“Damn it, Lyra!” he snarls. “She is, but you called her that twice. With the entire immortal world watching. You think she isn’t going to take retribution?”
I huff an uncaring laugh. “She can Medusa me, for all I care. At least then I can turn assholes like you to stone with a single glance.”
Hades rears back, eyes flaring with shock before they narrow sharply. “Leave us,” he commands Charon and Cerberus.
Neither of them move.
In fact, both of them look to me. I’m still watching Hades, so I see when that registers. I catch the moment he realizes that his only two friends in this world are protecting me…from him.
And I see what it does to him. The way he absorbs the hit almost physically before slowly pulling his shoulders back, spine straightening, face going as blank as I feel, smoke swirling around him like a moat of protection.
“I’ll be okay,” I say to them quietly.
Neither is happy about it, but they go, disappearing from the mountain, leaving me alone with Hades.
I don’t wait for him to take the lead. He doesn’t get to do that anymore.
“I know,” I tell him.
Black brows snap down. “Know what?”
“That Persephone is still alive. Is that why you need to become King of the Gods?”
His features go slowly stony as if I just petrified him with a glance, a word.
I was right. It’s true. It’s all true.
Hades takes a step. “Lyra—”
“Don’t.” I slowly move back, still so calm it doesn’t feel real. Nothing feels real. I’m pretty sure the pain is coming after I thaw. “You don’t want to come anywhere near me right now.”
He stops.
“Was that what last night was about? Boosting my confidence or something to try to get me to win? You feel nothing for me. I’m just a tool.”
“I—”
“That wasn’t a question.” I don’t want to hear that it’s true, and I won’t believe him if he says it’s not.
I take another slow, careful step back, even though he doesn’t move. “I thought I could see you. The real you. But it was all a calculation.”
I stare at him, still so unfeeling. And he stares right back.
I can’t stand looking at him now, at that harshly beautiful face, and drop my gaze to a spot at his feet. “You made me burn for you.” The words come out not as an accusation, but as a harsh whisper of humiliation and bone-deep hurt.
“Fuck. Lyra, listen to me—”
I shake my head. Here it comes. The pain. It’s trickling in now. I need to be far away from him when it really hits.
“I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” I raise my gaze to a spot on his chin. “I lost today.” I’m not even sure who won. Trinica, I guess, since she was out of the maze next, after Meike and Dex, who are dead.
“I know,” he says.
“I can’t win the Crucible.”
No response.
“I can’t make you king, so you don’t need me anymore.” I look down at my feet and realize—randomly—that I’m a mess. My shoes are covered in bug guts, both from killing bugs and from running through their remains. There are holes in my clothes where the spiders and the bullet ant pierced through. Blood on my shirt.
The sight is like an outward expression of what I’m starting to feel like inside.
Only pride is keeping me upright, the numbness giving way to everything I don’t want to feel. What I want to do is go curl into a little ball and fall apart. I’ll do that later. When no one can see. When no one can find me.
After the last Labor is over, I’m going to disappear forever. Forge a quiet new life somewhere else. Away from him.
Hades takes a step closer, eyes turning to molten silver. “The crown isn’t out of reach yet.”
I blink, then stare at him. For me to win, Diego would have to die. I search his face for any hint that what he’s saying bothers him at all. “And you think being an asshole is going to make me want to win?”
An emotion flickers over his features, but it’s gone too fast to catch. “Make me king, and I’ll grant you anything you ask for that is in my power to give.”
The fire he lit inside me…that’s all ashes now.
“Do you want to be back with your parents? Done.” He snaps his fingers. “Do you want to be rich? Done.” Another snap. “Rule a country? It’s yours.”
He really doesn’t know me at all to offer those things.
He never bothered to really know me, and I damn well don’t know him like I thought I did.
