Page 107 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘Would you want to marry your second cousin?’ Zagreus replied, tilting his head as though the answer were self-evident.
‘I thought gods did not care about such things,’ Kage said mildly. ‘Do you not marry your own siblings?’
Zagreus waved the notion away with a sharp flick of his hand. ‘Believe it or not, we are not as vile as mortals like to claim. Marriage among the gods is about power. Strategy. If you wed your own sibling, you gain nothing. So no, we do not fuck our own families, Kage Blackburn. At least not most of the time.’
Kage ignored the irritation flashing behind those mismatched eyes and continued along the winding path. A river shimmered to their right, its dark surface catching the faint light of the Underworld, and an inexplicable pull urged him towardsit.
‘We marry into other godly bloodlines,’ Zagreus went on, following him with visible reluctance, his annoyance growing the further they strayed from the road to Tartarus. ‘To claim a sliver of their power. To strengthen our own.’
Kage had already noticed the figure standing by the riverbank, motionless, watching the water as though it held answers. He could not have said why he felt drawn closer, only that with every step, a quiet certainty tightened in his chest.
By the time he reached them, his suspicions had solidified into something cold and unmistakable.
He reached out and touched the stranger’s shoulder.
The soul must have sensed him coming, for she turned at once.
Kage’s gaze lifted to the antlers first, then drifted down to the face before him—a face he had encountered once on the road, fleeting and unassuming. A face he knew, without doubt, was at this very moment escorting his body back towards his own lands.
Rio Hawthorne smiled.
‘Well, hello, Kage Blackburn,’ she said lightly.
He wanted to return the greeting, to offer some semblance of composure, but his attention snagged on her eyes. Green. Clear.Seeing.
Eyes that had once been blind, forever veiled in clouded stillness.
But here…
Kage knew that the Underworld was a place of strange mercies. Certain losses did not follow a soul beyond death. The deaf could hear. The mute could speak. It did not entirely surprise him, then, that Rio Hawthorne could see within this realm of death.
‘You can see,’ he said quietly.
‘Of course she can see,’ Zagreus cut in. ‘All souls—’
Kage cleared his throat, the sound sharp enough to halt Zagreus mid-thought.
‘I knowthat,’ Kage said, his voice tight. ‘But she isn’t dead.’
Zagreus frowned, confusion knitting his sharp features. ‘Of course she is. How could she not be? And how would you know?’
‘Because I check on my body every single night,’ Kage replied, exasperation bleeding through at last. ‘And she was very much alive only a few hours ago.’
Zagreus shrugged. ‘Then she must have just died.’
‘Perhaps.’ Kage’s attention returned to Rio, to the way she watched them now, her smile deepening with quiet amusement. ‘But I doubt it.’
‘How clever you are, Kage Blackburn,’ she said, a soft laugh threading through her words. ‘It truly is a shame you died.’
‘Then how are you here,’ he asked quietly, ‘if you are not dead?’
Rio shrugged, the motion loose and almost careless. ‘That is a rather long story.’
‘We have plenty of time,’ Zagreus drawled, leaning closer, curiosity sharpening his tone.
Rio studied them both for a long moment, her glare unflinching, before she sighed, as if conceding to an inevitability.
‘I was given the eyes of a goddess,’ she said at last. ‘They allow me to see the realms of the gods.’
