Page 186 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

Disappointment

Gods do not know what to do with loss.

It is so rare for us to lose things

that when it does happen,

we use our powers to destroy entire lands.

But I was a Goddess with no gifts,

just a hollow emptiness

and a dry mouth that watched

as the crone returned to her loom.

She never once looked to me again.

Stifling a sob, I turned and ran past Thanatos.

Past the God in Grey

who was a sitting in a gibbering heap,

the half-eaten apple clutched tight

in its cold hand. Past the red-hued

obsidian halls of Hades’ unforgiving,

cold palace. All the way to the edge

of the Forest of Silence, where the scale

of unknown dangers and the snake-headed roots

made me stop. Finally,

I fell to my knees and sobbed.