger arm again. But I must have slowed, because pain lanced through my wrist and I almost dropped Faesforos as I looked up. The phoenix had its sharp talons wrapped around my arm, and the breath left my lungs as I was jerked off my feet. I tried to reach around with my other arm to prize the talons off but the bird twisted to the side and I was thrown the other way. We were moving higher, and I looked down at the shadows. The yellow sparks were getting brighter and I realized there was a figure emerging. It was a man, and he looked completely ordinary, save for the murder in his eyes. The power around him could have been fire or energy or electricity, I wasn't sure, but it crackled bright along his skin, leaping and dancing from him like the flames on the phoenix.
'Time to die, Persephone.'
I swung my free arm up, passing the dagger from my immobilized hand to the other, and jammed it as hard as I could into the birds massive talon. It didn't react. Thinking fast, I tucked my legs under myself and tried to kick out hard to launch myself higher. It worked, giving me a few extra inches to slash at the bit of fiery leg above the black claw. With a squawk, the thing released my arm.
Shit, was all that went through my head as I began to fall, repeated over and over until I smashed into a table. The wood splintered and folded beneath my weight, and for a heart stopping second the tablecloth engulfed me and I couldn't see a thing. I rolled, gasping for the breath that had been knocked out of me, and sending silent thanks that the bird had only lifted me five feet off the ground. Heat sprang up around me as I fumbled my way to my feet, and panic bolted through my body as I saw that the tablecloth still tangled in my legs was on fire. I jabbed Faesforos into the material and ripped it quickly apart, stumbling away from it, trying to get my bearings. There he was. The man with the yellow magic, slowly walking towards me.
'Why don't you face me yourself?' I called out, my words coming between gasping pants.
'You're suggesting I'm the coward? You who ran away from the result of your atrocities?' Fury rolled off his words and the yellow energy around him danced out further, but the bird stayed where it was.
'I can't pay for something I don't know I've done,' I said, shifting my weight and gripping my dagger. Fear that he might tell me, and the whole world, what this awful thing was, warred with my need to keep him talking and keep the phoenix at bay.
'You are a murderer,' he hissed. His words hit me like a sledgehammer. No, there was no way that was true. How could it be? I couldn't hurt an insect or plant, let alone kill a person. You are not the woman I married. You are someone new. Hades' words sliced through my denial, and bile rose in my throat. Please, please, no. It couldn't be true.
'I don't believe you,' I choked out, and the man bared his teeth at me.
'You took her from me. You took everything that I loved from me.' Pain and grief and madness filled his eyes, and I had no doubt that whether or not his accusation was true, he believed it.
'I'm sorry,' I said, as he reached me. 'If it is true, then I am sorry.'
'It's too late to be sorry! Unless you can bring her back, you must die!' The yellow energy burst out from around him, and agony consumed me. It was like an unending electric shock ripping through my muscles, causing spasms so violent I couldn't stand. But before I could fall to my feet his arm shot out, and he grabbed me by the throat, holding me as I jerked and screamed. 'You deserve worse than this.' I barely noticed as he sucked in air through his teeth, drew me closer to him, then spat on me, his saliva sliding down my cheek. Through the blinding pain, I was only able to process one thought. Make it stop. Everything else inside me was shutting down, but my survival instinct was refusing to give up. My arm was raising inch by inch. As the man's eyes blazed with retribution and the pain intensified so much I could no longer see, I buried Faesforos into his ribs.
Twenty-Seven
He dropped me with a gurgled shout, and I slammed to my knees with a hard crack that I barely registered. I fell forward onto my hands as my stomach began to heave. I didn't know if I was sick from the pain, or from the fact that I'd just stabbed a man, my head was spinning so fast. I tried to gulp down air between retching, the pain subsiding but my vision still blurry. Murderer. He had called me a murderer. I couldn't be and yet... I'd just tried to kill him. He was going to kill you! The rational voice in my head tried to drown out the guilt and fear, but it couldn't. I couldn't live with myself, I couldn't draw breath every day, knowing I was the reason somebody else wasn't. Please, please don't let him be dead, I prayed, turning my head towards him slowly. He was on his back, dark red blood pooling under one side of him. I crawled towards him, tears filling my eyes.
'I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' The words tumbled from my mouth, tasting like the acid that filled it. He groaned and I paused. Then he moved, rolling onto his uninjured side. He was alive. Thank the gods, he was alive. I sat back on my heels, letting the tears come. 'What did I do?' I croaked. 'Tell me, who did I take from you?'
'My wife,' he said, his voice hoarse. 'You killed my wife.'
A light flashed so bright that pain seared through my head again, and for a moment I was sure I was going to pass out. I had reached my limit.
'No!' A female voice shouted, and I blinked furiously, trying to clear the tears and blurriness from my eyes. Slowly, the room came back into focus.
Athena was standing before us, in front of smoke Hades and Hecate. Purple energy stilled rolled off Hecate, and Hades was three times his normal size and his smoke seemed to be vibrating.
'You must be judged, Persephone. The Trial is over,' Athena said, her voice like a balm to my pain, calming my mind. The three judges shimmered gently into existence before me.
'But what about him? You have to help him!' I pointed desperately at the man bleeding on the marble. Hades' smoke flickered and Athena smiled at me and waved her hand towards the man. 'His judgment will come too, but for the moment he is safe.'
'Wait, what does that mean?' I asked her, but the commentator's voice boomed across the room.
'Well we really have been treated tonight folks, who would have thought it?' As if in response the phoenix beat its wings, moving higher above everyone. Treated? This shit-show was viewed as a treat? 'Now let's see what the judges think of Persephone's controversial actions tonight. Radamanthus?'
'Two tokens,' the chubby judge smiled at me.
'Aeacus?'
'Zero tokens,' Aeacus said, his blue skin reflecting the soft torchlight in the room.
'Minos?' The piercing look the wise man gave me was totally lost on me. I just gaped back at him, doing my best to contain the roiling emotion tearing my insides apart.
'You broke the rules, Persephone. You saved your friend.'
'That's not his fault, please don't punish him,' I whispered.
'We will not. You have shown loyalty. And that is valued higher than hospitality.' He gazed at me a second longer, then spoke.