Chapter Forty

Everything hurt exponentially with each minute movement; since my left leg was useless and I couldn't very well hop back out onto the battlefield, I spread my wings and pushed off of the ground.

I stopped at the mirror portal, unsure if it would allow me passage. Hades urged the others on, his hand brushing mine. "You and I have one last thing to attend to."

For a fleeting moment I thought he was going to send me home, our bargain now complete. But he wouldn't send me away bleeding and injured as I was, would he?

"The Fates were right when they said you were going to play a crucial part in this war. Not only did you rally the army, near single-handedly defeat the Olympians, discover the Nectar and the real reason behind its disappearance, but you held onto the mantle of Hades without ever trying to take it on for yourself." He smiled down at me, never mind that I hadn't done any of those things without help—and I hadn't exactly solved the puzzle behind why the Nectar was stolen in the first place.

I just wanted to let him smile at me for a while. Forget war, forget the pain in my body, forget that whatever this tenuous friendship was it was probably unhealthy for both of us. "If you, or anyone else, had tried to wear the helm and it didn't immediately kill you, I would have had to.

"Please show me where it is," he asked gently.

First things first... "How did you know I had it? I never told anyone that the Fates had given it to me."

Hades took my hand in his and brought it to his lips. "They told me that the Fury was going to hold something precious to me and would only return whatever it was when I figured it out. At first I thought it was a metaphor, a trick, even. Now I feel incomplete without the helm, and equally foolish for not realizing it sooner.

"I would garner that the Fates were not counting on your strength over Alecto, nor that we would ally with Poseidon in the eleventh hour, or that we would ever find them out. They never planned for me to regain the mantle. Which is why I need it now more than ever."

I sighed my acquiescence. It would be wrong the keep the most important piece of Hades from him. "You always get what you want from me, don't you?" Reaching into my breastplate, I retrieved the charm from the safe place Alecto had stashed it—pressed against my rip cage on my right side. She only mildly protested. I held my hand palm-up to the Lord of the Underworld. A puzzled look graced his warm face.

"Not everything. Had I had a choice, it would have been you on the battlefield with me, not Lindsay. Not Alecto."As soon as Hades touched the helmet it began to glow. The once-tiny charm swelled up to the size of his head: an ornate helm adorned with the symbol on my leather chest plate. The sigil of Hades.

A breeze, hot and wild, blew into the dungeon, surrounding us in a dangerous blanket of heat and power. Hades breathed it in deeply, eyes closed, completely relaxed.

When his eyes snapped open I knew that the man I had come to more than tolerate was gone—this time gone for good. Where once his irises were deep and brown, now they were liquid gold, molten and fluid. In his place stood Hades. He, in a giddy euphoric state, reached out to me. Not unlike the first time we met, he wrapped his arms around me. I had never been more frightened for my life that day on the street where we met—that much I remembered; this time I welcomed his embrace.

Hades smiled as he caught my mouth with his. He kissed me with good-byes on his lips—was that regret I tasted? I kissed him back knowing I would probably never get the chance again.

In his kisses were promises, were answers, were all of the things I'd ever asked him for; I had once wanted nothing from this man save for a ride home and over the time I spent in his realm I began to want the world from him. His attention, his words, his smile, the answers he promised me but never knew enough to give. I wanted to consume him as I was consumed.

But I was used to not getting what I wanted.

When he pulled away, Hades was devoid of smiles; he's given them all to me. I couldn't stand knowing that I had taken the smile from his face, for whatever reason, and leaned in to give it back. Instead of meeting me in the middle, he loosened his arms and let me go.

There was that regret again, clear in his golden eyes. He knew as well as I did that our bargain demanded my release once the battle was won.

Regardless of my unease in returning to a life I could not remember, our time here was coming to a close. That knowledge hurt deep in my stomach, like the hilt of Gregory's sword grinding into my middle, rearranging my insides.

Going home might just kill me.

Leaving would definitely do the trick.

Hades brushed his large hands against my cheeks, cupping my face gently. Equally as gently with his lips as with his hands he laid a final good-bye kiss on my forehead. His hands fell away and he backed up to the portal. "I need you to stay safe. Stay alive, Autumn. I won't be long."

Too late I realized what he was doing. By the time I hobbled to the mirror, Hades was gone and the helmet with him.

Naturally, I followed. I might have been slow and awkward, every step agonizing, but I'd never been good at staying put. He was returning to the raging war, that's where he was needed most. In battle he didn't have to feel or regret or worry: there was only the fight, only the kill.

I prayed quickly to anyone listening that the mirror would allow me passage just one more time. Miraculously I fell through on the other side—literally. My left leg gave out underneath me and I tumbled into the dirt.

Bodies amassed all across the riverbanks in reeking, desolate piles. I picked myself up gingerly; the scene before me did not change. Both Underworld and Olympian, both human and monster. Countless bodies lay half in the water of the River Styx, slipping further in with the current. The death toll would have been innumerable.

Instead of dwelling on the dead, I searched for Hades. He was nowhere to be found. Lindsay was alone on the field among a hundred prone bodies of slaughtered enemies, easily seen across the River as the only creature still fighting for Hades. The rest were dead or defeated, restrained or subdued. Aching wings aside, I bobbed through the air on the way to her.

"Lindsay!" I could barely stand. She turned towards me with a question on her face that turned into disgust. I didn't care. "Hades. Where is Hades?"

"Hades doesn't need you, Alecto; he doesn't want you," she snarled at me.

Confused, I looked down at myself. With the Fury aspect out in full force I could see why she might be confused. But Alecto was as dormant as she had been all my life. I didn't know if she was ever coming back.

She'd lost everything; she could have had immortality through rebirth rather than unending life, bringing an end to the unimaginable horror that was living as a parasite inside someone else's head. She would have kept the ambrosia for herself. And Jasper, though as far as I knew, lamia were not on the reincarnation list. Her love and his immortality were lost.

Hopefully it was enough to keep her out of my life.

As Lindsay was no help, I pushed off the ground again with as much oomph as I could muster—which wasn't much. I needed to be with Hector.

Zeus spotted me as I jumped and dipped along the field. I was an easy spot: most of the fighting was over. He let go of the giant he had been electrifying and locked his eyes on his new target: the Fury who had challenged him. Never mind that I wasn't her.

Hades appeared from nowhere before me, blocking the view of Zeus marching in our direction. He fazed into existence, his hands pulling the helmet from his head, not unlike the way that the Fates disappeared. Though they three merged into one and it was much less creepy when Hades did it. I suspected even Zeus was startled by the display when I remembered what the helmet's power was: invisibility.

The look on his face told me that he hadn't intended to see me again, whether today or otherwise. He had made his peace, said his good-byes, and this was not part of the plan.

"You didn't think I was going to miss this, did you?" I asked him. The lines around his eyes softened.

Zeus was upon us in that moment. Massive and muscular, the god of the skies raised his fist, a lightning bolt sizzling in his grip. Hades faced him unafraid.

Which made one of us.

Hades turned from me to face his brother just in time to smack the lightning bolt out of the air with a flick of his helmet, still in his hand.

"If you wish to regain your godly prowess and might, you would do well to leave what is mine to me, brother."

Zeus turned a sharp look at Hades, recognition in his eyes. Something of the old Hades was clear in this incarnation. The older god intuitively caught himself up to speed. Clearly Hades had consumed the Nectar and regained the mantle of his throne. He looked down at me again but with less malice this time; he knew that none of us here were unchanged by the ambrosia. Even Zeus knew, if not exactly, how much I had done to save this world.

See? I knew Hades needed me. Take that, Lindsay.

"Hades." Zeus inclined his head; not a bow but in recognition of the god, not the human, standing before him.

Hector grinned at his brother. "Now we are even, Zeus."

And just like that the fight was over. The tension and hostility between them dissipated into the air, forgotten. Even ancient and all-powerful, sibling rivalry is just sibling rivalry. I could sense a hug in their future.

Because I could see the horizon, there were no more fires to put out, and there was a whole lot of brotherly love in the air, I allowed my body to finally collapse. The dirt was hard but welcome; I stretched my legs out in front of me. Sitting was just what the doctor ordered. My leg had stopped bleeding at some point between the dungeon and the unofficial truce.

Everything was coming up Autumn. Until—