Chapter 24
Fay shot up, screaming, tears burning her cheeks. For a split second all she saw was the sword being plunged into Amon and her own heart being shredded to ribbons. In her ear all she heard was Andromeda’s screaming, her grief tearing at Fay’s mind. In a flash someone was in front of her but she reacted, throwing her hands up, hurling a burst of energy. They went flying and she was off, stumbling to her feet, staggering out of the cave. She had no idea where she was going, only that she had to run, to go…go somewhere. Find something – no, someone. A rage stirred beneath her skin, demanding to be let out. She wanted to sink her claws into Hades, tear him limb from limb.
As she got out of the cave something caught her ankle. She gasped and lurched forward, crashing to the ground and down the hill. Bushes and thorns tore at her as she rolled helplessly down several feet before crashing to a stop, tears hot on her skin. She pushed herself up, wincing as pain lanced down her spine.
Footsteps raced towards her, hurtling down the hill. Leaves crunched underfoot. Fay stood up sharply, hands glowing at the ready.
Ben hurled himself into the clearing before her, then threw his hands up in warning.
“Relax it’s just me!”
For a moment she didn’t drop her guard. Her hands still glowed warningly but her wild eyes fixed on him, seeing Cerberus and Amon in his eyes. Both had been slaughtered by the gods…and now Ben was a slave to one. A fate that had started with Andromeda.
Her hands relaxed, the energy winking out. Ben inched closer, as if she might lash out again…and she winced inside. She didn’t fight him however as he reached out, checking her over warily. His hand brushed her arm and with his touch she crumpled into his embrace, no longer crying but worn out. Her mind just kept replaying Amon’s death…and Hades words to him.
Brother. Brother. Brother.
But Cerberus wasn’t a brother of the three…
Or was he?
She pulled back and searched his face for some sort of clue. Something shared with the Gods. She didn’t see it; then again, she hadn’t seen it in Cerberus or Amon. The former had been a warrior – yes – and powerful but a God? One rival to the three? No. Even Amon with his wild heart and magic?
“What is it?”
“I…” The words choked in her throat. “You-“
“Did you have a vision back there?”
She nodded slowly. “I saw Amon. I saw him die.”
“Oh hell,” he breathed.
“There’s more. Something Hades said as Amon died.”
The words froze in her throat for a moment as Ben looked at her, searchingly, wondering what the mysterious message was. What kind of words would leave Fay so utterly rattled. She looked at him again, tried to see something really godly about him but he was just the same as before. Someone she’d known since she had been a child, whom had been there when she first walked, first rode a bike. He’d been a lot of first for her and somehow, he was with her in the depths of Tartarus. Someone she swore when she left the pack that she’d never see again – and, if she did, she’d kill him. Now, the thought of killing him, of him dying, made her sick to her stomach.
“What did he say?” Ben asked cautiously.
In truth, it almost sounded like Ben didn’t want to know. She looked up, found his eyes wary but becoming fixated on what might be said. On what he’d learn. She’d seen that obsession in herself.
“See you in hell, brother.”
There. Let him bear those words, too. Decide what it meant. After all, he had memories of other lives in his mind, like her. A calling to something ancient. The words were more for him, anyway.
He looked down at his hands, mortal as they seemed, no different to the hands that had once held her as a human. When he finally looked up, he seemed like the ground had been ripped from beneath him, that he was spiralling. He had all this knowledge, this awareness of a life that was his, of a tragedy in his past. How to grasp it though? Like Andromeda did, with all the terrible and painful things she knew?
“I was a God,” he whispered. “I was a God…What the hell happened to me?”
Killed, so many times. Yet even she knew there were stories in his past she hadn’t seen. How he came to know Calypso and Remus, for instance. How he came to be the right hand of Hades, not knowing he was his brother. He looked lost, then angry; at what he knew, at what he knew he didn’t know, at what had been stolen from him.
It was the same look Andromeda had.
“You only know parts of the story. You need the whole picture before you do anything,” she finally said.
“And what can I do as a hellhound of Hades?” He bit back.
She didn’t cower beneath his anger. It wasn’t at her, at everything else, at the Gods themselves. In such a short time all he’d known had been ripped apart. After all, how could he have possibly known what awaited him? What dark secrets lurked in past lives that he hadn’t even known existed?
She stepped closer to him, put her hand on his cheek and stared into those fiery eyes. “Andromeda was prophesised to kill a God and she’s got her sights set on Hades right now. Why don’t we start with her?”
They walked with the weight of their visions on their shoulders, praying that they’d evade Eris and find Andromeda. It seemed like such a shot in the dark that Fay knew the odds were against them. Then again, the odds had been against Andromeda from the moment she first met Cerberus. Again, and again, she defied those odds. As did Fay and Ben.
After several hours of walking, three of which were spent uphill, they came to the crest of the hill. The trees thinned around them and stretched out at the base of the hill before them, a sprawling wasteland. On it, covering it like a disease, suffocating, was an army. Black tents that bore the mark of Eris. Fay didn’t even have to reach out with her magic to sense the hordes of demons that camped there. The air was choked with the essence of demons, ones that had been cursed and trapped to the deepest pits of Tartarus.
“Is that what I think it is?” Ben gestured to the horizon.
Fay wrenched her gaze from the army and followed his hand. Perched on a lone hill on the horizon, a castle forged on obsidian. With her hellhound eyes she saw the banners flown from the walls, a mark she hadn’t seen before. It could only belong to one person.
“Andromeda.”
“I can feel her from here. She’s…”
Fay knew exactly how he felt. Even from the vast distance she felt the raw power. Ancient, restless. It called to her, drew her forward, the tug in her chest almost painful.
“Whoa – hold on!” Ben’s hand touched her upper arm.
She stopped and looked at him, then realised she’d started to walk down the hill. Right into the army. She blinked, drawing herself back out of the reverie she hadn’t realised she’d fallen into.
“Sorry.”
“What is it with you and Andromeda? You’re drawn to her with an intensity that I’ll admit scares me,” he confessed quietly, glancing to the distant castle with caution.
She gently pulled his hand of hers. “That’s why I’m here. I need to know.” After a pause she thought of Abe and Andromeda, how in the face of such an uncertain future, he’d tried to stop her. Abe had then done the same to Fay. She looked at Ben curiously. “You don’t have to stay, you know? You have your own…connection to this place you need to figure out.”
His gaze flickered to the army, then to the castle. “Something pulls me here, too.” A shadow of unease flared in his eyes as he looked to her. “To you. Always has.”
Her cheeks heated but she said nothing. The more he spoke the less he sounded like the Ben she’d grown up with. The quiet, awkward werewolf, endearingly kind. With each passing moment he was changing, becoming something else. Tartarus was changing him, changing them both really. Into what, she didn’t know.
“We should get going.”
He nodded. “Agreed but I have no idea how we’re getting through there. Shadow, maybe?”
In truth, she had no idea. The army stretched far to the horizon. She turned back away from the hill top and headed back down into the forest. At the base of a tree she sat down, tucking her legs neatly beneath her. Ben followed silently and stood off to the side, watching her curiously, silently. She felt his gaze bore into her as she closed her eyes and set her flattened palms against the earth.
Tartarus showed her she had the ability to see more but she wanted to see how much she could feel, push this newfound ability. Maybe, just maybe, she’d find a way to the castle. Either by bypassing the army completely or finding a way through, unseen.
She sunk down into the darkness inside of her, tunnelling deep through her touch, right into the energy of Tartarus. It rushed into her, a tidal wave of dark energy, that tore at her mind. Pulled her in every direction at once. The vastness of Tartarus nearly consumed her completely.
Focus, Fay. Let Andromeda guide you, she told herself and searched for the tie that bound her to Andromeda.
In the vast darkness she nearly missed it when something caught her, a hook into her mind. She latched onto it, found the familiar pull and let it guide her forward. Suddenly, she found herself soaring over the army, straight to the castle. As she neared those silver towers, she saw a lone figure standing on the top of the wall, clad in a dress resembling the night sky. Her gaze was on Fay as she drew closer, then landed. An ancient gaze that bore the weight of her mission, resolute, indominable.
She turned from Fay and looked out across the army, uneasy. Shadows lingered in her eyes.
“Eris is determined to keep us apart,” she declared. “I can sense you.” After a beat, a strange light flickered in her eyes, her nostrils flared as she turned back to Fay. “You’re not alone.”
“Ben is with me-“
Something akin to shock swept over her face. “He’s…” She turned to sharply to Fay, searching. “How?”
“He’s hoping you can help him with that but we need to get to the castle first. Any ideas?”
For a second it seemed like she wanted to continue down questions about Ben. She shook her head, thinking better of it and turned back to the army. Her eyes bled to black as she raised her hand to the army. After a beat her own dropped as she staggered back, barely catching herself on the wall before she fell, her knees wobbly. Exhaustion darkened her face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Eris. She’s determined to get in here,” replied Andromeda with a smug smile. “She can’t.” She took several deep breaths, then straightened up. “I’ll distract her, keep her army distracted as you slip through. Try to keep unnoticed, though. I’m not at my best right now.”
For the first time there was a vulnerability in her eyes. Eris had worn Andromeda down, made her a cornered animal. Weaker, not broken. It was gone suddenly, hidden behind a wall rapidly thrown up as she looked away from Fay.
“Wait for my signal, then run like hell. I’ll be waiting for you, for the both of you.”
With a flick of her hand Andromeda threw Fay back across the field and into her body. Her eyes flew open with a gasp. Ben was there in front of her, reaching out but she jumped to her feet, scrambling up the hill. Her fingers dug into the earth as she hauled herself up and as she crested the hill, looking out across that sprawling army, her breath hitched. It was as though the world held its breath, frozen in time, waiting for Andromeda to act.
Ben appeared at her side, following her gaze, silent.
“When I say, we run – okay?”
“Down there?”
“Yep.”
A pause, then a soft laugh. “Oh hell, why not?”
Out across the army silence fell; then, darkness burst upwards from the castle, a beam of dark energy. The beam hit the sky, then unfurled outwards. It rushed across the sky, then as it hit the horizon, plunging the world into darkness, blue orbs burst across the camp. As the camp started to glow beneath the orbs black shadows dropped from the sky. Demons. Unlike any Fay had seen or sensed before. Then she realised why. They weren’t real. Spectres, nothing more.
Yet as the demons hit the army, Andromeda’s own little army, screams tore through the air.
Ben and Fay shared a look, then started to run.
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