Page 51 of A Kingdom of Sand and Ice (Kingdom of Gods #2)
His laughter was the last thing she heard before the world swallowed her whole. Darkness closed in like a great jaw. Something unseen gripped her ankles and dragged her down, her scream snatched from her throat as she tumbled into nothingness.
When she hit the solid, earthen, and cold ground, she groaned, opening her eyes to find herself once again at the river’s edge. The same mournful current drifted by. The same skeletal boat. And the same robed figure: Charon, silently drifting towards her.
Unbelievable.
She sat up, spitting dirt from her mouth and narrowing her eyes towards the horizon.
She was going to bash Thanatos’ skull open with a rock.
A sound behind her drew Mal’s attention, and she turned swiftly, her eyes narrowing at the figure lounging against one of the pale trees with blackened leaves. Trees that, back home, only grew in the Forest of Silent Cries. Here, they sprouted like weeds, everywhere she turned.
‘If I touch you, you die,’ Thanatos explained, his tone light, as though commenting on the weather. He shrugged with an elegance that only made her blood simmer. ‘Lucky for you, you’re a goddess, and in the Underworld.’
‘But I didn’t die,’ Mal said, narrowing her eyes. ‘Not like when Makaria and Zagreus would chase me. This felt different, like being transported from one place to another.’
Thanatos’ lips curled into a smirk. ‘Ah, but my kind of killing is different. I am Death, Melinoe. I end things as I please. I can pluck a soul like a string from an instrument—gently, soundlessly. One moment you’re standing in mortal lands, the next, you’re here, none the wiser.
Death, to me, can be as subtle as walking through a door. ’
‘Makaria and Zagreus didn’t seem so subtle,’ she snapped. ‘They rather enjoyed the theatrics. Blades, blood… the whole performance.’
‘They do enjoy flair,’ Thanatos admitted, stepping onto the boat that had silently come to rest at the riverbank. ‘And they’re easily bored. Eternity will do that to you. They pass the time with creative murder.’ He held out a hand to help her aboard.
Mal stared at it.
‘It only works when I wish it,’ he said simply, voice low and maddeningly smooth. ‘You’re safe with me, Melinoe.’
She stepped into the boat without taking his hand, her movements curt, sharp with distaste. She sat opposite him, knees almost brushing his in the cramped wooden shell. The proximity made her fists clench.
‘Do I not get the power to make you vanish?’ she asked.
‘You could turn me into a shadow, I suppose,’ he mused.
‘Not enough,’ Mal said, eyes glinting with something wicked. ‘How’s the ear?’
‘I could make it grow back,’ Thanatos replied, completely unbothered.
‘Then why don’t you?’
He leaned forward slightly, amusement showing in his expression. ‘Because I know how much pleasure it brings you to see it gone.’
Mal looked away, refusing to gift him the sight of her scowl.
The desire to rake her nails down his face, to scratch those irritatingly handsome features into ribbons, made her fingers twitch.
Perhaps she ought to leap into the icy river and swim the rest of the way just to put distance between them.
‘You may have tapped into your powers,’ Thanatos said, his voice a lazy curl of sound on the cold air. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’ve mastered them.’
‘That’s what you’re here for?’
Thanatos’ jaw clenched. ‘I am here to teach you how to wield your powers. But—’
‘But what?’
‘Too much power can corrupt the mind.’
Mal snorted, her eyes fixed on the water slapping against the sides of the narrow boat. ‘Why won’t you just tell me what my father is planning?’
‘Hades,’ he corrected, a smile tugging at his lips. Mal bit down on her tongue, swallowing the urge to lash out for her slip. ‘He wants to mend what’s been shattered.’
‘What does that even mean?’
The boat listed to one side, its worn hull creaking as a splash of frigid river water soaked their ankles.
Statues loomed on either side of them. Colossal effigies of gods with hollow eyes and unreadable faces, their stony silhouettes watching in silence as the boat slid past. Up ahead, the ancient gates of the Underworld parted without a sound, allowing them through like an old beast accepting its offering.
Thanatos moved, his hand suddenly outstretched, reaching across the narrow gap between them, fingers lingering perilously close to Mal’s lap. She stared at it, unmoving, unsure of what the gesture meant. Was this another game? Another veiled trick hidden beneath his usual smirk?
Retreating would give him power. And Mal would rather be dragged to the very edge of Tartarus than give Thanatos the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.
‘Take my hand,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t bite.’
‘I know,’ she snapped, her tone all teeth. ‘That’s the problem.’
‘I want to show you something.’
‘What?’
He sighed dramatically, as if exhausted by her presence. ‘Must you make everything so bloody difficult?’
She rolled her eyes and went to slap his hand away, but he was quicker. His fingers curled around hers before she could stop him, the touch colder than stone, colder than the river around them. Mal’s body stilled, her breath catching as her gaze lifted to meet his.
‘Let go,’ she hissed.
‘Only if you behave.’
She narrowed her eyes but managed a begrudging huff, her voice laced with threat. ‘Fine. What is it you want to show me?’
That infuriating grin returned, dark and maddeningly pleased. ‘My powers, Melinoe. As the God of Death.’
And before she could curse him or pull away, he shoved her off the boat.
The river swallowed her whole.
Freezing black water closed over her head, and before she could fight to the surface, hands—dozens of them—gripped her ankles and dragged her down, down, down into the abyss below. Into the place where death had no face, and time held no meaning.