Orpheus had barely spoken since they’d found Gryphon. Thankfully, her singing was keeping the guardian relaxed, but that didn’t ease Skyla’s anxiety. She wanted out of this shop of horrors as much as Orpheus did. And she never wanted to come back.
They climbed the mountain in silence, descended the other side as day shifted to night. But night here wasn’t anything more than a darker version of a swirling red sky of gloom, so there was still plenty of light to push them on. At the base of the mighty mountains they passed into the Fields of Asphodel, the black, barren, and dead landscape of Tartarus replaced with shades of gray as if from a black-and-white movie.
Souls immediately rushed in their direction, floated around them as they crossed the fields of waist-high wheat, curious as they looked from face to face. Unlike the souls in Tartarus, these craved interaction. The ghostlike apparitions could almost be considered human if, that is, one ignored the depression and longing radiating from them like heat from a baking stone.
Skyla kept a keen eye out for any surprises. Twice she pulled her bow and arrow only to realize what she’d thought was a threat turned out to be nothing more than another curious soul.
The wheat fields ended as they reached the barren knoll and started their ascent to the top of the ridge where they’d run into Cerberus. She was ready with her arrow. Ready to sing again if she had to. But the three-headed dog was nowhere to be seen.
Orpheus leaned down to her ear. “His absence doesn’t make me feel any more reassured.”
Her either.
They crossed to the dock. Beneath their feet the River Styx swirled in shades of red and black.
“Will Charon come back or should we start swimming?” Skyla asked, eyeing the water, not sure she wanted to touch it. She was pretty sure she saw an arm floating by.
“He’ll come back,” Orpheus answered, hefting Gryphon’s motionless body higher on his shoulder.
“How do you know?”
For a moment Orpheus said nothing, then his brow lowered. “I just…know.”
Skyla’s stomach tightened as she searched the distance for Charon and his ferry. Closing her eyes, she fought back the nausea. And for the first time she thought about what could have been, and probably was, done to Orpheus when he’d been trapped down here.
Nearly two thousand years. Gryphon was a muttering, blubbering mess and he’d only been here three months. What must Orpheus have endured?
“Look. There.” Orpheus pointed upriver. A light shone far off in the distance, growing brighter with every second.
Skyla swallowed around the lump in her throat and told herself not to think about what might have been done to him. He was alive, with her now. If he remembered anything she would have noticed. She glanced at his chest where the earth element lay hidden beneath the shirt he’d put back on, then up to his strong jaw and chiseled cheekbones, and finally to those eyes like melted silver. She’d do whatever she had to do to make sure it never happened again.
“Get out your coins,” Orpheus said.
Skyla rifled through her pockets for the coins he’d given her earlier. The ferry approached, bumped against the dock. Charon didn’t speak, but this time, unlike before, there was a pitying, almost sad look in his eyes.
Her hands shook as she handed him three coins, stepped onto the boat. Orpheus moved on after her, spread his legs to balance Gryphon’s weight as the ferry pushed off and turned in the swirling red water. No one spoke as they traveled upriver. And though she tried not to notice, that feeling they were being watched lingered. As did the feeling everything was about to come crashing down.
They’ll strike when you think you’re free.
Her pulse picked up as they reached the dock, as the ferry bumped its way to a stop. Heart thumping beneath her breast, she climbed off the boat and reached for her bow and arrow again. The tunnel they’d ventured into at the start loomed ahead. Empty. Dark. The perfect hiding place for something or someone waiting to attack.
“Get my light,” Orpheus said as the ferry pulled away and Charon disappeared into darkness.
Skyla reached into his pack, grasped the flashlight and flicked it on. Orpheus held out his hand. “I’ll light the way. You just stay ready.”
He was thinking the same thing as she. For some reason, that put her at ease. She nodded, brought her bow up, readied her arrow. They headed into the tunnel without a word.
A chill spread down her spine, the heat of Tartarus long gone. As they picked their way around stalagmites and eased through narrow corners, then passed pools of murky white liquid, she imagined the worst: Cerberus jumping out at them, Hades appearing in a poof of smoke, a fire daemon swirling in a vortex. But none of those scenarios came true. No apparitions, no interference, not even a sound, other than their boots scraping rock and their rapid breaths as they moved.
The tunnel came to an abrupt halt. Skyla stared at the wall of rock, the uneven edges and mottled stone, as Orpheus ran the light from floor to ceiling to look for an opening.
“There has to be a way through,” she said.