The Descent

TWENTY-TWO

Afterward, Adair and I lie together in a tangle of sweat-dampened sheets. He holds me against him, my back against his still-moist chest, my derriere nestled in his lap. One of his hands is on my abdomen, right around my navel, and his other arm is wrapped around my rib cage under my breasts. He hugs me tightly as he kisses the back of my head. Such tenderness seems out of keeping, not for the man I know as Adair, but for the force I now know him to be.

As we lie in bed together, he sighs contentedly in my ear. “You haven’t asked,” he says, reluctantly. These are the first words we’ve said to each other since he summoned me to him.

“Asked what—if you really are a god? I haven’t asked because I can see that it’s true.”

“There’s nothing more you want to know? No questions?” he asks, sounding as though he fears it’s too good to be true.

I try to turn around to face him, but he holds me in place. “Now that you mention it, yes, there is something I’ve been wondering about.” Now is my opportunity. I tell him about Stolas and our encounter in the pit. “He explained to me how you were able to leave the underworld, but he wouldn’t tell me why you left. He said that it was a secret and he couldn’t betray it.”

Adair sighs. He seems pained that I have it brought up now, and I can’t bear to make things complicated when we’ve just been reunited, so I rush to answer my own question. I want to spare him from telling me something I probably do not want to hear, anyway. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” I continue, in a rush. “You left to get away from that woman, the queen. I understand, Adair. You don’t have to say anything more if you don’t want to.”

He stops me, releasing me from his damp arms and turning me to face him. His eyes are solemn and downcast, afraid of what he has to tell me. He holds me square to him though he still can’t look at me. “There is something more I have to say to you. There is a reason I left the underworld.”

Again, I try to stop him from speaking. I’m afraid of this confession, afraid that it will ruin what is between us now, which was so hard to attain. “You needn’t be afraid, not of me. Who am I to question you, whatever you’ve done, whatever the reason—”

He gulps, hurt. “You are the woman I love. If I am not accountable to you, then who would you have me be accountable to?” He gives me a little shake, but it is a sign of his impatience with himself and not me. “You must listen, Lanore, because this is something you will hear as soon as we open that door, and you must hear this from me and not someone else.” He closes his eyes and squeezes them tight. Draws a deep breath, and I watch his sternum rise and fall. When he opens his eyes again, they are racked with pain. “The queen is my sister. We are meant to rule this place together, as husband and wife.”

Adair’s hands go cold against my skin and he’s turned away, unable to look at me. “It is a wicked, twisted tradition and yet . . . it is the way of the gods, sisters and brothers made into husbands and wives. I can make no apologies for it. It is just how it is.”

I can’t even feel him beside me anymore; I feel loose, like water, as though I’ve dissolved into a million pieces. This last revelation is too much. The accumulated weight of all that he is and has been and done threatens to crush me. I want to give in to the weakness that descends over me like a great, enveloping cloak. I wish I were able to walk away, but I can’t. I love him; I cannot abandon him. It kills me to see how unhappy he is, how close to broken.

My head is swimming. I go back to the things Stolas told me, how Adair unknowingly had lived on earth under a lie, collecting his damned souls by instinct. It had been my misfortune to be caught in his net, but was it also misfortune, too, to fall in love with him? (Is it ever a misfortune to know love?) Once the attraction was there, it had been inevitable to love him, as inevitable and intractable as gravity.

When I was a young woman, I had followed my heart and had it broken, and had erroneously believed that the lesson I should take away from this was to be cautious with my heart. After this, I’d always kept a barrier between the people I chose to let into my life and my heart, even with Luke. Of course, now I can admit that my suppressed feelings for Adair probably had something to do with this. I’d been afraid of loving Adair for good reason, but now that I admit it is inescapable, it is as though something let loose inside of me and cannot be brought back in check.

I settle back into myself, slowly pulling my spirit back into my body. My throat is tight and painful; blood pounds in my ears. I press my hands to his chest for composure. “So she is your sister, Adair. I—can accept that. And it doesn’t mean anything to us, not really. We love each other. We belong to each other. A union with the queen is only ceremony. It means nothing, in terms of love.”

He stirs, heartened.

“I don’t care if she’s meant to be your queen,” I go on, more vehemently. I clutch his arms and press closer to him. “That can’t mean that we won’t be allowed to be together. I don’t need to be acknowledged as your wife. I have your love, I know I do. She can have her consorts and you can have me.”

His mood brightens infinitesimally. He lifts his head. “I don’t know what’s possible, what will be allowed and what is forbidden,” he begins, but right at that moment, we are interrupted. A wind throws back the doors to the bedchamber and sends the bed curtains and linens flapping as though we are caught in a hurricane. Our hair swirls around our heads as the room is thrown into chaos: furniture flying, ornaments spinning around the room. Glass in the windows shatters into thousands of glittering shards, suspended in midair as though possessed. Suddenly, I feel as though I’m being held in a giant hand, and I’m being crushed as the fingers tighten around my body. I can’t speak, I cannot breathe. My ribs are about to crack and snap under the strain. The internal pressure is enormous and I feel as though my eyes are about to pop, as though blood will spurt out of my ears and mouth, out of my nose.

Adair is looking at me, stricken and confused, but only for a second. He knows what is happening before I do. “Stop!” he roars, his voice thunderous, shaking the rafters. Then he turns his attention to me. He doesn’t need to say a word, he just looks at me and I feel the grip loosen, the horrible pressure ebb away. Once I am okay, gasping and shaking but okay, he presses me to him again, so tightly that it’s almost as though he wishes to tuck me inside him. My cheek rests against his chest, and he strokes my head.

At that moment, a trail of cobalt smoke snakes into the room, whipping in a circle around us, as the glass and baubles and detritus seemingly are released from a trance and fall from midair, dropping to the floor. The blue smoke draws upward into a plume and then the queen materializes before us. Her arms are crossed and she glares at us, furious, her expression horrible to behold. She is angry and accusatory. The wronged one, she has caught us, the husband with his mistress in bed together, the cheater and the rival. To see with your own eyes the evidence that you are unloved and unwanted. It is clear by looking at her that war has been declared. There is about to be a battle royal and the underworld might be split apart by their fury.

“How dare you!” she hisses, brows arched. “With your mistress in your arms, here in our domicile! On the day of your return!” Her voice drips with pain and, having been in her place many times before, I can’t help but see the situation from her point of view: I have caused her nothing but hurt. Her spouse is in love with me, and even Jonathan helped me at the risk of offending her. No wonder she threw me down the deepest pit of hell: I am the rival she has been unable to best. No wonder she wanted never to see me again.

It looks as though she wants to attack us but cannot decide which of us will be her target, me or Adair. He pulls me even closer to him to protect me, but that only elicits a howl of anguish from her. We can feel her gather strength, her unhappiness crackling the air like an electrical storm. “You will not try to hurt her again!” Adair bellows at her, holding a palm out against her. “If you do, you will answer to me.”

“She is the interloper here, not me. You are my husband, and nothing can change that,” she snaps at him.

“There is one way to change it,” Adair says, brightening as a thought comes to him. “I’ll abdicate.”

The queen draws back, aghast. Giving up power is unimaginable to her, I suspect. She regards Adair uncertainly, as though he’s just told her that gold is as common as sand and that stars are made of spun sugar. “It’s not a decision you can make on your own, and you know that. The father of the gods made you king, put you in this position himself. It will be up to him. He must decide to allow it.”

I can feel the tension in the air evaporate as they both back away from the brink of a fight. Adair lifts his chin when he addresses her. “Let the power above us all pronounce judgment on me in person. I want our father to tell me to my face what he would have me do. I swear I will submit to his will.”

His sister sniffs at him as though it is a trick. “You want him to settle this because you’ve always been his favorite. But I think this time, that’ll backfire on you. Being his favorite won’t save you. You’ve tested his patience once too often. So, I agree: you shall bring your case before him, and we will both abide by his decision. You have my word.” She doesn’t wait for Adair to agree or try to get out of the bargain. Before he can say another word, she disappears again in a puff of smoke, leaving Adair and me to blink at each other, unsure of what we have just agreed to.