Page 118 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

Hades

was no longer the boy-God I remembered,

the one who led me to my father,

gave me protection from his own brothers,

felt the same pain in the aftermath of war

that I did.

Instead, when he visited Styx,

I saw a God carrying heavy responsibilities.

He eyed me with suspicion for reasons

I could not fathom and when he spoke to Styx,

he talked only of duties.

His face too was different,

the innocent gleam of the boy-God

inside his eyes had given way

to the darkness of an ancient burden.

‘The dead are eternal,’ he told Styx bitterly,

‘and therefore I am an eternal ruler

with eternal tasks.’ I imagined this,

a God whose duties were never done,

a task list as immortal as him,

and to be alone through all of it.

Styx watched him leave with some sorrow.

‘The crown is tempting to all,’

she murmured softly, ‘other than

the one who must wear it.’

It was true. I had never heard a story

of a truly happy king or queen.

Their lives seemed to always lead

to tragedy in some way,

whether through war

or fear of losing that poisoned crown.

‘It is no wonder that getting to his palace

is a task so difficult,’ Styx muttered darkly

as she dipped her feet back into her river,

preparing to disappear.

‘A drawbridge to a cypress tree,

finding the key to Elysium,

all the way through Nyx’s realm,

and if you manage all that

you must avoid the Gods in Grey.

It’s a wonder how anyone visits him at all.’

Perhaps that is the point ,

I thought as I watched her leave.

If you keep only your own company

it is much harder to lose your crown .

But now I wondered

if I was caught trying to get into

the palace of this new Hades,

if it would be seen as nothing short

of treason in his increasingly

paranoid eyes.

And this was only the first

of my many, many hurdles.