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Chapter

One

Persephone

Fear screams in my mind.

Pressure squeezes my body, threatening to crush me.

Awareness is hazy.

The Hydra pulls me deeper. I am not sure if my eyes are open or closed. Everything is dark. Everything is cold.

The pressure is almost unbearable. Sickness swirls in my belly, bubbling in my chest. I’d scream if I could. Maybe I do, if only in an attempt to release just a fraction of this pressure. Not that it matters. The crushing weight of the inky water swallows any sound I hope to make.

It floods my lungs. The cold is so cold, like the frost of a dark winter night on bare skin. It burns.

When I think this is it, the moment of my end, the pressure changes. I’m no longer being pulled into a depthless deep, but I think we’re going sideways now.

Or I’ve lost awareness.

I’ve probably lost awareness.

Maybe I’m finally dead. Maybe this is my purgatory. An endless eternity in which I will suffer the torment of being pulled through these dark waters.

The Hydra jerks and my body jerks with her. And then I’m tossed from the water onto the rocky shore of a—cave?

The sound of my cough echoes loudly in the space. Inky water drips from my hair. It splashes drops that roll off my hands to puddle on the dark stone floor. I’m not sure how long I hack water from my lungs, only that when I am done, I want nothing more than to collapse in a heap of boneless girl onto the floor.

I freeze when movement catches my eye. I’m afraid to look but dare a peek anyway. Awe and a touch of terror has my jaw falling.

Hydra stands tall against the far wall, watching me from—gosh, there are so many sets of deep mauve eyes. Sangria scales shimmer under the burning glow of a magenta ceiling. It’s as though an eternal storm lives within the stone of the ceiling. It rolls in waves of full-bellied dark doom before emitting flashes of magenta light that catch the prisms of her metallic scales to cast the glittery glow on the wall. She is a beautiful beast. A terrifying monster of exquisite wonder even as she drips with the devastation of a brutal deceit she has carried for too long.

The headless limbs severed by Hercules’ cursed blade drift aimlessly where they branch from her torso, dripping inky black blood to the floor. I shift slowly from my hands and knees onto my behind, careful not to tumble into the glass-like black of a pool.

“Wh—where are we?” I feel incredibly silly speaking to—well—to the Hydra. But I know shecanspeak.

“This is my home.”I realize this time her voice sounds in my head. I’m not sure that it didn’t the first time she spoke. I only know I heard her. Loud and clear.

She takes a slow step toward me. Pebbles of awareness rise on my skin.

She has four legs, a massive torso, and too many heads—or necks? On her back, tucked in close to her large body that shimmers under the flashes of a magenta storm, are wings.

I think the Hydra is a dragon. Perhaps not in the typical sense, what with her many heads. But still a dragon.

New fear swells and I do my best to swallow it down as she closes the distance between us. I don’t move. I’m not sure I even breathe. Finally, with little more than an arm length between me and her closest head, she lowers to her rump.

She is incredibly regal, and I am struck by a kind of sadness I don’t expect as I again take in the sight of her unhealing wounds. The evidence of her ancient sacrifice for a people who never knew or respected that it was made.

To the texts and myth that survive today, she is a monster. Her tormentor is a hero.

My heart clenches in my chest.

“You’re beautiful.” The words are a whisper that fall from between my lips, entirely unexpected. Raw.

She blinks, a slow and lovely motion that catches in the overhead storm. But there is a deep sadness that echoes from within her when she sighs.“Perhaps once. Long ago.”Her heads shift at once to look toward the pool of inky black that swallows even the bright flashes overhead.“Not now.”

I want to touch her. To hug her. To thank her for her sacrifice.