The sickening scent of my neighbor’s fresh blood and bile hits me with each new panicked inhale. My senses reignite, and the breeze that made no sound for so long now seems to carry the desolate sighs of a thousand miserable souls. I lean away from the gaping valley with all its shadows below and try to fuse with the sheer cliff face. The Gods only know what I’ll see if I really look down.
I turn my frightened gaze back to the broken and bloody male sharing my bleak stretch of rock. Some legends say Prometheus escaped imprisonment with the other Titans after the War of Gods only to be punished later by Zeus on the mortal plane for stealing fire from Mount Olympus and giving it to the humans of the worlds. I guess the legends were wrong. His torment isn’t being carried out on any mortal plane. He is far below the Underworld, in a place reserved for torture, eternal suffering, and endless pain. A hero to mankind but condemned by Zeus for his daring impertinence, Prometheus is in Tartarus. And so am I.
CHAPTER 24
A man pops into the empty space right next to me, scaring the magic out of me—and I was already on the verge of a pretty epic panic attack. Gaping up at him, I try to tilt my whole body away without really moving. I’m rooted to the spot, yet I want to run. Like a rabbit, my heart thumps out the fast and unsteady rhythm of fear against my ribs.
He’s hard to look at full-on, and man isn’t at all the right word for him. Male—yes—and of alarming and gigantic proportions. He’s neither handsome nor ugly, neither old nor young. Long hair the color of dark smoke flows around his massive shoulders. His full beard is a shade lighter. He trains on me frightening, bronze-hued eyes with oddly large pupils, and all I can think is that he’s power incarnate, that he’s here for me, and that he’s definitely not a friend.
I dart a glance to the left and see Prometheus looking over at us. I’d thought my neighbor was beyond caring what went on around him and his own pain, but his eyes are wide and filled with questions and life. Our gazes catch for only a heartbeat, and something squeezes in my chest that has nothing to do with my own fright. He’s not defeated at all, which makes his daily plight a whole new twisted sort of beast.
The bronze-eyed male props his staff against the rock wall and crosses his arms over his muscular chest. He doesn’t spare even a glance for the Titan chained to the cliff wall next to us. His fearsome, metallic gaze stays locked on me, and every instinct in me screams that that’s a terrible place for his focus to be.
With nowhere to go, I can only stand there and watch the colossus that must be the King of Gods, my eyes hiccupping over him because he’s just too frightening and stupefying to really look at. I swallow, but there’s no banishing the lump of dread in my throat. I think I’m looking at Zeus. I think my life sentence is about to fall.
No, not life. That concept has no significance in this place. Eternal. Everything is eternal here.
He doesn’t speak. He looks at me so fixedly it hurts. His smoky hair and beard give him an almost sage appearance, but it’s violence that rolls off him in waves. His eyes bore into me like twin fires, boiling metal in a forge. They scrape me, peel off layers, burn. His blistering stare marks me for the miscreant I am.
Flinching away, I wait for some kind of horrible ax to fall. I can’t help glancing at his staff. It’s tall, the dark wood topped by a swirling opaque ball. A petrified vulture’s claw holds the ball in place, the long, time-blackened talons curving up to cradle the orb. Staffs like that pack an incapacitating magical punch—and I have no idea how they work. I shudder.
“Come.”
The God’s voice thunders through me, resonating in my chest. I don’t move, both frozen in place and confused. There’s nowhere to go.
“It’s time to go,” he announces, looking me up and down with obvious annoyance.
Not taking my eyes off him, I brace myself against the cliff wall and do my best to stop shaking. “Go where?” My voice is the smallest it’s ever been. Oh Gods, please don’t say it’s somewhere worse than here.
His frown and shaking head show me he thinks I’m an utter idiot. “I told Zeus he was putting too much stock in you.”
I blink. I thought he was Zeus. And that I’d lost his favor.
“Go back,” he supplies, huffing impatiently at my apparent inability to grasp simple concepts.
“Back?” I don’t understand. There is no back from here.
“Would you rather stay?” he asks in exasperation.
I stare at him. I feel like we’re speaking two different languages, and I may not understand either.
The God—because he’s definitely that, even if he’s not Zeus—leans down to my height, getting us more nose-to-nose than I want to be. I inch back, and he follows.
“Do you know where you are?” he asks.
I nod. I wish I didn’t, but denial seems to have abandoned me completely.
“Then let me tell you about Tartarus, the land where you’re not dead, but you end up wishing you were. It’s either horrifically boring or horrifically painful.” Without looking at Prometheus, he jerks his head toward my unfortunate neighbor. “Either way, it’s worse than you can possibly imagine. I’ve been here forever, and an eternity on top of that—no hunger, no thirst, no war, no sex. Nothing. Then you showed up, huddling like a pathetic, dormant little ball on your cliffside when you’re the only one with the means to get out of this place.”
My jaw loosens. What?
“Zeus told me all about you. The Queen you should already be. The magic you should already have. He said you’re my passage to the Underworld—finally—so you had better not ruin this for me.”
“I…” I don’t want to admit it, especially to this rage-filled mammoth, but… “I don’t understand.”
Scoffing impatiently, even though he hasn’t explained anything, he finally waves a hand out over the valley. “Fly out of here. Open a tear in the sky with the lightning Zeus gave you, spread your wings, and you’re free. Which is a lot better than I can say for anyone else on this abysmal plane,” he mutters under his breath.
I glance over my shoulder, already knowing what I won’t see there. “Zeus stripped me of my wings. He took control of my magic. I can’t fly.”
The huge male prowls forward, the magnitude of his presence forcing me away from the rock wall. “Fly off this cliff yourself, or I’ll throw you over.”
Anxiety shoots through me. But I also don’t believe him. One thing is clear—he won’t kill me if I’m his passage out. I detect no lie in his words, though. Maybe my Kingmaker Magic doesn’t work in Tartarus. Or maybe it doesn’t work on Gods.
I take another step away from him, moving toward Prometheus. I need space, and there is none.
“Tartarus is where you’re alive but don’t live. Do you want to live?” he asks, driving me toward the sheer drop.
I nod, wide-eyed. Of course I do. And not here. The numbness from before has been thoroughly shocked from my system, and a flood of emotions is battering me. One feeling stands out: leave this place. Leave this place now.