Page 3

Chapter

Three

P ersephone

I can’t say how 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 see you, 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 have suffered .”

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.”

“We’re all connected,” I tell as I look to the three sisters of Fate who stand high on the cave walls, looming over it all. “They connected us all.”

“Yes,” Hydra agrees. “They did.”

Something stirs within me at the realization. A similar something I recall from the memory I was fed about the first taking, the claiming. The power that swirled within me, eager to flow and connect with something other . To create.

And I sense now that this bond I share with Hydra holds more meaning than either of us suspects.

I stand within the circle of her body, her warmth. She watches me, but not with wariness. Between us, there is only trust.

“Can I try something?”

“Anything.”

I smile. She doesn’t even ask what I want to try.

“Did I ever try to heal you—before?”

A shutter slams down in her eyes. “I cannot be healed.”

I press closer. “But did I try?”

Slowly, she shakes her heads. “You were confused and chaotic for a long time. Then you were consumed with sketching the prophecies. And when you became aware, you grieved. You were powerless, Persephone, to gather the power that lived within you.”

My shoulders slump. “I never tried, did I?”

When she finally shakes her heads, it’s slow and small. “No.”

She took care of my soul for centuries and I never once tried to heal the wounds of her sacrifice.

I force myself to meet her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“ I cannot be healed, my Persephone. Hades has tried. The Erinyes have tried.”

I stare at all her bleeding limbs, the wounds grossly open and dripping even now. “I would like to try now, if you’ll let me.”

There is a long pause. I can see how hope flashes in her eyes before it is chased away by fear. Fear that she will be teased with the possibility of healing this pain only to find again, that she can’t be healed. That the curse Zeus bestowed upon the blade Hercules wielded cannot be undone.

And then I see something else play in her eyes. Trust.

She is already laying on the floor, her body curled around my own, but she lowers her heads. All her heads. My intent swirls a power inside me that is familiar even as it is foreign. It’s always been here, I realize, a part of me. It’s always been hidden in the folds of my soul, unknown and unused.

But I know the power I long for now. The power of Chaos.

The power to create. To heal.

It begins in my chest, the swirling warmth of the Mother Goddess. It is ribboned with the light of all life that is the Primordial God of light. Sun. Life .

Together, they dance until that power bursts throughout the whole of me, flooding my limbs until this power is all that I am. All that I feel.

Like the Underworld came alive behind my eyes as Hades took possession of my body, I see Hydra as she was before the manipulation of malicious Gods, and the destruction of Hercules’ cursed blade.

A beautiful beast of power and elegance with a heart so big in her chest. Her nine heads held high with pride and honor.

And I see her now behind those same lids.

Ruined and broken. Hurting. The headless wounds that have wept for centuries, life a slow and agonizing drip from a body offered in sacrifice.

I see the dark truth of a history cocooned in lies.

The love that poured from the depths of her in every human who dared swim the Lernaean Lake, their ignorance forcing her to slay them swiftly so that they would find peace in life after death.

So that they would not be trapped eternally in a Hell they could never escape.

I reach out, my palms connecting with her chest. I can feel the thunder of her heart.

The power of an ancient pouring of rage and sorrow that strums a song with every beat.

My own soul opens to hers, my heart a crater from which power pours.

My hands are the conduit for the surge of chaos and life that moves from me into her.

And I rebuild her in my mind as I once built the Underworld so long ago.

Time passes in a flow of color and song, of timeless love. When I open my eyes once again, it is to see a being of ancient times before me, once again proud and full and strong.

Hydra stands under the shimmering light of the firestorm ceiling, the metallic shimmer of her sangria scales dance as though ignited by the flames of justice that roll overhead, trapped eternally in the stone of this ancient cave.

From her body is one thick neck from which eight others branch.

Each of her eight necks is adorned with a smaller head than the ninth which is held high in the center and affixed with a crown of ruby daggered points which rise from her very skull.

I watch in marvel as the eight necks all begin to move, braiding themselves around her main head and settling into place.

She has the body of a dragon, full and powerful and winged.

Her neck is long and, with her heads all tucked close, each of the smaller heads juts out enough to make the length appear taloned and all-seeing, for all her eyes blink as one up the column of her neck.

A shuddering gasp trembles as it rises from my lungs. Her heads move as one, her main head lowering to connect with my forehead. I feel a puff of hot air wash over my chest as she pulls back again. From her mauve eyes, crystal tears fall.

They are no longer scorched black by the curse of a blade struck by a malicious Gods’ power.

I realize in horror that her unhealing body had eternally tried to expunge the curse which festered in her very blood. She is more than healed. Now, she is cleansed.

“Thank you, my Persephone.” Emotion strips her words raw, brandishing for me her very soul. It is a most beautiful soul that I know now my own was always intended to cherish.

Swallowing my own emotion, I ask, “Is there any pain?”

“None.” Her words swim in my mind. “I feel no desire to submerge in the pool for relief as I had for so long. I feel free .”

I smile. “Will you come with me, then?”

She moves closer, her heads lifting higher with pride. In my mind, her words are a vow. “I will follow you always, my Persephone.”

When she lowers again, I don’t wait for her encouragement as I climb onto her back between her wings. “Take us to Hades.”

She moves to the pool’s edge.

I suck in a deep breath.

We dive into the inky abyss.