Goddess Of The Underworld (Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 85

We stepped through the portal in silence. Ash fell from our shoulders as the gates of the Underworld vanished behind us, the air softening into the gentle luminescence of my mother’s home. Even here, the tension clung to us. The scent of rot. The knowledge that death no longer obeyed its borders. Madra walked ahead, her posture stiff with purpose, her layered silks trailing like storm clouds. She had said little since returning. But her silence was not ignorance; it was a strategy. Mum met us in the hall, flanked by her advisors and a quiet sort of dread. Her eyes searched mine. “So it’s true.”

I nodded. “You felt it too, didn’t you?” I said, looking at Madra.

I did. The veils are coming down. The worlds will collide…”

“Then we don’t have time,” I said.

Madka’s voice was cool. “No, we don’t. Which means your next moves must be exact. You’re no longer just rulers or heirs. You’re gatekeepers now, of something older than life and stronger than death. You need to stop this.”

We moved into the war chamber, a room of maps, strategy and hard decisions, Layah whistled low as a glowing model of the realms assembled midair: the Mortal Realm, the Underworld, and the Divine.

“The Veil isn’t just one layer,” Haiden said, tracing the map. “It’s latticed. Interwoven across all the realms.”

“And every thread weakening opens a pathway for corruption,” Levi added, placing a mark over the Underworld valley. “Some of these souls were never meant to return. If the wrong ones slip free…”

“They won’t just haunt the living,” Xavier said darkly, “they’ll hunt them.”

Noah stepped beside me, fire flickering in his gaze. “So what’s the plan, Goddess?”

I exhaled, then turned to face them fully. “We need to find the other cloaked children. The ones Marcus and Salira used. They’re keys to this, alive or dead, they’ll have magic tied to it.”

Mum tensed. “You think they’re still alive?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But even their bones would carry power. They were made like me, hidden by dark magic. If the veil is weakening, their locations may be surfacing.”

Layah stood. “So we split up.”

“I want to start with the grave sites,” I said. “Some of the corrupted souls were whispering names, like they remembered them. Maybe they were drawn to

those children.”

“We’ll need someone to stay in the underworld,” Levi said. “Something to stabilize the realm while we search. Otherwise, it could collapse behind us while we’re scattered.”

Madra gave him a sharp look. “Then the Goddess must choose her anchor to hold together her kingdom.”

All eyes turned to me.

I didn’t hesitate. “Xavier.”

He blinked. “Me?”

“You’re the one whose magic is closest to mine. You understand the foundations of the realm the most. While we’re away, you hold it together there.”

He paused, and then he nodded, jaw set with reluctant understanding. “I’ll hold it together the best I can.”

Mum stepped forward then, reaching into the folds of her robe and drawing out an object I hadn’t seen before, a jagged obsidian shard, laced with gold

veins.

“This is last Oracle Mirror,” she said. “Cracked in the uprising. But if there’s something hidden, it might show you.”

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Chapter 85

I took it carefully, feeling its chill race up my arm.

“It’s time to find out what was hidden.” I said softly. “Time to finish what Marcus started, and destroy whatever’s trying to finish it for him.”

Everyone in the room nodded, one by one. This was the start of the war.

We planned methodically, the weight of what was coming pressing down on every breath we took. The chamber buzzed with layered magic and quiet resolve, the floating map of realms flickering as we divided responsibilities not just by skill, but by trust. This wasn’t about power anymore. It was about belief. About who and what we would bleed for…and that just happened to be the whole fucking world. Xavier and Layah would remain behind, our final line of defense and the ones who could hold the veil in the underworld long enough to keep the veil from shattering completely. Their combined magic, his dark, her ancient, would reinforce the bones of the realm, creating a bandaid that would buy us time.

“Protect it, please,” I told them, meeting Xavier’s eyes first, then Layah’s. “If anything gets through, don’t hesitate. Not even for me.”

“You know I won’t,” Xavier said, his voice like crushed stone.

Layah gave a wry smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “We’ll hold the walls, Goddess. Just make sure you don’t die while we do.”

Levi and Haiden volunteered to chase the echoes of magic, the graves of the names whispered by the corrupted souls. They’d trace them like bloodhounds across multiple realms if they had to. Each grave might hold a thread of truth… or power.

“They were cloaked for a reason,” Levi warned. “That kind of concealment doesn’t fade. It fights. If we’re disturbing old magic, I’ll need backup.”

“You have it,” Haiden said, cracking his knuckles with a grin that didn’t match the tension in his shoulders. “Let’s dig up some secrets.”

That left me and Noah the most dangerous mission of them all. We were going back to the beginning. Back to the heart of the Tolaris pack. To what was hidden underneath the pack.

“We’re not just sneaking in this time,” I said, tapping the glowing mark on the map where the pack house stood. “We’re breaking through every barrier they’ve hidden behind. Magical, physical, political. Marcus’s underground layer holds the truth, not just about me, but about all of this. The children. The spell. The bloodlines. The veil.”

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