CHAPTER SIX: Yesterday’s sorrows and a promise of tomorrow

CHAPTER SIX: Yesterday’s sorrows and a promise of tomorrow

Nyx had come for Nika at precisely the hour mark she had promised, only for Nika to get home and find an unwelcome visitor on her family’s doorstep.

“What in the Underworld are you doing here?” she asked Tomas, who was waiting beside her father on the paved stone staircase that led up to the giant black doors of the family home.

“This young man says he knows you, Nika?” Erebus answered, blocking the doorway with his arms folded across his chest.

Before Nika had a chance to think of a story off the top of her head, Tomas butted in.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Garth wants you back, Nika. You have to know the restaurant isn’t the same without you there.”

Nika narrowed her eyes at him. “You shouldn’t have come here. I can’t believe Garth would be stupid enough to send you here looking for me.”

A faint blush formed on Tomas’ cheekbones, his skin alabaster enough it looked like fine rice paper.

“He didn’t send you, did he?”

Tomas rubbed the back of his neck.

“Nika, is this guest unwanted?” her father interrupted.

She waved him off. “No, no, it’s fine. Just Tomas telling me something I already knew.”

She stared at him, her thin lips pursed, willing him to be smart enough to read her mind and walk away before …

“Well then, why doesn’t he join us for dinner?” Nyx suggested.

Tomas swivelled on his heel and faced them. “I’d be delighted, Mr and Mrs, uh, Lord and Lady, uh …”

No one offered Tomas an answer until the uncomfortable silence engulfed them all.

“Just get inside,” Nika pushed at his shoulder blades and marched him passed her parents.

For some reason her parents decided to hang back, undoubtedly to figure out who the weed-like dryad was to her. No matter. It gave Nika enough time to pull him aside in the long foyer with the high ceilings and into a broom closet.

“You need to leave. Now.”

“Why? Your parents are perfectly happy to—”

“Because you’re going to ruin everything.”

“Ruin what?!”

“My parents don’t know that the restaurant is suffering,” Nika hissed. “They think I’m here on some kind of, marketing meeting. You’ve already dropped me in it by saying that Garth wants me back!”

“Wait, what?”

“Don’t question me, that’s all you need to know. Now I need you to leave.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Tomas said, puffing out his chest slightly. “You’re not the boss of me, right now. I came here of my own free will to find you, and I’ll be damned if I don’t go back to the others with news of you. And I’ll tell you another thing—”

The door to the broom closet swung open of its own volition, her parents both standing there, their arms folded and their heads cocked.

“Nika, what in seven hells is going on?” they asked in unison.

“Tomas was just leaving.”

“Oh, no, no, no,” her father said, taking a step forward. “I think it’s time you told us everything, young lady, including why this dryad has turned up looking for you. I think having him stay will help us determine if you’re telling the truth or not. He stays. Come.”

Nika sighed and stepped out of the broom closet, Tomas following close behind as her parents escorted them to the small office Erebus had claimed as his own. Deep leather chairs sat either side of a gothic fireplace that was lit. Both her parents sunk into the chairs while she and Tomas stood before them.

“Explain from the beginning.”

Knowing that her parents would be able to break Tomas if she was caught out in so much as a hairsbreadth of a lie, Nika sighed, and began telling them the whole sorry story from the beginning; the festival, the prize tokens, the libations tax, everything. Eventually, she came to the present moment and revealed what Orpheus’ demands were.

“So, in order to make this plan of yours work, you need his lyre.” Her mother looked down her sharp nose with those never-ending dark eyes of hers at Nika. Nika felt like she was being chastised.

“Yes.”

“You need my help.”

“Well, I can—”

“You need my help.”

“I never said—”

“The lyre was placed in the constellations by the Muses, yes? So the one who can collect it for us is Asteria, being that she is the Goddess of Falling Stars. The last time I checked, you did not have a working relationship with the Titaness as I do.”

Nika was sure her mother hadn’t meant to make that statement of fact sound condescending, but somehow Nyx’s statement always came with an air of condescension. Nika didn’t think it was intentional … simply a byproduct of the age of her mother.

She opened her mouth to respond, but Nyx waved her delicate hand in the air, effectively shushing her, before continuing.

“Besides, how exactly were you planning on making sure Orpheus and Eurydice were allowed to roam freely thereafter? Did you think Hades would listen to you?”

That had definitely been intentionally condescending.

“How are you going to get him to agree to it?” Nika retorted.

Nyx sniffed. “If Hades wants to go ahead and call himself the king, god, underlord of the realm, he is welcome to. But he will not stop those that wish to be together from being so. To be torn apart from someone you love is … not something I would wish on anyone.” Nyx’s features darkened before she shook her head and whatever thought had flittered across her face was wiped away.

“So, you’re going to help me get this lyre and find a way for Orpheus and Eurydice to roam freely? Why would you help me do that when this isn’t exactly a career you had in mind for me? What’s the catch?” Nika narrowed her eyes at her parents, in particular at her mother.

Nyx’s eyes bored into her, but it was Erebus who answered. “Your mother and I just want to be part of your lives again, Nika. We want to help.”

There was that uncomfortable sensation wrapping around Nika’s throat again, making her eyes water. Then, thankfully, Tomas interrupted.

“I was there, that day. The day Eurydice died.”

Nika turned to silently thank him with a look of gratitude on her face when she saw a forlorn expression across his.

“What happened that day, boy?” Erebus asked.

“There were plenty of us nymphs there to celebrate their wedding festivities, Orpheus’ and Eurydice’s. It went on for days and days. People from all over came to see the happy couple. They were so in love, it was obvious to see. The way he would smile at her, and she would dance and dance and dance to his music until she had worn through the grass. No one believed Hymenaeus when he said their marriage would not last. Of course, we should have. He was the God of Marriage, after all. If we had, perhaps we’d have looked out for her in the gardens when…”

“Was it truly a snake that bit her? I always thought that shepherd Aristaeus murdered her when she refused his advances, personally,” Nika butted in.

Tomas threw her a scornful look. “Other people’s misery should not be your gossip.”

Erebus chuckled. “Unfortunate trait of the family, I’m afraid.”

Nika noticed a slight tick in Tomas’ clenched jaw, clearly unhappy with the answer, but he continued with his tale anyway.

“To answer your question, yes, it was a snake. Venomous, as we all know now. When she dropped to the ground, we all thought it a joke, for she kept saying that dancing to Orpheus’ music would be the death of her. She even said that was what Hymenaeus was apparently alluding to. It was as if she knew. This small, graceful creature, truly the beauty among us all, and none of us immediately ran to her when she fell.”

A single tear ran down Tomas’ face. He impatiently wiped it away.

“By the time we got to her, it was too late. The poison had travelled to her heart, and she was on her way to meet with Hades.”

Tomas felt guilty, Nika realised.

“You couldn’t have known,” she said, in that no-nonsense way of hers. “And you likely couldn’t have stopped the poison anyway.”

He continued as if he hadn’t heard her.

“Afterwards, we all listened to Orpheus lament. When he played … it was as if the air stopped moving, as if we were all dead with her. As if we were in that pit of unfathomable, unending grief with him. The only thing that has bought those of us who were there any comfort was the thought that they had been reunited again in the Underworld.”

Tomas turned towards Nyx. “So, thank you, Goddess of Night, for your offer of help. Even if your stubbornly foolish daughter can’t seem to accept it. Those two deserve a lifetime of happiness after being ripped away from each other so cruelly, not once, but twice.”

Nyx inclined her head. “You’re very welcome, young nymph.”

“While I agree my daughter can be stubborn,” Erebus added, “she is not, and has never been, a fool. I would urge you to think more carefully about the labels you attach to her, Tomas. She is not one you do not want on your side. Trust us on that. And I would urge her to rethink preconceived notions that may have been embedded in a young mind erroneously.”

Nika pursed her lips. It appeared she was getting reprimanded on all fronts, a situation she neither liked nor was she familiar with.

Gods damn you, Tomas. Why did you have to be here to interfere?

“Come, we will make up a room for you to stay in while I sort this business with Asteria. I should still be able to catch her before the dawn.” Nyx rose fluidly from her seat, her black robes sweeping across the stone floors.

“How do you plan on getting Asteria to assist you?” Nika asked, for the first time in centuries curious enough to want to tag along on one of her mother’s outings. Perhaps it was because she’d just been reprimanded like a child and wanted to soothe old wounds with old habits.

Nyx turned and pinned her with a stare. “You do not need to concern yourself with my work, Daughter. Us ancients like to keep our secrets between us. Perhaps, instead, you can see to it that your friend is taken care of. I hear you are rather good at that.”

And so, as her mother left, Nika followed, kissing her father goodnight, before walking back up the spiral staircase. Tomas followed along behind her, to one of the many spare rooms in the sprawling mansion.

***

“You know, this really isn’t what I would have expected your family to be like.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nika grumbled as she pulled linens and silks aside in the bedside trunk and found what she was looking for – an ugly, orange, knitted blanket.

“It gets cold here,” Nika said, thrusting the blanket into Tomas’ flat chest. No muscle, no definition, just flat. It was a wonder he didn’t fall over at the force with which she’d thrust the blanket at him, but Tomas stood fast.

It seemed that was his talent.

“I didn’t expect them to be nicer than you.”

“Charming. Is that why you travelled all the way to Tartarus to find me? Why did you come looking for me if Garth didn’t send you?”

“Because, you didn’t just leave Garth in the lurch. You left all of us in the lurch.”

Tomas turned to the small wooden bed – the only thing in the room except the side table and trunk, both of which groaned with age whenever they were opened – and began making his bed. Another uncomfortable silence filled the rest of the space.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m just used to doing everything on my own, figuring it out on my own,” Nika eventually said.

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to.”

“Is that the other thing you were going to tell me?”

“Huh?” Tomas gave her a quizzical look over his shoulder as he finished making up the bed.

“In the broom closet? You said ‘And I’ll tell you another thing’.”

“Oh, that. It doesn’t matter.”

Nika narrowed her oval eyes to slits at him. “What?”

“I’ve already called you stubborn and foolish this evening. I don’t want to push my luck.”

“The fact you think you have any luck to push in the first place is quite frankly a testament to how stupid you were coming here.”

Tomas sighed. “There you go again, being classically cruel Nika.” He turned to face her fully. “You know why I really came here? Because I figured you needed someone to show you they cared about you, Nika. That you were more than just a good teacher for me, or a good waitress that I could replace. But gods damn, sometimes you make it really hard to care. That other thing I was going to tell you? That you made me a damn good waiter. I could replace you, you know. You trained me that well. We did just fine without you these last few days. So, actually, maybe you should be grateful I came looking for you at all.”

Nika stood there, stunned. He’d never stood up to her like that. She’d always teased him about his long-fuse, that she was going to break him in, but here he was – in Tartarus – at his limit, because she couldn’t seem to accept care and concern in place of scheming and self-defensive smart remarks.

Nika cleared her throat. “I’ll, um, leave you to it. See you tomorrow.”

***

Remaining up until dawn with her thoughts, Tomas’ and her parents words circling through her mind, Nika had come to an uncomfortable decision by the time her mother had returned to the house. She would attempt to take everyone at their word – that their offers of help were genuine.

First, she tried making eye contact with Tomas at the breakfast table, to apologise for what she’d said in the late hours of last night.

His eyes remained firmly on his plate.

“Are you still angry at me?” she hissed across the table.

Tomas looked up. “What? No. I was angry, now I’m not.”

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

“Because now I’m hungry.” He sent her a dashing smile, and she realised his anger from last night truly had gone. If only she could let her suspicion of others slip away so easily …

Mentally resolving herself to try again, she kept eating her own breakfast – a delicious dish of barley bread, wine to dip it in, and figs – when her mother entered.

In her hand, the lyre.

Nika pushed her chair back immediately, her mouth still full of food she quickly swallowed, as she walked towards Nyx and the most beautiful, golden lyre, covered in stardust. Bending down to examine it more closely, the lyre sneezed, covering Nika in a spattering of stardust.

Tomas laughed.

Nika wiped it off and rose back up to look at her mother. “Thank you for this.”

“I did not realise that our lessons when you were younger had effected you so. The trips to the cave, their purpose, it was not to beat you into submission,” her mother stated.

“Okay…”

“My mother was Chaos. When Chaos is all that exists … it is not a world any others have known. It is not what I would have our world descend into again. Duty, rules, a way things are done – these are the things that I was trying to teach you. A way to stop Chaos reigning again. But I fear I made you loathe me as I loathed my mother. I can see now that there are more than enough creatures in this realm that someone will inevitably come to take the role of another.”

At this, Nyx cast a pointed look at Tomas before turning back to Nika.

“Your happiness, dear daughter, is just as important as the duty you decide to undertake.”

Tears threatened to spill out of Nika’s eyes. She tried to viciously blink them away, but one large, heavy droplet escaped.

Nyx stepped forward and wiped it away with one long, elegant finger.

“I do, however, ask for one more request.”

Nika half hiccuped, half laughed. “Oh yes? And what is that, Mother?”

“A visit to this Watering Hole of yours.”