Page 87 of As Darkness Fall
“No,” Vir said. “Do not. I don’t understand either. Irr died. Along with the others. I wasthere. I saw him fall beneath the invaders of my realm. It’s not possible.”
“Then he fooled you,” Hades said, his eyes burning red as he sat straighter in his throne. “He started this.”
“Started what?” Vir asked, his voice taut with pain and confusion.
“Stealing from me,” Hades growled, sitting forward.
I looked around. Was it just me, or was the room growing hotter?
“Stealing? Your gold?” Aaron asked.
“No,” Hades snarled, and this time the roomdefinitelyincreased in temperature until sweat was beading at my temples. “MySOULS!”
The final word bellowed out from the angry god, washing over us, nearly bowling me over with the power behind it.
“Your Souls?” Vir whispered, stunned.
“It was small at first,” Hades said, subsiding again into his slump, though the room did not cool. “A thousand here. A thousand there. Then more and more. It took me decades to notice.”
“Soul stealing,” I whispered, trying to understand.
“By the time I figured out that someone was stealing them, he had takenmillionsfrom me. But he wasn’t done. His strength only grew.”
My mind was racing, trying to keep up with what Hades was telling us. Irr. Missing souls by the millions.
“The wasteland,” I said. “That’s why it’s empty out there, isn’t it? Irr is stealing all the souls from you.”
Hades fixed me with a gaze, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t have to.
“But why would Irr need all those souls? What would he–” I stopped abruptly, turning to stare at Vir.
He was looking at me, but I could tell he hadn’t made the connection yet.
“The Invaders,” I whispered. “Of the Direen.”
Vir’s jaw dropped.
“They aren’t creatures from another realm,” I said. “They’resouls. Stolen from here and funneled to the Direen somehow. But why? What was his plan?”
“I don’t know,” Vir said quietly. “But if he’s alive, we’re going to find out. And stop him. Somehow.”
The room descended into silence. Then, Hades spoke.
I looked at him, and something in my stomach did a backflip. The fire in his eyes was back, and his eyes were narrowing suspiciously.
“Something occurs to me,brother,” Hades rumbled as he sat forward, eyes blazing as he stared at Vir. “If you did not know about your brother’s transgressions, then why are you here?”
Uh-oh.
Chapter Forty-Three
“Fred,” I whispered out of the corner of my mouth as the situation escalated far too rapidly for my comfort. “If you’re as fast as it sounds, then you know what you have to do.”
Fred looked over at me unhappily, and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought he was going to shake his head at me. But he nodded once, a tiny thing that I hoped went unnoticed thanks to the growing tension between Hades and Vir.
“Don’t call me that!” Aaron snapped at Hades as the god said something in a language I didn’t recognize. “I don’t go by that anymore.”
Hades threw back his head and laughed. Fire blossomed from a dozen previously unseen torches on the wall, a wave of heat washing over us.
