Page 13

Chapter

Twelve

H ades

“Zeus is throwing one of his tantrums.” Leuce’s hand drifts absently where it rests on Minthe’s thigh.

Minthe rolls her eyes, but there’s a graveness to her voice that has the room on alert. “We all know what happens when Zeus is pitching a fit.”

Hermes pushes away from the table to lean forward, jaw hard, head bowed.

From the side, I watch as a muscle twitches in his cheek and his hands come together between his knees.

Beside him, Thanatos touches a pale hand to his back.

He gives his head a tired shake, but asks quietly, “How many fires burn?”

“Too many,” Leuce replies without really answering.

“And the seas?” Hermes dares a peek. “Do they invade the land?”

“The waters dance with Zeus’ wind, called to respond by the howl of the storm in the sky but?—”

“But what?”

“I believe Poseidon is working hard to contain the waves.” Minthe swallows, looking to me. “Is that why he’s not here?”

He’s not here because I didn’t call for him. I’m not sure I can look at him right now, knowing what I know. Knowing that his soul has been bound, eternally, to one of my daughters not yet born.

I still can’t shake the warning the three sisters had spoken into my mind as I lifted Persephone’s limp, exhausted body into my arms. “Speak not of the Gods who have been bound today, even to the Gods themselves. Fate is a fickle thing, and knowing can alter the path in ways that cannot be undone, King of Gods.”

I bristle at the secret I must keep from everyone. Even Persephone.

“How else does Zeus torment the living realm?” I ignore Minthe’s question for one of my own.

“Oh, you know.” Leuce waves a hand with nails dipped in silver.

“Cyclones, tornadoes, quakes. They’re striking worldwide.

Nowhere is safe from his wrath. Nowhere untouched.

” She shrugs again, but I can see through the flippancy, the hatred that burns in her eyes.

Fear for the people is a fire in her heart, and it blazes. “It’s Zeus being Zeus. Again .”

“It will only get worse.” I can’t help but think of the fate Persephone carved into Hydra’s cave. I sigh heavily, warily.

I am exhausted. Worse, I am afraid.

“Zeus has ended entire civilizations while less incensed.” Hermes looks up, his eyes filled with warning none of us can ignore.

Charon pushes off the wall where he stands close to the exit.

He’s looking straight at me. I know he senses the secrets I keep when he demands soft and dangerously low, “We’ve watched the rise and fall of civilization, welcomed souls into the Underworld time and again after a season of his wrath.

We have been helpless in the past to do anything but watch the destruction, so if we are helpless, why are we discussing it?

If we are helpless, what does it matter?

” Charon places both hands on the table as he pins his gaze to mine, seeking the truth I keep—the truth I’ve not yet processed.

“Can we stop Zeus, Hades? Do we now have a power we’ve never possessed before? ”

I do not move for long minutes. My mind races through all that I know, and all that I have not said. Finally, I speak, “Persephone is pregnant.”

The room is so quiet. Too quiet.

I look to the Gods and Nymphs who have been my closest family. Their faces are ashen. Thanatos’ words are little more than a whisper of breath. “What does this mean, Hades?”

“We have been to see the Moirai.”

Hypnos straightens in his chair. “You took her to them?”

“It was necessary.”

“They are?—”

I cut him off. “Not of this world.” When there is complete silence again, I repeat softer, “They are not of this world. The Moirai have a power the like we as Gods do not possess. They can see the path of fate, manipulate it, even.” I frown, thinking yet again of the claim that true power is in a connection of the realms that have always been divided. Connection in the way of consciousness.

We’re so divided, the path to such a future feels impossible.

The battle will be long and hard and wrought with loss, beginning with my own.

Minthe stands, drawing the gazes of those in the room. “I’m sorry. But you just said Persephone is pregnant?”

“She is, yes.”

“But—I mean how ?”

I raise a brow. “Do I really need to explain to you, Minthe, of all nymphs, how babies are made?”

She rolls her eyes and I smile weakly. I need the humor. Without it, I might just crumble under the weight of everything.

“As if.” Folding her arms over her chest, she thrusts a hip to the side in attitude that is pure Minthe. “All joking aside, Hades, you’re a God and she’s human.”

“I am aware.”

“Well, that hasn’t happened in—well, since—” She pauses, considers and exclaims, “It’s been a long time! And it’s not as if Zeus hasn’t tried.”

My gaze slides to Hermes. “Is Zeus still taking to the bed of human women?”

Hermes shakes his head. “He rarely leaves Olympus.”

“And the human women in Olympus?”

Hermes dips his chin. “Much to Hera’s disgrace, he does continue to entertain the women of Olympus.”

“But he has not sired a child with any of them?” I ask.

“It’s been thousands of years since a demigod was born, Hades.”

“This is going to change everything,” Thanatos mumbles, more to himself.

“It will,” I agree, again calling the eyes of my most trusted confidants to me. “My daughters will change everything.”

“Daughters?” Hecate’s eyes narrow. It’s the first time she’s spoken. She’s always been an observer. “Two?”

“Two,” I confirm, and now that I have their attention, I reveal the pain we will all soon suffer.

“They will be born here in the Underworld, as Goddesses. And they will die shortly after. Atropos has her shears ready, and she will fray their life thread as she frayed Persephone’s.

The souls of my daughters— our daughters —daughters of the Underworld—will travel to the living realm where human women will bear them.

Like Persephone, their immortal souls will be touched by humanity, and it is because of that they will become the immortal queens of humanity, taking their places at the sides of the Gods to whom their souls have been stitched together by the thread spun by the hand of Clotho.

This is the fate of the daughters of the Underworld, which has been seen by Lachesis, and decreed by the three. ”

There is silence. And then there is no more silence.

The room erupts in chaos. Everyone speaks at once.

Questions fly. Curses are spit. Rage flows on tap at the horror of losing the precious gift we’ve been given.

Life in a place where no new life has ever been conceived.

Sprung from the ash of the land, such as Hydra and those like her, but never conceived of living seed.

Never before.

My mind quiets as my mate—the mother of my daughters—appears in the door.

And then it comes to me in a wash of cool horror.

The Underworld has conceived life. But only once before.

It conceived her.

And now she is the portal through which life has again been seeded.

My special, lovely little goddess blessed and cursed by the Moirai to heal the realms of the sins of Gods.

“I’m awake.” Her eyes connect with mine as the room falls silent. She has been in and out of sleep since our visit to the Moirai, but never conscious enough to converse with. Now, she is aware. Completely aware. “I remember everything, Hades. Everything.”

For the second time, the room erupts.