Page 4 of Hades

So Hades had built Tartarus and imprisoned them here forever instead.

The cell he was constructing was powerful, and once Mnemosyne was sealed inside it, not even he would be able to open it. It was the best he could do. Mnemosyne would be powerless and isolated, left in darkness for the rest of her years.

Eris spat blood that came dangerously close to hitting his boots.

Hades’s blue eyes shifted from it to her and narrowed. Despite the rage that scalded his veins—the hunger to lash and rip into her for her insolence—his deep voice was calm as he spoke.

“Tell me of Mnemosyne’s plan.”

He had given up trying to get her to divulge Mnemosyne’s location when she had endured a week of torture that had seen her lose several of her organs and have to regrow them, and she still hadn’t told him where the titaness was hiding. The little goddess of strife didn’t know. Mnemosyne had been wise to keep her hiding places to herself, always meeting her subordinates in locations they knew, coming to them instead of allowing them to come to her.

But just because Eris didn’t know where the titaness was, didn’t mean she was of no use to him. Rather than getting her to tell him where Mnemosyne was, he had changed tack and started questioning her about what they had planned together.

“I told you…” Eris huffed, causing a tangled thread of her black hair to sway away from her face. “I told you everything.”

Hades stepped forwards to loom over her and the shadows crept forwards too, dancing at the edge of the weak beam of light that shone down on her. It flickered and she cast worried glances at the shadows as they eagerly inched towards her. He came close to snorting. As if the light was protecting her from them. Foolish female. If he wanted to rip her apart with his shadows, no amount of light could stop him.

“You told me nothing,” he said, his tone even and emotionless.

She glanced from the shadows to his face and back again, and her hands shifted to her knees, her blackened fingertips digging into their bare flesh as she struggled to sit up straight. She tilted her chin up, a pathetic show of strength that didn’t mask her fear in the way she believed it did.

One of his shadows snapped at her right knee and she jerked to her left, leaning her body away from it and curling her arms protectively over her chest. Giving away her fear. He made the shadow settle again and waited for her to look at him.

When she did, he flatly said, “Tell me of their plan.”

“The information is worth nothing. The plan would have changed!”

His brows drew down and his lips flattened, and this time she eased backwards away from him. “Then you can tell me, for as you say, the information is worth nothing.”

But it might contain a clue that would allow him to turn the tide of this war in his favour and end it before it really began.

Eris flicked another look at her brother and lingered for a moment, a war erupting in her amber irises. She was considering telling him, weighing up the pros and cons. Was he finally getting somewhere?

Her gaze roamed back to him. “I have nothing to tell you.”

Hades lunged towards her and bared his fangs as rage drenched his vision in crimson. Shadows burst from the soles of his feet, surging towards Eris as she shrieked and reared back, and the ground beneath him cracked, jagged fractures splintering outwards from beneath him.

They flared orange, flooding with boiling lava that swiftly filled every fault line that streaked across the trembling black rock.

Eris scrambled backwards as two fissures closed in on her.

Unleashed an ear-splitting cry as one touched her and the scent of burning flesh filled the thick air.

Hades raised his hand and closed his fist so tightly that Eris’s eyes bulged and blood burst from her lips. He hauled her off the ground without touching her, his eyes slowly narrowing on her as his shadows hungrily snapped at her. The fissure that had scalded her leg split wide open beneath her and she frantically flailed, her bare feet kicking as her gaze edged downwards.

As shadows rose to drag her into the bubbling, hissing pool of molten rock.

“Perhaps you should take a break, my god-king. The legions may have discovered something and wish to report it.” Thanatos’s deep voice rolled through the room like a calming wave.

Hades’s attention snapped to him.

The shadows instantly ceased moving towards Eris’s ankles as awareness of what he had done hit him. Too close. He swept his hand to his right, discarding her, and she struck the rough wall and hit the ground on her side. She remained there, breathing hard, each desperate gasp grating in his ears.

“Allow me to take over questioning Eris, my god-king.” Thanatos stepped forwards and then stopped dead, his glowing blue gaze snagging on one of the fissures in front of Hades’s boots.

Hades looked down.

Not snagging on one of the fissures.

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