Page 96 of Blood of Olympus

Charon stepped up beside him, their expressions startlingly identical. “Nyss, you have to go.”

Two ghostly hands grasped each of my shoulders, the echo of ancient power lending strength to their grip so that I could feel their desperation.

“My beautiful, brave girl,” Persephone lamented. “It is not our time yet. You still have much to accomplish before we meet again.”

When I faced her, it was like looking into a mirror. A brighter, less jaded reflection. Even in death, she had so much life about her.

“Hellion,” Hades whispered, using a nickname I’d not heard in decades — the one he’d given me after the hallway of portraits incident. “Let go.”

“I can’t!”

“Let us take this burden.”

“Others need you. They call, even now,” my mother added, her eyes staring at something in the far-off distance.

My arms trembled under the crushing weight of souls. “I don’t know how.” The words fell out in choked sobs. Delegation had never been my strength.

But together, my parents and Charon raised their spectral arms and took the load forcibly from me. Whatever power they each still possessed forced the storm of souls higher, allowing Archimedes and his father to finish their task.

Hephaestus looked over, nodded his thanks, and lifted another black puzzle piece into its allotted place.

Exhaustion crippled me. If not for Caelus’ strength and fast reaction time, I’d have collapsed in a pile of boneless-queen on the ground at his feet. He scooped me up into his arms and summoned a shadowgate with scrunched brows and fierce concentration.

The darkness flickered in my periphery as he moved toward the portal, but my eyes were too busy scraping up every last visual ounce of my parents I would likely ever receive.

“Hellion?” Hades asked with a wicked grin. “Give Kronos my regards when you end him.”

My lips twisted to match. “Yes, sir.”

Caelus crossed the threshold then, and the nothingness between places swallowed us whole.

CHAPTER 26

Caelus

I held the entire world cradled within my arms. It was that simple for me. Everything boiled down to that one, straight fact.

But she bore the weight of entire worlds on her shoulders.

And right now, they were teeming with problems of the monstrous variety. Oozing with the stench of titanic audacity. Trembling with the anticipation of the next strike.

War was not at all what I’d expected.

It was quiet and restless more than violent and gore-filled. It was a taut wire ready to snap at the slightest provocation, and endless battlefields, already haunted before the first blows struck.

There was little glory to be found in it, doing terrible things in the guise of honour. But they were things that must be done in order to preserve what good remained.

Ephemeron’s presence pressed down on us both as I took that final step into the realm of mortals. Its air felt heavier, thicker — a storm on the verge of breaking, though I couldn’t even begin to fathom from where.

At the thought of storms, lightning writhed beneath my skin, turning it a bright shade of molten gold.

Nyssa stirred.

“Shhh. Sleep. War can wait until tomorrow,” I said, kissing the top of her head.

Her lips slid into a soft, sleepy smile. “If you say so,” she murmured, snuggling further into my chest.

My heart squeezed. If someone had told me a year ago that I would be here now, carrying the daughter of Hades in my arms as she slept — and she was snuggling me — I’d have laughed in their face and downed another drink, drowning my desperation to be doing just that.