Page 55 of Scion of Chaos

“That’s a neat trick. Did you do that?”

“The prison anticipates our needs,” Asterius says, his deep voice vibrating his chest where my ear rests against it.

I’m not sure what to expect, but after my tour of the bowels of this place, it definitely isn’t the wonderland of translucent crystalline structures glowing in the darkness once we reach the bottom. More torches come to life, lining row after row of perfectly smooth columns that rise up from a polished reflective surface like ribbons of diamond and precious stone that have been melted down and remolded. But it isn’t until Asterius keeps descending, sending ripples across the water below that I realize it isn’t a floor, but water he’s walking into.

He continues down until the water reaches his waist and the floor beneath seems to even out. I stare into the vastness of the cavern, hoping to catch a glimpse of Typhon, but see no sign.

“Where is he?” I whisper.

Asterius continues through the water until he reaches a ledge on the other side with a torchlit alcove. It’s steamier on this side, and I trail my fingers into the water, finding it bathwater warm. He pauses and sets me on the ledge where my feet dangle into the water.

“He’s still healing from a battle we fought three years ago, so he’s asleep, but he’ll likely rouse now that we’re here.”

“Three years ago.” I look up at him with a frown. “That was when the attack on Bear Island happened. It’s taken that long for him to heal?”

He strides up out of the water, his cotton loincloth soaked and clinging to every contour of his groin. I try to keep from staring, but the man ispacking. I avert my gaze to the water as he heads for the shelves I caught a glimpse of in the alcove. When he returns, he’s holding several little bottles, a combination of spicy, flowery aromas drifting from them.

“He lost three heads that day. Regenerating each one is akin to gestating a baby. It takes time and significant energy.” He holds up one of the bottles and removes a cork stopper. “Would you prefer to wash yourself, or will you allow me the honor?”

“Threeheads?” I gape at him. “How many does he have?”

“One hundred. Only one of them has executive function, though, so the rest are more like extra limbs.” He sets down all but one of the bottles, then moves in front of me. I’m still trying to wrap my head—myonlyhead—around the idea of a creature with that many. I can picture the sketch I made, but it hadn’t really sunk in that he had a whole, actual hundred of them, or that he could lose a few and still function.

Asterius is smirking when he pours a thick, amber liquid into one palm, sets down the bottle, then reaches beneath the water to lift one of my feet. “I hope I didn’t break your brain.”

My mouth snaps shut and I narrow my eyes at him. “Are you serious? After all this, you thinkthatwould send me over the edge?” I wave a hand at the cavern and glance up at the ceiling beyond which the tower lies, and the prison, wherever those cells actually exist. “It’s hard to deny that gods are a thing after living at St. George for a few weeks, but until now they’ve…you’ve… just been abstract concepts. But now… I mean, you’re a minotaur, and you’re giving me a foot massage. Last night I had a three-way with Pan, Tartarus, and Erebus. And I know who the others are too, at least mostly.”

“I can answer any questions you have about the others, if you’d like.”

He’s lathered up my foot so well I can’t see my toes and is rubbing the sole with his thumb in a way that makes me melt. I look up into his face and he meets my gaze, eyebrows lifting.

“I want to know about you first,” I say, pausing to recall the stories from the books I only just read. “Why are you even here? I thought you were killed by some Greek champion who used breadcrumbs or something to find you in the center of a labyrinth.”

His expression shutters and he shifts his focus back to my foot, rinsing it off with palmfuls of water. Then he lifts my other foot without responding.

“So I take it that’s either not true, or it’s a sore spot.”

He snorts, a puff of steam billowing from his nostrils. “History is written by the victors,” he says. “Theseus is also full of shit. There were no witnesses in the center of the labyrinth that day. Not one of the Athenians I supposedly held hostage was smart enough to reach the center, or to get back out again. Once he arrived to mount a rescue, they’d been dead for days. I can still smell their corpses rotting around every corner. Theseus and I did fight, and I nearly beat him, but he begged a boon of the gods at the last minute and sent me here, then returned claiming he’d won.”

“What a dick.”

He lets out a mirthless chuckle. “The only bright point is that Vesh knows the truth of every trial the residents of Tartarus endured. Those of us who he chose as his guards were all prisoners at first, save for Alcides and his brothers. We were all sentenced to this place for some misdeed or crime that we didn’t commit, or that we were unfairly convicted of. Vesh allowed us to serve out our sentences as guards instead of locked in cages.”

“What was Pan’s crime?” I blurt.

“Fucking the wrong woman.” He rolls his eyes.

I bark out a laugh. “I’m sorry, but I’m not surprised. Who did he fuck?”

“We do not speak her name here, for multiple reasons. But suffice to say he was the victim of a vengeful goddess. She chose him as the method to get even with a cheating husband.”

“Oh god, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”

“It’s exactly who you think,” he says, frowning.

I shudder, thinking of the prisoner above who was sentenced to an eternity spinning on a flaming wheel for trying to seduce the same goddess.

“How can he cherry pick who he lets out to serve as guards? There are so many others whose punishment far from fits their crimes. You as much as admitted it.”

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