Chapter Text
Zagreus has fought his way through Tartarus, Asphodel, Elysium, and the Temple of the Styx a hundred times now. No, that doesn’t sound quite right. Two hundred times? Three hundred times?
Perhaps it is better to boast that he has fought his way to the surface far more times than he can remember. It’s certainly easier.
But in all those times, there has never been another person in the Temple of the Styx, staring down Cerberus as he growls and snaps his teeth with more ferocity than Zag has ever seen from him in his life. The woman in question moves her head back out of the way of his snapping teeth and spins her sword in her hand, narrowing her eyes at the space between Cerberus’ right and middle heads, and Zagreus’ feet scorch through the stone as he dashes forward.
“Hey!” he yells out before the woman can attack, “What do you think you’re doing to my dog?”
Cerberus instantly relaxes at the sound of his voice but the woman spins the short sword in her hand again in clear warning as she glances over at him out of the corner of her eye, “Nothing. Well, nothing so long as he lets me through without trying to bite my head off again.”
“Well, it is his job to keep people from breaking into the Underworld,” Zagreus half laughs, readying himself to throw a bloodstone at the woman should she make to attack Cerberus.
But the woman only spins her sword in her hand a third time and grins, “And here I was thinking that his job was to keep the dead from escaping the Underworld, not to keep the living from breaking in. So my question is, why isn’t he attacking you?”
“Me!?” Zagreus exclaims in mock indignation, “Cerberus would never hurt me!”
The woman only grins wider, “Care to make sure he doesn’t hurt me either?”
“Maybe if you put down that sword.”
The woman spins her sword in her hand one more time before she returns it to her back and holds her hands up by her head with another grin. Zagreus takes a step forward and pats Cerberus’ flank, “It’s alright, boy, she won’t hurt you. She’s a friend.”
Cerberus whines for a moment, but Zagreus gives him another scratch on his butt and he eventually sits down with a few happy thumps of his tail as Zag turns to the woman, “Now that that’s settled, let’s get to know each other a little bit. Let’s start with our names. Mine’s Zagreus. What’s yours?”
“Kassandra.”
“Hello, Kassandra, it’s nice to meet you,” he gives her a friendly smile, “What brings you to the Underworld today? Or is it tonight? I can never quite tell.”
“Sightseeing.”
“Sightseeing? In the Underworld?”
Kassandra grins again, but this time, Zagreus looks past her smile to see her red rimmed eyes and the way her lip quivers a smidge as she forces a laugh through gritted teeth, “Yes. Sightseeing. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Who did you lose?”
Her false grin falls in an instant and she swallows hard. “Her name was Phoibe,” she says in a voice thick with grief, “I never really figured out if she was my daughter or if she just wanted to be my sister, but no matter what she was, she was my family. And she died - she was murdered because I was only a few seconds too late to save her. She was barely fourteen.”
“I’m very sorry,” Zagreus bows his head as he offers his condolences, “It sounds like you loved her very much.”
“I do.”
She speaks in the present tense rather than the past and her purpose in the Underworld becomes clear in an instant: “You are here to bring her back from the dead.”
Her hand twitches to draw her blade once more, “Yes.”
Zagreus sighs heavily. “There is no escape from the Underworld, Kassandra,” he says gently, “It’s simply not possible to bring someone back to life.”
“It is also supposed to be impossible to survive being thrown from Mount Taygetos,” Kassandra says cooly, “Yet here I am.”
Oh.
He studies her in interest upon learning that she’s already survived certain death, searching for the divinity in her. Kassandra is much taller than him, maybe even taller than Achilles and Patroclus, and is statuesque in a way he’s come to associate with his parents and grandmother and uncles and cousins. She’s beautiful too. Mortally so, but there is a touch of that otherworldly beauty that only the gods can claim.
“You are a demigod.”
She flinches slightly at the word, a flash of annoyance in her eyes before her face smooths out of all emotion and she shrugs, “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. The last time I saw him, the man that I grew up believing was my father told me that I wasn’t really his blood and nothing more. Only my mother knows the truth and I haven’t seen her in seventeen years.”
His heart goes out to her, knowing the pain of growing up without a mother himself, “I’m very sorry for your loss, Kassandra.”
“She’s not dead,” Kassandra says forcefully, her jaw set stubbornly and eyes blazing with fury, “She’s on the island of Naxos. And as soon as I get Phoibe, we’re headed straight there without any further delays.”
He takes a step forward and studies her again, now somehow even more convinced that they share blood. She has the same sharp cheekbones and strong jawline of Athena and Ares and her hair has the same slight curl as Artemis and Dionysus’ locks. And as he gets closer, he is reminded of the boons of his uncle, the sweet crisp smell of thunder and lightning clinging to her skin and sparking in her blood.
Zagreus grins, “I have my suspicions and I think I’ll call you cousin, just in case.”
Kassandra shrugs again, “You can call me whatever you like, so long as you don’t get in my way.”
“I won’t,” he says cheerfully, “Provided you join me on a quick little detour.”
She blinks at him in surprise, “I’m sorry, what? A detour?”
“My father has tasked me with finding holes in the Underworld’s security, and right now, that means I have to go find our chief guard, good old Cerberus here,” he pats his flank and receives a slobbery kiss in return, “A satyr sack.”
Kassandra raises an eyebrow, “A satyr sack?”
“Just a little treat for a job well done!” he continues to explain, “The problem is, just like the rest of the Underworld, the Temple of the Styx likes to rearrange itself and so I never know which door to go through. Not to mention that this place is crawling with all sorts of little nasties. I could use the help!”
All the emotion suddenly leaves her expression, her face an unreadable mask as she stiffly nods, “Of course, my lord.”
Oh.
He does not like that at all.
But what else can he do? His father would have his head if he let her through to Elysium, and he has no desire to kill her. Nor does he want to send her to her death - demigod or not, she is still mortal. He’s fought his way through the Underworld hundreds of times now and even he still sometimes meets his demise long before he can be taken by the Styx. No matter how skilled a warrior she is, there is no way Kassandra could survive on her own.
So an impossible task and a false promise to help is all he can give her, no matter how much he dislikes the idea of tricking her.
“You do not need to help me, Kassandra,” he says softly, “But it is my job to find the holes and gaps in the Underworld’s security so my father and the House can close them up. So even if it was possible to bring someone back from the dead, I couldn’t help you, no matter how much I would like to. Nor do I want to send you to face your death alone. But I can see if you can hold your own in an encounter with the Vermin and Snakestones and Satyrs in the Temple of the Styx. And if you somehow manage to do so, then I’ll send you on your way into Elysium. But I will not send you to your death if I can help it.”
“Any chance of just directing me to Elysium?” she asks in a dry voice, “Or is this just another fucking thing that I’m supposed to pretend I have a choice in doing?”
Zagreus winces, “I’m sorry, Kassandra.”
Her eyes fill with fury. “Sorry?” she growls at him, “You’re sorry? No, you don’t get to be sorry. You don’t get to pretend to be on my side while you refuse to help me, my lord.”
He opens his mouth to protest but faster than he can blink, Kassandra’s short sword is in her hand once more, a longer curved blade in the other. “So here are your options, Prince Zagreus. Either you point me towards Elysium and I let you go, or. . .”
She spins the short blade in a clear threat.
Zagreus draws his sword with a heavy sigh, cursing that it has come to this. “You can still turn back, Kassandra,” he pleads, “You can go to Naxos and reunite with your mother. Live your life. All mortals end up here one day. You will see Phoibe again, I swear it.”
Her face twists into a snarl and he gives her one last chance, “I don’t want to kill you, Kassandra.”
“Don’t worry,” she gives him a feral grin, “You won’t.”
Then she lunges forward and he barely has a second to raise his sword and block her attack. Then another. Then another.
He tries to tell himself that he hasn’t gone on the offensive yet because he doesn’t want to hurt her. The truth is, he doesn’t even know if he could.
Zagreus knows how to fight off multiple opponents at once, and what’s more, he’s fantastic at it. He knows how to exploit the weaknesses of his opponents, how to spot the gaps in their defense and attack when they don’t expect it. But it took time and practice to get that good, and he’s never fought Kassandra before. Hell, he’s never even fought someone like Kassandra before.
Kassandra fights with a blade in each hand, her attacks perfectly coordinated in a way that Theseus and Asterius could only dream of. No matter how quickly he moves, she is always already there, attacking right before he can strike. There are no weaknesses to exploit, no gaps in her defense. Zagreus barely has the chance to block one attack before he has to parry the next, and then another and then another. Over and over and over again until one of Kassandra’s blades is slashing across his side, ripping deep into his flesh, so close she nearly cuts into his ribs.
Stygius clatters to the ground a second later and one of Kassandra’s blades rests at his throat before Zagreus can even really process what has happened.
“Last chance, Prince Zagreus,” Kassandra says quietly, her face hard and cold despite the note of pleading in her voice, “Point me to Elysium and I’ll be on my way.”
“I’m sorry, Kassandra,” he sighs, “But even if you somehow manage to fight your way through Elysium and Asphodel and Tartarus to get an audience with my father, he will never let you bring your Phoibe back to life. No one escapes this place. It’s impossible.”
The blade at his neck shakes for a second before Kassandra steadies herself once more, swallowing hard as she presses the point further into his skin. He feels a drop of blood trickle down his throat.
“Please,” she nearly begs him, “Please help me. I don’t want to have to kill you. I just want Phoibe back.”
“I can’t,” Zagreus says quietly, “And even if I could, you can’t bring someone back from the dead.”
Something strange flashes in her eyes and Kassandra pulls the blade away from his throat. For a second, he thinks he’s somehow convinced her to give up her hopeless crusade, to leave the Temple of the Styx and return to Greece. To find her mother on Naxos and keep Phoibe alive in her memory, to live her life and be content with the knowledge that she will one day be reunited with her sister-daughter in death.
And then Kassandra raises her leg and kicks him squarely in the chest and into the Styx.