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Nyx in the House of Night

Nyx in the House of Night

Titel: Nyx in the House of Night Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jordan Dane
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when she visits the other side, just like Greek heroes of old, but her journey is different. To begin with, she didn’t travel there on purpose. But the key difference is that, while Zoey’s spirit visits the Otherworld, her physical body does not. In all Greek myths, heroes who travel to the Underworld do so as flesh and blood mortals. The danger they face is death: traveling to the Underworld means they risk getting stuck there for good.
    We learn in the next book, Burned , that the danger Zoey faces is also death if her spirit is away from her body for too long. But, far worse, if she can’t pull the pieces of her soul together, she’ll become a Caoinic Shi’, one who’s neither dead nor alive, doomed to restlessness for eternity. (Caoinic Shi’ is not from Greek mythology, but according to P.C., is based on Gaelic words that roughly translate to “fairylike” or “ghostly.”)
    When Zoey awakens in the Otherworld, she has no clue where she is, and at first, she doesn’t care. She’s at peace, even euphoric, with no memory of what happened, and walks through a beautiful meadow, then into a grove of rowan and hawthorn. To enter Elysium, souls had to cross the river Lethe, known as the river of forgetfulness. They were made to drink the water and forget their mortal life. Zoey doesn’t drink anything, but like those Greek souls, she doesn’t remember who she is, or how she came to be there. Initially, her presence in the Otherworld seems like a good thing—she’s happy and safely beyond Neferet and Kalona’s reach. But because she’s not dead, her spirit can’t remain at peace for eternity. As soon as she sees Heath, she realizes this is the Otherworld and that he is there because he’s dead, which she believes is her fault. Her euphoria disappears, her memory returns, and she’s heartbroken all over again. The return of her memory also brings out the wraithlike figures that represent the shattered pieces of her soul, and her recognition of them is Heath’s—and our—first clue that Zoey has a serious problem.
    Back in the real world, James Stark is attempting to cross the boundary between this side and the other to save her. Echoing the myth of the cave at Taenarum, where Odysseus let the blood of a ram and a ewe trickle into the Underworld, Stark’s blood drips into narrow trenches that disappear into the Earth, putting the Otherworld on notice that a living mortal wishes to visit. As soon as his spirit leaves his body, he faces his first obstacle: the Black Bull. Sure, the Black Bull is kind and good, Light embodied, but in a show of ultimate tough love, the bull forces Stark to prove his determination.
    There are some fascinating parallels between Heracles, the greatest hero of Greek myth—or Hercules, as he was known in Roman mythology—and Stark. Heracles was the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, and Zeus’ wife, Hera, was insanely jealous of her husband’s lovers and their offspring. She caused trouble for the boy from the moment of his birth. Heracles managed to overcome Hera’s nasty plots against him until she made him temporarily mad, and in his delusion, he killed his wife and children. When he was himself again, he was horrified by what he’d done and sought atonement. He was given twelve labors to complete, most of them completely impossible, yet he managed to accomplish each one. The last of Heracles’ twelve labors was to kidnap the three-headed beast Cerberus from the Underworld. Before he descended, he took part in the Eleusinian Mysteries, an initiation rite celebrated in Ancient Greece that was believed to unite the worshipper with the gods and assure them passage to the Elysian Fields when they died. No one knows for sure what was done during the Eleusinian Mysteries, because initiates were sworn to secrecy and, incredibly, no one ever told, but what is known is that visions were involved. When Heracles was done with his initiation, he began his journey to the Underworld and was able to capture Cerebrus, completing his twelve labors.
    Stark’s journey follows a similar path. From the time Stark proved himself to be a prodigy archer, Neferet caused him grief, manipulating circumstances so that he would ultimately wind up at the Tulsa House of Night. After causing his untimely death, Neferet brings Stark back as a red fledgling, then commands him to use his gift of always hitting his target to shoot an arrow through Stevie Ray’s heart, which results in the

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