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Hades

My little goddess,my wife, is an extraordinary creature.

Her red hair falls down her back in rich waves that shine like embers under the burning glow of the river Phlegethon. Beneath her shoeless feet, the flickering heat of hot coals do not dare scorch her flesh. The hem of the black dress she wears has been burned away by the heat of Tartarus, dancing in the hot breeze against her legs. The seared hem burns like the ash of a pulled-on cigarette.

On her head, she wears the Crown of Souls. On my head, it had been a daggerlike piece, ominous and menacing. On hers, it had transformed to something completely other. Vines of gold and thorns hold delicate rose-gold roses. Dagger blades spear upward amid the vines and flowers, their blades carved with stars and moons and flames.

With the crown atop her head, she is the picture of justice. She is both soft and understanding, and yet ruthless.

Her sight into the core of a soul is unprecedented. Her patience is unmeasured. Her love is undying.

And her vengeance is merciless.

Her eyes burn with the light of the universe, a galaxy of stars a sweeping arc of color that pulls from nothing to craft an entirely new orb, a portal of light into a realm that mimics earth and all its pleasures.

After I’d tossed Zeus into the painting, I’d been keeping Uranus prisoner in for centuries—we’d held meetings about how we were going to fulfil our end of the bargain to Uranus.

I’d wanted to craft him a fiery realm of torment, a realm inspired by the hell of Tartarus in which the screams of the tormented crafted a symphony of agony that would bring humanity to their knees if ever it echoed into the land of the living.

Persephone, my brilliant little goddess, had other plans.

Her realm mimicked the earth and all its pleasures. But this new realm in which Uranus had been given the reins to control had a caveat. He could not create what did not already exist and neither he nor the souls placed there could escape it. And it needed sustenance, as all realms need sustenance.

As the realm’s King, all sustenance would flow through Uranus. But it was from the internal suffering of his subjects that he would be fed.

“It is done.” The galaxy in her eyes fades to the green I am familiar with. The green I love.

“Tell me again the system of suffering.”

“The souls incapable of reformation, the souls undesiring of change and remorse, have been divided and placed into physical echoes of those that they harmed in their earthly lives. They will reenact the atrocities they committed against the innocence in which they encountered in their living lives, and they will feel every ounce of pain they commit as though that pain hasbeen committed directly upon themselves. They will know the suffering they have caused, and they will endure it. The man who murdered the family, forcing the father to watch as he claimed the innocence and lives of children and mother, of wife—he will feel every pain he committed to every soul he committed the pain to. He will live as child, mother, and father. And he will feel the pain and desperation as though it were his own. He will suffer a perfect mirror of the agony and thoughts of his victims. All of them. He will experience this, while knowing in the back of his mind thatheis the cause of it all. And he will suffer this on a loop for the eternal life of the realm.”

She bows her head before lifting it once again to the portal that shimmers, a galaxy for which only she, bearing the Crown of Souls, can access.

“It is the same for all the others who are incapable or ignorant of remorse. The rapists, child molesters, stalkers, murderers. Again, the same for those whose crimes are more discrete, but no less harmful. Those who place money above the health and well-being of others. Who craft narcotics, and trade in flesh. It is for the truly evil, and it is from their suffering that Uranus will grow stronger, but as he grows stronger, his realm grows hungrier. He will soon realize that the truest form of reprieve from the appetite of his ravenous realm is the blood of the Gods spilled over the altar of sacrifice. Again and again, the Gods will die as they demanded the death of those they were meant to love. Again and again, they will wake. It is an infinite loop of suffering, of death and regeneration. It is the truest personification of a prison realm in which the souls never find escape.”

“You are brilliant.”

She smiles, but it’s soft and pained. “I’ve always wondered about the devil. About hell. How he could be so evil, if evil was what he punished. I think now, that was the echo of you in mysoul. The modern collision that is the myth of Hades and the Hell I was taught to fear.” She laughs softly. “I remember once telling Dad that if I was the devil, I’d make those who hurt others live the lives of those they made suffer. That I’d have some piece of the attacker live in the minds of his victims, knowing that they were causing the pain and begging for it to stop even as they knew the result, for it was a horror done at their own hand.”

“I told Dad I’d make the abuser live the life of the family members who were left behind. I told him, that if I was the devil, he’d be born in hell as every member of the family touched by the pain of his act. That he’d remember every moment of his sins, while simultaneously experiencing his victims’ life, their dreams and love and memories. That he would know their agony and understand that he was the source of it. That when he begged for mercy as his victims begged, he would be ignored, and he would know why.” She shakes her head, a soft chuff killing the last of her laugh. “He told me my mind was different from the minds of others. That it was best to keep some things between us.” Her eyes flick up to mine. “I never told my mom, but Dad never made me feel guilty for my thoughts.”

“They helped craft your soul into the beauty it is now, little goddess.”

“I wish I could see them.” Her hand falls to rub her swollen belly. “I wish I could tell them who I am, that they’re having granddaughters.”

“You will, one day soon,” I promise her.

“Not too soon, I hope.”

“The lives of humans are incredibly fleeting, and so very full.” I pull her into my arms to press a kiss to the hot skin of her forehead. Pulling back, I frown. “Your skin is hot, burning hot. Even to my lips.”

Her eyes flick over the face of my God, burning with veins of magma. I am certain she sees the worry in my gaze as it falls to her belly.

“They are fine, Hades.”

“Are you certain?”

She takes my massive paw in her small hand, placing it claw and all on her belly. I feel the girls moving inside. They’ve been restless as of late.