Run.
Hermes pulled her against his chest, his hands everywhere at once. Cyane tore herself from his arms. The crowd’s laughter grew in volume.
I’m not supposed to be here.Fear choked her.
Run.
But where would she run too?
Cerberus was now striding towards her. The otherworldly power spreading from him sucked the festivities dry. How had she ever thought that he was her savior? Savagery bled from his glowing red eyes.
Run!
Anxiety surged.
Someone pushed her hard toward the grand entryway, and she fled.
An Oath to Styx
The grand foyerwas split like a star, each point a different path, while the central path led to the ballroom. She picked a direction at random and ran. The path went on, with only the rocky cavern walls and candles on either side of her.
No doors, no windows, nothing.
Then it occurred to her that there were no sounds of pursuit. She stopped. The only thing she could hear in the hall was her own labored breath.
How far had she even gone? Could she still be seen from the foyer?
She turned around to check—and there was Cerberus, soundlessly stalking her, with his sword drawn. As if they never left the ballroom at all.
Cyane’s throat tightened, and she jerked back around with a yelp, sprinting, pushing her body to the extreme, down the corridor. She didn’t want to die. Regret choked her. Why had she thought that running would help her? She could feel Cerberus’s hot breath against the back of her head, could sense him behind her even without the sounds of pursuit. He was almost upon her.
As she ran, she couldn’t stop imagining the hundred-headed monster with tongues that licked out through the darkness to taste her hot-headed mistake.
Cyane couldn’t stand it anymore. She spun around, threw herself against the wall, and cried out, “Please don’t hurt me!”
Her heart thundered. She didn’t fully understand what she’d done wrong, only that she must’ve done something to anger Cerberus.
Cerberus towered over her. She shrunk away from him, pressing herself flat against the wall, but he caught her by the neck, wrapping his fingers around her throat, pinning her in place. He applied just enough pressure to hold her still without choking her. Jagged edges poked into her back. Her fingers twitched at her sides before she pushed at his chest to keep him at a distance.
“Hermes cannot help you,” Cerberus warned, his voice exacting. “He is loyal to no one but his own hide.”
Hehadheard her.
How?
The dog.Cyane’s brow furrowed as realization hit.
Cerberus controlled them.
She swallowed against the tightness of his palm as he lifted her back to her feet. The heaviness of his presence made it hard to speak, and part of her wanted to start running again if only to get a moment to find those words. But then she remembered he was more than she would ever be. Powerful. Powerful in a way she could barely comprehend or even begin to understand. She’d never escape him.
She’d been envious of Melinoe, but now that Cyane was back with Cerberus, a monster of myth, she realized she must’ve had some misguided power herself. She’d stolen the attention of the monster.
She hated to admit that she’d wanted to be in Melinoe’s place, especially after being thrown from one frighteningly forceful dance partner to another. The idea of being held by one such as Cerberus had seemed...safe.
Now that he stood before her, with his hand around her throat, she didn’t understand why she felt that way at all. He was anything but safe. Nothing was safe here. This was the realm of the dead, and she feared she was about to join their ranks.
“You’re watching me,” she finally said. She would say anything to break the brutal silence and the wait. “W-why?”
