River of Shadows (Underworld Gods #1)(42)

We go down a long winding stairway lit by candles with dripping black wax, down, down, down. The air is damp in here, though it smells faintly like Death, something sweet and smoky, and the sound of his iron boots on the stone stairs echo against the circular walls, my chain clanking.

Finally, after I’m dizzy from going in circles, we stop and Death pushes a tall wooden door that opens with a loud creak.

I find myself stepping into a great hall of sorts, the ceilings impossibly high, the walls done in dark wallpaper with dripping candles, a room that’s completely empty except for the five figures standing in the middle of it. Four of them are cloaked, faces hidden, bony skeleton hands gripping the man in between them.

My father.

To see him already is a shock to the system. I wasn’t expecting to see him so soon, let alone see him at all. But there he is, wearing a black cloak like the rest of them, though his hood is back, and his face is clear, his hair white and balding at the top, a little long now at the nape of the neck, his beard long. His blue eyes aren’t twinkling like they used to, instead they’re full with both pain and with love.

But it’s him.

It’s my father.

“Papa!” I cry out. I can feel Death getting ready to make a move to restrain me, but I will not be restrained. I run forward with all my might, feeling an energy pulsing through me, one driven by love, and I whip the chain straight out of Death’s hands.

“Papa!” I cry again, running as fast as I can across the black marble floors of the hall, the chain clanging behind me with each step. I think I hear Death yell something, and the closer I get to my father, the more the cloaked guards hold him back, but I can’t stop myself.

I fling myself at him, burying my head in his neck, holding onto him even though he’s not able to hold on to me.

“Hanna!” he exclaims, his voice hoarse. “My dear Hanna!”

I start bawling. The tears just flow out of me like a river, spilling onto his cloak. The smell of him! Despite where he is, and how long it’s been, he still smells like home to me. He’s always been my home.

“Hanna, why did you come?” he cries out softly. “You never should have come. I don’t know how to protect you here.”

I straighten up, my vision blurry. It’s been years since I’ve seen him, but he looks the same as ever. Not a dying man, not a man who has been imprisoned by Death. I place my trembling hands on his cheeks. He’s warm to touch.

“It’s really you,” I whisper. “I thought you were dead.”

Suddenly I feel Death’s presence behind me and my father looks up and over me with fury in his eyes. “How dare you do this to her?” he snarls at Death. “You’ve chained her up, you monster! Treating her like an animal?!”

Death chuckles dryly. “Because she’s acting like an animal. Just as I am acting like a monster.” I feel tension on my throat as Death picks up my chain. “I’ll let you have your moment, but it’s only a moment. Nothing more.”

“Death is going to cure your cancer,” I tell him. “You’ll be able to live now.”

He shakes his head, eyes watering. “At what cost? The cost will be you, Hanna, and it will be too much to bear. Oh my sweetheart, look at you. Look how beautiful you are, even with this thing around your neck. You wear it like a queen.”

Something inside me breaks for the hundredth time. “I love you,” I whisper to him urgently, my collar starting to feel like a noose, the seconds counting down. “I love you Papa, so much, and I’m so sorry we didn’t get more time together, that I didn’t reach out when I should have, that I thought you’d always be there, like the sun and the moon. I didn’t know the sun and moon could be taken from me, but you were. You are. And I wish I could go back and make it so I stayed with you. I never should have left, I should have stayed.”

“Hanna, dear,” he says, trying to move his hands to hold me but the skeleton guards are strong. “You didn’t stay because it wasn’t your path. But I never stopped loving you, you know I didn’t, and I know you never stopped loving me. Your earrings…your earrings will let you know.” He looks over at Death again, a vein popping in his forehead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this furious before. “You let her go. You keep me, and let her go. I don’t want your cure. I’ll gladly die knowing she’s free.”

“Mmmmm,” Death muses. “How very predictable of you, Torben. But no. I’ll be keeping her. She interests me a lot more than you do. You’ll be going along now, back to the Upper World, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay there. Hanna belongs with me now. She belongs to Tuonela.”

“You let her go!” my father shouts. “Please, I beg of you!”

Death just reaches into his cloak and pulls out a small glass vial. In the glass vial is a writhing white centipede. I want to shrink away in horror, until I realize the centipede is meant for my father.

“You know, it was Rasmus who brought Hanna here,” Death says. “It was Rasmus who had the idea to trade Hanna for your life. Hanna, of course, was willing to do that no matter who suggested it. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of you, Torben. To have people love you that much, they would go to the ends of another world to try and save you…well, if you take anything away from this experience, it’s that you’re one lucky man.”