Through the Burning Fires of Hell // A Nico Di Angelo Fanfiction (On Hold)

Chapter 8

Nico

Nico was fully, fully aware of what Raven was. A blood daughter of the primordial goddess of night and the primordial god of the darkness and the mist. Nyx and Erebus. Two of the most feared names in the world. Not even Zeus would dare cross them. From what he'd seen, her powers were vast. She'd killed over a dozen monsters with nothing but blades in the blink of an eye, and the battle he'd fought at her side with the Earthborn had left him breathless at her skill. Raven was a demigod on a whole other level.

And yet. Elian's name had been like a brick to the face. Raven stared at him, pain, grief, and guilt filling her beautiful golden eyes. Sitting there, she looked so small, and Nico was filled with the sudden urge to hold her.

As he watched her face, a cold, blank mask slid into place. "How did you find out?" Raven said with cold quiet.

"I put the pieces together. Then I went into the library and found the box."

Raven met his eyes. "How did you find the box? I'd shielded it."

There was nothing of the fierce, fiery girl he'd come to know. Just cold, empty blackness. There wasn't light in them. None at all. Nico swallowed at her hollow eyes. "Your bird showed me."

Raven stared at him, her face unreadable. After a long silence, she sighed. "Well, if Umbra told you, then I guess I can too."

Raven folded her arms around herself and took a breath. "I met Elian on my birthday a hundred thirty-one years ago, since I can only go up to the human world on my birthday once a year. When I do, all of the stuff that makes me me," she gestured to her wings and mouth, "disappear. Along with my immortality. So, when I met Elian, I was just a normal demigod. Of course, he was one as well. A son of Apollo."

She smiled wistfully. "Long story short, we spent the day together, and then I went back down. Next year, when I went up again, I wasn't expecting anything to happen. After all, nothing ever had. But he was there, waiting, at the same spot when we'd last met." She dropped her eyes to the ground. "I didn't tell him that I lived in Tartarus, but he asked me when he could see me again in a letter delivered by Thanatos, and I'd sent back, same day, same time. He'd waited. For a year, for a girl he'd just met. Because of that, I told him, that day, about me. Everything."

Raven's wings curled around herself. "And he didn't run screaming in the other direction."

Nico could only stare.

"When I left this time, he promised to write. Everyday. Honestly, that was why Hermes built a shrine and sunk it to Tartarus. So he didn't have to fly to Thanatos daily." A smile tugged at her face. "My brother was pissed at me for a while because of that."

"For the next year, we exchanged letters in secret. Then, the third time I went up, he told me that he wanted to come with me." Raven shook her head. "You can imagine how that conversation went. I adamantly refused. No way was I letting Elian come down into Tartarus just because he loved me. But my resolve was crumbling. I was so selfish. I had no human interaction down here, and my mother and sister were brutal. Thanatos only visited once a week, and though I spent much time with Damasen, he was a giant. My father was great, though, but he rarely had time for me. So at sunset, I told him that if next year, he still wanted to come with me, then I'd take him."

"That was the biggest mistake of my life."

A few tears escaped from Raven's eyes, tracing a path down her lovely face.

"Next year, he was there. And he had his answer. The photos in the book that you found were from that. In my craving for human accompaniment and him, the knowledge of what my mother and sister would do if they found out completely slipped my mind. We went back down, I built this cave, and we stayed here for almost a year. I was so stupid and naive. I thought that everything would be alright as long as I had Elian. Apparently, he thought so as well, for he even offered to let me drink his blood once."

Tears were rolling down her face now, and Nico had to stifle the urge to wipe them away.

"His was the last I drank. A few days before Elian's nineteenth birthday, the summer solstice, Eris visited."

Oh, shit, Nico thought.

"I tried to shield him, but she was the goddess of strife. She turned him against me, then killed him in front of my eyes and laughed while doing it. Then, she tossed his remains to her pack of hellhounds and made me watch as they ripped him apart. After, she dragged me back to my mother's house and told her everything. Nyx was furious. She ranted about how love was a weakness, blah blah blah, I was the daughter of Night, etc. And then punished me, and took a damn long time doing it. I spent three months recovering from my wounds. Thankfully, my father intervened, or I would have likely been immobilized for a year."

Raven finally raised her eyes from the floor to meet his. Her tears were gone, and only icy cold remained on her face. "My selfishness caused his death. After, as soon as I was healed, I started from the top of Tartarus and slaughtered everything. Everywhere I went, monsters died. For a year, I did nothing except kill, and one day, I just didn't have the energy to get up. Only knowing that Elian would have wanted me to live kept me from leaping into Chaos. He was so pure, and I took his death and became a monster."

Nico didn't know what to say. What could he say? She'd met a boy, fallen in love, then watched, helpless, as her own sister killed him and fed him to her dogs. Then, she'd been tortured for days by her mother as a discipline. And then, went on a killing spree for a whole year. There was nothing to say. So, Nico got up from where he was sitting on the mat and embraced Raven.

Her arms wrapped around him, and her wings cocooned them both unconsciously. Nico breathed in her scent, which, his brain unconsciously registered, smelled like citrus with a hint of nutmeg over night-chilled mist. He kept on forgetting that he was actually taller than Raven, which was brought into focus when she buried her face in his neck. All thoughts eddied out of his head until the only thing he was aware of was Raven's body around his and her scent.

They stood like that, Raven's wings wrapped around him, for a silent moment. Then, she let him go abruptly and turned the other way. "Sorry."

"Hey." Nico reached out and spun her around, taking in her golden eyes and the shredded soul underneath. "It's okay."

Raven shook her head. "It's not. It was my fault he died, and then I went right up and became a monster."

"No, you didn't," Nico said softly. "You didn't kill me. And you're still not drinking blood."

Raven shook her head, silent. "Ask your other question. It's done and over with."

Nico hesitated. There was really one one other question he had, but he didn't know how well it'd go over with Raven. "Wh-what are you going to do once you get me out of here?"

"Once I get you out of here?" Raven shrugged. "Go back to whatever I was doing before you fell into Tartarus."

"You can't be serious!" Nico said. He stood up, unable to sit down anymore. "You're just going to stay here?"

"Where else can I go?" Raven replied. "Not only would Nyx never allow me to leave, Zeus would kill me the second I stepped foot out of Tartarus if it wasn't my birthday."

"We'll figure something out. Just come with me."

Raven met his gaze, her golden eyes shimmering with pain and sadness. "I can't. That's that." 

She stood up and turned away from Nico and when she turned around again, after a few seconds, her face was completely devoid of anything that had transpired here. Raven smirked, her mask of flippancy falling back into place. "Let's go, son of Hades. Time's wasting. We need to get you to the doors. Let's go." 

She turned around and stalked out of the room without a backward glance. 

Nico stared after her. He often, no, always, felt utterly alone in this cruel world. No one understood him, no one wanted him around, and there was no one that he could trust. He'd been alone. 

Until Raven. Raven knew, Raven understood, and Raven saw him. Really saw him, the way no one ever had. He'd seen the cracks in her mask, the pain she couldn't quite hide away from him, and knew that living her life the way she did, would kill a bit of her soul day by day. 

He didn't want to leave Tartarus and forget all about the only person who'd ever seen him. 

He didn't want to leave her, and since staying in Tartarus wasn't an option, the only other option was getting her out.