Chapter Thirty-Eight

Poseidon, bearing down on me at the moment of transformation, impaled himself on the sharp talon at the end of each wing. He howled and stumbled back. I hauled my battered body off of the ground and spread my deadly wings. Alex was dying if not already dead, Gregory had put himself in danger to get the Nectar to me, and Tantalus had been used as a tool in this pointless war just like I had; none of them needed to die here.

I landed heavily by Alex, who breathed but did not move. Hoping she would be all right out of the way, I beat the air with my wings in the direction of Gregory and Tantalus.

"Gotta get out of there, my big, bad dragon friend," I called to him. Poseidon was standing again, madder than ever; the ground rumbled. We were all trapped and he knew it. The sea god took his time advancing on us again. He knew we had nowhere to go. I turned my attention back to the hole and stage-whispered down into the darkness. "Now or never, Greg."

I can personally attest that anger is a great way to get someone to do what you want—assuming that you want something violent.

In the dark hole I could hear dirt and rocks moving, hitting the floor of the cell. After a moment, Gregory's head poked out of the opening. "You know how I feel about my name, little Fury." He growled at me, eyes golden and wide. "Watch out!"

I rolled to the side, trusting that whatever Gregory was planning was not something I wanted to be in the way of. He threw himself from the hole and collided with Poseidon. The god didn't so much as pause. Gregory's hands, claws covered in dirt from climbing up the wall of the cell, dug into the god's exposed flesh. When Poseidon ripped the dragon from his side and tossed him away, I recognized the trident on the floor of the dungeon.

Gregory slid up next to it, as if that was the plan all along. Poseidon stood over me and the urn for the second time in only moments. He didn't see Gregory pick up his trident, didn't see him swing the blunt end, didn't make a sound as the staff connected with his head.

"Is he dead?" I asked Gregory. My voice did not shake. Gregory did not scare me, though maybe he should have.

"I did not hit him that hard. The last thing that I want is to take up the mantle of a god. If he were dead and I held his trident, I would become Poseidon just as Hector assumed the role of Hades." Gregory dropped the trident next to the god. It clattered against the floor but the dungeon was otherwise silent.

"What about Tantalus?"

Gregory shook his head at her, eyes less reptilian now. "Tantalus has finally expired; he will go on to the Fields in peace."

Why didn't he drink the Nectar if he had it this whole time?

I knew Poseidon wasn't going to stay down forever, though it would have been nice. We weren't going to be able to sit here and lick our wounds while battle still raged on the surface. "We must deliver the elixir to Hades."

I wanted to lay back and close my eyes but with Alecto silent in my head I couldn't ignore my injuries. On top of all the bruises, cuts and aches I counted, I was light-headed from blood loss. So I sat, clutching the ambrosia with my eyes on the portal.

The next thing I knew Hector was in front of me, calling my name. Hope and fear and exhilaration all mixed in the sound of my name on his lips. There was little blood on his armor but from the way he moved I suspected that it belonged to his unlucky enemies.

Poseidon and his trident were nowhere to be found.

Without words I handed the urn to Hector. Mission accomplished.

"Thank you, Autumn. A lesser Fury would have consumed the Nectar for herself." His soft voice was grateful. The hand he reached out to stroke my cheek was clean but the rest of him sported blood spatters, some of it I could only assume was his. Even with Lindsay at his side he hadn't escaped battle unscathed.

"I want this for you. I may have only met a few of the old gods in person but you are more divine than all of them combined. Flawed, of course, but they have all forgotten how to care. Don't forget who you are when you're ambrosia drunk," I told him honestly. He may be unreliable when it came to the truth but he cared, he wanted the best for mortals and gods alike. He would make a good Hades.

Had he been a selfish man, Hector might have taken the Nectar and run with it to somewhere the gods would never find. He might have shared it with me and we could have ridden off into the sunset together to rule the Underworld for the rest of our immortal lives.

But Hector, being conscious of those who needed him, did not run off with the ambrosia. Instead, he inclined his head towards Tantalus's cell. "Thank you for keeping this safe for me, Old One. Your service will not go unknown."

Excuse me? Didn't I just get done thinking about how reliable and trustworthy he was?

"Hector." I used his name almost in a question but I didn't know what to ask. When once I had so many questions now I couldn't formulate a single one. A flurry of words desperately wanted to jump from my lips and yet none of them would attach to another in order to form a cohesive statement, let alone a question.

"Did you know, Autumn," Hector said, looking at me intently, "that since the moment I picked up the mantle of Hades, I have been able to sense the way that others felt about me? Especially when they were plotting my downfall. They said the original Hades had been paranoid but I think he was simply reacting to the vehement way others thought of him. Even his own wife wanted him dead—though I imagine Persephone was not quiet about her feelings."

"Hector," I tried again, "you're not making any sense. What does paranoia have to do with the Nectar and why Tantalus had it in a hole?"

"When I died and ended up in the right place at the right time to take Hades' place on the throne, I knew it was going to be the greatest adventure of my life. But then I started to sense how badly the other gods wanted me gone. Even you plotted my downfall when you first arrived here, though your animosity has lessened greatly with time. I had to prove to them that I wasn't the enemy.

"Do you see it yet, Autumn? Do you understand the end goal?"

I could feel how badly he wanted me to understand, to agree with him. But I didn't, couldn't. First it was Jasper who had orchestrated the whole thing to bring back Alecto. Then it was Alecto who was in charge of bringing war upon the world to bring the myths out of hiding. Now it was Hector?

Did anybody really know what was going on here?

Who else could we add to the list of possible perpetrators? Gregory? Lindsay? Zeus? The Fates themselves?

That realization hung in the air around my head making the atmosphere heavy, hard to breathe. We'd all been played for fools, even Hector, who thought he was the mastermind behind everything that had happened to bring us to this moment. And it wasn't over.

Without all of the pieces to the puzzle I was never going to figure it out. Everything we had been through, Hector's exhaustion, my memory-loss, Tantalus' death, had been pointless.

I shook my head at Hector. How was I going to make him see that none of this was his idea, from the very beginning he had been manipulated as easily as he had done the manipulating? If he really could sense what someone was feeling towards him, he must have felt my pity.

"How did Tantalus get the Nectar?"

Hector grinned at me. "That I have no idea, Autumn." He looked at the urn in his hands, the gold inlay swirling along the sides enchanting.

Removing the lid in a swift motion, he brought the mouth of the urn to his lips. Before I could stop him he had swallowed twice.

For a beat, nothing changed. I kept hoping he would regurgitate or glow or show any signs of anything happening. Seconds continued to tick by. Hector stared at the urn, no longer swirling in his hands. Perplexed. Devastated.

"Now what?" Either it worked or it didn't. There was still a battle going on above our heads. There were those who continued to fight and die while we had a tea party in the dungeon.

From deep in my chest, the place of raw emotion and unbridled passion, came a soul-shaking rumble at the thought of all the unnecessary death we had caused. Some righteous part of me knew that if I'd just had control, if I'd just been smarter, stronger, this could have been avoided. There were signs; there must have been signs pointing to the answers all along. I was just too preoccupied with myself to see them.

"Now..." Hector started. His face began to glow. No joke: not only was this man handsome in a devilish way but now he glowed like an honest-to-gods angel.

No, not a man, devil, or angel.

He was becoming Hades, true Lord of the Underworld.

And, good god, was he beautiful. Every picture of perfection shone from his being. Where before he had easily fatigued, he would never tire again. Where his confidence had wavered, he would forever know his worth, knowledge and power. Where he may have betrayed the weakness of feelings, he would never be plagued by such humanity again. Where once he was weak, Hades was nothing if not strength now.

And I was not frightened. I felt pride—for being here in this moment, for helping, for being a subject of Hades.

Because that's what his transformation would inspire in people and gods alike. Hector was gone; in his place stood Hades, revitalized and strong.

He continued to glow, a new god who smiled at me not in triumph or in pleasure but in release. Hades was whole once more.