The Shadow Prince

“It’s more of a stalemate, really. The war has been at a standstill since Hades was murdered.”

“How did that happen?” Daphne asks. Her voice sounds almost void of the hostility she’s shown me all day—it’s been edged away by curiosity. “You said a god has to lose his … totem?”

“That’s the closest word in your language for it. We call it a Kronolithe. It’s his symbol, object of power. It’s what gives him his immortality. It means ‘Kronos’s stone.’ ”

“Kronos? That name sounds familiar. Wasn’t he one of the first gods, in Greek mythology?”

“Yes, he was the father of Zeus and Hades and many others. He was a greedy, prideful ruler and he feared that his children would overthrow him someday—so he ate them as soon as they were born. All except for Zeus. His mother wrapped a rock in a blanket and fed that to Kronos instead. Zeus then killed his father and cut his siblings free from his father’s stomach. Once Kronos was overthrown, they decided to draw lots and divvy up control over the five realms. Each new ruler was given a piece of the stone Kronos had eaten. I am not sure how it works, but those pieces of Kronos’s stone are what make them gods. Zeus became the Sky God, and he fashioned his Kronolithe into an iron thunderbolt. Poseidon, who was chosen as the god of the Oceanrealm, made his into a trident. Hades drew the lot of overseeing the realm of the dead, and he made his Kronolithe into a golden bident—kind of like a two-pronged staff. That’s where Christians get their stories about their devil carrying a pitchfork. But it was also a Key.”

“The Key of Hades? I read something in my mythology book about that. It was what he used to lock and unlock the gates to the underworld. So the Key and the bident were one and the same? But how did he lose it? The book said he never let the Key out of his sight.”

I smile at Daphne. Her enthusiasm for the subject surprises me for someone who claims to want nothing to do with my world.

She gives me a look that I can’t read.

“What?”

“You look different when you smile,” she says. “You should do it more often.”

“I’ll try,” I say, but my expression defaults to my practiced mask. Why does smiling in front of her make me feel so … vulnerable? “As for the answer to your question, I don’t really know. There are lots of versions of the story, and I have no idea what’s myth and what’s real, but according to the version Master Crue taught us—”

“In what, like, Underlord primary school?” It would be impossible not to catch the sarcasm in her voice.

“Something like that, I guess. According to that version, it was a traitor who stole it. A man who begged for one thing but took something else instead.”

“Who was he?”

“Orpheus.” There’s a bite to my voice when I say his name. We’ve been taught from the age we were nurslings to despise him.

“The musician?”

I nod. “He used his music to confound Hades—manipulate his emotions. He begged for his wife to be returned to him, and the goddess and god of the Underrealm were so moved by his songs that they agreed to let him take her back to the mortal world. It wasn’t until he was almost gone that they realized that Orpheus had taken something else while they were distracted. The Key. Hades sent an army of Keres to stop him. They grabbed Eurydice, but Orpheus escaped. Hades went after him in his chariot, but he never returned. He was ambushed without his Kronolithe, and the Sky God struck him down. Some say Orpheus was working for the Sky God; others say it was Orpheus’s father, Apollo, who orchestrated the theft, and that Hades’s death was unintentional. Others say Orpheus knew nothing of what he was doing and acted purely out of fear—he’d stolen the bident so he could lock the main gates, thinking nobody would be able to take his wife from him again. Whatever the case, the treacherous deed was done. Hades was slain and the gates of the underworld have been locked tight ever since, and the war has been at a virtual standstill.”

“This may seem like an obvious question, but if Hades was the ruler of the land of the dead, and he, you know, is dead, then why isn’t he still in charge? And what about your mother? Why wouldn’t she still be with you there?”

“It doesn’t work that way. There are many different lands within the Underrealm, and three different places souls go when they die. Tartarus is the land where people go if they have outright wronged the Gods. It’s a place of eternal torment, like what Christians and other religions believe to be their version of Hell. People who die with glory and honor—like victorious Champions, war heroes, and the like—go to the land of Elysium. It is what you would think of as heaven. But everyone else becomes a nameless, faceless shade in the Wastelands. They’re kind of what you would think of as zombies. Hungry, insatiable, mindless souls.

“Normally, someone like Hades would have gone to Elysium, but as the stories go, fearing reprisal, the Sky God refused to give his brother a proper burial, and dishonored him by scattering his body throughout the Overrealm. As a result, Hades became just another shade, forced to wander the Wastelands. Most people believe Tartarus is the worst possible fate that could befall a soul, but I think it’s the Wastelands. Because even though you’re in torment, you’re still yourself.”

“I agree,” she says. “So do you ever get to visit your mother in Elysium?”

“My mother wasn’t a Champion or a hero. Only the honored go to Elysium. She is just another shade now.”

“But there is more than one way to be honorable,” she says. “Doesn’t being a good person count for anything?”

I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve never thought of honor in any other way than I have been taught to consider it. I’ve never imagined my mother being anywhere other than lost to me forever in the Wastelands. “I don’t know,” I finally say.

“So what happened to the Key?” she asks.

“Nobody knows. But Dax has a theory that we need the Cypher to find it.”

“And that’s supposed to be me?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll see about that,” she says. “Hey, wait a second. So how did you get here? If the gate is locked and all?”

“Through Persephone’s Gate. It’s kind of like a back door to the underworld. Demeter built it to ensure that Persephone would always be able to return to the mortal world without Hades’s consent. I guess she was afraid he might try to stop her, depending on his mood. But I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t we just use that door to come and go from the Underrealm as we please? Use it to launch another attack on the Skyrealm? It’s because the gate only opens once every six months and it was originally built to transport only a single person. We can maybe get a handful of Underlords through it at once. It’s reserved now for the transport of Champions and their Boons.”