Page 32 of Aïdes the Unseen
She just waved a hand, face flushed with laughter. “No, no—it’s fine. He’s perfect.”
She wrestled him playfully, pushing his head away only for him to lick her cheek. She shoved him back again with mock dignity, robes rumpled, hair wild, eyes gleaming.
“You’re raising a monster,” she said, breathless, “and I adore him.”
“He likes you,” I said.
She looked up at me, radiant and disheveled. “Youlike me.”
“I worship you.”
She stood then, tugging me toward the hearth with mischief still sparking in her grin. “Then let’s see how well you play.”
That night we played in every way.
In the warm pools beneath the palace, she coaxed me into the water and tugged me under. In the shadowed chambers of the west wing, we chased each other barefoot and half-clothed, laughing like fools until I caught her against the wall and made her gasp my name.
She bit my shoulder. Left marks. Dared me to leave some of my own.
I did.
When I pressed her down onto the silken bed once more, she wrapped her legs around my waist and whispered, “Make it thunder.”
I did that too.
Despite our joy, the world beneath—and above—never slept.
I felt the pull deep beneath the palace. The shifting of bone and memory, the stirrings of the ancient quiet. A matter older than gods. Something I was bound to answer.
I sat up, breath still unsteady, and reached for my tunic.
Her hand caught my wrist. “I’ll go with you.”
“It’s not?—”
She tilted her head, solemn now. “Don’t say it’s not for me. You brought me into your world. Don’t close the doors again.”
I searched her face. She meant it. Shewantedto walk the deep places. Not as a guest. As a partner. I nodded.
She rose beside me. We descended together, through halls no soul walks willingly. Down where the Styx runs thick and black, and the air sings of endings no one speaks aloud.
Kore did not tremble. She walked at my side, the hem of her robe trailing shadow and silver dust. Even the spirits that haunt the deepest roots parted for her. Not in fear.
Inrecognition.
She touched no souls. Asked no names. But I watched the way her eyes softened at their silence. She belonged here, not as death. Asmercy.
We reached the chamber of the still throne, where the First Sleep waits, older than Olympus, deeper than Tartarus.
I laid my hand on the black stone, felt the pulse of it pass through me. A question. A weight. I answered.
Beside me, Kore stood still. Listening. Accepting. And then?—
A ripple. A sound too clean, too precise. Someone else had entered the realm.
Kerebos barked once from high above. A warning.
Then a flicker of wings. Not Hermes. Too heavy. A scent of copper. Bronze. Laurel and challenge.
