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Chapter 36 - Between Scylla and Charybdis (Part II)

Chapter 36 – Between Scylla and Charybdis (Part II)

"Was that truly necessary?" Erebus asked as he cautiously approached his wife.

Nyx glared at the god of darkness and venomously retorted, "You stand idle while your son puts us all at risk. He is foolish and irresponsible. If it were up to me, he'd be restrained from all worlds. I should never have allowed him to weave dreams. He does not have the right..."

"Enough!" Erebus bellowed, startling Nyx because he had never raised his voice at her. "Icelus has learned a lesson that was not required to begin with. You punish him for falling in love."

"I am disciplining him," Nyx answered indignantly. "He could not get that discipline from you. Icelus is irresponsible like his father and weak like his mother."

A moment of silence passed as Nyx trembled where she stood. Whether she shook out of suppressed fury or contained emotions she'd never demonstrated before, Erebus would find out.

Erebus faced his wife, but stopped himself from touching her. She kept her eyes averted and stared at the leafless tree. After all this time, she still hurt.

"At last, the true reason," he said gently. "You are punishing our son for my one transgression. That was over three millennia ago. When would you forget?"

Nyx wrapped her arms around herself and murmured, "How could I forget when I am reminded of your betrayal every time I see Icelus. He is my nightmare."

Erebus hunched his shoulders and bowed his head. It had been one instance of folly that he deeply bemoaned. He had been at an extended convention in Achlys' domain and he'd been pining for his wife. Dionysus had been with him and they'd spent an evening imbibing too much. Erebus had found himself the following morning in Thera's embrace.

Thera had been one of Achlys' human apprentices. She had been expelled when her mentor, the goddess of misery and sadness learned about the clandestine incident.

Erebus regretted that day. But he could never regret having Icelus. As distressing as it was, he would willingly repeat the sordid affair if it promised him his son.

"You know what's ridiculous," Nyx continued, her voice cracking, "Achlys still feels guilty after all these years. She feels liable because that wretched episode happened in her kingdom. And even though I keep telling her it wasn't her fault, she wouldn't stop sending me necklaces made out of human bones as compensation."

Erebus grimaced. He may be the god of darkness, but there was something about the emaciated divinity of perpetual gloom with her incessant weeping and chattering teeth that disturbed him. Knowing that the skeletal goddess communed with his wife regularly, possibly plotting and suggesting his demise on some occasions, made him cringe.

Executing him would be too merciful though.

Nyx now looked at her husband, her eyes glassy, and told him, "Do you know how many times I'd considered severing Icelus' wings and banishing him to Tartarus just to have a shred of peace?"

Erebus shook his head. Then he stepped closer to his wife and whispered, "Does he deserve this hatred from his mother?"

A tear slipped from Nyx's eye, ran down her cheek and turned to a glistening white pearl by the time it hit the ground. The sight tore at Erebus. Nyx's beads of sorrow were extremely rare and valuable—gods would trade kingdoms for a single gemstone, but Erebus would rather be destitute than see his wife weep.

"I am not his mother," Nyx uttered desolately.

Erebus gazed at his beautiful wife, unacquainted with her display of vulnerability. It broke him.

"Icelus inherited your fondness for terrifying creatures and your wicked sense of humor," he stated, attempting to console his wife.

"But she had your love," Nyx lashed at Erebus, jealousy bleeding through her words. Nyx knew Erebus was innocent when she had visited Thera in her dreams and the woman confessed she had lured the god to her bed. Nyx made sure the mortal never woke up.

Yet despite her husband's proven blamelessness, the very fact that it had happened stung.

"I was never in love with Thera," Erebus said, recalling having this conversation several times that first century after the incident had happened. It had worn him out the first hundred years, but when Nyx had not mentioned it again in the succeeding centuries, he thought perhaps she had moved on.

Evidently, she hadn't.

And Icelus was getting the brunt of this extensively repressed resentment. It was not fair. It was not fair to Icelus. If Nyx was upset, then she should punish him, not their son.

"I could see the appeal of humans though," Nyx expressed grudgingly. "They have souls. They take precious care of their souls knowing it's their link to immortality."

A mortal's soul was fascinating, however Erebus sensed his wife was irrationally condemning all temporal beings out of bitterness. But this long-drawn-out acrimony was beneath Nyx. How could he make her understand and let go?

"Perhaps we gods have taken our souls for granted because we've taken our immortality for granted," Erebus spoke hesitantly then, "But Nyx, my love, where is your heart? Our son is innocent."

Nyx fell silent. She glanced at Icelus' shadows that remained frozen by her feet.

Her son's shadows.

Dejectedly, she countered Erebus, "If I had no heart, I would've slain that woman long before she bore that boy. I would not have wept and given Thanatos that pearl to spare that mortal child's life. I would not have given Icelus wings and treated him as my own."

Erebus reached for Nyx, elated by her admission of affection, but disheartened by the burden she carried all these centuries.

Nyx evaded the god's hand and said sulkily, "But then he thoughtlessly gave the pearl away to a mortal."

And like Icelus, she departed the dark glade, leaving her king with the wingless bats and the stagnant shadows.

Erebus was ridden with guilt. Over Nyx. Over Icelus.

**

A/N: Woohoo! Two chapters in a row... although it is just one chapter with two parts. Hehe

I hope you don't hate Nyx too much now. What? You want to castrate Erebus instead? :D Except for that one incident, he is very loyal to Nyx.

Again, thanks for reading, voting and commenting. Love you guys! :-*