Hades' Daughter by Sara Douglass

Author:Sara Douglass [Sara Douglass]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780730444633
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Part Four

London, March 1939

“Does Asterion have Cornelia?” said Stella. “Ah, my love, I cannot answer that. You know I may not speak of him.”

Skelton regarded her bitterly, wishing he could step back three thousand years and do everything so differently. Wishing he could have forced the truth from her then. Wishing he could do so now.

Something in her face shifted, and Skelton saw the yearning deep within her.

“The remaining kingship bands?” she said. “Are they safe?”

“Is it you who asks, or Asterion?” he said.

Her eyes filled with tears, and she dropped her gaze.

“This is the last opportunity we will have. The last Gathering,” Skelton said softly. “What chance do we have, Stella?”

“There is always hope,” she whispered, still not looking at him.

“Do you think I find comfort in clichés?” Skelton said. “Look!” He took the newspaper he’d kept folded under his arm and shook it out. “Look!”

Despite herself, and even knowing what it revealed, she glanced down at The Times. “Munich Betrayed!” screamed the headline.

“Hitler has invaded Czechoslovakia,” Skelton said. “The Rhineland, Austria and the Sudetenland have all gone. Now Czechoslovakia. Asterion is behind this. I can smell it.”

She said nothing.

“This is a bleak tide indeed sweeping down upon us,” he said. “Aimed at you…at me…at that.” He jerked the newspaper towards St Paul’s. “This time he is going to destroy the Game completely, and you and me and Cornelia with it. The world with it, Stella. Everything.”

Now Stella looked further down the Thames to where the Houses of Parliament rose in the distance. “Perhaps—”

“Them? They are merely the tired sons of a long line of tired aristocrats. They can do nothing against what Asterion is going to throw at London this time. Ye gods, Stella, have you not thought of what weaponry Asterion can use now? Have you not thought of what he can do with it?”

“Brutus—”

“Don’t call me that! Brutus died a long time ago, a sad, broken, hateful man. I stand here now.”

He drew in a deep breath. “What I need to know, Stella my dear, is whether I stand alone. Are you with me? Can you do what is needed?”

Stella turned aside her face as answer, and Skelton’s expression hardened.

“Tell Asterion,” he hissed, “that if he wants the remaining kingship bands, then he is going to have to kill me to get them!”

And then he was gone, his footsteps ringing out into the night.

“He is going to kill us all,” Stella whispered. “You should know that by now, Brutus.”

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