Her stomach groaned. It felt like days since she and Orpheus had shared that meagre hunk of bread.
Roasted meats, freshly baked cakes and sweet citrus fruits called to her like lovers. As she crept through the shadows towards the staircase, her body thrummed with anticipation, any moment expecting to be ambushed. But she remained alone.
As soon as she reached the lower floor, she ran to the table and snatched up a flatbread, tearing the still-warm dough then submerging a piece in a dish of luminous olive oil. The bread was almost at her lips when she noticed a bowl of pomegranates. They had been sliced in half, their seeds glistening like blood-red jewels.
She dropped the bread and took a step back. So much of what she had been taught about the world was a lie, yet the tale of Hades tricking Persephone to remain in the Underworld by feeding her six pomegranate seeds was ingrained in her being.
She must not allow herself to become distracted.
Her eyes darted across the table and settled on a small knife next to a bowl of russet apples. She snatched it and pushed the blade beneath the metal collar, wincing as it caught her skin.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
She pulled the knife from her neck and spun around.
A figure emerged from the darkness beside the staircase. A man clothed in a long black robe that seemed to melt into the floor at his feet.
Danae had never seen a likeness of the God of the Underworld, but she knew without doubt that this was he. As Hades moved, she caught a faint whisper of Heracles in his face, but where his nephew was built for power, he himself was slight. He seemed young and ancient all at once. Hispronounced cheek bones tapered to an angular jaw, and his midnight hair was cut unfashionably short and brushed away from his face. His skin was so pale it was almost blue, his face smooth and hairless, except for two lines etched between his dark brows. His eyes too appeared bleached from lack of sunlight, his irises more grey than azure, like a dying sky clinging to the last vestiges of light.
Danae’s fist tightened on the handle of the blade.
Hades prowled to the far end of the table, trailing a bone-pale finger across the edge of the marble slab.
‘You might accidentally slice your jugular. Death would follow in three heartbeats.’ He spoke softly, but his voice rasped as though it were not often used. His pallid eyes lingered on her collar. ‘It is unsettling, I know, but necessary after what you did to Kerberos.’
Danae stared at him. He almost looked pleased.
Her free hand flew once more to the collar around her neck, and a sudden realization dawned. She remembered that when she had discovered Prometheus chained atop the Caucasus Mountains, he too had been shackled with a ring of iron. His had rested on his shoulders, loose around his emaciated neck. Now she knew why. Imprisoned for centuries on his icy crag, cut off from his powers; no wonder he had not been able to escape his chains. Despite the anger she’d nursed for the Titan over the past year, she felt a pang of pity. Prometheus’ final revelations may have destroyed everything she thought she knew about the world, but to feel like a hollowed shell for centuries was a cruel punishment indeed.
‘You leashed me. Like a hound.’
The ghost of a smile played across Hades’ mouth. ‘And, like a hound, I must train you.’
She tensed.
‘Please, sit.’ He gestured to the opposite end of the table as he lowered himself onto one of the benches.
The blade still in her hand, Danae remained where she stood. ‘Why haven’t you killed me?’
Hades straightened the knife that lay beside his silver plate. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
She did not answer.
‘If I were Zeus, I would certainly wish to eradicate you. But I am not my brother. Now …’ he gestured again to the table, ‘please eat.’
She did not move. ‘You know who I am?’
Hades poured himself a goblet of amber wine. ‘Zeus’ children may believe his lie that you are one of my creations, but I know the truth.When the prophet falls and gold that grows bears no fruit, the last daughter will come. She will end the reign of the thunder and become the light that frees mankind.’ Danae’s blood chilled to hear those words trip softly over Hades’ tongue. The Lord of the Underworld smiled. ‘If you wished to hide the fact that you are the one prophesied to end my brother’s reign, you should have been more careful about displaying your powers. And perhaps arrived on a less conspicuous animal than one of my own creations.’
Hylas.
‘What do you mean, one of your creations? Where is my horse?’
Hades took a sip of wine, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a pristine cotton cloth. ‘The beast is quite comfortable in his old paddock. Now tell me, how did you steal a Hesperides apple?’
Danae frowned. ‘I didn’t steal anything …’ The name of the fruit was strange to her, yet as the memory of her sister’s chest cracking open and the golden apple tree bloomed in her mind’s eye, it did not seem important. In the chaos ofher capture, she had become distracted and forgotten the only thing that truly mattered. ‘I will tell you anything you want to know, if you take me to my sister.’
The lines between Hades’ brows deepened. ‘Who?’
