She hadn't known what to expect, but a frozen wasteland of shattered boulders and skeletal trees hadn't been one of them.
"Is this the only entrance?" she asked, not overly keen to go any further, though she was trying to hide it.
"No, Summer has one as well, but this is the side Hades likes."
Kai tugged on her hand, and she looked at him, his eyes softening at her fear and he gave her another tug.
She set off reluctantly, her wings moving to encircle her though she didn't feel the cold as such.
They walked slowly, every crack in the ground glowing an ominous blue and when they looked down, they could see nothing but movement in a slow stream.
"Is this where the humans go?" she asked, peering down there.
"Yes, on their way to wherever it is they go after death," Uzo said gently
"They aren't reborn?" she asked, looking up and started, the Fae glowing an eerie blue in the dim light from below.
"No one knows, Hades won't tell us," he said and she bit her lip, following after him until they came to a set of stairs.
Daemon went first and she followed, the remainder of their party coming along behind her in an anxious line until they reached the bottom an hour or more later.
She couldn't gauge the time in Faerie, as time seemed to have no meaning.
At the bottom of the spiral stairs, they found themselves at a small dock, and without a word, Daemon held out six coins and dropped them into the glowing blue water.
Out of the water a large boat floated, guided by a figure in heavy black robes that covered them from head to toe aside from a single skeletal hand that held the ferry pole.
They piled onto the boat and the figure pushed off.
No one was brave enough to speak, instead they huddled together close to the middle of the boat, though she had inched away to peer over the side.
The water was odd, moving in strange ways and with a shock of horror, she realised they were souls moving under there, much like the souls she saw in the spirit world.
They had faces, but the rest of them was an amorphous mass that flowed out like a squid in motion.
Nearly throwing herself back into someone's chest, she sat there horrified, arms tight around her.
She didn't like this place. It was not the peaceful rest that the spirit world offered the dead Mythicals. This place was suffering and pain for the humans and she had to wonder how many of them she had sent down there. But most of her kills had been a result of her consuming their souls.
At least that was better than ending up down there with Hades.
It turned out to be Jaia who was holding her, and she didn't care, just so long as she didn't have to be on her own and she was the first off the boat when it docked again.
The boat didn't sink this time, waiting for their return and she pressed herself into the rocky wall, as far away from the water as was physically possible to be.
Jaia reached for her hand, and she took it willingly, clinging to him like a drowning person clung to scraps of wood. He was keeping her grounded and sane, at least for the time being.
She couldn't reconcile this world with the one she had known with the Mythical dead. It simply didn't mesh in any fashion, and she didn't know why, she would have to find out when they were safely not in the underworld.
The path led them around in a slow curve and then down into a tunnel that branched off into small rooms and only marginally larger spaces that they didn't stop to explore, rather they pressed on and everyone could feel her tension, her fingers trembling in Jaia's.
She understood her fear, the risk this place posed for her when she was not entirely immortal. She was feeling the fear of her possible death, and she hated every second of it.
But the river was soon out of sight and the lack of its eerie blue glow allowed her to calm down slightly, though she still clung to the hand in hers.
At the end of the tunnel, they found a large cavern that glowed with the blue and to her absolute terror, they came to a sheer edge and looked out into an enormous subterranean lake that moved constantly and the wail it made would give her night terrors for centuries.
It was absolutely brimming with the mortal dead.
She had begun to hyperventilate, and she let go of Jaia, backing against the wall and staring at the edge as though it was going to collapse under them and they would all fall and be consumed.
Kai was at her side, cupping her face and forcing her to look up at him, his face serious as he tried to get her to calm down, yet the oppressive silence kept him from being able to speak a word either.
The cavern was pressing down on them, crushing their voices and yet there was so much noise that it made her ears hurt. Silent and screaming all at once.
Reaching into his pockets he fished around for something to offer her as she sank to the ground, her back against the wall and her head in her arms as she tried to breathe but the pressure of the world above was making her lungs feel tight.
A small metallic ball appeared before her face and she took it, the textured surface curious enough for her to focus on it, her fingers drawing out the pattern.
Finally, she began to calm down and she looked up at Jaia who had offered it to her.
He smiled grimly and stroked her hair, suffering from the oppressive pressure that seemed to be crushing them all.
"You shouldn't wander into the land of the dead if you can't handle it," a booming voice said from above them and they all looked up.
A man was standing on another ridge, dressed entirely in black with waist length black hair and dark eyes. His skin was an odd, pale purple colour and his mouth was pulled into a sneer as he stared down at them. "Or is it you can hear the screams of the dead?"
None of them spoke, too stunned by the appearance of the man.
He was obscenely attractive in a cold, malicious way with a pointed face and emotionless eyes, his attention flicking between them all one by one and then finding her, where they narrowed at her reaction to the cavern and the metal ball in her hands.
He looked away from them and then down again, considering before he gave a cold, unfriendly smile. "Might as well come in then," he said and the wall Etani had been leaning on suddenly vanished.
Kai caught her wrist before she could fall and he pulled her up, the small group shuffling into the new room that had opened up behind them.
The oppression left them like a cloak and they were all suddenly able to breathe, her panic seeming to fade as the light disappeared to be replaced by the warm red of flames.
The room was simple, a large fireplace with a well-tended fire, a large table with twelve chairs that seemed to have been carved out of the rock itself.
The fire flared up and the man stepped out of it to reveal just how tall and skinny he was.
He would likely stand at nine and a half foot, and he was dressed in black armour.
He approached them and she tensed along with the rest, but he made no attempt to try and harm them.
"So, little winged creature. You can hear the dead?" he asked coldly, those emotionless eyes locked on her.
She nodded and his lip curled.
"Who are you –" he cut off at the sight of Daemon and his mood seemed to sour even further. "Eros," he growled.
Daemon flashed a grin, but it lacked his usual attitude.
"Hades, pleasure seeing you again."
"Likewise," Hades replied, neither sounding like they meant it. "So this is the rag-tag group everyone has been whispering about. Some great quest to recover a Winter princess."
His eyes fell on her and she could only stare back at him, nervous about his presence.
"Yes and no," Daemon replied, looking a little nervous himself. "It's more to keep the human world from being torn down."
Hades looked around at him, black brows lifting in interest. "I had heard the Creators were back in power. You prefer to live in the human world, don't you?"
Damon nodded and Hades looked back at her, trying to figure out what they weren't telling him.
"So why come down here if you are looking to restore a Winter princess, or whatever it is you are doing?"
"Because Etani needs your magic," Daemon said.