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Two leaves fall from the tree, and the Underworld contracts as two women in the living realm portal my daughters into this world in a way I can not.

The images float back to the wall where they appear again as sketches that flash under the firestorm, no longer touched by the magical animation of life.

I fall to my knees, sobbing violently.

“Why?” I cry, holding the life I now know is a spark of light inside my belly, already bursting through my heart. “Why do I have to sacrifice them?”

“They are fated to the Gods who will rebuild the realms and save humanity.”

“But I could raise them. I love them.”

Hydra’s eyes spill inky tears as her heads come close, one resting in my lap to look up at me. She nuzzles me before she pulls back.“I’ve thought on this for many, many years, for you grieved their loss even then. And I thought on why you were taken, your soul stripped of its memory as a goddess.”

“And?” I can hardly see her through the blur in my eyes.

“You must sacrifice your daughters to the human world so that their hearts might be soft to the plights of humanity, such is your own heart now as it never could have been—not truly—had you been raised again as a Goddess.”Her words of wisdom are a blade that cuts me to my core.“They will advocate for humanity in the coming war. They will soften the hearts of the Gods who will fall for them. The Gods whose hearts they will win and hold forever dear. The sacrifice must be made, Persephone, for the good of all the realms. They areyourdaughters. They will always be your daughters, even if you do not raise them yourself. But they are fated to be Queens.”

Hydra moves again to the wall where a sketch glows brightly. I see two beautiful women. One bright and light, the other dark and elegant. Both carry within them the spirit of Nyx and Eros andme. Chaos. The power is no longer bound to one realm, one Goddess. It surges between all the realms, connected by the most powerful of all the powers. Love.

Chapter

Three

Persephone

I can’t sayhow long I grieve the daughters I’ve not yet birthed, but I know it’s a while. There is a familiar ache to this sorrow. Even more familiar is the loving comfort Hydra gives as she curls her big body around mine, pushing warmth into my body that chatters with the icy cold of a breaking heart that rattles brittle bones.

My soul remembers what my body can’t. I’ve spent days—years—like this with her. Curled up in the warmth of her scales, warmed by the flames of the Pit from which she was birthed. A monster meant to slay the wicked who sacrificed her life to protect the innocent. The unaware.

Realization hits me like a brick. I shift in Hydra’s hold, my eyes meeting her many as she peers down at me. “Did you warm me like this before?”

Hydra simply watches me for a long moment.“What you became in the aftermath of your death was not something I’d encountered before, or since you. You were dead, and you had mostly shed your corporal form. Yet, you hadn’t. I could still seeyou, even as I saw through you. It was as though you’d taken the form of a wraith rather than a soul.”

“Did I still have human needs?”

“You did not need nourishment, if that is what you are asking.”

“But did I require your warmth?”

“The cold did not hurt you as it seems to now, but you took great comfort in my heat.”

“Your heat—it’s the same flames that thrive in the Pit, isn’t it?”

Hydra dips her head in a nod. She blinks.“I am born of those flames. They live within me.”

“You fed that heat to my soul for centuries,” I murmur more to myself now.

“I—I comforted you.”

I can feel her hurt. She thinks I am blaming her for something, but it’s because of her that I am able to withstand the impossible heat that would have killed even a Goddess in my past life. The heat that allowed me to answer the call that has urged me to be with Hades’ Gods Form. The form in which I now know he needs to be in to produce life. The life that forms new, even now, inside me.

“In my past life as a Goddess, I’d never been able to touch Hades while he was in his Gods’ Form. Now, in this life, even as a human, I can.” She blinks, slowly. I tell her, “It’s because of you. Because of the centuries my soul spent being warmed by the heat of the Pit. It’s why I can’t be burned.” My hand touches my belly where that spark of life is just a tiny ember. “Without you, the daughters called by the Fates never could have been born.”

Hydra’s heads lift, her eyes scanning the centuries of sketches I’d chiselled into the walls of this cave.

“From the moment of my creation, I always felt my purpose was lacking. That a piece was missing. I moved through life,doing the best I could. And when humanity deemed me a monster and called for my destruction, I mourned. When I could fight no more, I cast myself into this pit where I have remained. Where I have mourned. Where I havesuffered.”

Her eyes slide slowly back to me, and I swear, I see love in the abyss of mauve.“I felt you come to the Underworld that first time. When Hades took you. It was a dark and borderless place. My pit was pitch black. No light. No life. But you came and the Underworld sighed. It came alive. It sought you, hungry. But me—I felt for the first time in my life—what I thought might be hope. I know now that you have always been my purpose.”