Page 153 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
‘I need to get into Hell,’ Mal said.
Zagreus did not look at her at first. He kept his hand buried in Wren’s fur, his fingers moving in slow, absent strokes. Yet she heard the quiet sigh he released, the sound of someone who had known this moment would come and had been bracing for it all along.
‘So you’ve come to repay my mother for what she did to you all those years ago?’ he asked at last, lifting his head. The warmth that had softened his mismatched eyes vanished, replaced by something colder. Guarded.
‘Something like that,’ Mal replied evenly.
‘You could simply learn to forgive.’
Mal let out a short, humourless snort. ‘I think we’re long past that.’
Zagreus studied her for a long moment. His gaze flicked to Thanatos, then to Wren, then back again, as though measuring loyalties, weighing consequences. The air between them tightened.
‘I have conditions,’ he said at last.
‘Of course you do.’
A faint curl touched his lips. ‘You must not bring our sister Makaria back.’
Mal’s eyes widened despite herself. ‘Why not?’
Zagreus’ jaw tightened. ‘It’s a long story. But if you truly want to ensure Persephone remains in Hell… then Makaria must remain there as well. She always had a soft spot for our mother.’
There was something unreadable in his expression. Not quite cruelty, not quite pain.
Mal hesitated only a heartbeat before shrugging. She had not come here for Makaria. She had not come to mend old bonds.
She needed Allegra.
And that need burnt brighter than any lingering sisterly loyalty.
‘What else?’ she asked, impatience threading through her voice. The longer they lingered beneath the open sky, the greater the chance Persephone would learn that Mal had returned to the Underworld with mischief burning in her veins.
‘I want you to kill Eris.’
The request struck her harder than she expected. Surprise flashed across her face before she could conceal it. Beside her, Thanatos did not so much as flinch. He did not look shocked, nor troubled. It was sometimes difficult to reconcile that he and Eris shared the same mother.
‘And if I refuse?’ Mal asked. ‘Will you betray me?’
She had every intention of erasing Eris from the world, but she needed to know precisely how far Zagreus’ loyalty stretched and where it snapped.
Zagreus tilted his head, a shadow of a smile touching his lips. ‘You need this more than I do.’
Mal gave a short, sharp snort. ‘You’re so certain?’
His mismatched eyes darkened, something dangerousglinting within them. Yet he did not answer her challenge. Instead, he turned on his heel and strode back into Tartarus, beckoning them to follow with a careless flick of his hand.
The enormous corridor swallowed them whole, lined with cells from which souls wailed and clawed at through bars.
‘Tell me, brother,’ Mal drawled as she walked beside him, ‘why is it you never wear a shirt?’
‘It’s hot in here,’ Zagreus replied without missing a step.
Behind them, Thanatos gave a quiet snort, and Mal found herself smiling despite everything.
They reached the very end of the corridor, where the path simply ceased to exist. Heat rolled upwards in suffocating waves. Mal stepped closer to the edge and looked down at the river of molten lava below, its surface shifting and churning like the breath of some ancient beast.
She remembered the last time she had leapt into it. She remembered the way it had swallowed her whole.
