Page 55 of Deadly Games
“Elements?” Loki echoed in confusion.
“The ice that flows through your veins,” she answered, her voice soft and seductive yet powerful. She turned to Dionysus and Fenrir next. “The power of pleasure, and of the wild. And from you,” she said, finally turning to me. “Death. Life’s perfect balance.”
My throat tightened for reasons I couldn’t begin to understand. She was different in some way, but also more familiar than she ever had been. Like this was the first time we were both meeting face to face, every part of ourselves intact.
I did as she asked, funneling the same energy I had used to raise her from the dead into the vortex she had created, which was already beginning to stir the waters. They swirled in a clockwise direction as the others joined in, lending her their respective energy. Loki eventually waded in with us, and I felt the freeze of the blue energy emanating from his hands.
Kore took the power naturally, funneling it through her own, and the embers of life rising up from within her made my head spin. It felt like the air itself was alive and conscious, her essence spreading through everything around us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the first tinges of color I had ever seen in the realm of gray and darkness. The earth on either side of the river bed was beginning to sprout with thin green tendrils of grass. At first, I thought it had to be an illusion, but the color spread like a flame, consuming everything with life as far as the eye could see.
Flowers bloomed where none ever had, as far as I knew, and great thorny vines rose from the crumbling earth, forming new pathways and natural structures that were almost too much to behold.
I turned back to Kore and realized she was so focused she’d gone into a deep trance. I could feel the massive amounts of energy rushing from her, filling the realm, and I started to panic. If there was one thing life had taught me, it was that miracles always came at a cost, and she was the one price I wasn’t willing to pay.
“Stop,” I commanded. “It’s too much. You’re going to drain yourself.”
She ignored me, or maybe she was too deeply entranced to hear at all. The sky grew light above us, turning a dark shade of blue. It was far from the world of bright colors and open air above, but it was equally enchanting and beautiful in its own way. As the thick gray haze cleared, the starry lights nestled in the lines of the sky shone bright, illuminating a realm I didn’t recognize.
The water itself was beginning to rise, heavy waves pushing and pulling against us, making it difficult to stand. Kore collapsed and Fenrir caught her before the waves could take her under. He looked around in the same confusion that plagued us all. “She brought everything back to life. The souls…”
He was right. It was impossible, since the Underworld wasn’t ever supposed to have been alive to begin with, but the rising water was proof that somehow, the souls my father had consumed were returning.
Because of her.
“That’s enough,” I pleaded, touching her arm. “You’ve done enough.”
Her eyes fluttered open and when she smiled, it was the smile I recognized. The smile I’d grown to love. “Nothing is ever really lost,” she murmured before her eyes fell shut. Her energy was so faded I could barely feel it.
She was wrong. If she was gone, then I’d lost everything.
Chapter 24
Kore
Light came from everywhere. Above, below, behind my eyelids. It was impossible to escape as consciousness pulled me back from the nothingness that had encapsulated me for so long. How long, I didn’t know, but I hadn’t expected to wake up at all.
The moment I gave in to Eris--to the chaos I now knew had been within me all along--I knew what I had to do. It was an instinct deeper than thought or knowledge, and in my heart, I accepted that it would be the last thing I ever did.
My only regret was not getting more time with them. Loki, Fenrir, Dionysus, Hades. Each so different, each so equally essential to my very being.
When the light cleared and I realized they were all gathered around me in a bed big enough for a small army, I thought I must be dreaming. That, or Death had taken pity on me and allowed me to live out a fantasy in the afterlife.
“Where am I?” I asked once I could speak. My throat was dry and my voice sounded hoarse. Loki handed me a glass of water that felt too cool and real on my lips to be an illusion. “Is this death?”
He and Hades exchanged a glimpse, and the amused smile on the latter’s lips made me question my initial assessment. “You came pretty close, but I guess he wasn’t interested in a second date.”
I sat up slowly and Dionysus moved to my side to help me. “Take it easy,” he warned. “You’re still not back at optimal.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to figure out where we were. I didn’t recognize the room, for all its lavish furnishings and gilded surfaces. “All I remember is being in the river bed, then nothing.”
“What happened is that you brought the Underworld back to life,” said Fenrir. “And it’s the first any of us knew it was ever anything else to begin with.”
“Back to life?” Flashes of the blooming wilderness returned, but I was sure they were nothing more than hallucinations. “That really happened?”
“You should give yourself more credit,” Hades said wryly. “For once, your habit of leaving chaos in your wake actually paid off.”
I was too relieved to see him to bother dignifying that with a response. “I thought I was gone,” I admitted, hugging myself. The room was comfortable, but chilly.
