Promise of Shadows (2 page)

“There’s no room for mistakes in battle,” she called as I fell, screaming until my sister, Whisper, flew up to catch me. It’s amazing I ever learned to fly after that terrifying introduction to the sky.
The message plays, but I’m finished listening to the lying image before me. I fight back angry tears before I kick the æther stone toward the corner. It falls into the well with a wet plunk. I fight to keep my words steady. “If you think that’s going to get me to talk, then you don’t know me at all.”
“Do you think that’s what your mother would want?”
I turn around once my eyes have stopped burning, the threat of tears avoided. “That woman doesn’t exist. Never did. I don’t know how you did it, but it’s a pretty sad attempt to get me to talk. Why don’t you just tell me what you want from me?” The words come out as a plea. I bite my lip, my eyes sliding away from his all-tooknowing blue ones.
“Aw, Peep,” he whispers, and the pet name cuts through me, the pain sharper and fresher than the ache of his betrayal. He reaches for me but at the last moment draws back, and I know he’s thinking about our last meeting.
He’s remembering that I might not have been caught by the Æthereals if he hadn’t tricked me.
I hate him even as I love him with all my heart. He made my sister so happy, and that made me happy. Deep down I’d always hoped he would stay with Whisper, marry her like people do on television. I had this idea of a huge wedding, one that everyone in the Aerie would attend.There’d be cake, and I’d be Whisper’s maid of honor. It would be just like a movie.
I made the mistake of telling her that one time, and she just laughed, the sound high and brittle like glass breaking. “Zeph, you know that Æthereals don’t marry vættir. Especially not Exalteds like Hermes. I’m just grateful for the time that we have together. One day you’ll understand that.”
Hermes sighs and leans back against the wall of the gatehouse, drawing me out of the memory and putting a physical distance between us that’s a match for the emotional one. “The High Council needs you to cooperate because a war is brewing over you, kiddo. The kind of war that the vættir might not survive.”
“Why me? What did I do?”
A bark of laughter escapes from him. “What, besides kill an Æthereal? No big deal there, Godslayer.” He shakes his head, a small smile playing around his lips before he turns serious again. “You killed one of the unkillable. People want to know how. They want to know if it can happen again. And if they’re next.”
I smile tightly.“Sounds like Hera’s been working overtime.”At my trial she’d advocated for my death more than any of the other gods.
Hermes nods slowly. “That’s putting it mildly. She’s been on the warpath since you were sent here last year, and things are only getting worse.”
The air whooshes out of my lungs. I feel like I’ve been punched. “A year? I’ve been here a year?” I imagine all the things I’ve missed in a year. If I’d been in the Mortal Realm, I would’ve finally gone to high school, a real school with norms. Homecoming, prom, football games, all the things regular people get to do. That’s what I would’ve spent the last year doing. Not digging ditches and fighting to stay alive.
After I failed my Trials, I thought a normal life was finally in my reach. Harpies who cannot pass the Trials are either given menial positions or expelled from the Aerie, forced to spend the rest of their lives trying to blend in among the norms, full-blooded humans. Most Harpies dread the modern world and opt to work in the Aerie’s laundry or kitchens, but I dreamed of the day when I’d no longer have to live in the Aerie. Freedom seemed like a blessing, not a curse.
But then I accidentally killed an Æthereal and ended up in Tartarus, ruining all my plans. And now I find out that I’ve lost a year in what felt like a few months.
Hermes’s eyes dart away from mine, and he shrugs in response. “Time passes differently down here.”
“You think?” I begin to pace as his words sink in. I’m finally realizing that my imprisonment is permanent. I’m not going to go to high school, or college, or anywhere else in the Mortal Realm. I’m going to be forever stuck here in Tartarus, covered in sludge and pretending to be brave. A year has passed, and I feel just like I did the last time I saw Hermes. Desperate, confused, and incredibly lost.
I stop pacing and cross my arms, trying to school my face to blankness.
Arrows are useless without a bow.
It’s an old Harpy saying. No sense wallowing in might-have-beens. “Are we finished?” I snap.
Hermes startles, my sharp tone unfamiliar. “What?” he asks in surprise. I’ve never raised my voice at him. I’ve always given him the deference that the Exalteds demand, even as he snuck into the house late at night to meet with my sister. But now I’m not thinking about class structures and the proper forms of address, or even the way my sister lit up when she saw him. I’m just thinking about the year of my life that I lost.
“Are you done with me or what? I have to get back before someone steals my shovel.”
His expression goes from shocked to sad, and I have to turn away from the pity on his face. “What happened to you, Peep? You’re different. I almost didn’t recognize you when I arrived. You’re rougher now.”
I sigh and sit in the room’s only chair, leaning my head back against the wall’s rough wood. “Tartarus happened to me, H. That’s all. Just Tartarus.”

uncooperative. Down here where the æther is nonexistent he’s powerless, and there’s no reason for me to give up the answers he needs. I may be depressed, but I’m not suicidal.

If he finds out the truth, my life sentence in Tartarus will be exchanged for a death sentence.
After a while the Exalted stands with a sigh. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a moment.” Then he flashes out of existence.
I should wonder where he’s going, what he’s doing. But I don’t. Instead I’m just grateful for the chance to get a few minutes of shut-eye. As soon as he’s gone, I close my eyes and doze off a little. But I’m not really asleep. Instead I’m remembering.
I’d been on the run for a couple of weeks, running from safe house to safe house as I tried to avoid Hera’s Acolytes, a band of minor Æthereals and vættir vigilantes who work on behalf of the gods.The vættir in the Acolytes weren’t any different from the rest of us vættir. We all had the misfortune of having a little human blood mixed in with our Æthereal lineage, keeping us out of the Æthereal Realm and firmly stuck in the Mortal Realm. Being a vættir is a bum deal. Kicked out of paradise all because one of our ancestors got frisky with a mortal. But after a while you get used to being treated like crap, especially since the trade-off is a magical ability of some sort.
The Acolytes were hunting me down because I’d killed one of their own, a low-level god named Ramun Mar. I’d only killed Mar because he’d killed my sister, Whisper. Death is the punishment for vættir who mess around with Æthereals, but the Acolytes are the only ones who enforce such archaic beliefs. After I killed Ramun Mar, the Acolytes wanted me dead too. I had other ideas.
I was standing in the middle of a farmer’s field in upstate New York with a shredded wing from my latest attempt to outrun the Acolytes. Dark pressed in all around me, the night ominous as I waited to be attacked again. The Acolytes had been chasing me for two weeks, a game of cat and mouse that had left me tired and injured. I didn’t think they’d stop now, but my busted wing needed time to heal. Time I was sure I didn’t have.
A sudden rustle of the grass was the first sign that I wasn’t alone. I spun around, a knife waiting to be thrown balanced on my fingertips. I wasn’t going to die easily.
Hermes raised his hands in surrender. “It’s me, Peep, it’s me. Relax, okay?”
I put the knife away at the sound of the nickname and sagged a little in relief. Fresh tears pricked my eyes. “Hermes?”
He nodded, and I launched myself into his arms. He was stiff and unyielding, but I didn’t care. I sobbed into his shoulder. “Whisper is dead. The Acolytes killed her.”
“I know.”
“Why, Hermes? Why would they kill her? She was a good Harpy. She did whatever they told her to do. Why would the Acolytes kill her?”
He hesitated, and at first I thought he wouldn’t tell me. But then he sighed and looked away. “Because of me. Someone found out that she was seeing me,” he said, his voice low. He gently pushed me away from him and straightened his suit jacket, fussing over invisible lint on his shoulders. He’d always dressed up, and even that night he wore a stylish lime-colored suit that made me feel even dingier than I was.
“Oh gods, what do I do now, Hermes? Every time I run, they find me. And now my wing is ruined, and I have no way to go on.” I began to shake as it sank in. I was a sitting duck, one with a broken wing and no chance of survival.
“Don’t worry, Peep. I promised Whisper a long time ago that I’d keep you safe, and I will.” He tilted his head at me and pursed his lips. “You haven’t made it easy, you know.”
I wiped away my tears and snorted in disbelief.“Hera’s Acolytes have shown up everywhere I’ve gone. I was supposed to wait patiently for you while they tore out my heart?”
Hermes didn’t respond, he just sighed and adjusted his cuffs. “Well, let’s go. I don’t have all millennium.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe.”
My mother and Whisper were both dead, so the only place that would be safe for me was the Elysian Fields. I’d heard of people fleeing to the Underworld to escape being punished by the Acolytes before, but that usually involved suicide. However, Hermes could take me there without the inconvenience of my death.
I reached for his hand, and a split second before I took it I wondered why he was so fidgety. But then we were soaring through the realms in a beam of light. The stress of the past couple of weeks melted away in an instant. Hermes would keep me safe. He loved my sister. He’d keep a promise to her.
We settled, my eyes still dazzled by the light of our passage. I blinked to clear my vision.The Elysian Fields were even more perfect than I’d imagined. White marble columns rose into a too blue sky, like everything had been built in the clouds. Birds soared and butterflies flitted, and my heart felt light. It was impossible to be afraid in such a beautiful place, and for the first time in weeks my fear ebbed away. All I had to do was find my sister, and everything would be fine.
Before I could thank Hermes, he clamped a damper on my wrist.
I stared at the silver bracelet, the contrast between the bright metal and my brown skin taking a long moment to sink in. The enchanted bracelet on my wrist was a relic from a time when Æthereals owned the vættir as slaves. There was no way I could protect myself with it on.
“Hermes,” I said, my voice a pained whisper. “What have you done?” I yanked my hand back and reached for power, any power, but it was too late.
“This is the best place for you right now,”Hermes said. I reached out to strike him, but my hand was caught by a large minotaur. His bull’s head looked strange atop his human body. I realized with a start that he wasn’t wearing a glamour to hide his strange nature, but he was wearing a silver collar of servitude. I knew where I was.
Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was in the Æthereal Realm, the land of the gods.
“I thought maybe you’d smell the lie on me before I got you here,” Hermes said. His expression was agonized, but it didn’t help the anger eating away at my middle.
“I can only smell the emotions of humans. And you aren’t human.” I hurled the words at him like an insult as the minotaur dragged me away. The gods tell us the vættir are the ones who are flawed, our human blood compromising us. But it’s the gods who betray the ones they love without remorse.
“Aren’t you afraid the bulls will find you napping in their guard shack?”
I open my eyes, pulling myself out of the memory. Cass slinks through the door, almost quieter than a mouse. I still heard her though. “I’ll wake up long before they enter, the way they clomp around everywhere. Besides, the psychopomp told me to wait here.”
“An Exalted here to visit you. That can’t be good.” She goes to the well in the corner and uses the bucket to wash off like I did earlier. Her shoulder-length blond hair clings to her neck, and for a moment I wish I had hair as straight as hers. But Harpies have hair that easily tangles, and mine is a shocking royal blue that hangs down my back in snarled locks. I should cut it short like Cass’s, at least to my shoulders. But a Harpy’s locks are second only to her wings in importance. Since I no longer have my wings, I’m reluctant to give up my hair.
I run my fingers over the twisted hair nervously, wondering what it looks like. It feels longer, and I wonder if it’s changed somehow. I wish I could see it. There are no mirrors in Tartarus.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?” I lean forward and meet her flat gaze. Cass has the best poker face, ever. Her emotions never show in her eyes, not like so many others here. I think it’s why she’s so deadly. No one ever sees it coming.
“Hermes, Messenger of the Gods. What’s he doing flitting around Tartarus?”
I shrug. “You know why I’m here. Why do you think he’s here?”
It’s a rhetorical question, but Cass answers anyway. “To question you. To figure out how you snuffed out an Æthereal.” She plays with the ragged end of her hair for a moment before releasing it. “You must really scare them if they’re willing to send Hermes down to the Underworld to question you directly.”
“Maybe.” I sit back, thinking hard. “There’s something else going on, something I don’t understand. Hermes was talking about a war, and he seemed really concerned about it. But I always thought Æthereals enjoyed their wars.”
Cass shrugs. “Of course the Æthereals love wars. How else are they supposed to break up the centuries? Sex and killing are their primary amusements.” There’s no trace of bitterness in Cass’s voice, but maybe that’s because she’s just speaking the truth. Wars are as common to the gods as manipulating the lives of others to suit their whims. The history lessons we had in the Aerie were filled with nothing but the Exalteds vowing to kill one another, usually after an Æthereal slept with someone they weren’t supposed to. I think they actually like fighting. It must be pretty lame to be immortal after the first few thousand years. A nice war would be a change of pace.
But that doesn’t explain Hermes’s shiftiness. I know he’s hiding something, but what? I wish I could smell Æthereal emotions; it would be a big help. Assuming they actually have them. “I can’t understand why the Æthereal Council would pull out all of the stops to figure out how I killed one of Hera’s low-level thugs.”
“I know. It would make more sense for them to just kill you and get it over with.”
I snort. “Gee, thanks.”
“Well, you’re a Harpy. What would you do if faced with an enemy?” Cass sits on the edge of the table, hands held out toward the dark fire. Sitting is a luxury in Tartarus. There’s no idle time here. Days are marked by work punctuated by meals and rest. Hanging out in the shack without worrying about getting killed is a pretty nice change of pace.
I shake my head. “I’d run. That’s what I would do. But then again, I’m not technically a Harpy.”
“Is this about your wings again?”
I shake my head and bite back a laugh. On the way to Tartarus my wings were ripped from me, the price for my passage to the Underworld. Everyone down here has lost something, even Cass. Although I’m not sure what she lost. I’ve never been brave enough to ask.
“No, Cass, this isn’t about my wings, thanks for asking. I’m a coward, Cass. Harpies are brave, and I’m not.”
“Says who?”
I shift in my seat. “The Matriarch. I failed my Trials.” I’d tried to explain to Cass what a big deal it was to fail such an important test before, but she wouldn’t listen to me.
Cass tilts her head and studies me. “So just because some woman who isn’t even here says you aren’t a Harpy, you’re not a Harpy? Even though you have the hair and the talons and used to have the wings? That doesn’t make sense. A dog is still a dog, even if it doesn’t bark.”
“It’s complicated. Let’s not have this argument again,” I say. Because when she puts it that way, it does sound silly.
I rub my hands over my face, trying to push aside the sting of my past failures and figure out what I’m missing. There has to be some other reason that Hermes came to question me, and not just the fact that I killed Ramun Mar. I can’t believe that’s all there is to it. Otherwise the Exalteds would’ve just killed me. Why keep me alive? Just to continue questioning me?
What is it I’m missing? What could make a lowly vættir interesting enough that the Æthereal High Council gets involved?
Before I can figure it out, the room explodes with light. I blink, and the spots clear to reveal Hermes standing a few feet away. Cass is already gone, the swinging door the only evidence of her hasty flight.
Hermes doesn’t notice, just grabs my arm and hauls me out of the chair. “Hey! What are you doing?” I ask.
“Taking you to see Hades.”
I yank my arm free and take a step back. “Why?”
Hermes sighs and grasps my arm, this time more gently.“Because there are questions that need answers, and if you won’t answer them for me, maybe you’ll answer them for the King of the Dead.”
Before I can respond, the world falls away in a burst of light, and when my vision clears, I’m standing outside a massive building. It’s not a castle. More like a temple, or at least the bastard love child of a temple and a castle. Hundreds of steps lead up to darkness framed by black marble columns rising into towers. The structure is carved into the mountainside, like the land is vomiting forth Hades’s domain. Massive bowls of dark fire flicker in between the columns, their midnight flames casting no light but making the structure more ominous. The twilight sky beyond makes the place look like something from a horror movie.
I take a step backward and damn near fall off the cliff behind me.
Hermes steadies me and sighs. “You should’ve answered my questions, kiddo. Now they’re bringing in the big guns.” He shoves me toward the entryway, away from the sheer cliff face behind us. “Trust Hades. He’s honest, not like the rest of the Æthereals.”
“You mean like you?”
He doesn’t answer my question, just straightens his suit, which is once again brightly cream colored. He must’ve gone home and changed in between popping back and forth around the realms.
“Hades has no love for the High Council. Right now he’s going to be your best ally.” Hermes takes a step back, and I frown.
“You’re not coming with me?” I want to take the words back as soon as they’re out of my mouth. They’re the words of a child, not an inmate of Tartarus.
Hermes’s expression softens, and he pushes his hand through his hair. He spends a lot of time in the Mortal Realm, and it shows. From the old stories he’s always been the most human of all the Æthereals. “I’m afraid not. Just answer his questions, and you’ll be fine, Peep. Go ahead, he’s expecting you.” He swallows and gives me a slight smile. “By the way, I also keep my promises. Even if it doesn’t seem that way.”
I look at the black marble columns carved out of the mountain in front of me and heave a sigh. “That’s not exactly comforting.”
But when I turn around, I am completely alone.