I second-guess my words the second they’re out. What the hell do I have to return to, other than the human world in general? And this place already feels like home. I stare out the windows again, marveling at the stark beauty. But as beautiful as it is, it’s also very much a prison of monochrome color and static shapes.
“Can I see more of it before we go to the baths?”
“You wish to see the prison?” He frowns at me as if I’ve asked to have nails jabbed into my eyes.
“I have a connection to this place, don’t I? I want to learn more about it. About him. About all of you.”
Asterius hesitates for a moment before finally nodding. “Very well. But I must warn you, some of the sights here are not for the faint of heart. What you see beyond these windows is only the surface.”
Rather than lead me back through the library, he walks to the glass doors, stopping with his hand on the knob. Then he reaches for me. I secure the black bedsheet more tightly around my chest then take his hand.
“Hold onto me. It’s easy to get lost in this place, but I know shortcuts.”
He pushes the doors wide, but the view on the other side is nothing like the vista we’d been enjoying from the breakfast table. Beyond the opening is a dark, torchlit corridor; the kind of image I’d expect to see in a prison or a dungeon. The stench hits me first, followed by the sounds of agony and torment echoing off the walls.
“It’s all an illusion, isn’t it? Out there?”
Asterius shrugs. “Not exactly. There is little physical permanence to the architecture. What you see through the windows is one truth; the interior is another. You thought it beautiful, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” I think of Vesh’s strange beauty despite my impression that there is deep-seated darkness inside him. Then I remind myself that we are inside him; this is an even deeper layer to his darkness.
As we continue down the twisting corridors, the weight of the prisoners’ despair and hangs thick and acrid in the air. Asterius gives me a cautious glance when we reach the first door, and I nod. I’m ready to see it all.
The carved void glass door swings open and we enter a large, circular room with a group of prisoners chained in the center.
“The Furies,” he says, gesturing at a group of terrifying women with black wings and snakes for hair who pace around the chained subjects.
The prisoners cower as the Furies descend upon them, their maniacal laughter reverberating off the wet stone walls. Their whips and daggers spew forth a flurry of sparks with each crack and slice, flaying the skin off their victims while they’re still alive.
Asterius squeezes my hand and I hold on tighter, horror roiling in my gut alongside fascination. “What were their crimes?” I manage to ask.
“These are convicts who committed horrific acts against their loved ones. Parents, siblings, spouses, and lovers begged for vengeance against them, and the Furies answered.”
I wince when all the Furies strike again as one, whips blurring through the air and searing stripes into the skin of their victims. It’s terrifying, but validating to know that justice is being served.
He steers me out to the corridor again, then through another door and onto a ledge with a wrought iron railing like the ones on the tower’s exterior. The ledge overlooks a deep pit.
“The Hecatoncheires.” Asterius indicates a trio of massive, hundred-handed giants standing guard around a large boulder with a huge eagle perched atop it, wings outstretched enough to obscure whoever is chained to the rock. All I see are blood-drenched legs hanging down one side, though the man’s screams are deafening. “They are guards like myself and the others, with the singular purpose of overseeing one prisoner’s punishment.”
“Who is he?” I whisper, nerves frayed from the level of torment in this room alone.
“Prometheus. He gave technology to humanity, and the gods sentenced him here for the offense.”
“That doesn’t sound all that just. Technology is awesome.”
Asterius twitches a shoulder and snorts. “The laws are the gods’ domain. We just carry out the sentences for those who break them.”
I linger, staring down at the gruesome scene. The giant, muscular, naked man chained to the rock has finally fallen unconscious, the sounds in the room limited to the fleshy pecking and ripping of the eagle. It swallows the last morsel and then flies away, disappearing into the darkness above. I stare after it into a void that I thought was a solid stone ceiling, but isn’t. Gazing into it makes me dizzy, so I look again at the captive Titan below.
The giant, open wound in the middle of his torso is already closing, and I catch a glimpse of a perfectly intact liver before the flesh mends, leaving nothing but well-defined abdominal muscles. Without the blood and the eagle obscuring him, I can take him in. He’s beautiful, powerful, his skin luminescent. When his body shifts and betrays his alertness, my gaze darts to his face.
“Free me, Nemea,” he whispers, glowing amber eyes locking onto mine. “You know my sentence is unjust. Free me, and I will be in your debt until the end of time.”
I hold his gaze for the briefest second before I’m startled by the predatorial battle cry of the eagle who descends from the void again, its wings blocking my view of him. The next sound out of his mouth is cry of pure agony as the beast rips into him once more.
I spin on my heel, nauseous and confused. Asterius steps aside as I push back into the corridor, breathing heavily and bracing my hands on the cold stone, struggling not to retch.
Asterius’ big hand rests against my back, stroking lightly. “I did warn you it would not be pretty.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “I know. Did you hear what he said?”
“Don’t let it affect you. Many of them beg. Many are too far gone and barely notice when we enter.”
“And the heta—hecatoncha—”
“Hecatoncheires.”
“Yes, them… are they like you? Guards?”
“Some of the inmates have dedicated guards or torturers. They are lower in rank. The guards you met all live together in the tower and answer to Tartarus himself. The other guards you see answer to us.”
I frown. “The Titans who escaped, didn’t they have dedicated guards too?”
He snorts, then sighs. “Yes. Typhon is normally their guard, but he was gravely injured and still recuperating so the rest of us guarded them in shifts. They were locked away in the darkest, deepest, most secure pit in the place, which should have held them regardless. It was an unfortunate convergence of events that led to their escape.”
One of his dark, bushy eyebrows twitches slightly as he looks askance at me.
“You think I had something to do with it, didn’t you?” I ask.
“What I think doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done.”
My nausea has faded, irritation taking its place. I glare up at him. “Say whatever the fuck you were thinking. Don’t lie to me.”
He props his hands on his linen-wrapped hips and twitches his nose, septum ring swinging a little with the motion. “What I think is that you held the end of a thread of Fate that somehow reached all the way into this place to us. It found Pan first and caused a domino effect that resulted in the most dangerous inmates within the prison escaping. I don’t hold you responsible—if anyone is at fault, it’s Fate—but blaming Fate is like blaming the Earth for turning. We just never believed Fate magic could penetrate all the way into this prison.”
“You’re not mad at all?”
He looks at the ceiling, then back at me and shakes his head, chuckling softly. “I can’t be. Their escape is a dangerous mistake we will have to remedy, but it brought you to us. For that, I will never be angry.”
He lifts a big hand to brush fingertips over my cheek. The gentle touch causes a fluttering sensation in my chest that descends, becoming a low throb between my legs. I blink rapidly and take a step back.
“Um, I think I’m ready to see more. Shall we?”
He huffs and backs up a step too, looking a little chastened. I want to apologize for what he must have perceived as rejection, but was really just me trying to get a handle on my raging libido. I want to climb him and fuck him, but don’t want to get distracted just yet. There’s too much to learn about this place still. Too much to understand.
“After you,” he says, gesturing down the corridor.