33. The sword of Hades

                                    

                                          









The underworld was freezing.
Maybe it was because she was a daughter of Apollo - she and her siblings generally preferred warm weather, like the sun. Maybe it was because she'd been dressed for a Texas winter, which meant a long-sleeved pink dress and a very thin sweater. Not suitable for the biting layer of frost that coated the depressing yellow grass of Asphodel. Mari shivered, as a cool, shrieking breeze whirled through the place. Her fingers felt brittle, like they were about to snap off.
"You can borrow my jacket," Thalia offered. "I don't actually need it. Huntresses don't feel the cold."
"Nah, I'm good," Mari said. "I'm gonna try something."
She held out her hand, the one that wasn't full of dying carnation, and grabbed onto the mist around her. The last time she'd done this, she'd been drowning in the middle of the sea of monsters while Annabeth and Percy were off fighting sirens. That had been a while ago, but hopefully...
Ah, yes. She still remembered how to do it right. The mist around her warmed up, like her own portable sauna. Mari smiled. She was getting better.
They kept on, following the way the carnation tilted as it led them through the fields of Asphodel. Nico led the group, since the wandering souls shrank away from his sword like it was full of toxic radiation.
Mari had dreamed about the underworld, but she had never seen the fields of asphodel before. It was a very sad place. Yellow grass stretched as far as the eye could see, trampled by the footsteps of lost souls, forever wondering with no purpose. The landscape was dotted with poplar trees, but they had no leaves. Mari was pretty sure that their state had nothing to do with it being winter. Worst of all were the souls. They moaned as they drifted past, occasionally shrieking. One wandered closer, a haunted look in her eyes.
"...zel," she rasped. "Most... precious... gift..."
Then she wandered off again, a faraway look in her eyes. Mari shuddered. She couldn't help but think that asphodel seemed a much worse punishment than the actual fields of punishment. She'd rather be tortured a million times over and know who she was than spend a hopeless eternity searching for a lost identity.
The flower pointed them towards the fields of punishment, and Mari ended up regretting her previous thought. Punishment was awful. Perfect for Hades. All around her, souls were screaming and if she had free hands she would have covered her ears. Souls were boiled alive and lit on fire. Some were frozen in a river of ice. Mari opened her mouth to ask if Nico maybe knew any shortcuts, and she got a mouthful of soot from a stray flame.
Far away, Kerberos the three headed dog chewed on unlucky mortals like they were dog treats. The sign next to him said 'animal abusers'. One particularly strange punishment was an angry-looking man who seemed to be half-stone, fused to his seat at a poker table. For every game he lost (which seemed to be all of them), he was given an electric shock. Mari wasn't sure about the story behind that one, but from the way Percy smirked, he seemed to think it was a fitting punishment.
This place was horrible. The smell of burning hair made Mari want to gag.
It's okay, she reminded herself. Lee is in Elysium. He'll never even have to see this.