Page 221 of A Kingdom of Wild and Power
Mal held her ground, purple eyes steady.
If the kings of Hell had been imprisoned for defying the Sun God, then the story the world had been told, about their sins and their punishments, suddenly seemed far less simple than it had always appeared.
Mammon laughed softly. ‘Is that what they made everyone believe?’ She shook her head, the jewels in her golden hair chiming faintly together. ‘Oh no, child of Hades. These sins do not belong to us.’ Her voice lowered slightly. ‘They are the Sun God’s sins.’
Mal frowned faintly, but Mammon continued before she could speak.
‘Each ring represents a deadly sin he committed himself. And he cast us down here as punishment to relive them endlessly, so that we would never forget him.’ She gestured lazily towards the horizon of the garden. ‘The deeper you descend through the rings, the greater the sin he forced upon us.’
Her golden eyes darkened.
‘The Sun God was greedy.’ Mammon let the wordslinger. ‘He always wanted more power. The thought that Nyx might be stronger than him… he could not bear it.’ She gave a light shrug. ‘So he wanted her. Entirely for himself.’
She laughed again, though there was little amusement in the sound. ‘He fell in love with her and still it was not enough. He always wanted more.’ Her fingers flicked idly through the air. ‘And so here I remain, trapped to relive his greed as though it were my own.’
Another small shrug.
‘Though with time… we have become these sins ourselves. Greed flows through me now, when once it did not.’ She glanced back at Mal. ‘All because I defied my god. Because I chose to stand beside one of my own.’
Mal felt an unexpected pang of sympathy stir within her chest.
All of these kings of Hell had been condemned for helping a mother escape the grasp of a god who wished to claim her as his possession.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mal said quietly. ‘If I kill the Sun God… would you be free?’
Mammon gave a small, elegant shrug. ‘I do not know, child of Hades.’
‘Then it is worth trying.’ Mal turned to Wren. ‘I think you should go back now, Wren. The next ring belongs to Lucifer and…’
She did not need to finish.
Wren already understood.
The wolverian princess nodded and hurried forward, throwing her arms tightly around Mal.
‘Stay with Zagreus until I return,’ Mal said softly.
‘I will. I promise.’ Wren pulled back with a bright smile. ‘Be careful.’ She moved to Mammon’s side, and the king of Helllifted one golden hand, gesturing lightly towards the mirror standing at the centre of the island.
Mal needed no further explanation.
With one last look at Wren and at the strange golden monarch of this ring, she turned back to the mirror.
The reflection had changed again.
Her daughter no longer ran laughing through the glass, and the throne had vanished. Now the mirror revealed a frozen land beneath a dark sky. Snow stretched endlessly across the ground, and a vast lake lay frozen solid beneath the cold light.
On the far side of the ice stood a figure.
Waiting.
Mal tightened her grip on the hilt of her sword.
She drew one long breath.
Then she stepped through the mirror.
The world had always believed that King Erevan had three sons—that Hadrian’s siblings were all boys. Even I had believed it, once. Their eldest child, princess Selara, was fashioned in the likeness of a prince. In those days, it was unthinkable for a firstborn to be a girl. So, for her protection and to keep rival nobles and lurking enemies from grasping at the throne, they let the realm believe Selara was a man. And so she remained, until the day she proved her worth beyond dispute, and the kingdom bent its knee to its first queen. Of course, history is a fickle thing, ever bending to the prevailing wind. For Selara was never the first wyverian queen.
