Page 25 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

In Those First Few Days

Styx did not speak much to me.

I asked her where my uncle Pallas was.

She told me her husband was out hunting

and would not return for a while.

Then she told me never to touch

the water within her river if I wanted to keep my voice, for her waters

were known to destroy immortal voices.

Hades vanished after my mother left,

back to his godly duties towards his realm.

So I kept myself occupied by the banks

of Styx, among the skeletons

and skulls of what were once mortals,

who now lay on these riverbanks,

long forgotten and long dead.

I had only lived five years.

And this was how my new childhood

began – full of warnings and old bones.