Page 66 of Until Death
This is my only choice.
Anteros and Hades be damned. I do not want to do this, but what other way is there?
This may be the only way we can rescue the mortal alive.
These thoughts keep spinning in my head as I pace, waiting. After what feels like several thousand eternities, I finally hear the sound of returning footsteps.
My own pacing stops as I make out the all-too-familiar steps of my brother’s gait. Already his annoyance clear in his muttered curses as he is led to my cell.
I flinch at the squeal of the door before the dungeon hallway fills with guards and then my brother. Fury swirls around him as he lets out a sharp exhale and stops before me.
Obviously, he is less than thrilled to have been summoned away from his honeymoon to deal with me.
“What is it now, Eros?”
“I have summoned you, dear brother,” I say with a smile. “To carry out a Trial of Love.”
“You jest,” he says, stepping closer to the bars that separate us. “You hate love.”
“I do nothateit,” I answer carefully. “I simply have never understood it, until now. I have summoned you, because I believe a Trial of Love is the only way to save the fate of someone I know. Someone I care deeply for.”
He shifts closer, doubt heavy in his presence. “What kind of game are you playing at, Eros?”
“It is not about me.”
My brother lets out a humorless laugh at this, his disbelief now only outweighed by his annoyance. I wait, hoping that his curiosity will get the better of him if I do not react ... and if his curiosity fails, I hope his sense of duty will not.
“Not about you?” he asks. “What in the Underworld are you talking about? I have never known anything tonotbe about you. I was not aware you were even conscious of anyone outside yourself.”
Clearly, he is not convinced. I am more than a little irked by this, but I cannot say that I am surprised. He is notentirelywrong about my previous disregard for most everyone and everything.
But I cannot allow him to waste any more of what little time we have.
“It does not matter much your opinions here, dearest brother. I will continue to stand here, demanding that you carry out a Trial of Love, until you do exactly that.”
“You are being serious?”
“Yes.”
“I must remind you, Eros,” my brother says, his tone suddenly very solemn, “of the consequences of calling for such a trial.”
“I amwellaware.”
“If you do this and you are wrong, it will only result in slow torment and eventual death.”
I let out a pained groan of frustration.
“Yes. I am aware, and I understand. Now, can we hurry up and move this along? I am sure we both have things we would like to get back to.”
“Fine,” my brother says through gritted teeth, “and who is it, exactly, that is to be put on trial?”
“A mortal,” I reply.
“And this mortal’s name?”
“Her name is Hazel.”
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