the heavy vambraces that protected his forearms.
He had forgone the armour that he normally wore on his lower half. The thick plates offered protection but slowed him down and made it more difficult to move through the narrow tunnels or clamber into holes. He had decided to leave them in his castle for this trip when he had discovered the warren of tunnels in the heart of this vast mountain range were narrower than those in the last set of peaks that rose high into the smoky air of this realm.
Something moved in the water and his fingers tensed around the grip of his sword, ready to draw and swing it in the space of a heartbeat if necessary. Great serpents lived in the pools in many of the caverns, waiting for a creature to approach and drink the life-giving water. One had nearly taken his head off. Since then, he had avoided all the pools.
Thanatos eased around this one, facing it at all times, and was quick to duck into the tunnel. It was narrower than it had looked from a distance, but still large enough to accommodate him and his wings. He shook them out and furled them again, tried to ignore the itch to stretch them and fly. The next time he found a cavern that was large enough, and was lacking occupants, he would do a few laps around it to stretch his wings.
Ahead of him, in the gloom, creatures skittered and scurried away from him. He eased his head left and lowered his wings, edging around a dip in the ceiling. He was beginning to miss the world outside this mountain, even though it was as grim out there as it was in here. Perhaps more so.
The valleys of these mountains were great black lands, some riddled with crevasses cut by waterfalls that thundered into them, and others filled with dead-looking trees, and then there was his personal favourite.
A valley that had been infested with spires of jagged black rock with holes in it. The things that lived within the three-, four-, even five-hundred-foot-tall towers had not liked him being in their territory. Like the gargoyles, they had chased him from the valley, the veins of crimson that formed patterns on their black carapaces glowing like lava as they had scuttled after him on four bony legs, snapping at him with their pincers.
Thanatos was beginning to get the impression everything in this realm hated him.
Perhaps if he didn’t find Calindria, he would kill everything in it. Eradicate all life to make it easier for Hades’s legions to tame these wild lands steeped in ancient powers and bring them under his god-king’s control. He drifted in that pleasing imagery for a while, mentally getting revenge on the foul creatures who had tried to maim and murder him on far too many occasions.
Thanatos stilled as awareness rolled down his spine, making his wings quiver. Something was watching him. He’d had the same feeling several times now during his travels and was beginning to get the impression that someone and not something was following him.
The Messenger.
Thanatos had encountered the black-haired male in another realm, one close to this one, and had thought Hades had sent his servant to relay something to him. Only he had startled the male when he had questioned him, asking what he was doing in an uninhabited realm if he wasn’t there to deliver a message from Hades.
The Messenger’s mismatched eyes—one green and one blue—had widened and then narrowed, had shone with fire when he had delivered a message of his own.
He didn’t serve Hades.
When Thanatos had brought up the male in his report to Hades, two of his god-king’s sons, Marek and Esher, had exchanged a look. Hades had noticed it and demanded answers.
Apparently, they believed they had met the same Messenger in the mortal realm.
There, the male had told them he was looking for Calindria.
“If I cross paths with him again, perhaps I will ask him to assist me,” Thanatos grumbled as he eased around another jagged spike of rock that blocked his path. “He can run the tunnels like the hound he is.”
Thanatos had never liked Messengers. The clones were creepy with the way they would silently appear close to him, and they had no boundaries, were always teleporting into his castle without invitation, bypassing all his wards. Hades had given them too many powers when he had created them.
Something which had proven dangerous during the rebellion, when several Messengers had