Hermes clenched his fists.
Aphrodite placed a hand on his arm. ‘I understand.’
The tingle became an ache.
He wasn’t a fool. He knew Aphrodite didn’t see him in the way he wished. He didn’t blame her. He was forever trapped in the body of a youth, doomed to remain on the cusp of manhood. But perhaps, if he became someone she relied on,someone she trusted, then one day she might look beyond his wanting exterior.
He would have to be thorough in his search for the Underworld creature. So thorough it would be remiss of him not to at least pass through Troy.
‘Perhaps …’ he glanced over his shoulder at the shade, then whispered, ‘I could try.’
The smile that spread across Aphrodite’s face was dazzling. Hermes gazed at her, only blinking when the Goddess of Love pressed something into his hand. His pipes.
‘I found these. I believe they belong to you.’
‘Yes,’ he rasped, staring as she moved past him down the steps.
When she’d gone, and he noticed the edge of a curled piece of parchment tucked inside one of the barrels, Hermes realized that she must have known he was going to say yes.
8. The House of Hades
Danae came to with the tang of blood in her mouth. Her head ached as though it had been cracked open, and her right eye was swollen shut. She groaned, recalling the ferryman’s fist connecting with her face before she lost consciousness. Then her hands flew to her neck, and she gripped the iron collar encircling her throat. Through the pulses of pain shooting across her skull, she searched for her life-threads, desperately hoping her disconnection had been a momentary lapse.
She felt nothing.
Feebly, she tugged at the metal ring, feeling for weak points. There were none. The breath hitched in her throat.
She was alone. Truly alone.
The voice was gone. Hylas was gone. Orpheus was gone.
Orpheus.
The memory of the musician caught between Kerberos’ jaws swallowed her, twin serpents of grief and guilt binding her chest. If she hadn’t attacked the ferryman he might never have summoned the beast, and Orpheus would still be alive.
She curled into herself, sobbing until the pain in her head was sickening. It was only then that she took in the vast bed she lay on, its frame constructed from dark, polished wood, and the softness of the sheets, made from wool so fine it felt as though they had been spun by spiders.
Peeling herself from the bed, she looked around a room that was twice the size of her family’s hut on Naxos. Its walls were made of smoothest obsidian marble, cracked throughwith pale veins. The only other furniture was an oak table with a small silver jug, goblet and a dish with a beeswax candle resting upon it. No frescos adorned the stone, no carvings or mosaics. And there were no windows. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed, only that her mouth ached with thirst.
She hauled herself up and pushed herself off the bed. She staggered as her head throbbed with the movement but managed to steady herself on the bedpost. Sucking in deep breaths, she inched her battered body towards the table, lifted the jug and sniffed.
Water.
It might be poisoned. But if her captor wished her dead, they’d already had ample opportunity. Ignoring the goblet, she tipped the jug to her lips. Its contents were surprisingly sweet and fresh. She gulped, her stomach aching as it filled with cool, delicious water. Once she’d drunk her fill, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and realized that her skin, while bruised, was clean. She looked down and saw that her sandals and peplos were gone, replaced by a gown of ink-dark silk. She yanked it above her legs. Someone had scrubbed her head to toe.
Clenching her teeth she flung down her skirt.
She would find whoever was responsible and make them pay. But first, she needed to get her powers back.
She forced her aching legs into motion and strode towards the ebony door. Bracing herself for it to be locked, she tugged at the handle and almost fell back as it swung open without protest. Gathering herself, she crept forward and peered out into a high-ceilinged corridor lined with more beeswax candles nestling in bronze bowls.
Tentatively, she took a step beyond her room. The candlelight shivered up the dark marble walls, chasing shadows intothe corners. Like in her chamber, no art adorned the corridor, no murals or statues, just sharp lines of polished stone. Her breath echoed down the vast passage, accompanied by her footsteps and the dripping of candle wax. At the end was another door set into the stone. She tried the handle. This one was locked, and she had no power to force it open.
She had never felt weak before she’d discovered her sister’s sea-bloated corpse floating in the waves, dragged it onto the beach near their home and watched an apple tree sprout from Alea’s still heart. The day she’d tasted the golden fruit, and her powers had awoken. In her youth she’d delighted in her body, relished the exhilaration of running across the sun-baked earth, sparring with her brothers and clambering over sea-slicked rocks. But now those pleasures seemed feeble to her. It was as though she had grown wings, only to have them torn from her back.
Beyond this second door, the corridor turned abruptly, and she found herself stepping out onto an open square walkway, surrounding a large chamber below. Pillars crafted from the same obsidian marble stretched up from the ground to support the upper level. To her left, a grand sweeping staircase descended to the lower floor. She looked up. Instead of a roof, the ceiling became one with the jagged rock above. She realized that this building must be carved out of a vast bed of marble beneath the earth. And there, prising through great cracks in the raw stone, were more of the glowing roots, these thick as tree trunks, snaking down to the floor below. She crept forward, trying to get a better view of an object that seemed to be suspended from the ends of the tendrils.
It looked like a table, fashioned from another slab of marble and held in the air by the roots curled around it. Benches carved from ebony were stationed beside it, and on its polished surface lay silver platters of food.
