Chapter Text
I said stones,
a sack of shards and earth
to sag the trusses, splay joint and hip.
In weather such as this,
the pines blown bald
and shagged with snow. Through darks,
amnesiac stigmatic dark
our mothers never dreamed to fear for us.
I said stones. You asked how long.
I said until the sand they come to.
—You Asked What the Heart Can Carry, David Lucas
—
The first inkling comes from, of all things, an Elysian shade. A whisper to another shade in the lounge, soft and susurrant: King Theseus has beaten seven challengers in a row, now. He calls for new champions.
Thanatos doesn’t worry, not then. Zagreus occasionally falls prey to whims even he can’t fathom; likely this is just another, a personal attempt to best Hell with nothing but a wooden stick, or some such thing. He will tire of it eventually, or worse, succeed, and they will all live with his immense self-satisfaction until the next fancy takes him.
—
The seasons turn, Demeter’s will as iron as ever, and Persephone goes back to Olympus. Zagreus isn’t there with the rest of them to see her off, but his mother’s travels back and forth have become regular enough that her departure isn’t nearly the production it used to be. Even today, only Hades, Thanatos, and Dusa watch her wave in silhouette from the great eastern doors.
“Too bad,” Dusa sighs as the doors close. “That the Prince has missed her, I mean. She’s been asking after him for a while.”
Thanatos only shakes his head. “I’m sure he’s off being run over by a chariot somewhere. He’ll be back soon enough.”
“Of course he will!” Dusa says brightly, though Lord Hades’s brow furrows.
—
He goes once to find Zagreus in Asphodel. He’d thought he’d felt him there, the faint, hot pull of his nature, but he’d arrived to an empty field of rock and magma. A few shades hover at the lava’s edge around some small, swimming shadow, uninterested at his appearance. No bloodless, though, no dracons; he must have just missed him. Not the first time he’s been too late to help. Ah, well.
Zagreus will find him if he needs him. Thanatos knows that, if nothing else.
—
He is in Athens when he realizes Mort has not called for him in some time. Curious, Thanatos visits the House and checks the courtyard outside the prince’s rooms: empty of all life, even the chattering skeleton Zagreus counts among his friends. The glass case of his keepsakes stands locked on the far wall.
He can see well enough through the glass he feels no need to try the lock. His butterfly lies in its regular home among the black velvet; another place stands empty in the last line instead, and Thanatos can’t remember its owner. Mort is there, too, resting innocently against the glass. Shady, however, is not, and Thanatos scoffs. He will never pretend to understand Zagreus’s affection for the knave-king.
Well, if he’s to be spurned for Sisyphus, so be it. Souls call for him endlessly; scissors click over and over in the back of his mind. He has work to do.
—
He doesn’t return to the House for a long while. Ares has fomented a great war among the mortals, and when the battles have ended and the violent deaths gone with them, Thanatos must pick his way through the ruined fields after. He likes this work well enough, despite its instigation; these mortals are more relieved to see him than most, and more than one lifts his neck gladly to the scythe. They pray to him, then, and he grants their prayers willingly.
End my suffering, Death. Bring me peace. Bring me the end of pain.
He’s just finished clearing the most recent battlefield when a vulture alights on the crossbar of a broken pike nearby. Its wingspan is enormous, the length of a man or more; its feathers shine glossy and black as it folds back its wings. The pike sways under its weight despite the anchor of the corpse it spears.
“Lord Ares,” Thanatos says, and sheathes his scythe at his back.
The vulture does not shift shape so much as it withdraws into shadow, and when the shadow eases Ares stands in its place, his hand gripping the pike-shaft easily. His smile is broad with amusement and admiration. “As always, O Death, it is beautiful to watch you work.”
“As always, you provide me no shortage of it.”
“Yes,” Ares says, smiling proudly as he surveys the charnel ground. “They will write songs about this one, I think.”
Thanatos doesn’t particularly care, but Ares also rarely stays so long after a battle. “Did you have a champion in this war, then?” He hasn’t personally escorted a mortal soul to the Underworld since Sarpedon, but he’s nearly through, and one more on his journey home will make little difference.
Ares scoffs. “I would not sully your holy office with such a thing. No, I come with a message.”
“A message?”
The shock must show on his face; Ares pulls the pike abruptly from the body beside them. It grows whole in his hands, shining, and Ares’s smile thins to a blade. “Will you hear what I have to say, Lord Death?”
Thanatos stiffens. “I apologize for any disrespect, Lord Ares. I’ll hear your message gladly.”
“My message is this: my sons who are Phobos and Deimos have received offerings lately which they find distasteful.”
“How so?” More importantly, why in this world or the next has Ares himself come to tell this to Thanatos?
“They are offerings of blood, O Death.”
Thanatos takes a rough stab at delicacy. “My lord Ares, I… am not closely acquainted with your children, but I would have thought this an acceptable offering to them.”
The sullen grey sky overhead rumbles with distant thunder. The fields around them, already black and barren with the aftermath of fire and pitched battle, seem to sigh with the approaching storm. A thin wind picks up, and Ares lifts his face to the smell of death it carries. “My sons are Dread and Panic,” he says thoughtfully, “and they travel often with me into battle. You are right that mortal blood is offered them from time to time, and not always willingly. This they gladly accept.” Ares turns to look at him, the slashed white streak across his eyes making their crimson burn even brighter. “They tasted divinity in this sacrifice, Lord Death, though the blood was as red as any mortal’s. And thus they came to me, and so I have come to you.”
The world has opened up beneath Thanatos’s feet. The wind dies to nothing between one breath and the next; singed flags at the ends of spears and pike-poles falter and grow still. Even the rolling promise of the storm above them seems to catch its breath in ghastly anticipation.
“When…” His throat is tight with horror. “Lord Ares. When did this happen?”
“Only a few days ago, near Taenarum. Hermes is gone at the will of my Lord Uncle Zeus, so I spurred the mortals here to bring you near to me.” Ares faces him now, square-on, no smile on his face. “Tell me that my kin who is your prince is safe.”
He can’t.
He can’t. When was the last time—two weeks? Three? Time passes strangely in the Underworld, let alone when Zagreus is in the middle of one of his runs, and Thanatos has been on the surface too long. How long?
Elysium. How long ago? Zagreus had carried Varatha in one hand, and with the other he’d pulled Thanatos down for a kiss goodbye. He’d been cheerful, eager as ever to hurry onwards; he’d tasted of the centaur’s heart. Three weeks as mortals marked them, perhaps. Perhaps longer.
The prayer hissed through his teeth is wordless, godless. Let him be safe—
“I see,” Ares says softly, “that you can make me no such assurances.”
His heart thunders in his chest. Fear is for the weak, breathes Achilles in his memory, but Thanatos is nothing but fear, now. “I have to go. I—thank you for the message, Lord Ares. I’m sorry, I…"
“Go. Find your prince,” Ares says. He flourishes the pike in his hand, bladed tip whistling through the air to point at Thanatos. “And know if you do not, O Death, that War will come to the very doors of the House of Hades.”
But Thanatos is already gone.
—
It seems impossible that the great hall should be so unchanged, given the frenzy now threatening to swallow Thanatos whole, but unchanged it stands. He lands squarely in the center of the hall before Hades’s desk, dispersing a few shades into indignant mist, and straightens at once. “My lord Hades,” he says, amazed that his voice does not tremble. “I must speak with you immediately.”
“Not now, Thanatos,” Hades says irritably. “We’re only halfway through—”
“Yes,” Thanatos demands. “Now.”
The first time in countless millennia he has interrupted Hades. The first time he has ever raised his voice. Hades sits back in his chair, brows raised, and says nothing.
It’s the only chance he has. Thanatos plunges onward. “I believe Zagreus is missing.”
“It’s hardly the first time,” Hades says slowly, but his quill has not yet returned to his parchment.
“No. Listen to me, please. Ares found me on the surface. His sons were given an offering of divine blood, and he came to tell me. Red blood, and very near here.” He shoves his hood back from his face, his knuckles white around the scythe’s handle. “Please, my lord. I would love to be proven wrong. I know there are many god-touched mortals who might have given up this offering. But it held too much power even for Phobos and Deimos to be pleased with it, and it’s been too long. Hasn’t it?”
He can hear his own desperation. Nyx has approached from his right, with Megaera beside her; Achilles now stands in the archway to the west wing. Impossibly, he expects Zagreus to stride out behind them all, scraping one hand through his hair and wondering what all the fuss is about.
But he doesn’t come.
“Hypnos,” Hades barks.
“Hup! I’m on it!” Thanatos hears behind him, and turns in time to see Hypnos flipping quickly—as quickly as he can, anyway—through the leaves of his ledger. He has to go back to the previous page, then the one before that, and again once more, and Thanatos’s heart becomes more ice with every turn. “Hmm. I’m not seeing his name, my lord. Oh, nope! There he is! Natural causes, just as expected.”
“When?”
Hypnos makes an indifferent gesture with one hand. “Well, you know how it is, Lord Hades, with time here being what it is, I can’t—”
“When?” Hades snarls, and Hypnos nearly drops the clipboard in alarm.
“I guess—about three and a half weeks? If we’re measuring by the mortal calendar, anyway.”
Hades’s eyes shift back to Thanatos like the deliberate shift of stone. “And you?”
“Three weeks ago, my lord. In Elysium.”
“I understand your nature allows you to feel the death of a god. Even such a god as that boy.”
“Yes, my lord, but only if I’m near.” His throat is closing again, blind panic warring with his determination to remain rational. Useful. “The surface has been busy lately. I assumed he’d died while I was away.”
“And you, Nyx? Megaera, first of the Furies? What have you to say?” Hades’s own voice is growing deeper, anger—at Thanatos? at the rest of them? at his son?—edging along every word.
“I haven’t seen him in Tartarus, Lord Hades,” Megaera says evenly, though Thanatos knows her too well to miss the concern. “But he’s had the Pact up for a long time, and the calls can be erratic. I thought my sisters were dealing with him.”
“Nyx?”
Nyx’s brow has creased ever-so-faintly, the only mark of her own worry. “I can sense my shield of darkness around him yet persists. I can tell nothing else.”
“Useless, all of you,” Hades snaps, before shoving the entire stack of parchmentwork on his desk to the side. He plants both palms on the stone surface and stands, but it’s not to leave the hall; instead he bows his head and shuts his eyes, and the room—
Bends.
Thanatos has never seen anything like it. The torches sputter into embers, all the color leaching from the jeweled columns Zagreus has spent so much time funding; the walls creak and flex away from the House’s master as he exerts his will upon his domain. The pressure is enormous, like the deepest reaches of the ocean might crash down on them at any moment.
No small thing after all, he thinks inanely, his spine creaking under the weight, that Zagreus has ever bested his father—
All at once, it gives way. The shadows recede into walls grown straight again; the torches resume their steady light. Achilles has bent at the waist, one hand braced on the column beside him, and gasps for air he doesn’t need.
Hades rises again to his full height, his eyes burning. “I do not sense him anywhere in the Underworld.”
“Nor I,” says Nyx, her own eyes gone black and starry. Megaera has folded her arms beside her, her face stony, but one thumb taps over and over at her elbow. At last Nyx blinks, and her eyes clear to reflect the light once more. She turns her gaze to Thanatos. “My son, you must search for him.”
“Of course,” Thanatos says, impatient it’s even in doubt, ready to be gone. “By your leave, Lord Hades.”
“My lords, might I have a moment?”
Achilles’s voice comes quietly, deferently, from the western hall. Thanatos knows the boundless respect Zagreus has for his mentor, but every inch of him aches to be anywhere but here, he needs to go—
“Greatest of the Greeks,” Nyx says, her hands outstretched in placation. “You have served this house with unquestioned loyalty. Please, speak.”
The moment stretches tight, but Hades does not stop her, and Achilles inclines his head. “I only wish to suggest that the Lady Persephone be told of her son’s absence. The la—the prince is dear to her.”
“To send a message to the Queen is to alert Olympus,” Hades growls, but it has no teeth. “You would have me announce the loss of my son to all the gods at once?”
“His lordship Ares already knows. His sons, as well. I only suggest that it is better for Her Majesty to be told by us directly than to hear it with less kindness from another.”
A short, tense silence follows. Then: “Fine,” Hades says, though anger still ripples behind the sound. “See that Hermes is sent for immediately. He and Charon will take over your duties for now,” he adds to Thanatos, who startles. Death incarnate, and he has not thought of his obligations even once since—
“Thank you, my lord,” he says instead, and reaches for the surface.
“Thanatos.” Hades’s eyes blaze, his jaw set stone. Power radiates with his rage, making all the inkwells rattle. “I charge you to find Zagreus and bring him home.”
“I swear it,” Thanatos says. Megaera’s eyes flash, and the world vanishes behind familiar green.
—
The surface is cold and damp and grey everywhere he looks. Persephone has been with her mother only a short time, and the snows have not yet begun to thaw; the only patch of green he finds for miles is at Persephone’s cottage, the plants there still resolutely stalwart against Demeter’s frost. Even though he’d expected it, the empty cottage strikes at him like a blow, the dust so thick inside it dances in the sunlit air. Zagreus has certainly not been here, not lately.
He loses track of time, not that it’s ever meant much to him anyway. The sun had not yet peaked when he’d left the House, but as he spans the peninsula from edge to edge it rises, reaches its zenith with weak, uncertain heat, and falls again into a thin dusk and a starless night. He searches over and over for the pinpoint burn that is Zagreus and finds nothing. Not even the familiar wisp of Nyx’s power brushes against his mind; he flings his senses to the farthest reaches he can manage and finds nothing but snow.
He rages against his own idiocy as he retraces his steps through the night, moving in long, tolling jumps along the path he knows lies between the garden and the gates of Hell. Three weeks. How had he never noticed? So ready to ascribe his absence to thoughtless inattention; so ready to dismiss the worry. It was only what Zagreus did best, of course. Leave.
Nothing. No signs of struggle, no tracks through the old, stained snow, no mark of a mortal’s passage. He stands at the precipice where the snowy path overlooks the night-dark sea and seethes. “By all the gods on Olympus, Zag,” he says aloud into the quiet cold, “if you’ve just forgotten to die I swear I’ll—” But he falters before he finishes. It’s a clumsy promise, and he’s already sworn one oath today before the Fury bound to destroy oathbreakers.
Zagreus had taken to calling him on every run lately. He hadn’t even been needed, not always; half the time he’d arrived to deal some trifling blow against the bone hydra already falling to pieces, or been called to a little chamber near the surface with the satyr poison already sapped and dried. Just so I get to see you every now and then, Zagreus had said, beaming through Thanatos’s irritation. But Mort lies in a glass cage a fathom below, unused and left behind, and—
Mort.
No. Not Mort. Shady.
Thanatos shuts his eyes, letting out a long, slow breath, and when he opens them again he stands in the grey-green gloom of Tartarus, the smell of moss and decay sharply pungent in his nose. Faceless shades huddle in the corners, alarmed at his sudden and wrathful appearance; before him, just rising from a crouch beside his enormous boulder, is Shady’s original owner.
“Master Thanatos.” A wry greeting, and not nearly humble enough for his tastes.
“Knave-king,” Thanatos says icily.
Sisyphus gives a rueful smile, scratching at the back of his head. The stone is worn in long, smooth grooves beside him, marking out eons of an endless climb. “I must say, I never expected to see you here again.”
“I’m not here for you,” snaps Thanatos. “You gave a keepsake to Zagreus. A memento.”
“Yes, of course I did. Prince Z. has been awfully kind to me. Bouldy certainly likes him, don’t you, Bouldy?”
The diminutive is infuriating, but he doesn’t have time to correct the informality. Besides, Zagreus has probably encouraged it himself, damn him. “When was the last time Zagreus called you for help?”
“Well, let’s see now. It’s been a while, I must say. You know, I can’t remember the last time now that I think about it.”
“Not recent, then. Can you feel him now?”
“No, I should say not. Not unless he calls first.” Sisyphus puts both hands on his hips, broken chains clinking, his eyes creased with concern. “Is His Highness all right?”
Thanatos almost doesn’t answer him. He doesn’t deserve an answer, this barbaric shade pretending at reformation, fooling nobody but Zagreus in the pretense. But—he’s changed a lot, since then.
…Maybe I have him wrong.
Gods damn every shade Zagreus has ever spoken to, and himself for caring at all. “…The prince is missing. He has been for some time, apparently. I’m trying to track him down.”
“Oh, no,” Sisyphus says, and draws up to his full height. He’s taller than Thanatos like this, his shoulders broad and spreading after an age of a boulder’s weight upon them. “I say, Master Thanatos, I’m sorry to hear it. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you can search the surface world for a prince who should have safely died weeks ago.”
“Oh,” Sisyphus says in a rather different voice. “What if—well—maybe not.”
“What,” Thanatos bites out.
“Well, he dies all the time, doesn’t he?” Sisyphus looks down at Thanatos, his brow furrowed. “I mean, that’s the impression Bouldy and I got. Runs through here an awful lot for no reason, otherwise.”
“Yes.”
“So he hasn’t died when he ought to have?”
Something catches in the knave-king’s voice; something catches in the back of Thanatos’s mind, ripping at a memory he’d rather forget. “What…are you getting at?”
Sisyphus smiles apologetically. “There’s only one thing I know of that can keep a god alive and bound when he shouldn’t be, Master Thanatos.”
Thanatos stares. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s impossible, surely,” he agrees. “Isn’t it?”
Thanatos can hardly breathe.
Isn’t it?
—
Thanatos doesn’t visit the temple outside Corinth often. It’s deeply unapproachable for one, buried halfway up a mountain and overlooking only thin scrub and brown rock; besides, Mount Cyllene has always been beloved best by Hermes, and Thanatos prefers avoiding even the hastiest conversation when he works. Not to mention that he’s not exactly worshipped among the mortals. He has no priests of his name to neglect.
The temple itself is very small, rough-hewn from the stone and unpolished. A small carving above the lintel proclaims his name in the mortal tongue, unimpressive in the grey pre-dawn light; inside is barely enough room for a small altar, an icon of himself with a stone wing, and an empty offering plate. But behind that, below, in a small berth carved directly into the back wall of the naos—
Hephaestus himself had made the case for Thanatos, after Sisyphus. After Ares had freed him from his own chains, after the knave-king had been apportioned his eternal torment in Tartarus. The acacia wood had been stained nearly black, reinforced at the corners with gold; the latch had been bound in ivory and agate.
Not now, though. The latch is broken.
Shattered, really, agate chipped and ivory in shards upon the stone. Worse, the case is too light; he knows even as he opens it that it is empty. He stares down at the undyed linen, its folds holding only the memory of Death’s chains now, and wonders what Olympus might do if he razed every mortal city from here to the coastline to ash and salt.
Mortals have stolen from the gods before. He knows this. Prometheus stole flame; Heracles stole the golden apples. But this—this is personal in a way that wrenches his stomach and fists ice around his heart, and when he finds Zagreus he will reap everyone who has dared beyond gall to touch him.
“Oh, hey! Thought I heard someone here. Didn’t expect it to be you.”
Thanatos can hardly think through the maddened rage. It is a struggle to stand, to turn. He leaves the worthless case flung open at his feet. “Hermes.”
The god smiles, haloed in the temple’s door by the sun rising behind him. A cold day, Demeter’s chill still stronger than the warmth of Helios; the dawnlight off his winged laurels glints thin and watery, untouched by rosy fingers. “Got to say, you’ve been moving faster than I thought. Glad to see it, given the circumstances.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“I know you’re in a hurry, boss—believe me, I know the look—but I have a message that might help. Will you hear it?”
Hermes shifts as he speaks, just enough his face is not so stark with shadow. His smile is sympathetic and patient in a way he’s rarely seen from Hermes; that alone cuts through the anger. Or transmutes it, at any rate, into something stonier he can at least think through. “Yes. I will…I’ll hear it.”
“Great! Here’s the message, then: ‘My sons have received another offering. Go to Oetylus. Follow the crows.’”
Thanatos looses a harsh breath. “On the southern coast. I’m familiar with it. I’ll go right away.”
“Best of luck!” Hermes turns to leave, and Thanatos grips his scythe, but—
“Hermes.” The god glances over his shoulder, and Thanatos squares his shoulders. “Thank you for your assistance in all this. With Charon, I mean. And with the Queen.”
“Oh, don’t think twice about it. She was grateful to hear it from you lot, unhappy as the message was. As for the rest, well, the Styx does most of the work anyway. Good luck in Oetylus!” Hermes gives a quick salute, steps out into the open air beyond the cliff’s edge, and disappears.
Thanatos shuts his eyes and gathers his strength. It’s not a triviality for him to move this quickly, this far, along the surface. He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d told Zagreus it made him sick; even now his head pounds, temples pulsing with every heartbeat, though he can’t tell what comes from the surface air and what is his gritted teeth. Still, he will have traversed the entire length of the peninsula and back again in less than two days; only at Ares’s most bloody has he ever been driven so far before.
Watch Zagreus be fine. Watch this be some ridiculous project of his, with Death’s chains missing by pure chance; or perhaps some innocent joke gone seriously awry, some prank with unintended complications. He wouldn’t put it past the prince. (He would. Zagreus would never be so heartless.)
So he moves south, and he doesn’t know if he’d rather find Zagreus alive or dead.