That was the root of the feud between Hades and Apollo.
In each mortal life I’d lived, Apollo had been there, wearing different names and personas. Always circling the redheads who were me. Always pursuing what he could never have.
I wondered if Apollo had ever been among my murderers, but he could end me now if he wished, here, while I was most vulnerable.
At Reaper Academy, girls swooned over Sebastian. Had I never met Nero, would I be drawn to him too? Would I be defenseless against that charm?
His minty breath grazed my earlobe as the horse galloped. Our bodies rose and fell together, each stride pressing us closer.
I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling the secure weight of the threads tucked between my breasts. I’d compressed the strands of all my lifetimes into an invisible, miniature lattice.
The threads were safe. My secret remained my own.
Time moved strangely here in the dead zone. After what felt like hours, a structure emerged in the distance.
A cabin.
It stood alone on the barren landscape, small and weathered. The wood was gray with age, the roof sagging. The ground around it was muddy, puddles mirroring the dull sky.
“We’ll rest there for a few hours,” Sebastian said. “We’ll need our strength before crossing the border.”
A deep weariness hit me all at once, now that we’d stopped moving. The fight with the Fates, the near-drowning, and the heaviness of the dead zone had all drained me to the bone.
Sebastian dismounted before helping me down. My legs nearly buckled when my feet hit the ground.
The cabin had one room with a narrow bed against the rough wooden wall, a small table, and a single chair. The floor was packed dirt, damp where water had seeped through the roof.
“This place doesn’t just suppress magic,” Sebastian said. “It drains vitality. Even gods feel it.”
He gestured toward the bed. “Rest. I’ll keep watch.”
Too exhausted to care about my manners, I collapsed onto the bed without removing my wet clothes.
Sleep took me almost instantly.
But it wasn’t peaceful.
Nightmares rose like black water—drowning in the tidal pool, burning in the Fates’ chamber, their laughter twisting into Morrigan’s false tears, the net descending over me in the lake.
I jerked awake with a gasp.
Sebastian sat on the damp ground, leaning against the side of the bed. His eyes were closed, brows drawn together as if in pain. The perfect mask had slipped. For the first time, he looked exhausted.
I studied him in the dim light.
Apollo had stood with my enemies in every other lifetime. Even though he’d come for me this time, he’d tried to frame Nero and driven a wedge between us. And in every era, he’d pitted himself Hades’s various alter egos.
But in this era, he’d said he was tired of the game. That he wanted it to end. He’d told me I was different this time and that he was on my side.
Was that why he helped me? Or was he still a disguised enemy? What did he want?
Was sharing a horse and riding into the sunset a play to seduce me away from Nero?
But here, sitting on the wet earth with his eyes closed, he looked boyish. Utterly alone. He was one of the most powerful gods. He didn’t have to be here, in this bleak, magic-dead place, yet he’d taken it in stride. For me.
A loneliness he couldn’t hide seeped from him in the quiet.
My heart softened, though I knew it shouldn’t.
