If Birds Could Sing

An underworld wedding would seem a grim affair to the living at first glance. 

Trellises hung with oozing black roses, their petals shining and drooping stickily onto the red grass carpet below. The benches and chairs, lined like soldiers before the altar, bore twisting, rotten limbs and creaked every time a guest stood or sat: an ear-sore if not for the quartet that led the newly-wedded couple in their first dance across the bleeding plains of Hades.

When Orpheus became a spy, she didn’t do it in pursuit of her lifelong dream to play a “Highway to Hell” cover for lyre quartet at a wedding she didn’t care about. Orpheus was a musician before she was a spy, but to use her talents for something so vain had her cringing from the soles of her feet to the top of her spiky black-haired head. 

But she had to stay focused; there was more at stake here than her pride. 

Orpheus’ eyes flicked up and away from her sheet music. A new face had entered the milling crowd of wedding guests. Some danced, others lounged and cooled their sweat with black-ferned fans… and others pretended to be waitresses. 

To the average partygoer, the woman was nothing to bat an eyelash at. She had no air of suspicion, though the symmetry in her practically braided silver hair drew its own kind of visual attention. Indeed, it seemed some were born too beautiful to be spies—though if the woman’s reputation was any indication, it hadn’t hampered her career thus far. Regardless, Orpheus didn’t find herself complaining, since the woman’s distinctive pointed ears confirmed the growing hunch that she was no mere mortal. She was a wood nymph, and a notoriously treasonous one at that. 

In spheres of espionage, she was codenamed Sage.

That name alone was enough to send shivers down the spine of any sane agent. 

The issue was, Orpheus observed as the woman wound her way through the crowd hefting a carafe of blood-wine, that it should never have been this easy. Sage was notorious for good reason, being that she continuously escaped the grasp of the very overseer of their domain. She was experienced. She should have, could have hid herself better.

Which led Orpheus to an unfortunate conclusion.

She wanted to be found. 

This complicates things, Orpheus thought with a sigh.

Before Orpheus can move, the nymph makes direct eye contact from below. Her heart freezes in place as those eyes pierce through her every secret and thinly-veiled intention. Sage’s lips curl in a taunting smile as she turns and retreats to the venue’s kitchens, white toga flaring behind her, mocking the musician with her nonchalance. 

Orpheus narrows her kohl-lined eyes in challenge back. Two can play at that game then, traitor.

In just moments, Orpheus is stepping forward and bowing as the song comes to a close, soaking in the polite applause of her audience. This moment never got old, Orpheus felt: the tickling thrill of approval that danced up her spine at every face which beamed upward in something akin to worship. Every curtain closing was a concise end, like cauterizing a wound before it infected. The trick was in staying long enough to stoke the fire of your ego, but turning before the crowd soured. 

And, most importantly, in never looking back. 

Orpheus had a reputation here, but she’d had a greater one in the overworld: a child prodigy, they’d called her. What had once felt like a burden placed on too-young shoulders had, in death, transformed into something to be reveled in. Death tended to put the things you did and did not do while alive into perspective. Every had- and hadn’t-been, every dream which sifted through one’s fingers like sugar—every few grains sticking, but most whipping away in the wind—slipped away upon one’s first look into the swirling, screaming Styx.

Everything was silent, at first. Scared people of all ages and creeds huddled like refugees within the hull of the ship. Everything was silent, as if the world was sucking in a giant breath, and when it finally released it, Charon began to whistle.

The tune had carried itself unabridged through the damp and darkened air like a four-winged blackbird; the melody, feathers slicing through the fog, the harmony, the gunshot of the hunter set on killing the wretched beast. One, the ugly yet honest truth, and the latter the ignorance which would snuff the unknown without a second thought. There was an imminent wrongness about Charon’s song that matched the fear within Orpheus’ heart. Her head was a lit fire, and every uncertain thought was kindling; but with every phrase Charon doused the flames, and little by little, Orpheus found acceptance. Everything was still wrong, everything was still fucked beyond belief—she was still a child, for Hades’ sake—but this boatman understood. It was his very doctrine, it seemed, to provide comfort in the deeply discomforting. 

In one bony hand he’d gripped a towering iron paddle, the length of it reaching impossibly far into the depths of the screeching Styx; in the other, a white flaming lantern held high above his hood, rings of moonlight pulsing out into the black before being extinguished for all of time. When he turned his head, the first thing one saw was a protruding ivory beak, patinated with age and cruelly, sharply veering downward at the tip. Orpheus wasn’t sure how one whistled with such an appendage, but she supposed if birds could sing then so, too, could the Chthonic boatman, whose massive hollowed eye sockets carried the enormous weight of every dream which died with their dreamer. 

And as she stepped off that skiff for the first and last time in her afterlife, lyre still clutched in soft little hands, she had made a choice. She would follow wherever the boatman’s tune took her, for better or for worse, and sail that ship to the end of the river, if ever an end came into sight. 

As two daggers impaled the kitchen door frame on either side of Orpheus’ head, she had the distinct notion that she could see that end far too clearly for comfort. She drew her lyre into playing position, a shield of deceivingly breakable strings between her and the next set of knives hurdling her way. She strums a precise triad, and their momentum breaks as the blades are repulsed away with a metallic clatter. 

A surprised laugh sounds from the otherwise silent room. 

“So it’s true then?” Sage slouches against the door opposite Orpheus. 

“The famous musician with her little lyre.” She seems to peel away from the very shadows themselves, like one shrugs off a cloak, and the ashen-haired nymph reveals herself. From this distance, Orpheus sees that her hair isn’t actually hair, but rather a collection of flat, wavy-edged silver fronds cascading over one another as they slip down her lean shoulders in braids. As nymphs are described in legend, her beauty cannot be overstated; it felt devastating to even look at her, a slight ethereal glow haloing her enrobed body and softening the extreme contrast between brown bark-like skin and sterling hair-leaves. Orpheus can see where she got her nickname now—not just Sage, but-

“The Silver Queen of the Underworld.” Orpheus regards her. The nymph pouts.

“Must we be so formal with each other?” Her voice even sounds silvery, a just-there echo of itself audible with every word she lets spill from her tongue. “Besides… Persephone doesn’t like when people call me that,” she flicks the tip of another dagger idly, clicking her tongue, “says it’s blasphemy. As if she didn’t forsake Demeter’s name when she left the surface to live with Hades.” She laughs. “Hypocrite.”

Orpheus’ pales at her reckless jabs.

This woman is either stupid, or holds way more power than I thought possible.

Sage took slow steps across the room towards her, dagger swinging threateningly around her finger in quick circles.

“Now, I’ve been so polite and you haven’t even introduced yourself yet… Of course, your reputation speaks somewhat for itself,” she nods at the lyre in her hands. 

Orpheus scoffs. “Do you often throw daggers at people you’re polite to? Or is that just me?”

“Yes, and no,” she says, smiling radiantly, “but rarely do I refrain from doing so.” The nymph flips her dagger into the air and grabs the hilt, the metal beads in her hair jingling at the motion. “So I suggest you explain what you’re doing at this wedding before my generosity runs out, Viper.” 

To anyone else, the name would have been an insult—snake. But to Orpheus, it was her codename. 

The two begin to circle each other with careful steps.

“I know you work for Hades, but what vested interest do you have in the Lady Constantine’s love life?” 

Orpheus recognizes the bride’s name—some Underworld hotshot who lived just outside the gates of the House of Hades in the darkly extravagant neighborhood of his most trusted and liked associates. But no, Orpheus wasn’t here for Lady or Lord Constantine. She was here because she received intel that the Silver Queen herself would be attending this wedding seeking a valuable target of her own, so Orpheus had been tasked with capturing her. She was vital to the rebel operations; without her, their mission progress would be delayed at the very least a few centuries, and Hades would finally have time to get the upper hand. 

It wouldn’t hurt that Orpheus might get a generous promotion, either, but that’s besides the point. 

“I could ask you the same question.” Orpheus sneered. Her feet slid across the slick ceramic floors.

“Don’t play games with me, Muse-spawn. What’s so important that you would lower yourself to playing some nobody Lord’s wedding?” She pointed her dagger, accusatory. But something was off. If the nymph were here for anyone but Orpheus, she would’ve struck already—and she would’ve done it in a much stealthier manner.

“You.” Orpheus says with a furrowed brow. 

“That makes no sense. My intel said you were here to assassinate one of the wedding guests. You couldn’t have known I would be here.”

They both halt in their movements. 

“I was told the same… about you.” Orpheus grimaces, connecting the dots.

“Lies!” Sage roars, lunging forward, daggers palmed. Orpheus’ hands shoot to her lyre, brain channeling her intentions. The moment the song hits the nymph’s ears, her movement is halved, then quartered, then astoundingly… she comes to a halt altogether. It’s as if time is frozen, and in the brief respite Orpheus spins to the kitchen counter, grabbing the bottle of olive oil she’d spied earlier and shattering it on the ground beneath Sage’s feet, greasy glass flying everywhere. She’s just barely sidestepped the nymph’s incoming momentum and unsheathed a knife of her own before time unfreezes. 

As the moment breaks, the nymph’s feet hit the oil and fly out from under her. She’s hurtling to the ground when Orpheus spies her opportunity and launches at her opponent. In a second, Orpheus is on top of her, pressing the tip of a small knife to Sage’s bared throat—not with intention to kill, but to threaten. 

It’s true, Orpheus was no match for the nymph’s combat skills—but even the famed Silver Queen of the Underworld was rendered more or less helpless by the magic of Orpheus’ song. 

She stares up at the musician with a medley of rage, surprise, and the barest hint of admiration. 

“Alright then, Viper,” she huffs from underneath Orpheus, eyes flicking down to where the knife grazed her throat with each inhale. “I’m listening.” Her eyes flick back up, and Orpheus is struck by the gray-green of her eyes. If she hadn’t known better, she’d say the nymph was a daughter of Athena: her skin, the branch of an olive bough, and her eyes the fruit which adorned them. It was a far cry from Orpheus’ own tannish skin and fierce black almond eyes, and it struck her again that someone so experienced in killing could also be so mesmerizing.

“What’s going on, then?” the nymph asks reluctantly. The muscles in her jaw flex, irritated but intrigued. 

Orpheus shifts her weight. “I’m… not entirely sure, to be honest. I just know I was sent here for you, and it seems you were sent here for me as well.” She bites her bottom lip, delaying the uncomfortable conclusion she’d already arrived at a while ago. “Your agents couldn’t have known I was coming here because I came here for you. But my agents couldn’t have known you were coming here either, unless…”

“Unless the agencies communicated with each other. We were double-crossed,” Sage swore under her breath, “But why? I trust—trusted my colleagues with my life. We all aspired to the same purpose…”

“Or so you thought.” Orpheus finished. She knew Sage’s purpose well—it’s the one Orpheus was briefed daily on how to prevent happening. For centuries, the rebellious group had made escape attempt after escape attempt, finding innumerable new ways to piss Hades off in their mission to return to the Overworld once and for all: to reclaim life itself. It had always sounded like rubbish to Orpheus; an enormous waste of time and effort. Mortals were only supposed to get one life. False hopes and pointless promises, that’s all the rebels touted.

And if Orpheus lived on the ones Hades had made to her upon joining his force? Well then, that was nobody’s business but her own. 

“Even if that were true, then why were we both brought…” Sage trails off as a quiet beeping starts from somewhere in the kitchen.

Their eyes meet and widen in tandem as the beeps speed up, growing louder, louder-

“Holy shit is that a-”

“Run!”

It’s a lethal slip-and-slide as they scramble to their feet, shards of glass flying as their shoes skid over oiled floors toward the exit. 

Protect the guests!

Orpheus prays internally, oily fingers skimming the lyre in a desperate plea. As they exit the building, her head whips to the side and sees a shimmering golden sphere like a mirage growing rapidly over the outdoor venue, guests baffled and children pointing fingers as they watch the sight unfold.

As she turns back, the kitchens explode in a blaze of sizzling heat. Orpheus is slammed onto her belly as bricks fly in every direction, lighting red grass redder with flame, and she glances left at Sage. Gazes meet and spark a flame of their own as they rise, brushing dirt from their clothes. In the firelight, the nymph looks otherworldly even with ashy cheeks, oil stains and dozens of stray cuts along her skin. Her eyes are different now, as if the explosion had singed off not just some of her hair but the mask of personality she’d been wearing during their fight. 

This was a different woman now—this was a tired woman. 

But not tired enough that she doesn’t storm forward, pushing at Orpheus’ chest.

“This is why we wanted to escape, don’t you see?” The nymph hissed at her, redirecting her anger and shock. “Why do you want to keep us here so badly? What is it to Hades if a couple misfits climb back up to the surface?” As she fumed, little green flecks of spittle flew off her lips: chlorophyll. She’d never studied nymph biology, but there clearly wasn’t enough sunlight in the Underworld to fuel any kind of photosynthesis. Maybe that’s why she’s so grumpy all the time?

But Orpheus’ heart broke a little as a single green tear slid down Sage’s cheek. 

“I’m sorry,” Orpheus whispered, “I was just doing my job… Hades promised-”

“Well we don’t have jobs anymore, Viper.”

Orpheus hesitated. She wouldn’t normally do this, but given the circumstances she thought it best they cooperate for now. And that meant telling Sage her real name. 

“Orpheus.” She turned her head. “Orpheus is my name.” She ignored the inner voice that called her unprofessional. 

“Eurydice.” The gentle word pulled Orpheus out of her thoughts. She smiled—it was a beautiful name.

“So what happens now, Eurydice?” 

She snorted softly. It was at such odds with her initial persona that Orpheus could’ve been speaking to a new woman entirely.

But as her thoughts gathered, Eurydice’s eyes hardened. “Whoever betrayed us isn’t gonna give up that easily. I need to know who betrayed us,” her head turns back to Orpheus, leaves swaying in blast-hot wind, “I need to know why, and… I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not go this one alone, Orpheus. Whatever’s happening, it’s both our problems.” 

She coughed. “Just until we’re safe, of course. Then we can go our separate ways. Deal?”

The proposal appealed to Orpheus—not just because she wanted to say yes to the strangely enamouring nymph, but after years of camaraderie with her fellow agents, she wasn’t entirely sure how to live alone. It had been a long time since she last did that, and she’d rather never do it again.

“Well, I’d have to secretly fetch my belongings from the agency-”

“Right, yes, as would I-” 

“But if you really wanted me to come along, then-”

“Did I say that? I don’t remember saying that.”

“-then I would be happy to.” Orpheus smiles. The nymph nods solemnly. “Meet me at the head of the Styx by nightfall. We’ll camp and talk next moves.” 

The agents head in opposite directions. Moments pass, and Orpheus can’t help but look back at Eurydice as the distance between them grows. The longer she watched, the more the nymph seemed to fade into the approaching fog, as if she were the mist itself.

When she was finally out of sight, the strangest feeling dawned on Orpheus: it was the sense that no matter how hard she tried, she’d never be able to stop herself from watching Eurydice walk away.