in a wild and beautiful land, one that was green and bright, and colourful.
“I do not want to live in the palace.” She kept building the picture in her mind. Perhaps a little wooden building, with plots in the garden where she could grow things, and animals that would come by to see her.
Animals she couldn’t touch.
She ached at that, heart growing heavier, tears stinging her eyes. Thanatos could have taught her how to master her power, she was sure of it. She would have been able to lure and pet those animals without fear of killing them. Gods, she didn’t think her heart could take it if she stroked an animal only for it to wither and die before her eyes, an innocent life taken by her cursed touch.
“Then we will not live there.” The Messenger picked up his pace as they crossed the valley, heading for the trees. “Where would my lady like to live?”
“Somewhere not like this. Somewhere not grim and dark. I want to live somewhere as verdant and beautiful as the Elysian Fields.” She looked at the gloomy valley around her, imagined that Thanatos probably lived in such a place, in his grand castle.
Alone.
The thought of him going back to that life hurt her for some reason. Because she had seen that he was lonely and she didn’t want him to subject himself to that life again?
No. It hit her that it was because she wanted him to be happy. She rooted for him to make up with his twin, had seen how important that relationship was to him, and as she thought about it, she realised how important her relationship with her own twin was to her.
She wanted to live in a beautiful, remote place far from the Underworld, but that would mean being far from her twin too. Six centuries apart from him had been torture, even when she had thought him dead. Now that she knew he was alive, time apart from him would be a pain far worse than that. Once or twice in their youth, he had been sent away from her to train with their father’s legions. That distance between them had torn at her, had made her ache every second of the time they were apart.
“But it must be in the Underworld. I want to be close to my brother.” She tried to think of any place other than the Elysian Fields that she had visited that had been as green and as beautiful, and couldn’t think of a single one.
“Your brother?” The Messenger frowned at her.
Odd. She frowned back at him and his features slackened, the hint of displeasure she swore she had seen in his eyes quick to disappear, making her feel she had imagined it.
Because Messengers didn’t feel emotions.
“Of course, my lady. Our home will be close to your brother. He will be able to visit whenever he wishes.” The male looked ahead of them again. “The edge of the realm is just beyond that tunnel.”
It was? She frowned at the yawning opening in the side of the mountain that rose to form one end of the valley. It looked dark, forbidding, and unsettled her for some reason.
She looked back at the distance they had already trekked, unable to spot the entrance to the cavern where she had last been with Thanatos. The urge to go back there was strong, but she forced herself to keep moving forwards. Maybe once she had been home for a while and had unburdened her heart to her mother, she could visit Thanatos’s castle. She was sure he would be home by then, that he had left her to continue his journey back there.
If he wasn’t, she would convince her father to dispatch a legion to look for him, and she would lead them.
Calindria followed the Messenger into the tunnel. This one had jagged teeth, huge spears of rock that rose from the ground or reached down from the ceiling. The sound of water dripping echoed along it, together with the chittering of creatures. The Messenger looked back at her and she swore she saw a flicker of concern in his mismatched eyes before he faced forwards again.
“We can find a small realm close enough to your family that they can visit, and there we can make it as green and beautiful as you desire, my lady.”
“We?” She frowned at his back as it struck her that he kept saying that. “Have the other Messengers who were assigned to