It had been two days since I killed Eos and one night since Erebus brought her above, where he told me he laid her in the Moonflower Meadow. I laid in his bed, my blouse hanging off my shoulder, my breasts nearly exposed, my wrists and ankles chained up again.
Erebus rolled over next to me, curling his arm around my waist. Part of me wanted to kill him and get out of here, but I couldn’t. These chains were too strong and too tight against my skin. He mumbled a “good morning” into my ear and sat up, back muscles flexing. “We are going to see Helios today.”
He pulled on his best dark tunic and prepared for the day while I laid in his bed and tried to figure out how I was going to get Helios out of this castle alive. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Erebus would capture him and torture him in the chambers below.
After undoing the chains around my wrists and my ankles, Erebus led me out to the ferries on the Styx, making our way toward the Phlegethon River—where the crystalic water turned fiery. I stared out the boat, my head in a daze from what I had done to my best friend. Erebus made me kill her with my bare hands and my powers because he was jealous.
“Because it was the right thing to do,” his magical darkness said inside of me. He had implanted his teeth into my brain, into my heart, into my soul, tried to make me believe that this was right. Even though I knew this was wrong.
Yet I couldn’t help myself.
Erebus had chained my mind, just like he had chained my body.
I told myself that this was his fault, made myself believe that I took no part in it… but I lied to myself. Eos was one of the only things keeping Helios in the sky. He came to the Underworld in a rage to find her killer and now he would stay here.
Selfish. I was selfish. I always had been.
Placing his hand on my knee, Erebus brushed his fingers against my chin. “I know it was hard for you to kill that lying bitch, but you must make this right. Finish off what you started. Kill the man who takes away the night from you every morning: Helios.”
My heart felt like it was tearing into two pieces. “I want to hurt him,” I said, trying to keep my voice strong and steady to make Erebus believe that. But I wouldn’t hurt Helios. I wanted him alive and well, and to spend his life with me in the Underworld.
“Good,” Erebus said. “He did exactly what we thought he would. He came to the Underworld, and we captured him. This is finally our chance to destroy him. I want him to burn himself up. I want his light to become my fire.”