Chapter Twenty-Nine
E R I C'S P O V
"Ellie?" My heart seizes as she slowly stills in my arms, her breath whispering through her lips in a soft sigh. Her entire body goes limp, her hand all of a sudden loosening its grip on mine. My grip tightens, and I shake her shoulders gently. "Ellie? C'mon Bambi, talk to me. Don't leave me hanging like that."
She doesn't say a single word, her eyes staring lifelessly up at me, and the emptiness in her gaze rips a hole in my chest and makes me go completely numb. Unable to see the lifeless look in her eyes for a second longer, I swallow hard and softly close her eyes, blinking back the tears that sting my eyes and roughly swiping away the ones that escape with the back of my hand. Then I gently pulling the knife from Ellie's chest and toss it aside, trying my hardest to ignore all the blood that spills all over her chest.
This can't be happening.
Behind me, Evie lets out a gut-wrenching sob, screaming her daughter's name. Seconds later, she appears next to me and shoves me roughly to the side, dropping to the ground next to Ellie and pulling her close.
"Ellie? Sweetheart look at me." Evie's voice breaks, and she lets out another choked sob. "Kiddo please, just open your eyes."
I slowly push myself up to my feet, unable to look at them, the heart-wrenching despair in Evie's voice making this all way too real. I look up and lock eyes with Amphitrite, and pure fury starts to boil in my veins. She regards me with a gaze that is so completely devoid of any emotion that it takes every ounce of strength in my body not to leap up and give her a taste of her own medicine.
"The prophecy has been fulfilled. The die is cast." Amphitrite says simply, holding her arm up in the air. A small, disgustingly familiar grey sea-shag swoops down towards her, and seconds later Alex materialises next to her. They share one meaningful glance before Alex turns around, clicking his fingers and gesturing at all the nymphs who amassed to fight for Amphitrite, and I watch in disbelief as they all simultaneously stop fighting, turning around and watching us silently.
Is that seriously it? Ellie sacrifices herself to save their lives and they just... walk off like nothing has happened?
Amphitrite smirks at all of us and with a taunting little wave turns on her heel, but before she can take another step Hades appears in front of her, his expression the deadliest I've ever seen it.
"You are a fool if you think I am letting you go anywhere Amphitrite." He snaps darkly. "You may think you have accomplished your goal, but we are not finished with you yet."
Amphitrite gulps ever so slightly and stares at him, a glimmer of fear flashing through her blue eyes. Around us, the remaining nymphs visibly freeze, all of them so terrified by the impending showdown that they're glued completely to the spot with their eyes locked on Hades and Amphitrite.
"That's right." Evie suddenly speaks up, and when I glance over at her, she's watching Amphitrite with a dangerously livid look on her face. "Eric, come here."
I eye her warily for a moment, before slowly walking back over to her. "What?"
"I'm sorry for pushing you." She replies, her sickeningly sweet tone scaring me a little. She glances down at Ellie, her expression wavering for a second, before meeting my gaze. "Can you look after her for a second? Make sure she doesn't get hurt?"
I nod, dropping down next to her and gently taking Ellie out of her arms. She slowly stands up, not taking her eyes off the dark-haired woman in front of her.
"What the hell makes you think you have the right to make sure the prophecy was fulfilled?" Evie asks in a low voice. "What the hell gave you that right?"
"Fate." Amphitrite replies simply, and Evie's expression goes frighteningly impassive.
"Fate?" Evie echoes, her eyes narrowing down into slits. "Fate? You have nothing to do with Fate! You aren't even associated with Fate! You're a sea goddess!"
"At least I have a purpose. You have nothing. You are no-one. The only reason you're a goddess is because you married Hades." Amphitrite sneers. "So what gave you the right to lock my husband away?"
"Divine justice." Evie snaps. "He was an obsessive megalomaniac, and if we had done nothing to stop him he would have destroyed the world in his quest for power."
"And that's exactly why I killed your pathetic excuse for a daughter." Amphitrite leans close to the other seething goddess and whispers loudly, "Divine justice."
"You bitch!" Evie shrieks, launching herself at Amphitrite. She tackles the sea goddess to the ground, pinning her down with her knees and repeatedly punching her in the face. "She was my daughter! My daughter! And she did absolutely nothing wrong!"
"Evie." Hades appears behind his wife and wraps his arms around her waist, dragging her off Amphitrite. If I hadn't been holding Ellie in my arms, I probably would have taken Evie's place. "You need to stop."
"No! You stopped me in Naples Hades, and look what happened. Ellie is dead. She did nothing wrong, and she is dead." Evie sobs, wrestling to get out of his grip. She looks back at Amphitrite, her green eyes livid. "All she wanted to do was experience life, and you killed her. She was only nineteen, and you killed her!"
"I know, agápi mou. I know." Hades murmurs. "But this is not what she would have wanted. She did not want any of this violence. She never wanted any of this violence."
"She was only nineteen." Evie whispers brokenly, her eyes glassing over. Hades pulls her in for a tight hug the minute she visibly gives up the fight and buries his face in her shoulder, holding her close as she completely breaks down.
Amphitrite takes this moment to try and escape, and signals Alex to help her to her feet, making a beeline for the ocean. But before she can take more than one step — or, more accurately, crawl — away Hades looks up, and freezes her to the spot with one glacial look.
"You are not going anywhere." He growls, and though he speaks quietly, his voice rumbles through the cove like thunder. The minute he speaks, his distinctive black clouds of dark power boil over the sky, and several lightning-like tendrils suddenly flash down from the sky and interweave to form a thick, roiling black prison around Amphitrite and Alex. Amphitrite's face twists up into a snarl and she immediately tries to break through the wall of the makeshift cage, but the moment she touches the cage she's thrown back with such a loud thunderclap that it sounds like a cannon-ball has exploded right in front of us.
Unsurprisingly, she slumps to the ground, unconscious.
A small — well, actually no, incredibly large — part of me takes great malicious pleasure in that.
"She's only nineteen, Hades." Evie whispers, glancing over at Ellie and I. I swallow hard and meet her gaze, and see the heartbreak ripping me apart reflected in her eyes. "And she's dead. How can she be dead? How did we let this happen? We're the freaking gods of the Underworld; we should have known how to prevent this."
"We did everything we could, agápi mou. But even we cannot thwart Fate."
"We're the gods of the Underworld." Evie repeats herself, not even appearing to have heard Hades. She looks at Hades, then back over at me, then back to Hades again. She clutches the front of his shirt, her eyes wild, and pulls him close. "Hades that's it! We can just bring her back! Like you did with Kenzie; you can just bring her back!"
My breath catches in my throat, and I glance down at Ellie. He can?
"Evie," Hades sighs, and the amount of resignation loaded in that one sigh completely obliterates any remnants of hope Evie's words had stirred up within me. "We cannot."
"What? Why not?" Evie demands. "You've done it before; you can do it again!"
"That was an incredibly extraordinary case where the universe was out of balance. That is not the case here; the Fates pre-determined her death, which means it was meant to be to keep that balance." Hades cups Evie's face with his hands, his expression softened with grief. "If we brought her back, we would be destroying that harmony that is holding the universe in balance, and there would be catastrophic consequences; especially because the Fates have been involved."
"She is our daughter Hades." Evie replies heatedly. "Screw the catastrophic consequences! I don't give a crap about the universe right now; it wanted our daughter dead, so it can go screw itself for all I care."
"You know you don't mean that." He says gently. "And you know Ellie would not want that. She was at peace with herself and her decision; she chose this, and she chose her destiny. Even if we had the ability to bring her back, she would not appear to us in the Underworld. She is gone."
"She can't be gone. I won't accept it." Evie whispers, shaking her head stubbornly. "There's got to be another way Hades, there's got to be another way we can get her back. This can't be it."
"I wish there was, agápi mou. But this is what she wanted." He murmurs. "She chose to sacrifice herself to save us all. She made that decision. Nothing can change that." His voice catches as he utters the two words that I never, ever wanted to hear. "She's gone."
His words echo in my ears and I glance down at the girl in my arms, and this time I'm not able to stop the tears from escaping. I shake my head, swallowing several times, and it takes me several goes before I'm finally able to find my voice.
"Are you ever going to quit being noble, Bambi?" I whisper, my voice wavering. "This whole putting others before yourself and killing yourself in the process is going to scar your pretty little face before long."
But despite my pathetic attempt at a light-hearted, reminiscing joke, I can't ignore the way my heart just snaps in two at the finality behind Hades' words.
She's gone.
— — —
E L L I E'S P O V
The silence was what woke me.
It sounds funny, saying that the silence woke me; because normally, you would assume that the silence would stoke my unconsciousness, right?
No. For someone who's spent her entire life surrounded by noise, with her head constantly full of voices that were, at some points, so loud that it sounded like they were shouting right in my ear, silence was very hard to come by. So when it happened, I was both immediately alert, and immediately suspicious that something was wrong.
And I guess that, that suspicion was what first woke me up.
I slowly push myself up to a sitting position and glance around, confused by my unfamiliar surroundings. If I didn't know any better, I could have sworn that I was dreaming; I'm sitting in what I can only describe as your cliche, run-of-the-mill movie dreamland, with thick, grey fog roiling around me and creating a blurry scene around me that almost looks like the inside of a castle, from high-reaching columns, to hazy artwork, to even a large throne sitting a few feet away from me. I frown, my bewilderment deepening the longer I take in my surroundings.
Where am I? How did I get here? Last thing I remember, I...
I stiffen, my hand coming up to my mouth as it hits me.
I died.
I sacrificed myself to stop the war. Amphitrite killed me.
I'm dead.
So if I'm dead... then where the hell am I?
I get to my feet and walk forward a few steps, folding my arms over my chest as I continue to scrutinise my surroundings. I know I can't be in the Underworld; I would recognise my parent's domain anywhere. Yet I died; so where exactly am I, if I'm not in the Underworld?
"Where am I?"
I jump about a foot into the air and whirl around. "Who's there?"
"Oh, you poor dear, you look so confused; I was only echoing what we both know was going through that pretty little head of yours. But I'm sorry, I'm over here." The airy voice speaks up again, and I turn to see someone sitting on the throne in front of me. She wiggles her fingers at me in a wave. "Hello. You're not the only one in the room with a vanishing ability under her belt."
I do a double-take, staring at her with wide eyes. She's unlike any person, or being, I've ever seen, and if I didn't know any better I'd say she's a ghost. She has light sun-kissed skin that our shadowy surroundings cast a slight pale tinge to, and her bottom half disappears and warps like a flickering shadow; one moment it's a pair of legs, daintily crossed as she sits on the throne, then the next, they disappear off into a wisp of smoke that gives her the appearance of a cartoon genie. Her hair, so dark that it almost looks blue, floats around her head like she's swimming through water, constantly moving like there's a slight current swirling through it. And her eyes, her eyes are dark as night, and glitter slightly, like they've got stars suspended in them.
"Who are you?" I ask, finally able to find my voice buried underneath all my shock.
She floats through the air over to me, her bottom half flickering like a mermaid's tail, and offers me a sparkling smile that sends shivers down my spine. "My name is Nemesis."
"Nemesis?" I echo, shifting slightly to keep facing her as she slowly twirls around me in the air. I can't help but feel like I'm the much desired prey a snake is circling.
"Yes." Nemesis smiles at me, her bottom half shifting into a pair of legs, hidden behind a long black strapless dress that sparkles like the darkest depths of the night. "You know who I am?"
"No." I reply, and her smile dims a little. "I've only heard of you."
"Well, I won't lie, I'm a little offended; I would've thought that, given my meddling has sent its fair share of people your father's way, he would have at least told you who I was." Nemesis sighs, tossing her hair dramatically over her shoulder as she saunters past me. "I am Nemesis, the goddess personally in charge of distributing deserved fortune and divine retribution; keeping the universe in balance, if you will. If you think you deserve revenge or retribution against someone who has wronged you, I'm your girl. Make sense?"
"Yes." I say slowly, rubbing my arms slightly to disguise my wariness. "Why am I here then? I do not desire retribution or revenge."
"Because you, my dear, have been a person of interest to me for quite some time. Ever since you were conceived, actually, and a little prophecy came about." Nemesis throws herself down on her throne again, lazily kicking her feet up so she's draped horizontally over the flickering chair. She smiles a little at the bewildered look on my face. "What, you think I don't know about that? Why, I'm the one who decided to put that little prophecy into effect."
"How?" I ask, my forehead furrowing in confusion. "That was a prophecy given by the Fates."
"The Moirai do not come up with those little riddles themselves, child. They work for me. They're my pets, if you will." She waves her hand around in the air. "The prophecies are all about keeping the universe in balance, after all; is it really that far of a stretch to believe that they could be influenced by fortune or desires for revenge as well?"
"Okay." I pause, my mind frantically trying to piece all the threads of information together. "Why me, then?"
"Well, it was simple really. Amphitrite is a rather predictable character, much like her husband, ironically enough, and I knew that she would be begging for my assistance in her little revenge scheme against your parents sooner or later. And again, just like her husband, I knew she would employ rather foolish and destructive methods to get what she wanted, so I decided to step in before she did something more than foolish. That's when I came up with your prophecy. Rather clever, don't you think?" She flashes me a pearly-white smile.
"Why couldn't you just ignore her if you thought she was being so foolish?"
"Well I can't exactly ignore someone begging for divine retribution now, can I? That's going against my very nature and existence as a goddess. You of all goddesses understand what that's like, right?" Nemesis lays a hand on her heart mockingly. "What can I say; I have a weakness for the passions of the heart. Anyone who begs for retribution or revenge because of love just piques my interest."
"Even if that desire for retribution or revenge is hateful?" I ask, struggling to keep the incredulity from colouring my tone. "You just let her get exactly what she wanted, let her get revenge for the most resentful reasons!"
"Do you think this was all to grant Amphitrite her revenge?" Nemesis asks, raising an eyebrow at me. "Child, I had much bigger plans in motion than entertaining Amphitrite. You are right; her desires for retribution were hateful, which is what brought my attention to the matter in the first place. I distribute fortune, Ellie, whether it be good or bad, and judge it completely on giving a person exactly what they deserve. Amphitrite may have deserved good fortune in part — her husband was torn most horribly away from her — but her impassioned and unthinking actions that followed only attributed towards her deserving bad fortune. As we speak, your parents are giving her what she truly deserves, and it is not a happy fortune. When someone disrupts the equilibrium as violently as she did, they are never going to be fortunate enough as to deserve happiness."
"This was all divine retribution for her disrupting the balance of the universe. You were maintaining the equilibrium." I realise, and she nods. "What was my role in all of this, then? Why did you choose me?"
"Ellie, I think you'll find you already answered that question yourself when you had that little existential crisis on the beach." Nemesis smiles. "It was no easy task, choosing you. But I needed to choose someone who was not only close enough to your parents to spur Amphitrite into trying to exact her revenge, but I also needed to choose someone who would bring together the frayed edges of the supernatural world in a time of need. You may not realise it, but you were integral in every single step of my plan, and without you personally, it never would have worked. You are the reason all those nymphs and gods banded together to fight Amphitrite, you and your passion to do what is right."
I don't reply for several moments, mulling over her words. "Even if that is true, you still set me up to die."
"Yes. And?" She shrugs. I blink at her in incredulity, stunned by her dismissiveness.
"In what world is that fair? In what world is that maintaining the equilibrium?" I demand. "You said so yourself that I am a goddess; how was setting my entire life up for a prophecy that would end in death keeping the harmony in the universe, when I have a role that is fundamental to keeping that harmony in the universe? This is my life, and you bartered with it like it was worth nothing at all. You didn't even consider how this would all affect me; you were just focused on your overarching goal of divine retribution and trying to keep Amphitrite from disrupting the equilibrium. Where is the good fortune in that?"
"It was your life." She corrects, and my jaw drops. "But I understand what you are saying. That is why I brought you here, of course."
"You brought me here?" I echo, and Nemesis nods.
"Of course I did. What, did you really think all deities came here when they died?" She asks, and I nod slowly. Nemesis laughs. "Ellie, you're the first deity to die; nobody else has been killed in their immortal form by another god or goddess. I don't even think the cosmos knew what to do with you; your spirit was just floating around until I snagged you and brought you here."
"Why did you bring me here then? And what does it have to do with what I said?"
"Okay well, I will admit, as much as I love to predict and meddle with the future, I didn't quite predict that you would die." Nemesis replies, smiling sheepishly as she turns around to face me. "I mean, of course it was a catch in your prophecy, but I wasn't expecting people to abide by it; I certainly didn't expect Amphitrite to try and utilise it to her advantage. But most of all, I didn't expect — well, I don't think any of us did, really — for you to willingly give up your life to stop the civil war. If I'm totally frank, I had always thought you would manage to talk Amphitrite and her little gang of fools out of waging war with your logicality."
"If you didn't think people would abide by that specific part of the prophecy, then why did you add it?" I ask disbelievingly.
"Dramatic effect, mainly. What's a good prophecy without a fun little ultimatum?" She says, shrugging slightly, and I stare at her.
"That was my life!" I shout, throwing my hands up in the air. "And you decided you would add in an ultimatum that would end my life because you thought it would be fun?!"
"Well, when you say it like that, of course it sounds wretched." Nemesis rolls her eyes, floating over to me. "Elliana, I had no intention for you to die. Even I know that meddling with the universe in that way would disrupt the harmony in irrefutable ways."
"Yet you got the Fates to devise a prophecy that explicitly stated I would either die or cause a civil war!" I exclaim. "How is that fair, Nemesis? I had absolutely no control over my life!"
"You're right; it isn't fair." Nemesis sighs, resting her chin daintily on her propped up arm as she hovers in the air next to me. "Which is why I have decided to give you a chance."
"Give me a chance?" I blink, so taken aback by her statement that my fury dissipates into thin air. "A chance for what?"
"For life, Ellie." She says, and my heart skips a beat. "It was my actions that so egregiously tore your life away from you, so I must make up for those actions. Tell me what happened, everything that happened, and I will measure out your good and bad fortune. If, by the end of your story, I decide that your actions were pure and you deserve an overall good fortune, I will call in a favour and restore your life to you and restore the universe back to it's harmonious balance. However if I don't, and decide that your actions were of a more despised nature and you thus deserve bad fortune, then I will punish you by condemning you to the blackness of death. Do you understand?"
I stare at her for several seconds longer, hardly believing what I'm hearing, before nodding eagerly. "Yes, yes, I—I understand."
"Wonderful." Nemesis smiles a bright smile and clicks her fingers. A shining golden scale appears in front of her, almost as big as me. Oh. Right. She's going to literally measure out my good and bad fortune in front of me. That's not daunting at all. "Tell me the story of you, Ellie."
I nod again and take a deep breath, before diving into the story of my life. "My name is Ellie, and I'm the daughter of death. Well, not death specifically. Death isn't my father..."
And, with Nemesis listening intently to me, I recount every single thing that has happened to me since I found out about the prophecy; I map out the different chapters of my life to as explicit detail as I can, not missing a single thing out, all the way up to the very moment I died and was woken up by the silence in her domain. When I finish, silence quickly swallows up the conversation, and Nemesis doesn't say anything for a very long time, only watching me with a contemplative look etched on her features. I keep my eyes trained on her face, refusing to let myself break eye contact and glance down at the scales she's got in front of her; I had noticed them swinging up and down the more my story progressed, and towards the end of my tale they had scarily stilled, and I was too terrified to see in what direction they had stilled. I wasn't sure I wanted to know my fate; not yet.
"Well." Nemesis finally says, smiling benignly at me. She claps her hands and suddenly the scales in front of her disappear. I jolt, my eyes widening. I take it back. This is worse; this is so much worse. I want to know what the scales look like now. Bring back the scales. "That was quite the tale, Elliana."
"Thank you?" I reply slowly, not at all sure what to say. How does one reply to such a blase comment on their entire life?
"Quite the tale indeed." Nemesis drawls, kicking her feet up in the air behind her and resting her chin on her propped up arms. She hovers there in the air horizontally, watching me with a sharp gaze. "So. The big question is, was it enough for me to grant good fortune to you? Do you deserve to live?"
so? does ellie live or die? let me know in the comments! ;)
p.s. we've only got the epilogue to go, who's not ready #me