Page 78 of Love and Death
Cerberus shuts the wall behind us, and the sounds of the palace die behind it. We move forward, our way lit by refracted light coming through the walls from the rooms and hallways we pass.
“Left here,” the hellhound urges gently when I slow to watch several guards hurry past in the opposite direction, none the wiser of our presence. Further along, I see a servant girl dragged roughly into a room by a noble as he begins to drunkenly tug on his pants.
I stop, wanting to act on her behalf, but Cerberus onlygrowls a soft warning, “We can do nothing, Hazel. Keep going. He will not get far with that one. She bites.”
Rounding a bend, the corridor narrows, and it’s a tight squeeze to get all three men through, but we manage, and the passage widens again. It is here that we pass the throne room, and I am caught off-guard by its beauty without Hades’ presence to defile it.
We walk on for a little longer before Cerberus signals for me to stop.
“Here we are.”
Pressing his hand to the wall again, a small archway opens, and we step out into what appears to be old servant’s quarters, at least in comparison to the rest of the palace, though I would have gladly taken them over Merelda’s old room for me.
Cerberus seals the path behind us and nods toward the far end of the room. Setting Eros and Death down, he moves aside an old bookcase and begins pulling out stones from the wall behind it. It isn’t long before an old, weathered door, not much taller than myself, is revealed.
“What’s behind this one?” I ask when he sets the last stone down, stacking them in such a way that I would never know they were taken from the wall recently.
He grins down at me, and tosses his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead.
“Escape, at least from these cursed palace walls.”
23
HAZEL
Ineed no further encouragement as he forces open the door for us to slip through … until I realize there’s nearly a two-story drop to the ground on the other side.
Cerberus just barely manages to grab my arm and pull me back when I step too quickly to go through it and nearly tumble out into the unusually cool night air.
“Woah, careful! I do not have the strength to carry all three of you. I am going to place their bodies down first, and then I will help you.”
I step back, thankful for his quick reaction, as I watch him take Eros up on his back and then lower himself out to drop down to the ground. I’m just wondering how he’s going to get back up when he backs up to take a running jump, scrambling up the wall and just managing to grab hold of the door frame before pulling himself up. He repeats this once more before taking a moment to sit in the open door, his legs dangling over the side.
“How do you have the strength, let alone the energy, to do all this right now?” I ask.
“Who said I do,” he says, and I see exhaustion flicker across his features before he chases it off with a grin. “Necessity will keep me going, for now. Come, let us be gone from here.”
He pats his back, and I move to wrap my arms around his neck. Clinging to him, he drops down to hang from the doorframe by one hand and grabs my clasped hands with the other. I have to close my eyes, and he lets go.
For a few seconds, the world is weightless, and then we land with a thud, though it’s not nearly as jarring as I’d expected.
I slip down off the hellhound’s back, and he scrambles up the side of the wall again to pull the bookcase into place behind us. Somehow, from down here, this feat looks all the more impressive.
Landing beside me, he brushes off his hands as he glances between the three of us.
“I am going to have to find a cart or something to carry them both, wait here. I will not be long.”
I dislike the idea of being left alone, but I do not say as much as Cerberus disappears into the overgrown weeds and thorns that seem to make up the abandoned garden. The palace wall rises up to one side and melts into the mountain on the other. I hadn’t realized before that Hades’ palace was built into a mountainside, perhaps that’s why it seems to tower so greatly over the city.
I shudder and move to sit on a nearby rock to wait for Cerberus when I hear voices through the thicket. Theyseem to be coming from around the corner of the palace wall.
“Any news?” asks a man, his voice strangely familiar.
“Nothing, the city is crawling with Deimos’ men. I heard he has yet to wake up. Is that true?”
“As far as I know, the bite to his shoulder is a nasty piece of work, too.”
I blink in surprise, realizing they’re talking about Hades. I should get closer to listen and maybe find out who they are.
