Tartarus and the Dramatic Entry

The colossal gates stretched into the sky, their gilded edges flickering under the pale, sourceless light. Lian stood frozen, arms stiff at her sides, staring up at them like she was waiting for the universe to offer an apology.

"So... there’s no other carriage?" she asked, monotone.

"I fear there’s no other carriage," Zhuxen echoed, but her voice had the faintest lilt to it — the kind of lilt one only used when trying not to sound too disappointed that the person delivering bad news happened to be devastatingly attractive.

Both women turned toward Thanatos, who leaned lazily against the gate, adjusting the cuff of his black coat as if he had just emerged from a fashion catalog for the criminally handsome.

"Correct," he purred. "No other carriage." And then, as if the universe hadn't already made him insufferable enough, he blinked — slow, deliberate — lashes brushing down like velvet curtains.

Zhuxen’s spine visibly straightened, her mouth half-parted, as if her soul had briefly left her body just to sigh somewhere in private.

Lian, utterly immune to whatever black magic was happening beside her, flailed a hand toward the gate. "And what about our baggages? The ones with Her Ladyship’s finest gowns? The ones stitched by the royal seamstresses of Velmoria—"

"Hand-stitched," Zhuxen corrected dreamily, still staring at Thanatos like a woman who would happily trade her soul for five uninterrupted minutes of eye contact.

Thanatos's smirk deepened, and oh, how Zhuxen hated that smirk — mainly because it made her want to fling herself off the nearest cliff in the hope he would catch her.

"Technically... those are gone," he drawled.

Zhuxen’s heart thudded painfully in her chest — not because of the dresses, but because Thanatos made the word gone sound downright seductive.

Lian, meanwhile, had launched into a full-on meltdown. "Gone?! You—you disposed of Lady Zhuxen’s gowns? Do you have any idea how many starving orphans could have been fed with just the embroidery on those bodices?"

Thanatos tapped his chin, pretending to consider. "If the orphans were fashion-forward, perhaps."

Zhuxen's cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink, which she immediately tried to pass off as rage. "You—you heartless bastard!"

Thanatos's grin stretched wider. "Ah, but I'm your heartless bastard now, aren't I?"

Lian gawked, scandalized. Zhuxen spluttered something unintelligible, half outrage, half prayer.

"Relax, Lady Song." Thanatos shoved off the gate, brushing past Zhuxen close enough that the scent of him — something dark and smoky, like leather and promises no decent man should ever make — made her knees nearly buckle. "I gave you both something far more valuable than a closet full of overpriced table linens."

Zhuxen’s heart leapt traitorously into her throat.

"And what's that?" she managed to choke out.

"Your lives." He flicked a gloved hand toward the gate, which began to creak open, exhaling a cold breath that smelled faintly of rot and broken dreams.

Zhuxen's eyes fluttered shut for half a second — mostly to compose herself, partly to suppress the wild urge to fling herself into his arms and demand he carry her directly into the abyss.

"Besides..." Thanatos leaned in just enough to make her forget how lungs worked. "Those dresses wouldn't last five minutes in there."

With a sharp grin, he slammed the gates shut again.

"Not yet," he murmured. "Wouldn't want my precious little heir sticking out like a glittering hors d'oeuvre, would we?"

Zhuxen’s heart skipped so violently it nearly fell out of her ribcage.

"Hors d'oeuvre?" Lian echoed faintly.

"Yes." Thanatos’s grin sharpened. "You know... snacks."

Zhuxen was 90% sure he had just called her precious and 100% sure she would willingly let herself get devoured if Thanatos was the one serving her up on a platter.

"So anyway," Thanatos drawled, inspecting his fingernails like the fate of two souls hanging in the balance was just a minor inconvenience. "Since it's Lady Song's bright idea to tag along with me—" he shot Zhuxen a pointed glance, which she very nearly mistook for a flirtation— "and you, my dear—" he turned to Lian with a devilish smile— "are merely the plus one, there shouldn't be any objections if I ask you both to follow my rules... right?"

Zhuxen, predictably, nodded so fast she almost dislocated her own neck.

Lian, predictably, shook her head like a woman still clinging to the last shreds of sanity.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Lian's head snapped toward her mistress, eyes wide with scandal. "My Lady!" she gasped, slapping a hand over her own mouth as if she had accidentally uttered the name of some forbidden deity.

Never — in all her years of service — had she seen Lady Zhuxen agree to any man. Not her father. Not the King. Not the royal tailor who once tried to suggest that lilac wasn't her color.

But here she was — nodding along like a besotted fool — to a man she had met barely an hour ago, who claimed to be none other than Thanatos himself, the very figure from her grandmother’s ridiculous bedtime stories.

It was enough to make Lian seriously consider that she had died somewhere along the journey and this was some elaborate fever dream.

Thanatos, of course, looked thoroughly pleased with himself — the kind of pleased that suggested he was used to women nodding at whatever came out of his mouth, whether it was good advice or complete nonsense.

"See? The lady agrees." He shot Lian a smug grin. "Try not to faint, darling. I know how hard it must be to watch a woman fall so hopelessly under my spell."

Zhuxen made a strangled noise that was definitely not a swoon, thank you very much.

Lian, meanwhile, was actively calculating how many generations of her bloodline had been cursed to end up in this exact situation.

"Now," Thanatos announced, holding one hand at chest level like a magician preparing for the grand finale. His sharp gaze flicked to the carriage they'd arrived in — or rather, what used to be the carriage — as it was unceremoniously dragged into the abyss by some thing they all mutually agreed not to acknowledge.

Zhuxen and Lian hadn't even noticed they'd already crossed into the threshold of Tartarus' gates — not that anyone could blame them. From the outside, the gates bore an uncanny resemblance to the wrought-iron ones back at Zhuxen's mansion. A little taller, a little gloomier, but nothing a wealthy heir with severe daddy issues hadn't seen before.

Thanatos stretched his fingers, and the air around his hand shimmered. Black miasma unfurled from his palm like liquid shadow, curling and twisting into something half beautiful, half nightmare.

Zhuxen, having already witnessed his powers once before, clapped her hands together like an over-excited child watching a street performer. If someone had given her a rose, she probably would've thrown it at his feet.

"Oh, he's doing it again!" she squealed under her breath, her cheeks flushed.

Lian, who had been teetering dangerously close to the edge of her sanity for several minutes now, finally gave up and crumpled to the ground like a sack of traumatized potatoes.

Zhuxen spared her maid a brief glance — mostly to check if she had landed in a way that wouldn't wrinkle her dress — before refocusing entirely on Thanatos with eyes so starry it was a miracle they didn't summon a constellation.

Thanatos didn't even blink at Lian's collapse. He simply smirked, eyes still locked on the swirling miasma.

"Two souls in, and one’s already broken," he mused. "I'm better at this than I thought."

A faint groan signaled Lian's return to the waking world — just in time to spot the black mist writhing in his palm.

She promptly passed out again.

Zhuxen barely noticed.

"Can you do it again, but slower this time?" she asked, hands clasped together like a maiden begging for a love poem.

Thanatos's smirk faltered — just a fraction — at Zhuxen's request, but with a dramatic sigh, he complied. Because if he didn't, he knew she'd never shut up about it.

Slowly — painfully slowly — the miasma in his hand thickened, swirling into a viscous black liquid. It looked like the kind of substance that might scream if you touched it. At first, it remained an unremarkable shade of death-black — but then Thanatos rolled it between his fingers, and the liquid began shifting colors.

Dark purple. Crimson. Wine.

The exact shades a person might expect to see swirling inside a cursed chalice moments before someone dropped dead.

Zhuxen clasped her hands tighter, her eyes sparkling as if he'd just poured her the finest cocktail in the underworld.

"Drink this." Thanatos held the potion out like a dark offering. "It will help you blend in with the souls around this place."

Naturally, Zhuxen nodded at once, already halfway reaching for it like he had just proposed marriage.

Lian — who was still sprawled on the ground in the dignified pose of a woman whose entire worldview had been repeatedly shattered in the past hour — weakly raised a trembling finger.

"I—" she croaked, struggling to sit up. "Beg to disagree."

Thanatos didn't even spare her a glance. "Noted."

Zhuxen, of course, was already leaning forward, one hand delicately brushing her hair behind her ear in a way that she absolutely did not rehearse in front of a mirror.

"If... If I drink this... will it hurt?" she asked, fluttering her lashes with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

Thanatos's grin flicked back into place, sharp and knowing.

"Only if you're into that sort of thing."

Lian made a strangled sound like her soul was actively trying to leave her body again.

Zhuxen's cheeks burned hotter than the flames of Tartarus itself — but that didn't stop her from snatching the potion like it was the last glass of wine at a royal banquet.

Lian clawed at the ground. "My Lady, no!"