97

97

In The Wake

“No!” Hades raises one hand, and tendrils of smoke shoot out from him, only to be blown back by the force of four Daemones’ wings.

They land, two on either side of me, and Hades’ fear becomes my own as Zeles and another Daemon take me by the arms.

Hades holds out his hand, and suddenly, his bident is in his fist—onyx and shaped like spears, the two tips immediately light with hellfire.

In the same instant, the jeans and gray T-shirt he was wearing are replaced by armor. Not intricate like all the other gods’ and goddesses’, and not fashioned after ancient warriors of bygone ages. This armor is gunmetal gray and…liquid.

Like his eyes.

Like a living, breathing exoskeleton, it shapes perfectly around him, even coming up over his head so that he looks inhuman. Like a futuristic nightmare of a robot with no features for a face.

“Fuck,” Zeles mutters.

Zeles lets go of me, and another of the Daemones takes his place holding my arm as Zeles steps forward.

“Release her,” Hades commands in a voice that doesn’t boom but makes me shiver all the same.

“No,” Zeles says. Does the Daemon have a death wish? “You agreed—”

Hades throws out a hand, and a blast of fire explodes from his silver, liquid armor–covered palm, only to hit an invisible wall, the flames curling back away from us.

Zeles doesn’t even flinch. “In joining the Crucible, you automatically agreed to the contract, which protects the four of us from all the gods’ and goddesses’ powers.”

Hades hurls his bident so fast, so violently, that it’s across the space before I register what he did. The bident is also stopped by the invisible field. But instead of bouncing off, it penetrates a little before it’s stopped.

Enough that Zeles has to jerk back or take a strike to the chest. “Damn it, Hades, listen to me.”

“Release her.” The King of the Underworld stalks toward us, smoke swirling around him in billows like a volcano getting ready to erupt. “Release her, or I kill you all.”

“No!” I cry out.

Hades jerks to a stop. He doesn’t look at me—I don’t think. It’s hard to tell with the weird liquid armor over his face. But he doesn’t keep coming, either.

“No one else is dying because of me,” I inform him. “Hurt them, and I’ll hate you forever.”

The liquid armor…flinches.

It’s the only way I can describe it. It ripples like I threw a pebble into a still lake.

“They are going to punish you—”

“She will not be harmed,” Zeles tells him.

Hades pauses, and then the armor oozes away from his head, absorbing into the shoulders below so we can see his face as he studies Zeles. “I have your word?”

“Yes. She will be kept in our prison until the final Labor and will be treated well.”

“She can’t even win,” Hades snaps. “Why—”

“Athena requested death,” Zeles says, “with a judgment of Tartarus as her punishment.”

Holy shit. Death. Smite me then and there for calling her a monster to her face. No Medusa or other horrible curse. Just a one-way ticket to the part of the Underworld reserved not just for Titans but for the wickedest and most evil of souls. They go there to be punished for all eternity.

“This is a…compromise,” Zeles says. “You may not have access to her until the next Labor is about to start. But Athena will also not have access to her.”

Hades stares at the four of them, each in turn, as if assessing the truth of their words, then moves his gaze to mine, and I meet his eyes directly, unflinching. With a restrained violence, he yanks the bident out of the invisible wall it is buried in, then gives a single jerking nod.

The Daemones take off into the sky, dragging me away from the mountain and away from Hades.