His softness irritated her. “You knew that?”
“Hades would tell me nothing else.”
Cyane pulled away and wiped her eyes. “I’m never leaving this place, am I?”
“No. You’re not. Unless—”
“How long have you known?” she asked. “Since we slept together?”
“Since the Day of Battles.”
“Since before we slept toge—that was…” Days ago, although it could’ve been an eternity. “And you didn’t bother to tell me? You let me believe I still had a chance? That there was still a chance for…” Her voice hitched, but her anger rose. “I had no idea why I was here, and you knew.” Cyane couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear it. She looked at her wet hands instead.
“Cyane—”
“Don’t,” she snapped, pulling away. “I don’t want to hear it. I have hours before my time is up. I want to be alone now.”
“There is still a chance for you to leave.”
“What?”
“You can still leave.” Cerberus sat back and faced the terrace. “I made a deal with Hermes.”
She wiped her eyes again, not quite believing what he was saying. “Why?”
“Whether you believe me or not,” he said, still gazing out the terrace opening where Hades’s castle loomed like a diseased finger in the distance. “I promised to protect you, even if it’s against my loyalty to Hades. I didn’t know why you were brought here, nor what plans he had. My lord does not share much with anyone, not even me, and I’m the closest he has to a confidant, but he did tell me you were here to serve. If I had seen the note sooner…”
“Why do you serve him? Why do you care so much for such a terrible man?”
“He’s not so terrible.” Cerberus turned back to her. “My father was terrible. My brothers were terrible. Even my mother, the Mother of Monsters, was terrible. They wanted to destroy, to challenge, to go against the ways of nature and sow chaos, a fate worse than death, upon everyone. If it weren’t for Hades finding me, leading me away from them, I may have become like my family. Hades offered me retribution and life, a purpose. A purpose that used my talents for destruction to instill order between the living and the dead. What you see as terrible is nothing compared to what the other gods of Olympus are capable of. What history and humanity are even capable of. I am honored to serve Hades, but it is a choice I made myself.”
“I don’t want to serve him,” she whispered. “He’s not my god.”
You’remy god.She wanted to say but didn’t.
“I know, Cyane.”
The words broke her heart. This time when he reached out to caress her, she let him.
“Will you come with me?” she asked.
His hand dropped. “No. I don’t belong in the light.”
“We can manage,” she said. “I can show you so much more. There is real goodness above. I’m good. There are dark places above as well, so we could find such a place and make it ours. A sanctuary where it’s just us.”
“I don’t belong with mortals. I may look human, but I’m not. Goodness is not easy on me, the souls of the dead sustain me, the hounds need the shadows to thrive. Parts of me will die in the light, parts of me I cannot lose. And, say we did this without incurring the wrath of the gods, that we found a place where a smaller version of me might live, what would happen to me when you died? What would happen to you?”
“We can make it work. I know we can.”
Cerberus shook his head.
She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “We can change.”
He squeezed her hand back, and suddenly they were in a dark tunnel far different from anything she’d seen before in Tartarus. Cyane stumbled, and Cerberus caught her, keeping her upright. A rushing river flowed beside them, and far, far upriver, diminished by distance, was a weak light.
Moonlight.
She’d known it as sure as she knew her own face. There’d been moonlight below, light from the river, even candlelight, but none of it had been real. None of it was like the small beam ahead. She stilled.
