Goddess (Starcrossed)

that had become familiar to her. She was expecting to appear on the infinite beach that never led to an ocean, or in the boneyard of the Ice Giants where Cerberus had chased her and Orion, or even in the ever-creepy Fields of Asphodel where the hungry ghosts fed on the white blooms of the asphodel flower. But instead she found herself inside a great hall she’d never seen before.
    Black marble floors studded with Doric columns stretched out like a dark, petrified forest reaching up and back onto a seemingly infinite space. Giant brass braziers, twice her height, flickered with the golden fire of clean-burning oil scented with jasmine and amber. The air was desert dry. Jewels, embedded in every column’s decorative seams, took up the light. They refracted it around Helen so that everywhere she looked there were tiny rainbows—night rainbows that were created with neither sun nor rain.
    There had been one other time that Helen had seen the air sparkle like this all around her. It was when Lucas had made her invisible.
    “Lucas?” Helen cried, her voice splintering down the many avenues of columns in what she could only assume was Hades’ palace.
    “I’m here,” Lucas answered.
    Helen ran toward his voice, the sound of her shoes pounding against the ground, ringing out in all directions through the petrified forest of columns. She reached the head of the hall and skidded to a stop in front of a giant, white marble throne on top of a raised dais. It was carved to look like hundreds of skeletons, contorted in agony to support the man who had claimed it. She stopped.
    Lucas sat on the throne of death, black shadows seeping out of him like oozing tar. Helen looked for his heart and saw only darkness.
    “Oh, Lucas,” she said, her voice high and breathy with disbelief. “What did you do?”
    “The only useful thing left for me to do.”
    “You’re usually right,” she said, clenching her fists in frustration. “But this time you are so wrong.”
    “Hector’s the one everyone needs in their lives. Not me.”
    “I need you.”
    “You have Orion.”
    “I don’t have Orion. We’re just friends.”
    “Helen.” He sighed tiredly like he didn’t want to hear it.
    “I know that the lord of the dead has to be able to judge hearts. So judge mine,” she said, striding forward and mounting the steps that led to his throne. “Look at me, Lucas. Am I lying?”
    He studied her as she came closer, and doubt began to creep into his eyes.
    “I’m not with Orion,” Helen continued, climbing the steps slowly toward his throne. “I never really have been, and I’m certain now that I never will be, and you know why? Because it’s impossible for me to love anyone like I love you—and I really tried with Orion.”
    “I’m sure you did,” Lucas said, trying to sound forbidding, but there was the hint of a laugh in his voice.
    “It didn’t work. It’s like I have a built-in heckler in my head. I can’t even make out with another guy without hearing this stupid voice, telling me I’m an idiot and I’m screwing everything up.” Helen climbed a few more steps, and all the joking left her tone. “You’re the only one I’ll ever love. The only one I’m capable of loving completely. You’re it for me.”
    He looked away and swallowed. “So we love each other. So what? That doesn’t change the fact that we can’t be together.”
    His voice sounded convincing but, even as he spoke, the doubtful look on his face began to deepen, like he didn’t really believe what he was saying anymore. Like he didn’t fully understand why they couldn’t be together.
    Helen trudged up the last few steps, the weight of what she was about to tell him suddenly pressing down on her, slowing her pace.
    She knew what it felt like to have her heart broken. Lucas had done that to her once. This wasn’t simple and straightforward like that—like a single stab that was so painful you wished it just frigging killed you. What she felt now had so many barbs attached to it that no matter which way she turned the situation around in her head, she found a new way to get wounded by it.
    She crossed the dais to where Lucas sat in his throne and climbed into his lap. He stiffened with surprise as she sank against him, but was so overwhelmed by her sadness that he instinctively held her close. She couldn’t make herself say it out loud, so she put her arms around his neck, placed her lips close to his ear, and whispered the whole truth