Ryder’s back hit the dirt ground and nobody spared him a second glance. They were all too busy pulling Hades over the last of the barrier.
Ryder’s chest heaved with the effort to breathe on that side of the line. I could hear Crete’s ungodly screams echoing around the cavern, but I only had eyes for Ryder.
The light immediately dimmed from his eyes and his skin paled in seconds. This place was already sucking the life out of him and he had only been dead for a minute.
My heart split in two as I watched him lie there. He struggled to come to terms with where he was and what had happened. His fingers clutched at the dirt beneath him in an effort to hold onto something real and tangible.
His terrified eyes met mine and stared at me with horror. The force field around me slowly disappeared, taking my heart with it. I hated that he’d locked me away so I couldn’t help him, but I would have done anything to have it there again. I would have done anything to have Ryder back again.
A silent, choked sob ripped from my chest. I pressed the back of my hand to my mouth and tried to breathe. It was getting harder and harder. I couldn’t get oxygen into my lungs. I couldn’t do anything but suffocate from this pain.
I tried to hold his gaze. I tried to silently beg him to stay with me, to hold on to everything that we were and everything that we could have been.
Don’t leave me, I begged him with my eyes.Please, don’t leave me like this!
The sound of flesh being ripped from bone and agonized screams echoed in the background, but nothing could penetrate my sorrow. I had lost Ryder.
On a stupid whim to save my mother, I had lost Ryder.
Oh, god.What had I done?
Something interrupted my view of Ryder and it took a few seconds for me to figure out what it was. A body had stepped in front of me so I couldn’t see him anymore. She stood right at the edge of the path, the only thing separating us was the border between the living and the dead.
The veil. I recognized it now for what it was. The veil between life and death. Between the real world and the Underworld.
I strained to peer around her before I realized she wanted me to look at her. I didn’t know how I knew this, but I did.
Slowly I settled my desperation and lifted my eyes to meet Persephone’s crazed eyes. Her cracked, bloodied lips were tipped in a smile. Her wild hair frizzed around her face and fell into her black eyes. A giggle of deranged laughter bubbled out of her. It sounded like nails scraping on a chalkboard.
“You have delivered us,” she rasped. Medusa stood just behind her, but I held Persephone’s gaze, knowing that if I looked at Medusa I would die.
I could smell her rotting breath from here and nearly gagged. “Not me,” I managed to mouth.
She looked over her shoulder contemplatively. Ryder’s shoulders had relaxed into the dirt. I wondered if he would lie there for the rest of eternity.
Would he know to stand up again? Would the creatures move onto him after they were finished with Hades?
“You love him?” she asked. There was something in her tone that made me hesitant to answer.
But I couldn’t deny the truth. I wanted to scream at her that I did. I wanted to shout that I loved him with everything that I was and that I would do anything to trade places with him. He didn’t deserve this. But without a voice, all I could do was nod. It felt so inadequate; it felt like a lie because the gesture couldn’t begin to explain the depth of my feelings for him.
Her dead eyes returned to mine. “I, too, loved once.” Fury radiated from her and her hair lifted from her shoulders as if she had been hit with a gust of wind. “But he took it from me!” she screamed. Her mangled finger pointed to Hades. “He took everything from me to make me his queen! And this is the kingdom I rule? This is the life he gave me after he destroyed the one man I loved?”
More tears streaked my cheeks, but this time I shared my grief with Persephone. I could relate.
In so many ways.
“You have given me justice,” she said in a more level tone. “Justice I never expected to have. For that I shall give you a gift.” With a wave of her hand, she lifted Ryder off the ground and floated him over to the edge of the path.
My breath caught in my throat and I clenched my hands into fists to keep from reaching for him. I tore my hopeful gaze from his still body and showed my gratitude to Persephone through my watery eyes.
“Only once will I do this for you,” she warned. “If you wander into my kingdom again, I will not be so gracious.”
I nodded. I understood. But she had to understand thatnothingwould bring me back here again.Not anything.
“Thank you, Siren. You are free from my realm today.” With a flick of her hand Ryder collapsed on the path in front of me.
Chapter Nineteen
