“It is. The Underlords were gifted with the ability to throw lightning bolts from the Sky God himself. But that’s where the story takes a darker turn. You see, Hades was already in trouble with Zeus for creating the Keres by accident, and the Sky God fancied himself the only god who was allowed to create new life out of the elements. So he stole the twins and claimed them as his own creations—his own children—and even gave them his lightning bolts as supposed proof of his paternity.”
“I can imagine Hades and Persephone were not too happy about that.”
“To say the least. Hades opened the gates to the underworld and unleashed a couple of the reaper Keres to bring back his children from the Skyrealm. They kidnapped Death and brought him home, but Life wasn’t so lucky. He’d fallen and scraped his knee earlier in the day, and the Keres, unable to restrain themselves, tore the poor child apart.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Not as terrible as the war that followed. It went on for hundreds of years, trashing everything in between the Skyrealm and the Underrealm—namely, the mortal world. Hades caused volcanoes to erupt, sending ash and fire into the sky, and then Zeus would retaliate. Did you know that almost every culture in your world has a legend of a great flood that almost destroyed the earth? That’s what happened when the Sky God opened the heavens in an effort to drown out the Underrealm. He failed, luckily, because Hades was smart enough to lock the gates. Nothing living can get through them when they’re locked.”
“Rain is living? Well, it has a song, so I guess that would probably mean it’s alive.”
“A song?” It’s my turn to sound surprised.
“Everything has an inner song. Everything living, that is. I can hear it. You probably think that sounds crazy. Most people do.”
“I’d say it sounds far less addled than ‘hello, I’m an underworld prince and I’m here to take you to live with me in the land of the dead’ and all.”
A smile on my behalf cracks her lips for the first time since she learned the truth about me. It’s fleeting and small, but I see it out of the corner of my eye before it goes away.
“How did the war end?” she asks. “I mean, the world is still here, so I imagine it stopped.”
“It’s more of a stalemate, really. The war has been at a standstill since Hades was murdered.”
“How did that happen?” Daphne asks. Her voice sounds almost void of the hostility she’s shown me all day—it’s been edged away by curiosity. “You said a god has to lose his … totem?”
“That’s the closest word in your language for it. We call it a Kronolithe. It’s his symbol, object of power. It’s what gives him his immortality. It means ‘Kronos’s stone.’ ”
“Kronos? That name sounds familiar. Wasn’t he one of the first gods, in Greek mythology?”
“Yes, he was the father of Zeus and Hades and many others. He was a greedy, prideful ruler and he feared that his children would overthrow him someday—so he ate them as soon as they were born. All except for Zeus. His mother wrapped a rock in a blanket and fed that to Kronos instead. Zeus then killed his father and cut his siblings free from his father’s stomach. Once Kronos was overthrown, they decided to draw lots and divvy up control over the five realms. Each new ruler was given a piece of the stone Kronos had eaten. I am not sure how it works, but those pieces of Kronos’s stone are what make them gods. Zeus became the Sky God, and he fashioned his Kronolithe into an iron thunderbolt. Poseidon, who was chosen as the god of the Oceanrealm, made his into a trident. Hades drew the lot of overseeing the realm of the dead, and he made his Kronolithe into a golden bident—kind of like a two-pronged staff. That’s where Christians get their stories about their devil carrying a pitchfork. But it was also a Key.”
“The Key of Hades? I read something in my mythology book about that. It was what he used to lock and unlock the gates to the underworld. So the Key and the bident were one and the same? But how did he lose it? The book said he never let the Key out of his sight.”
I smile at Daphne. Her enthusiasm for the subject surprises me for someone who claims to want nothing to do with my world.
She gives me a look that I can’t read.
“What?”
“You look different when you smile,” she says. “You should do it more often.”
“I’ll try,” I say, but my expression defaults to my practiced mask. Why does smiling in front of her make me feel so … vulnerable? “As for the answer to your question, I don’t really know. There are lots of versions of the story, and I have no idea what’s myth and what’s real, but according to the version Master Crue taught us—”
“In what, like, Underlord primary school?” It would be impossible not to catch the sarcasm in her voice.
“Something like that, I guess. According to that version, it was a traitor who stole it. A man who begged for one thing but took something else instead.”
“Who was he?”
“Orpheus.” There’s a bite to my voice when I say his name. We’ve been taught from the age we were nurslings to despise him.