Soul in Darkness (Page 45)

“Such an improvement, would you not say so, Sorrow?”

“Oh, yes, dear sister. Masterful skills on your part. And now I get to do her makeup.”

They turned me roughly, and I caught sight of my piles of hair as I felt the cool ground against parts of my scalp. My face was streaked with tears of anger. When Sorrow leaned over me with a pot of something red, I spat in her face. Her soulless eyes widened, and she bared her sharp teeth before leaning in to bite my shoulder. My back arched and fought with every muscle in my body, but Sadness was on top of me, feeling as if she weighed five times her actual weight, her skinny hands gripping my wrists with the power of ten soldiers.

When Sadness finally let up on my shoulder, I felt the warm rush of blood seeping out, through my dressing gown. My eyes fluttered as a wash of pure exhaustion came over me, my body trembling. She roughly rubbed strange creams in circles over my cheeks, then smeared some sort of powder on my eyelids. Lastly, they slathered paint across my lips.

“And now she is properly fit to see our lady of love,” one of them said.

I tried to shuffle upward and crawl to the door when they released me, but they were too quick, and I was far too slow. I ached everywhere. Taking stock of the damage done, the pile of blood-soaked hair was the least of my worries. In my burst of energy while fighting, I had not felt my body being banged against walls and the floor, but now I felt every bit of it: every scratch, welt, and bruised piece of flesh. The worst was my cheekbone and eye, which were swelling, causing me to squint on that side. And my shoulder…great Hades. Those vile witches.

I sat against the wall and ripped the bottom of my dressing gown, which was already in tatters, pressing the handful of fabric to my shoulder to staunch the flow of blood. After a long moment, my hand began to fall as my eyes drooped. I knew I needed to stay alert, but my body begged for rest. An ache had begun in my head, and I had to close my eyes. I brought up a hand and wiped at my mouth, smearing red paint all over the back of my hand. I let my arm drop.

I’m not sure how long I dozed before a small intake of breath woke me. I tried to open my eyes, but only one would cooperate. I lifted a hand and felt the right side of my face completely swollen and tender to the touch. I hissed at the contact, then peered up at the bars of my cell with my good eye.

Venus, in all her magnificent glory, stared down at me in shock and something else—pity? The look was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by a sneer.

“You should not have attempted to fight them, mortal.”

My lips pursed. “Would you not fight if two strange women attempted to cut your hair?”

She glowered. “I would never have done something so awful as to put myself in your position.”

I looked down, shame filling me.

“Shall I call Cupid in?” she asked in an overly-sweet tone.

Call him in? Was he walking about the property? Disgrace continued to fill me, this time at the thought of him seeing me degraded in this way. Would he be disgusted? Did a small part of him feel I was getting what I deserved for disobeying him? Gods, I had taken a knife from my sister and kept it under my pillow! How betrayed he must have felt! I turned my head aside and closed my eye.

“No,” I whispered.

“You do not wish to see him?” she asked.

I wanted more than anything to see him, but did he want to see me? He was a god, and not just any god. The god of desire. He could have any woman, and yet I had feared him and taken him for granted, breaking one of his simplest rules. It must have felt like a slap to his face. No, I could not blame him for not coming to me here, but neither could I handle his rejection face-to-face right now. The thought of it hurt worse than every physical ailment I suffered at that moment. I shook my head slowly, carefully. She tsked and sighed.

“Very well. I will give you this day and night to heal. You leave in the morning.”

“Where will I go, goddess?” My eye opened, but she said nothing. With a flick of her finger, a piece of brown bread and water appeared at my side, and she glided out of the room, leaving me to ponder my fate and deal with my pain.

I took small bites of the dry bread until it was all gone, and then I drank the murky water, my throat hoarse from screaming. Overwhelmed in every way, with my heart broken at the knowledge of what I had thrown away, I curled up in the corner and slept like the dead.

BEAUTY NO MORE

Psyche

What is going on? Gods, my head! I winced from the stabbing pain, and then gasped from the strain the small movement had brought. The events from yesterday tumbled through my memory like sharp rocks.

From my place on the floor in the corner, I lifted my heavy head and peered toward the bars of my cell. My eye was still swollen but it had gone down enough for me to crack it open. The rest of my body hurt even worse than before.

Venus stood, unsmiling, looking down at me. Her presence was a glowing, colorful haze, like a misty rainbow against a soiled background. My hair on the floor was now a drab, raggedy pile, the blood a dark stain. I glanced to the side at my shoulder long enough to see scabby teeth marks through my torn gown.

“I almost pity you,” Venus muttered. “But then I recall how you stole from me and broke my son’s heart.”

There wouldn’t be a day of my remaining life or afterlife when I did not regret both of those things. I moved to my aching knees with considerable effort, then lowered my torn hands and blotched face to the ground.

“I never meant to hurt either of you, goddess, I swear it. And I fell in love with him, not knowing he was a god. Even when I believed him a monster, my heart knew better. I will be sorry all of my days.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “You will, I am afraid.” But she seemed to have lost a bit of the anger she’d held so close. Still, I kept my head down, afraid to raise her ire again, until I heard her say, “Eat.”

I raised my head enough to see the brown bread and cup of water again, so I did as she said, taking great pains to remain on my knees as I ate. She waited quietly without moving.

When I finished, the meager meal sat in my stomach like a wet stone as I awaited further instruction.

“Today,” she said softly, “you will fetch something for me.” She paced, gliding with grace from one end of the bars to the other as she explained.

“I have lost a touch of my luster while dealing with this situation. As a goddess, I can give and receive beauty from other goddesses. You will take this box to my dear friend Proserpina, goddess of agriculture, and tell her I require the immortal beauty ointment.” An ornate box appeared in her hands, and my heart gave a start. Proserpina? But she was the wife of Pluto, god of the underworld. She spent half of the year in Olympus and the other half in Hades. Surely, she was in Olympus at the moment.

A tired smile appeared on Venus’s lush lips, and I knew, without a doubt, she was asking me to go into Hades.

“But goddess, Beautiful One, h-how will I get there? Please instruct me, and I shall do anything you ask.”

“You are a smart human, are you not? Did your parents not grant you the best of tutors? I am certain you can figure out how to get to the underworld.” And there it was. What she had wanted all along.

The only way to enter the underworld was to die.

I was shockingly calm, as if my body had known all along and had accepted this fate before my mind had.

“Worthy Venus,” I whispered. “How will I return to give you the ointment?” Nobody who died ever left the underworld. By the way her small smile spread, she knew this as well and was not concerned about the box or its contents.

“I am sure you will find a way. You have come this far.”

My head was so heavy. It took too much energy to hold it up, so I let it fall to my chest as I muttered in anguish.

“Why not kill me yourself, goddess? I have displeased you. You have every right to punish me, even take my life if that is what you wish.”

“I am the goddess of fertility. I give life,” she said as if offended by such a question. “I do not take it.”

An accidental giggle bubbled out of me and she glared. I covered my mouth. This was what I knew of gods. They were master wordsmiths. With them, everything was semantics. Venus had orchestrated every event that would lead to my death; however, she would take no responsibility for my actual loss of life. It had not been her hand to hurt me in any way, or to kill me. I dropped the fingers from my mouth and looked her straight in the eye.

“Even without your blessing, I love your son. I will love him every day of my life and eternal death. And our child, your grandbaby…” I clutched my stomach. “Its blood is on your hands, no matter how far removed you are from the events that will kill us.”

Her eyes brightened like the bluest depths of a flame. “Silence, foolish girl. You have been clever thus far. Have you no confidence remaining in your waste of a body? Oh, if your people could see you now. You are no beauty.” She spat the words as if they could hurt me, but I shook my head, lifting my chin.

“It is you who cares about beauty, not me. I would choose to look this way every day of my life if it meant I could birth this child for Cupid before I die.”

Her voice rose. “You only gave your body to my son so you could use a child to manipulate me!”

“That is not true! I would never do such a thing! He earned my trust and my heart, even before my mind was willing to admit it, and what we shared was real—”