Gasps of surprise ripple through the crowd of Underlords behind us. My father breaks his gaze with me as someone else comes to stand before him. My brother Rowan lowers to only one knee beside me.
“Send me, Father. I am loyal, and I am no nursling.” He casts a pointed glare in my direction. “I will not fail you.” Rowan has left behind our ancient dialect and spoken each sentence in a different language used in the Overrealm—French, Arabic, Cantonese—probably thinking that because I am not an Elite, I will be unable to follow his words.
“I am not a nursling,” I say to Rowan in perfectly accented American English. “You have stolen honor from me before, but I will not allow you to take this from me as well.”
The Oracle moves to my father’s side. She has turned icy blue once again, and the cold wind that swirls her veils about her body makes me feel chilled to my soul. My father snuffs out the bolt of lightning that had been building in his hand. He squares his shoulders and stares at the Oracle like he’s trying to see past her shroud, into her mind.
“You are absolutely certain this boy is the right choice for Champion? We’ve been preparing for this particular quest for almost eighteen years. Surely Rowan, or one of the Elite, would be better suited.…”
“Sending him is the only way. He is the one.”
The one? The only way? His quest has been eighteen years in the making? What exactly is going on here?
Lord Lex steps forward. “What if we did away with him?” he asks. “Would the Fates choose another in his place? Rowan is ready and willing.”
My mouth goes dry.
The Oracle’s skin turns bright red. “Your words are insulting to the Fates. They will punish this Court for your hubris.”
“Be still,” Ren says. “Lord Lex does not speak for me.”
“Forgive me, Your Excellence.” Lex bows his head, but a cross look plays on his face. “I only speak in your best interest. Need I remind you what the consequences are for you personally, if the boy fails?”
“No, you do not,” King Ren says with a quiet forcefulness.
He turns and says something to his guards that I cannot hear, but I guess their meaning when two of them advance toward me. One guard grabs me by the arm, yanking me to my feet, while the other one pulls my ceremonial sword from my scabbard. He jabs the blunted point into my back, between my shoulder blades. I don’t try to resist, but as they propel me toward the torch-lit altar, I feel as though I am a prisoner headed toward execution.
I search the faces in the crowd of servants who flank the Court and find the one person who might care about what happens to me. My cousin Dax tries to give me a reassuring look, but his face has grown as pale as the marble floor beneath my feet. I look away from him and concentrate on the carvings that adorn the alabaster altar I’m being propelled toward. The stony personages of the first Hades and the original Boon, Persephone, stare forlornly back at me. When we reach the altar, one of the soldiers sends a swift kick to the back of my legs, forcing me to fall to my knees.
“I would have knelt on my own, harpy mouth,” I snarl at him.
He responds by slamming my head against the altar. My jaws smash together when my temple hits the hard stone. Strange bursts of light cloud my vision, and the black, oily smoke from the torches chokes my lungs, but I make it a point not to show any signs of pain. I stay perfectly still, with the side of my face pressed to the cold altar, and watch my father advance on me.
I hear the ring of metal against metal as King Ren draws his sword from the scabbard at his hip. His is not a ceremonial blade—its sharp edges gleam in the torchlight. I try to look up and meet his eyes once more, but he does not return my gaze.
The fear that my father has chosen to listen to Lex’s suggestion strikes into my heart. I am to be done away with so they can choose another.
I grip the edge of the altar to stop my hands from shaking and wish desperately I had something more to offer to prove my worthiness of this assignment. My father glares down at me. And I see it. Behind the fresh anger that flashes in his eyes, it’s still there: that look he used to give my mother before she died—the look that transferred to me after what I did all those years ago—like what he saw before him was the embodiment of every failure, disappointment, and shame he had ever experienced.
As swiftly as fear had struck me a moment ago, a sudden calm replaces it. Resignation. I will not beg as he expects. I will not plead my case again. Instead, I look at him undaunted and ask a final question. “Is your hatred for me so great, Father, that you would risk bringing down the wrath of the Fates on the entire Underrealm in order to deny me my destiny?”
Ren’s jaw tightens. He lifts his sword, grabs me by the hair at the back of my neck, and yanks my head up from the altar’s cold surface. I say nothing more. If this is what he wants, then so be it. Let it come.
Ren swings his blade at my neck.
I will it to be quick and clean.
The sharp edge of the sword slices into my thick braid until it cuts all the way through. The blade nicks the back of my neck just above my shoulders. My skin stings from the shallow cut but I do not flinch.
“Do not call me that again,” he says calmly and lets go of my head. My temple bashes into the altar once more. A cut breaks open above my eyebrow. My blood drips onto the alabaster, staining the cream-colored stone with beads of red.
I am slow to follow what happens next, but I try to focus as King Ren drops the braid he has cut from my head into a large silver bowl. He snaps his fingers and a young servant scurries forward from somewhere in the throne room and lifts the bowl. The boy follows Ren while he approaches the Oracle, the heavy vessel straining his small arms.
My mind is muddled and I almost miss the moment when the Oracle pours some type of shimmering liquid into the bowl with my hair, and then dips a dagger into the mixture. The priest whispers what sounds like an incantation, and then the Oracle hands the knife to King Ren, her blue skin darkening to a turquoise green as he takes the blade from her.
He hesitates. Or perhaps my brain is working too slowly.
“Make the vow,” the Oracle’s priest says.
King Ren holds the dagger out in front of him. I can barely hear anything over the sound of my pulse pounding in my head and my heavy breaths huffing against the stone altar. I make out something he says about the water from the river Styx, the river of unbreakable vows.…
I blink. When my eyes flutter open, the Oracle is standing in front of me.
“Show him,” King Ren says.
The Oracle’s glittering blue hand reaches for me, her icy touch lands once again between my eyes. Her fingers are so cold. I wonder what memory she will steal from me this time, but instead, my thoughts coil inside my brain and my vision flickers black for a moment. A string of images enters my thoughts, layering upon each other until they form one fluid, moving picture.
At first, the images tell a story I already know. It’s the old myth we Underlords are raised on. It’s stitched into every tapestry and carved into every door I have passed in my lifetime, even on the altar I lean upon now, but then the pictures shift and I see the silhouette of a girl standing in a bright light.
We’ve found her—the Cypher. I hear the Oracle’s words inside my head and not with my ears. We have found the one who can restore what has been taken from the Underlords. You are the Champion whom fate has chosen to bring her to us. The outline of the girl grows more defined but I still can’t make out her face. You will have six months to convince her to return to the Underrealm with you. But she must come willingly. No human can pass through Persephone’s Gate without the mortal’s consent. This quest is your destiny. The fate of the Underrealm lies on your shoulders, young Haden.