I trail my hand along the stonewall until I reach the bottom and step onto the floor.
The dogs go quiet.
“What’s happening?” Max says.
I step into the light. The dogs whimper and then lie down, tails swishing over the stone.
The two men who’ve been trying to tame the dogs with chains and harnesses both let out a breath of relief.
Hades turns to me. “Ana,” he says. There’s a note of surprise in his voice. His eyes glow red in the darkness.
I come in between Hades and Max and crouch down beside the dogs. My heart is pounding in my chest and my tongue is suddenly dry and sticking to the rough of my mouth. But something calls me to the dogs. Something wild and bold.
The dogs crawl on their bellies to reach my outstretched hand. The one on the left bumps his head against me and stares up at me with black, bottomless eyes.
“Hey, puppy,” I say, with a calm I don’t feel. “What’s your name?” I scratch him behind his misty, shadow ears and in the span of a breath, the dog is solid, no longer a shadow thing. He pants, tail wagging, as he stands on thick, muscular legs with a dark, slick coat of fur covering his body.
“How did you do that?” Max says.
“I don’t know. I was just petting him.” I look at Hades over my shoulder. Fire dances in his eyes. He sets his jaw and swivels on his feet.
“I have to go,” he says. “Ana, keep the dogs under control. Max, ask the healer to accelerate Haven’s recovery. Use magic if she must. Preparation for the last trial will begin tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?!” I shout. There’s no way Haven can be at full recovery by then, magic or not. Hades looks at me over his shoulder and when I meet his eyes, there’s a glimmer of acknowledgement there.
Hades knows Haven won’t be ready by then.
Haven won’t be ready but I will.
The God of the Underworld wants me to win his trial.
I don’t know if that’s as close as I’ll get to him claiming me as his own, but I’ll take it.
The Underworld dogs come to heel on either side of me, guarding what, I don’t know.
Hades gives me an almost imperceptible nod before leaving, his black battle cape snapping behind him.
Epilogue
Hades wanders down a corridor so deeply dark it makes even the God of the Underworld uncomfortable.
In all of his eons of existence, he’s only dared head down this path a few times before and each time had been more frustrating than the last. He pulls at the cuffs of his tailored black suit jacket, stepping forward with a confidence he only partly feels.
Things have been strange lately. Too many questions and far too few explanations.
He needs answers. He needs to feel in control again.
When he reaches a bend in the darkness, he puts his hands up in front of him. He senses the veiled doorway more than sees it and when his hands finally touch the smooth glass-like surface, he knows he’s reached his destination.
The veil shimmers away, revealing a pool in a rocky cavern.
He goes to the pool’s edge and looks down. Small diamond lights dart back and forth within the liquid. It’s not water, exactly, but as it only exists in this one cave, a better name has not been given it.
Hades pulls off his jacket and lays it on an outcropping of rock. Then he unbuttons his crisp black shirt and adds it to the pile along with his pants.
When he’s down to just his black boxer briefs, he goes to the first step that descends into the pool. Just as he’s about to plunge beneath the water, a ripple vibrates over the surface followed by a clearing of the throat that seems to come from deep within the well.
Hades rolls his eyes and takes off his last remaining piece of clothing. “Is that better?” he says to the cavern now that he’s standing there stark naked.
When the water is still, he dives into the heart of the pool.
The liquid moves along his skin like silk. His arms cut through the water as he goes deeper and deeper still.
The deeper he goes the brighter it becomes and then—
He opens his eyes. He’s sitting on the floor in a large cave. The diamond lights from the water crisscross over the walls like a pattern of continuously falling stars. He hears the cough again, this time behind him and when he turns around, he finds three women seated at a large loom, their hands deftly weaving in and out of the giant tapestry before them.
Clotho. Lachesis. Atropos.
The Three Fates.
The women cannot be more different from one another and yet Hades can’t tell which one is which. He’s never been able to. It’s as though their consciousness is not permanently tethered to their physical bodies and the three spirits flit in and out of the three hosts on a whim.
Hades stands and bows deeply. “Your Graces,” he says.
“Hades has come to see us, sisters,” the older woman, the crone, rasps.
“What an honor,” says the one who looks like a young girl. A mischievous glint twinkles in her dark eyes as she drags her gaze over Hades’s body from heel to crown.
“What is it that we can do for the great and mighty Lord of the Underworld?” asks the middle one. Her hair is darkest and longest and hangs over her shoulder like a long mane. There’s a kind warmth in her eyes, but a sharp reprimand in her tone.
“I have come to beg your wisdom, Lady Graces,” Hades says smoothly, knowing how easily the Fates can be offended. He doesn’t have time to mince words, but he’s in no mood for playing a long, drawn out game with them.
“Our wisdom?” asks the crone.
“Or our knowledge?” challenges the young one.
“Or do you demand both?” asks the middle one.
“I’ve come with no demands.” Hades holds his hands before him as if he’s trying to quell the bucking of a horse. “I simply require your assistance.”
“You are a god, Lord Hades.” The crone’s fingers are flying over the tapestry at a speed that does not fit her withered fingers.
“We are merely observers and weavers.” The young one starts pulling at a thread, holding it out as the other cuts it, as a chill spears through the air and toward the wall of lights.
“You are more than that,” Hades says. “Don’t play me for a fool.” There’s a growl in the back of his throat and he can feel the embers firing in his eyes. He clamps it down, but not quickly enough.
“And yet you insult us by interrupting our work?” the dark-haired one asks, her silver eyes whirling like the liquid above them.
Hades bites back a sigh of exasperation.
The crone stares at him with black, bottomless eyes. “What is it you want to know?”
“Once, many years ago, you said my father was destined to be overthrown by his sons. And so it came to pass. For over two millennium, Cronus has been safely locked away in Tartarus and now he’s free. What do you say now? How do I find him? Who is destined to defeat him? What does he want?” The questions pour out of him like water. He can’t seem to stop them. It makes him look afraid.
He is afraid.
The mother raises a brow. “Do you not know? The key is already in your midst.”
Hades frowns. “What does that mean?”
The crone holds out a thread. The young one clips it. “It means that fate will play out the way it is meant to play out and having the answers or no answers will not change it.”