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On the day or night that Hades returns before his son does, Achilles’ heart soars. Zagreus has finally beaten his father, prevailing through defeat after defeat. The prince has never met the concept of giving up.
Then Zagreus is back, rather than staying on the surface with his mother. He tells Achilles that he can’t stay there, that the Styx pulls him back inexorably. That he’ll just have to keep fighting for every bittersweet moment with her. Achilles wishes him well.
“Zagreus.” Hades’ voice rumbles through the hall as Zagreus strides—struts, really—past his desk.
Zagreus approaches. They’re just barely out of Achilles’ line of sight, speaking in low tones. Hades’ voice still shakes the floor, but it’s too quiet for Achilles to discern any actual words.
Then Zagreus exclaims, “No! Father, you can’t!”
And Hades thunders, “Do not presume to dictate what I can and cannot do. I can. Whether I will is up to you.”
“You’re not—” Zagreus continues, his voice hushing beyond Achilles’ hearing again.
“Yes. I would.”
At this Zagreus snarls, taking a step back to where Achilles can see him again. His face is twisted up in a fury to make the Erinyes proud, his hands grip as if to wield Stygius even though he can’t summon the weapon inside the House. For a moment Achilles can almost see its outline anyway.
“You’re—” Zagreus snarls, then cuts himself off. “You’re—you’re—” At a loss for the words, he throws one long agonized glance at Achilles and then turns his back, dashing into his room without speaking to Nyx or Dusa or anyone.
Achilles waits until his next break comes up. Hades is in a mood, but he can’t question Achilles leaving his post on schedule. Not even if Achilles heads straight for the prince’s room.
“Lad?” he calls softly from the massive doorway. Zagreus might have already left on another escape, but he had looked so broken…. Achilles needs to make sure.
“In here,” Zagreus calls back from a corner not visible to the doorway. He sounds absolutely miserable.
Achilles steps inside to find the room is in even more disarray than usual. Books and scrolls lie open on the floor, spines cracked and parchment unrolled and twisted. Clothes are strewn everywhere, childhood toys and games and little decorative touches heaped in piles. The scrying pool has been overturned and its water is now soaking a pile of clothing.
Zagreus is sitting in the farthest corner from the door, wedged in between an overturned couch and the wall. His green eye is reddened with frustrated tears; the red and black one is shadowed by his hair.
“Are you alright?” Achilles asks, even though he knows the answer.
“No. I’m not allowed to leave the House anymore.”
“Well,” Achilles says delicately, “You were never actually allowed.” What he means is: what has changed?
“Now there will be—” Zagreus swallows thickly, turning wounded-animal eyes on Achilles for a moment. “Consequences. If I try.”
“Ah.”
Zagreus has faced consequences already. Megaera wouldn’t spit on him if he was on fire (something Achilles has been told happens often in Asphodel), and the prince’s once-close relationship with Death Incarnate has strained and withered away to almost nothing. If Achilles ever sees Thanatos in the House, it’s because Zagreus isn’t there. Dusa too frightened to speak with him, Orpheus too mired in his own loss, Hypnos… well, they were never that close. Nyx and Achilles are his only allies.
What must Hades have threatened him with to stay his feet, even temporarily?
Achilles is still sure, at this point, that it will be temporary.
As ordered, Zagreus does not leave.
He remains in his room for a few days or nights—sulking, Hades growls—and then begins drifting, aimlessly, around the House. Petting Cerberus until every head is asleep, haunting one corner or another of the lounge—he leaves without a word when Megaera enters on break, and she rakes cruelly satisfied eyes over him—or just shuffling through every hall on a slow, pointless circuit.
Sometimes he stops at the Pool and stares into the red water. Sometimes he stops by and asks how Achilles is doing. Achilles’ answer never changes. Nothing in the House changes.
Hades tries to give him a job again. Zagreus lasts a few days or nights with the House Contractor before the shade threatens to quit if Zagreus isn’t reassigned. He doesn’t fail on purpose, he never fails on purpose, but Zagreus wasn’t built for a quiet existence. The House is so quiet.
Hades finally tells him to just stand there. Stand guard, like Achilles does, at the beginning of the hall to the lounge. Zagreus goes without a word of complaint or protest. Achilles and Hades both can see him perfectly well from there, back against the wall with his hands at his sides.
Time passes, although it’s hard to tell how much. Breaks come and go. Zagreus doesn’t leave. Achilles tries to ask if there’s anything he can do to help.
“With what?” Zagreus asks dully, turning his head stiffly to look at Achilles with one glassy green eye.
“With—escaping.” Achilles says, too startled to say anything else. There’s no way Zagreus has forgotten.
Zagreus turns away. “There is no escape.”
After his next break, Zagreus does not return.
Hades’ gaze falls on his son’s empty post quickly. He checks the burning time-keeping candles, sneers, and stands up from behind his desk. Achilles watches him go to the prince’s room, walking straight in. He emerges barely a minute later, muttering, “Worthless!”
Achilles’ heart warms. Zagreus has finally left again, and damn his father’s consequences.
Still something makes him check Zagreus’ room during his own break; he tells himself maybe he’ll go to the courtyard to see which weapon the prince took.
Then he sees the figure in the prince’s bed, turned on its side, feet glowing even through the blanket.
“Lad,” Achilles says, going to him. He sits on the edge of the bed, puts one hand on Zagreus’ shoulder. “Is there… something wrong?” He knows there is.
Zagreus barely moves, turning over to look at Achilles with the red eye. In a sighing voice, as if every word costs him effort, he says, “No, sir. I’m just tired. I’ll get up soon.”
Achilles’ heart is wrenching, as painful as it ever is when he allows himself to think too much of Patroclus. He nods, nearly breathless himself, and brushes the prince’s hair out of his face with one gentle hand. He stands and takes his leave.
Zagreus does not return to his post.
Achilles thinks there must be a very large war happening on the surface. He has never seen the House so full of shades waiting to be judged, and they’re coming in faster than they’re going out despite the Lord’s best efforts.
The dead come in with stories of festering wounds and lingering illnesses. Achilles listens, since there’s not much else to do in the House, but few of them speak of war. One of a splinter in his hand that rotted the flesh; one died of a burn sustained in cooking; another of a simple cold that never went away, until finally she drowned on dry land.
Achilles comes to understand that the House is filling up with people who should not have died, but he doesn’t know why.
A few days or nights later, the tide of shades is choking the hall and shows no sign of ending, overflowing into the side halls and the lounge. Charon’s boat brings them in by the dozens. Hypnos has summoned Thanatos to discuss something work-related.
That is when Achilles knows something is deeply wrong.
“You harvested this one, right?” Hypnos points out a name on his list. Achilles has been moved to the main hall to help deal with the shades, so he can see more of everything. “What is this cause of death supposed to be?”
“You can read,” Thanatos says, snappish with stress.
“‘Gave up?’ How’s that supposed to kill someone?”
“I don’t know,” Thanatos is frustrated. “He was just waiting when I got there. His shade had come detached. His mortal body wasn’t injured or ill or aged.”
“There’s something wrong,” Hypnos insists. “Look,” he flips through the pages of his list, showing it to Thanatos. The lower pages are for more recent deaths. “There’s more. And it’s getting worse.”
“I know that. What do you expect me to do? It’s not me killing them.”
“Just… can you help me show it to Lord Hades?” Hypnos fiddles with the edge of his lists nervously. “He’s been—pretty bad lately.”
Achilles stops listening in. The words ring in his head. Gave up. His gaze turns to the prince’s room; how long has it been since he last spoke to Zagreus?
“And what do you propose we might do about this?” Hades rumbles, a dangerous warning in his tone.
Thanatos says, “Perhaps myself or Nyx might go to the Olympians and share our concerns, see if they’ve noticed anything—if it’s their doing—”
“No.” It is decreed; it is final. “We judge the dead and send them to their final rest. What happens on the surface is none of our concern. If my brothers want to wage war and play with mortal lives, nothing I say will change their minds.”
Dismissed, Thanatos leaves in a flash of green light and Hypnos returns to the river of shades.
Achilles stands there uselessly, tearing himself to shreds. Nobody gets breaks any more. Hades will surely notice and have something to say if he leaves his post.
“And Hypnos,” Hades says. “Stop allowing that useless boy to sleep.”
Hypnos blinks and says, “Lord Hades, Zagreus hasn’t slept since before he stopped trying to escape.”
Achilles drops his spear in his haste.
“Zagreus,” he calls, not pausing in the door this time. The room is dark, darker than Achilles has ever seen any room in the House. The floor is bare, the shelves and tables empty, the mirror matte and unreflective. This place hasn’t been cleaned up, it’s been cleaned out. No one lives here.
Zagreus is still on the bed in nearly the same position Achilles left him in. The blankets lie rumpled at the end of the bed, as if he’s just kicked them down in preparation to rise, but he’s not moving. It takes Achilles too long to realize something else: Zagreus’ feet are not glowing.
His shins are cracked black charcoal and pale flaking ash. His toes are the faint embers of a dying fire. His dull red soles gutter like a candle flame with every shallow breath; but he is breathing. His eyes are half-open and as blind as the dead, but he lives. For now.
“Zagreus,” Achilles breathes, horror rising from his stomach like bile. “Lad…” He has no idea what’s happening. He doesn’t know if gods can become sick, if gods can truly die, if they can be saved from it.
He needs to ask Nyx, but she hasn’t been seen in the House for quite a long time. Not since Zagreus retired to his empty room. Achilles casts around, helplessly, for anything that might help.
Hades is standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the light from the hall. There’s no way he can’t see what Achilles has seen.
Hades turns away.
“You’re doing this to him,” Achilles’ voice cracks on it. He hasn’t been angry since he signed his contract, but he can feel it rising again.
“He is doing this to himself,” Hades rumbles without looking back.
Nyx is standing outside Zagreus’ room, wearing a black veil over her face.
“There is a fire in you,” she says without prompting. “You must share it with him. Ask him about his father’s consequences.”
Achilles sits beside Zagreus, running his fingers through the lad’s hair soothingly as he considers going back out and asking Nyx for some more direct instructions. He’d rushed back in here as soon as she was done speaking, near hysterical with fear that Zagreus would fade more quickly out of sight.
How is he supposed to ‘share fire’ with Zagreus?
Whatever it is, he needs to do something fast. The god of life and blood is comatose here at his hip and up on the surface there are mortals falling over dead from nothing. The two things can’t be unrelated.
There are a lot of things Achilles knows about healing, mostly through Patroclus. He can bandage and salve a wound, amputate a limb, save a man from drowning.
Achilles has no other ideas, so he tips Zagreus’ head up, his stomach twisting at the complete lack of resistance or reaction. He leans down, seals his lips over the prince’s, and breathes out.
Zagreus’ chest expands. Out of the corner of his eye, Achilles can see his ember toes flare for a moment, then die down again.
It’s something. It means Achilles is on the right track. He just needs fire. An anger to burn down Olympus and all the gods, and Hades especially.
Patroclus. There it is; this anger is his old familiar companion. Achilles exhales a hot breath into Zagreus, watches the heat surge up from his soles to his ankles this time before it starts receding again.
He needs something else. Not the hatred that had cradled him all the way up to death’s door; it can't find any purchase in Zagreus when it's directed at people who've done him no harm.
Worthless!
That useless boy.
He is doing this to himself.
There is no escape.
Achilles is ignited. If he stands he knows he won’t be able to stop himself from marching straight up to Hades and doing something that will doom himself and Zagreus. So instead he cradles Zagreus’ head in both hands and breathes out a chest full of fire.
Zagreus’ heels catch with the sputter of wet logs on a blazing fire, orange racing in molten lines up his cracked shins. A burnt and ashy shell falls away to reveal new white-hot skin beneath. Achilles smiles against Zagreus’ mouth and pulls away.
Zagreus opens his eyes and murmurs, “Achilles,” in a tone of wonder.
“It’s time to get up, lad,” Achilles says gently. “And tell me what your father has done.”
Zagreus’ eyes are fluttering sleepily, though he shifts, mumbling, onto his back. He’s staring up at Achilles so trusting, so innocent. “Hades?” he asks, rolling the name around on his tongue. The taste of it brings a sour look to his expressive face. “I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want…” he trails off there, as if he isn’t sure what he doesn’t want, or as if there’s so much that he doesn’t know where to begin. His eyes half-close again.
“Sit up,” Achilles says, reinforcing the gentle command with an arm under Zagreus’ neck dragging him upright. “Come on, lad. Why did you stop trying to escape?” What could have possibly made you give up?
“I couldn’t,” Zagreus whispers, sitting up but laying his head on Achilles’ shoulder. “He said if I left the House again, he’d break your contract. You’d go to Elysium and Patroclus to Tartarus.”
Achilles’ dead blood turns to ice in his veins, in his guts. Surely that can’t be right. Hades can be strict, demanding, never a kind word for anyone, but he usually gives outright cruelty a wide berth.
Except when it comes to his son. He has never had a problem with it then.
Achilles exhales shakily, shuddering with the knowledge of what he must do. I’m sorry, Pat. But his Patroclus is strong, and he would make the same choice in Achilles’ place. He had, once.
“It’s alright, Zagreus,” Achilles says. He puts one of Zagreus’ arms over his shoulders and stands, dragging the prince up with him and holding him until he finds his own feet again. Still glowing, still strong. “It’s going to be alright.”
He shuffles the prince out into the courtyard with the weapons, over into the care of a forlorn skeleton. Zagreus seems to regain some of his color and vibrancy with every step, until he doesn’t need Achilles supporting him and he’s walking unassisted.
“Pick a weapon, lad, there you go. You get back into practice. I’ll return in a moment.”
“Hey there, prince Zag, long time no see!” the skeleton cheers, bulbous eyes rotating wildly.
Achilles leaves them.
He goes back through Zagreus’ room to the main hall. Nyx is still outside, though she only gives him a nod of encouragement this time. He pushes through the crowd of shades to the administrative chamber, through there to the records of contracts. Every corner is too full of shades for anyone to even notice him, even as different as Achilles is to the rest of them.
He finds his contract easily by feeling for it, the thing that has a stamp on his soul.
Back to the main hall, to Hades’ desk. The Lord hears shades perfunctorily now, half a dozen in a minute. Achilles marches to the front of the line.
“What is it now?” Hades snaps, turning two red and black eyes on him. “Have you managed to rouse that wretched boy?”
Achilles removes the pin with Hades’ symbol from his chlamys, letting it fall off one shoulder to puddle on the floor, and sets the pin on Hades’ desk. The contract he holds up until he’s sure that Hades knows what it is, then puts the edge into the flame of a candle on the desk. It burns quickly.
He remembers how this began: the moment that Hades first lost to Zagreus. Hades is so frightened of losing that he used all his power to never fight again. Achilles should have known better than to think there were ever any worthy gods. They are all cut from the same cloth. All but one.
“I will not serve someone like you,” Achilles says evenly. “And you will not hold me like a weapon against your son. You coward.”
Achilles doesn’t wait around for his punishment or Hades’ response. He turns on a heel and—the shades parting for him, silent and whispering—goes back to Zagreus.
The prince is waiting for him, holding Stygius in a familiar grip against the overjoyed skeleton. Achilles picks up Varatha, turns to him, and asks, “Are you ready to get out of here?”