Page 168 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Kage noticed the way Thanatos’ entire body trembled with a fury so tightly restrained it seemed to shiver through his bones. Those black, fathomless eyes slid towards the throne, towardsKage himself, finding him through the narrow gaps as though concealment meant nothing. The look was a warning.Do not move.
But the curse that bound Kage to both the living and the dead had begun to stir.
A sharp crack split through the silence as the stone beneath his feet fractured, the sound echoing across the cavernous hall and betraying the hidden presence behind the throne.
‘Who is there?’ Persephone demanded.
Zagreus was on his feet in an instant, crossing the distance to his mother’s side with swift urgency.
Kage forced himself to remain perfectly still, as though stillness alone might somehow undo what had already been revealed. Yet he felt the pull of the mortal world, that relentless summons dragging at the curse within him, urging him back towards life. But before it could claim him, Persephone had already swept around the throne.
Her eyes widened the moment she saw him.
The scream that tore from her throat was raw and ragged.
‘You lied to me!’ she shrieked, her eyes blazing with wild fury. ‘Who went to Hell if he did not?’
Silence answered her.
‘Tell me,’ she commanded, and the voice that rang through Tartarus was no longer wholly her own. It carried the weight of the Underworld itself, ancient and absolute, bending its servants to its will.
Thanatos fought it.
Kage watched him struggle, watched the god’s body shudder as though resisting an invisible chain, but the force drove him to his knees regardless.
‘Tell. Me.’
‘Melinoe,’ he whispered, his entire bodytrembling.
Persephone shook her head, a disbelieving chuckle slipping from her lips, though there was no mirth in it. Her gaze settled upon her son, betrayal gleaming sharp and cold in her eyes, before flicking to Kage and then returning to Thanatos.
‘You will go into Hell after her,’ Persephone commanded. ‘You will stop her. You will bring her back to me. And then you will bring me her child.’
Thanatos shook his head in refusal, but the moment he resisted, the Underworld itself seemed to bear down upon him with greater force. The unseen pressure slammed into him like a crushing tide. Black tears spilt from his eyes, carving dark paths down his cheeks as his entire body trembled beneath the weight of the command.
Kage opened his mouth to protest but by then the curse had already taken hold.
An invisible hand seized him.
In a single violent instant, he was torn away.
He landed hard upon the floor of an enormous hall, the impact echoing softly against high stone walls lit by the steady glow of warm lanterns. For a moment Kage remained where he had fallen, disoriented, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling and wondering where in the realms he had been cast.
The cold tip of a sword pressed against his throat.
He glanced up.
The valkyrian with the red hair stood above him. He recognised her immediately and from the narrowing of her eyes, she recognised him too. She watched him in taut silence, unmoving, the blade inching closer until its sharp edge split the skin at his neck.
No dark blood fell.
Of course it didn’t.
He wasdead.
The valkyrian frowned, her eyes lingering upon his unbroken throat as though the sight unsettled her.
‘What exactly are you?’
