Page 185 of The Games Gods Play
But in the next instant, it’s all gone, scorched away under a diamond-hard determination that makes no sense. He presses his palm to mine, and we blink out of existence. When we blink back in, we’re standing in the front courtyard of his residence in Olympus. But he doesn’t step back. And he doesn’t lower his hand.
We stand there, close together, palm to palm, and I stare into eyes that show me a mere glimpse of the battle raging within him. A battle that is well beyond the folly of a god and a mortal getting involved.
What in the hellfires is going on with him?
I open my mouth to ask, but his gaze lifts above my head and the familiar mask of the closed, brooding god of death slips into place.
“Are you here to speak to Lyra?” he asks.
I look over my shoulder, breaking the connection of our hands and feeling as if Atropos cut the line of our fates in that instant.
But I can’t let any of that show because Rima is standing just inside the gate, watching.
Rima. None of the others. Not even my allies.
“Yes,” she says, looking between Hades and me.
“Good luck in the next Labor,” he says to me, gaze aimed at my forehead, before walking away.
I look at the ground, everything focused on the sound of his feet getting farther and farther away. I hear a small click—the door to the house opening. Then a pause.
“Don’t die, Lyra,” he says quietly.
After what almost sounded like a plea, the snick of the door closing behind him feels oddly final, and I can’t contain my flinch.
Rima approaches, and I force myself to look at her. Focus on her. She glances between me and the door as if she worries that if she gets too close, Hades will reappear and punish her for interrupting us. The fear in her eyes is unmistakable and impossible to ignore.
“He won’t hurt you,” I assure her.
Her gaze, deep-brown eyes almost consumed by the black of her pupils, settles on me. She shakes her head, and I don’t know if she’s rejecting what I said or something else.
“I am here to tell you that we all discussed your proposal.”
I figured. I can also tell by her expression that the answer didn’t swing my way.
A new heaviness joins the weight that’s been slowly growing since the moment I woke up alone this morning.
This weight is different, though—made of guilt, disappointment, and desperation.
“The answer is no?” I ask, and my voice threatens to crack, but I control it.
“That is correct.”
“All of you?” My allies didn’t want to come tell me themselves? I don’t ask about that. It would show weakness.
“Also correct.”
My lungs let go of all their air, and my shoulders round over as my heart shrivels. “Do you mind if I ask why?”
Her back goes ramrod straight. “Zai wanted to deliver this news himself. But I insisted I be the one to tell you. We are saying no…because of me.”
I frown. “You? Why? It’s a good deal for everyone—”
“My blessing from Apollo is the gift…” She says the last word with a dubious burr in her voice. “Of prophecy.”
Wow.
And…okay? “I don’t see how—”
