Nyx in the House of Night

without choice—without freedom—love is hollow. You could win someone over by giving them a love potion, and at first you’d be happy just to have their affections. But soon, it would feel empty. You’d know that they had no choice, and that their feelings weren’t earned or real.
    Just as no human in their right mind should be satisfied with a love potion-derived relationship, no true deity should want to force obedience and devotion. God himself puts it best in Paradise Lost , when discussing the rebel angels:
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do, appeared,
Not what they would?
    There is no destiny but what we choose, and Nyx wouldn’t have it any other way.
JERI SMITH-READY is the author of the teen paranormal novels Shade and Shift , as well as the award-winning WVMP Radio adult vampire series, which includes Wicked Game , Bad to the Bone , and Bring on the Night . She lives in Maryland with her husband, two cats, and the world’s goofiest greyhound. Visit her on Facebook or Twitter, or at www.jerismithready.com.

{ The Otherworld Is Greek to Me }

    Trinity Faegen
    FROM CHARACTER names to story elements, P.C. and Kristin Casts’ House of Night series is a treasure trove of allusions to Greek mythology. Nyx’s origins are in Greek myth—she appears in Hesiod’s Theogony , Homer’s Illiad , and other ancient Greek texts. Aphrodite takes her name from the Greek goddess. But the references to Greek myth that fascinate me most are those related to Nyx’s Otherworld. The Casts have taken the ancient Greek’s Underworld and added their own imaginative twist, creating a colorful, intriguing new answer to the eternal question, “Where do we go after we die?” Just like the Underworld in Greek mythology, selective visits to the Otherworld by the living are allowed. Also just like the Underworld, some visitors can never leave. And while the two aren’t identical, there are enough similarities that it’s interesting to compare and contrast.
    The uncertainty of the afterlife is universal, a timeless question without an answer because all the experts are gone. With the field wide open for conjecture, there are countless myths and stories about life after death. Ancient civilizations across the globe had their own (often eerily similar) explanations for what happens after death, but thanks to rock-star writers like Hesiod and Homer, Greek myths remain the gold standard.
Afterlife of the Ancients
I n ancient times, Mesopotamians believed the dead dwelled in the Great Below, the Land of No Return, ruled by Ereshkigal. According to Alice K. Turner in The History of Hell , mortals lived on Earth, but patches of the other world adjoined this one. Similar to Greek myth, there are descent stories of mortals and other gods who visited the Great Below, some of whom returned to the living and some of whom didn’t.
In ancient Egypt, the afterlife was complicated, and the journey to Sekhet Hetepet, ruled by benign Osiris, was perilous. There were gates, portals, and the Hall of Justice, after which, if the dead made the cut and their heart wasn’t eaten by the monster Ammit, there were further dangers that could only be overcome by following instructions in the Book of the Dead. Unlike in Greek mythology, no one traveled to the other side unless they were dead, but the Otherworld of the Egyptians was so complicated, it’s easy to see why. Nobody but a dead guy would go through crocodiles, snakes, giant beetles, and the risk of having their heart eaten by a monster.
    Back in the day, ancient Greeks didn’t think of the Underworld as a bad place. It was simply where people went after they died. But it was still dangerous. Very few living mortals visited the Underworld, but those who did were considered heroic. Who but a hero would attempt to visit the land of the dead?
    One of the most famous of these visits is in Homer’s Odyssey , the story of King Odysseus’ ten-year journey home. After fighting the Trojans for ten years, he’s really ready to return to his kingdom and be reunited with his loyal wife, but things don’t go as planned and he faces one obstacle after another. Circe, a witch he encounters along the way, tells him he should seek the advice of a wise mortal, but since the guy she’s referring to is dead, Odysseus will have to visit the Underworld to find him. He