“Your only requirement is to understand that you do,” he stated as he continued to walk behind her with a smirk displayed on his face.
“The king is going to kill me,” she continued, her steps quickening as she reached for the end of the hallway.
A burst of laughter escaped from Eros’s lips. “Only if he lives.”
The nymph’s eyes flickered toward him briefly, her eyebrows shooting up in an expression of complete and utter shock. However, she didn’t say a word and began knocking on the enormous wall that stood before them. Her knocks appeared to be carefully planned, as though she understood precisely the rhythm required for them to echo through the space.
Eros meticulously scrutinized her every move, memorizing her knocks to make sure that he could later access the room by himself.
The sound of the wall shifting after a final knock, unveiling a hidden passage that started with a set of stairs, reverberated throughout the entire house. The wall’s slow, steady movement, marked by a deep, grinding rumble akin to stone against stonefilled the area, while dust and small debris detached and fell with a soft sputter.
“Remain here and await my return,” Eros commanded, continuing onward and descending the steps.
His mind was consumed with formulating a variety of scenarios, which is why he paid no attention to the nymph’s response. His primary objective was the discovery of something that would compel Zeus to listen and to ensure that Charisma could be brought back to him.
Walking down the stairs, he emerged into the darkness of the cellar, encountering an acrid odor that was a mix of different potions and chemicals combined with a pungent smell of mold and wet stones. When he placed a foot into a puddle, the whole basement became illuminated by the white flame of multiple torches, as if they had sensed his presence.
Before his eyes, meticulously crafted bars constructed from ancient steel towered around the room and Eros recognized their ancient magic. He felt dark magic radiating from them and felt himself being engulfed by it.
His heart sped up as he approached, and this change in his physical state served as a warning that Charisma was, without a doubt, dealing with a challenging situation. He felt a sense of panic take hold of him, gripping him as his hand instinctively moved to rest upon his chest.
Charisma, he murmured in his head and felt the urge to hit the wall next to him. He could not stand the thought of her being in pain.
When he walked past the bars, his eyes lowered to the ground. A vague sound of liquid pouring captured his attention.
He kept his hand placed steadily on his heart as his gaze focused when he finally comprehended what he was witnessing. From the ground rose an engraved family tree, whose branchestwisted and turned in a spiral pattern, resembling pathways of the constellations within the Kosmos.
As he knelt down to get a closer look at the intricate details, his fingers brushed against the stone, and the carvings present at the end of each branch.
?ρα
(Hera)
Δημ?τηρ
(Demeter)
Ποσειδ?ων
(Poseidon)
The names of the gods were the elements that linked each carved branch. A single name stood out as an anomaly as not being a part of the family tree, but still curiously linked to the name of Hera.
Ζε?ς
(Zeus)
The subtle sound that Eros had heard earlier was coming from a branch filled with crimson liquid that connected the names of the two gods.
He touched the liquid pouring through the groove, the warm and viscous texture clinging to his fingertip. The branch was covered in bright blood that flowed downward and seeped into every carved letter of the names of Zeus and Hera.
They were perhaps bonded?
No. Not bonded.
An intense beating of his heart caused him to pull his finger back from the blood, shifting his attention to his physical sensations.
Charisma.
