Page 21

Chapter

Nineteen

P ersephone

It appears Hades assembled everyone when I entered the black mountain.

Or maybe everyone just gathered. I can’t imagine the entirety of the Underworld didn’t hear Hades’ roar as the black mountain closed behind me and Hydra, sealing me off from Hades in a way I hadn’t been since I returned in his life.

The fear and rage I’d heard in his voice…

Simply replaying it in my mind makes me shiver.

The palace is chaos. Everyone is tense. Even Cerberus is here in his beastly state. He stands, a massive and formidable force, beside the fire that rages in the hearth.

Outside the windows that scale high into the walls of the obsidian stone, through the dagger pointed peaks that stretch for the high arcs of the ceiling, I can’t miss the darkness of the sky. The way the ever-present stars are now concealed by vicious clouds thick with sinister foreboding.

Never, not once since my return to the Underworld, have I seen the sky like this. Even sifting through the memories of my past life, I can’t find a time where the Underworld concealed the glitter of its everlasting stars.

Is the sky at the mercy of Hades’ moods? Or it is something darker that conceals the light of the Underworld? Is it the Moirai warning the realm of the dark times we face ahead?

As soon as the black mountain opened, releasing me and Hydra from the summons of the Moirai, wind had whipped at my skin. For the first time in all memory of the Underworld, that wind had been cool. Ominous.

Dark waves nearly void of the bioluminescence I'm so used to seeing ignite them stretched high as though reaching for the angry sky. They slammed down on the beach with fury, pummeling the sandstone cliffs. Violence scented the air as Hydra raced for the safety of the palace.

Now, I stand in the palace sitting room with everyone who has a stake in this realm.

Everyone who I've come to realize loves this realm enough to sacrifice pieces of themselves to it. For when I first came to the Underworld, life was not so vivid as it is now. There was a bone deep hunger here. I hadn’t known it then—did not possess the knowledge I now hold to have understood—that in my absence the realm had feasted on the souls of those who love it most.

Everyone, save Poseidon, looks different. Fuller. Healthier. Now that I am home. Now that the realm feeds on me.

I can't explain why I don't wither away like they did. Why my soul powers the realm that gives sanctuary to the dead. That gives them life after death. It is simply the way it has always been. Perhaps it is because I possess the soul of Chaos, fed to me by the monster who stripped her of it with the intent to manipulate her vast power for himself. Perhaps I do not wither away in the feasting of the realm for she’d crafted all the realms. For her, they were her children.

As such, she suckled them with the very life that lived inside her as any mother nurtures her child.

My eyes move over the room and those who occupy it. There is not one face that doesn’t wear a grave expression, and that only makes the unease inside me swell.

I take comfort in Hydra’s close presence, even though I know I would never be harmed here.

No one in this room would betray anyone, of that I am certain.

Still, I tuck in closer to her chest as she sits, eyeing the room over my head.

She isn’t so big that she doesn’t fit easily in this room, with its high arched ceiling.

And shockingly, in his beast form, Cerberus is bigger than Hydra.

He is a sight to behold. Terrifying, even. If I didn’t know he loved me, I think even I would be cowed.

He is massive. Each of his paws are easily larger than a dinner plate.

His legs are thick, and his body is so muscular that it ripples under his sleek fur with every deep breath he breathes.

His body is enormous, merging with three thickly muscular necks that each carry a ginormous head.

If he wanted, I’m confident he could easily snap the head clean off a bear with his blade-sharp teeth.

But even as he is beastly in form, he is firmly contained by conscious thought and awareness. It is there in his dark eyes, set aflame like his masters’ with the fires of Tartarus.

There is judgment and empathy. There is understanding and consequence.

There is love and justice.

He is human emotion under the House of Judgment, overseen by the Crown of Souls.

He is balance, and right now, all three sets of Cerberus’ eyes are on me. I get the sense that he is waiting, like everyone else, for an explanation.

“The Moirai do not seek the company of Gods often. They have now sought the company of you twice ,” Thanatos says, his arms folded, his dark eyes slamming into my own.

He is seeking answers that I don't have, not really. For even as I consider telling them all the conversation, I'd had with the Moirai, I know that I can't.

Something stays my tongue. Something I can attribute only to the power that surges from the black mountain, playing us like the puppets we are in a game of Gods and men.

Behind me, Hydra shifts closer.

Hades paces, but even he remains close. He is tense in his Gods’ Form.

Beneath his dark skin, charred with the soot of centuries of torment, tense muscles ripple.

Even as he is massive, his steps are light. Lethal. Harrowingly quiet for a beast of his stature. Yet I am not afraid. I want only to comfort him. I just don’t know how to do that here in front of everyone. Under the weight of secrets, I know I must keep.

“We all know there's a war brewing,” Leuce says from where she leans into the arm of the sofa. She is the only one in the room, save for Hypnos, who looks relaxed.

I have a feeling her ease is an act.

Leuce continues, “And we all know that Persephone is a pawn in this war that the Moirai planted centuries ago. It is our job to figure out how we are supposed to use this pawn.”

“She is not a pawn,” Hades snaps.

“She is a pawn, Hades,” Leuce argues firmly.

“She is a pawn in this war, but she is our Queen. And we will not allow her to fall. Still, we must play this game, and we must play it carefully.” She scans the room with her unique gray-green eyes, challenging anyone who means to refute her claims. “It is foretold by the fates, this much we already know and?—”

The door crashes open on the other side of the room, and every set of eyes snap to Minthe. She’s breathing hard, and there’s a wild fear to the frantic sweep of her eyes that instantly sets me on alert. Behind me, Hydra stiffens.

Hades growls, “You should be in the living realm. What are you doing here?”

“Ares,” she gasps, catching her breath.

When her lip quivers, I think my heart does, too.

“What?” Hypnos rises from where he’s been sitting on the sofa next to the arm Leuce occupies.

“Ares,” she gasps again. “He's in the club. He's demanding—demanding to see you.”

Hades moves closer. “Who did you leave him with?”

Hermes stands, his hands moving to knot together. There's very real fear in his eyes at the mention of Ares. It is fear that is certainly owed if myth has any truth to it.

Ares is heartless.

And he’s come for me.

When Hermes shoves his trembling hands into his pockets, I recall that he spent years, centuries in Olympus as the messenger boy for Zeus.

Surely, he's seen the destruction, the darkness , that is the God of War. A darkness, a destruction that I can only imagine.

I shiver and hug myself. Hades doesn't miss it, and I don't miss the frown that tugs between his brows.

“I left him with Rhadamanthus,” Minthe speaks again. “You must come quick, Hades.”

Hades looses a sigh. “Rhadamanthus can handle Ares.”

Minthe scoffs and I bite back my own as she says, “No one can handle Ares, Hades.”

In his veins, magma surges faster. In his eyes, flames burn hotter. Every inch of him is coiled tight, ready to strike.

“Did he say what he wants?” Hades asks low.

I swallow the burn in my throat as I speak quietly. “He wants me.”

Hades’ head whips to me. Poseidon pushes off the wall.

Hermes makes a noise of distressed fear that Thanatos is quick to comfort, and Hypnos, for the first time, speaks without an ounce of humor. “He can’t have you.”

I pull in breath and straighten my shoulders. “He's here to see that the deal of the seasons is honored.”

Hades does not tear his gaze from me. Now he knows why the Moirai summoned me. They all do. Or they know part of it.

“No.” Hades shakes his head.

“The deal stands, Hades. It was not broken with my death.”

“No, little goddess. You won't go.” His hands curl into dangerous fists. “I can’t allow it. You are too vulnerable.”

“You must let me go.”

For the first time, horror ices the flames in his eyes.

“That's why they took you,” Poseidon says, understanding finally settling over the entirety of the room.

Cerberus makes a noise, part whine, part growl. A warning and grief knotted into one.

I nod soberly.

“If I don't go with Ares, the blood that binds the deal will turn rancid.”

All around the room, the Gods and Goddesses who have become my friends, my family, gasp in horror.

“Let it,” Hades growls.

“Hades…” I shake my head. “This has to be.”

“He will take you to Olympus,” Hermes says softly. His eyes are a little wild. A little hopeless. “You will be at the mercy of Demeter and Zeus.”

“I know, but I must go.”

“What did the Fates tell you?” Poseidon asks darkly.

He’s been leaning against the wall, large arms folded over a large chest, nearly this entire time.

Now, he’s claiming the space between us, coming closer.

“What did they tell you to make you so certain that you needed to go with him? With the God of War?”

“I—” I look to my feet before casting my gaze to the room. “Simply that when he comes for me, I must go.” I harden my voice, filling it with a determination I fear even as I know it’s right. “I am going.”