Page 43 of Hades and Persephone: The Giftless Goddess (Gods of Myth #4)

Chapter

Thirty-Seven

P ersephone

Hephaestus’ mountain house is a grotto on steroids. Instantly, I know it’s my favorite place in Olympus. The rough stone walls and oversized, handcrafted furniture in the dim light create an ambiance that feels comforting and safe.

With my belly full of warm soup, I’m snuggled under a heavy blanket on a couch that is far larger than normal with Melody tucked close. A fire warms the space, and opposite us on another massive couch, sit Gideon and an unimpressed looking Hephaestus.

Ares stands beside the fireplace mantle, arms crossed over his chest. Raised red welts I’ve been assured will fade in time, line his skin. Pockets of the stonelike flesh beneath peek through wounds that have not yet fully healed.

“Let the realm die.” Hephaestus’ gaze flicks, not for the first time, to Melody. His pitch drops lower, a rough timbre of anger and resentment spilling into the quiet space. “We’ve lost our way as Gods.”

“Have we ever known the way?” Ares grinds out.

“I don’t understand.” I shift closer to the edge of the couch. “Why would the realm die if there was no war?”

“The realms are sentient.” Ares sighs. “Like all living things, if it is not fed, death is inevitable.”

“But—” My conversation with Hera returns to me. I have the power to feed the realm.

“What does Olympus feed on?”

“The Gods,” Hephaestus answers without explanation.

I frown, wondering why, then, Hera wanted me.

“Okay—so why does Zeus want war?” It doesn’t make sense. If Olympus feeds on the Gods, why would the Gods want war?

Hephaestus stands, pacing in long strides.

His jaw works with emotion before he grinds out, “There is no time so abundant in prayer, as there is during times of war.” His metal flecked eyes shift again to Melody, before he forces them to me.

“There is no greater source of nourishment to the Gods than prayer. It is second only to the lifeforce of the soul which leaches into the spilled blood of the living.”

Gideon makes a strangled noise, shaking his head viciously. “That’s why you have the arena. Why you kidnap people from earth.”

“We do none of that,” Ares growls low and dangerously. “My father…”

“And that’s Zeus, right? Your father, I mean?”

“I see someone doesn’t know much about their Gods.”

“Man.” Gideon’s hands fly up in surrender. “I was raised with no religion. My only church was the jiujitsu studio.”

“That’s how you were able to survive in the ring so long?” Every pair of eyes snap to me at my words.

Gideon nods. “Yeah.”

“All right.” I scoot closer to the flames, tucking the blanket tighter around myself. “So, the Gods harvest the energy of prayer, then? But wouldn’t they need the prayers to be directed at them?”

Hephaestus shakes his head. “Not exactly. If you want a God to hear a prayer directly from you, you must be praying directly to that God. Say his name. Pray in his temple. Offer him a gift, a sacrifice.”

I flinch at the word sacrifice. So does Melody beside me. At the small, barely imperceptible movement, Hephaestus’ eyes snap to her. Darkness floods his eyes a moment before they are completely blasted with metal.

Melody shifts under the intensity of his stare.

Ares cocks a brow, a small grin forming not long after.

Gideon looks concerned for Melody, but does little as he waits, watching.

I speak again, breaking the silence. “You’re saying the Gods can hear prayer that is meant for another God, then? That they feed on it?”

“Yes.” Hephaestus’ eyes don’t shift from Melody.

“All Gods today are an extension somehow of the original Gods. The history represented in religious texts today leans heavily on the events from which we lived and were worshiped as Deities long ago. Great temples were crafted, a direct vein for prayer to travel to the Gods. An umbilical cord, if you will.” His massive hands clap together between his knees.

Hephaestus is a giant of a man. “Prayer is the sustenance that travels through the Gods into Olympus.”

“Has it always been like that?” I hesitate to ask but need the answer. Need to hear it from the Gods who live here in Olympus now. For it is from them that Olympus feeds.

“Why do you ask that?” There is a quiet kind of danger to Ares’ voice that lifts the hair on my arms.

I shift to look at him, finding his eyes already on me. “Um—I—” I tuck my hair nervously behind my ear. Ares doesn’t tear his eyes from mine. I press on. “Well, I spoke with Poseidon not long ago and?—”

“Poseidon?” Gideon interrupts, shocked. “The God of the Sea?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“Holy shit. I mean cool.” He bobs his head. “I know that God. I mean I know of that God.”

Ares lets a low rumble from the prison of his chest, and Gideon snaps his mouth shut. To save Gideon from the wrath of the war God who saved him and is now looking at him like he might regret doing such a thing. Like he might rectify his mistake.

I hurry to explain, “He explained that Atlantis once fed Olympus. That a vein connected it to all the realms before it sank.”

“It did,” Hephaestus admits. He straightens, less metal in his eyes as he asks, “Where did you see Poseidon?”

“Um—”

“He comes to the Underworld, doesn’t he?” Hephaestus presses.

“I—” I shift uncomfortably. Why do I feel as though I’m spilling my friend’s secrets by telling them this?

“It’s no matter.” Hephaestus stands. “All that matters now is Atlantis took her power from Olympus and left Olympus with only the Gods who inhabit her to feed her.”

I frown again as the room descends into silence, my mind working to set the pieces of the puzzle before me into place.

Long ago, the three realms were crafted.

Atlantis, Olympus, and the Underworld. A direct vein of life—an umbilical cord, to honor Hephaestus’ explanation—surged from Chaos to Atlantis.

It was the realm of power so great; it could feed the other two realms by a vein connecting it to Olympus and again to the Underworld.

But this power that fed the realms had been pulled from the source Goddess. From Chaos.

When Atlantis sank into the sea, she severed her vein to Olympus, leaving the realm to either starve or feed from the Gods whose greed forced her to seek refuge in the sea. She maintained her connection to the Underworld, but the power in her reserves was limited, and the vein shrank, growing weak.

I know now that this happened because of Uranus’ betrayal. When he ravaged Chaos, consuming her and claiming her power for himself, there was no more source power to pull. The gift of Chaos should have been lost forever, but the Fates had intervened, I know now, with my creation.

Uranus’ inability to temper the wild of Chaos’ power for himself led him to house it inside my Goddesses spirit, inside me.

I am his daughter by spirit even though I am the daughter of Hyperion by seed and Demeter by womb.

The power I possess, stolen from Chaos and Aether and Hyperion in his unawareness of self during the possession of Uranus, to use his bodily form to create me, is massive.

But it comes down to the fact that inside me lives the power to sustain the realms. Not simply the Underworld as we all thought. But all the realms. The three. The triangle of power that was always of Chaos .

If only I knew what to do with that power.

Or what to do now that I know I possess it.