Page 55 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Persephone jolted awake, chest heaving as the dream slipped like water through her fingers.

The dark goddess and her child lingered, etched into her mind, haunting her with whispers of something ancient, inevitable.

Each night, they came. The goddess was always searching, always walking the same shadowed path that led deep into the earth from the seaside cavern.

Persephone grasped at the vanishing fragments, willing them to take shape. But the images dissolved, leaving only frustration and a hollow sense of dread.

Beside her, the bed was cold. The bedchamber lay dark and still, day not yet breaking over the Underworld. For a moment, she lay in bed, marveling that a place without sun could have daybreak and twilight, morning and dusk. Her husband had designed it well.

But now, Hades was nowhere in sight.

Rising, she dressed and made her way through the temple corridors. The halls bore the calm hush of early morning, the air still and quiet.

Seeing no one, she returned to the bedchamber and sank to the plush furs beside the brazier, basking in the warmth and listening to the distant roar of the Styx.

She stared into the low flames, thoughts circling.

Only once since arriving in the Underworld had she awoken without him—when he was called to Olympus. Not before or since.

The bed was still rumpled from sleep, from their last joining and the deep press of their bodies lying close. The scent of him still clung to the linens.

Most mornings, she woke to the heated weight of him against her back, his mouth at her throat, voice still rough with sleep as he murmured her name like a promise.

Or she’d awaken to find herself curled against him, his breath drawing deep as he roused awake, shifting her on top of him—moving with her in a lazy, unhurried rhythm before dawn.

Her gaze drifted across the bedchamber.

The scrying pool.

She had seen Hades command it to see Troy, to peer into the mortal world and glimpse things otherwise unseen.

Standing, she approached the edge. The surface was bright and clear, waiting.

“Hades,” she said softly.

At once, a desolate hillside appeared. It stood bleakly beneath a leaden sky, sleet and snow falling. The mortal world.

And then—Hades.

He stood still, the bitter winds curling around him, whipping against his dark mantle.

Her eyes searched the image, confusion rippling through her as she focused on the skeletal trees clawing at the sky, fields stripped of life. The earth, drained of its warmth.

But it was summer. It should have been summer.

Movement stirred behind Hades, a figure emerging from the swirling snow.

Shock lanced through her.

Her mother.

“You’ve hidden it from her.” Demeter’s voice was soft, taunting. “What her absence does to the earth.” She watched Hades’s back with cruel satisfaction. “Are you so terrified, Lord of the Underworld? Do you fear she’ll flee you at the first chance?”

The world tilted. Her heartbeat quickened. In the reflection, she watched Hades’s regal face darken wrathfully.

He would not lie to her.

The mortals—

Dread gripped her with talons. She staggered back from the pool, spinning on her heel, and ran out to the terrace, her feet barely touching the floor.

Clutching the balustrade, she looked out.

The air crushed from her lungs.

On the distant banks of the Styx, a sea of souls. Hundreds. Thousands. Their forms grew sharper in the coming daybreak, an endless mass. Men, women… and children.

Dead.

Her stomach twisted. She lurched forward, bent over the stone edge—and vomited.

A harsh breath dragged in. Then another heave wracked her body, forcing her to empty again.

Hands touched her shoulders, gathering her hair. She knew who it was without looking.

Slowly, she straightened, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her throat burned. She shook slightly as she turned to face him.

“How could you?” Her voice cracked, raw with disbelief—louder than any scream.

Hades stood unmoving, as if hewn from stone. His eyes were dark, solemn. “I did not wish you to bear the weight of what she had done.”

Her breath caught. Anger, sharp and rising, bled through the shock—fury laced with betrayal, scalding in her veins. “You hid this from me? You let them die... for me?”

He said nothing.

But the silence was worse than a thousand confessions. It fanned the fire tearing through her, until grief, rage, and something wounded twisted together inside her like an ancient beast roaring to life, tearing free of its bonds.

Her hands trembled at her sides. “You are like her,” she said, her breath shaking with fury. “You’ve treated me as a child. Shielded me. Hidden from me what I had every right to know, choosing what truths I can bear. Just as she did.”

The words landed like daggers. And across from her, something cracked. Darkness rose in his gaze, matching her fury, feeding it.

“I am like her?” The words came low, sharp with cold vehemence. But beneath, she heard the fracture. A wound struck deep.

He cast a hand toward the riverbank, where the dead gathered in pale, endless silence. “I would never do this.”

“But neither did you stop it!” Tears spilled hotly down her cheeks. Her hands fisted in the folds of his himation. “You—who speak of justice and value balance—is this fair? Is this right?”

“ Fair ? ”

The words tore from him in a growl, low and dangerous. Anger bled off him in dark waves, swallowing the air between them.

“Do you know what she demands?” he snapped, and she felt the restraint cracking. “ You . She would see the world turned to ash to take you back.”

“Hades—”

“Do not ask it of me!” His voice tore through the chamber, raw and thunderous. Shadows reared like a tide around them, and the stone underfoot trembled in warning. “I will not.”

“I cannot watch her murder women and children because of me!” Persephone sobbed, flinging a hand toward the river. “You cannot make this decision alone!”

“ Yes, I can !”

His roar split the marble beneath them, fissures rending in every direction like spiderwebs. The face that normally wore quiet, immovable strength was transformed—contorted in rage, carved not of ice but of molten wrath.

For the first time, fear licked down Persephone’s spine. She had never seen him like this—his temper fully unbound, its force unbridled and terrible. He shook with it, composure shattering under the force of ancient wrath.

Hades leaned forward, crowding her with the breadth of his body. She stepped back until her back met the stone of the balcony’s edge.

His eyes burned, but not with hatred.

Anguish.

“Do you know how long I was alone?” he ground out, each word forged in the bitter heat. “ Eons. Since the moment I drew the lot that crowned me. All others lived on Olympus, together beneath the sun. But here, I ruled in silence.”

He exhaled harshly, a broken sound. “I bore it, remembering the Fates had not forgotten me. That they had chosen you. That one day, you would come to be with me, to rule at my side.”

He turned from her abruptly, as though scorched by her nearness. His hands raked through his hair, shoulders stirring with each deep breath.

Persephone stood motionless. The fury that had gripped her lay broken at her feet, hollowed out by his words.

She had never thought of it, not truly. But hadn’t he spoken of it before?

The centuries of endless creation that he had undertaken when he took the Underworld’s throne.

Thousands of years had passed, an endless stretch before her arrival.

Silent eons spent believing that a promise whispered by the Fates would one day come to fruition.

I would have you rule with me. In everything.

He’d said that to her, she realized, her chest clenching.

But he hadn’t spoken of titles, nor thrones or duties.

What he’d offered her had been far more.

A place within him, beside him. A place of belonging, one that eternity itself could not erode.

He’d offered himself in full—placing the choice in her hands, even when she hadn’t understood the shape of it.

Now, her heart was rending in two, torn by the silence radiating from her husband’s turned back.

Slowly, Persephone stepped forward. Her cheek met his back, her arms slipping around his waist. She pressed herself to him, offering the only comfort she possessed.

“I did not know,” she whispered, remorse breaking the words.

His body was stone to her touch.

“No one does,” came the stiff reply, barely audible.

She only pressed closer, held him tighter.

After a moment, Hades gently broke her hold, turning to face her. The mask of stone was gone, shattered. His gaze was stripped bare, filled with anguish too vast to contain.

“I cannot give you up, Persephone,” he said hoarsely. “Do not ask it of me.”

The agony in his voice pierced her like an arrow, clean and deep. She stepped into him, folding herself into his arms. He enveloped her in a way that felt like surrender, as if she were the only warmth left in a world gone cold.

“I do not want to leave you,” she breathed into his chest. A truth drawn from her marrow. “But I cannot let this go on when they suffer because of me. I cannot turn from them now.”

He drew back, his expression twisting with pain etched deeply. In the hush that followed, came the sound of something sacred breaking.

“So you will turn from me,” he said quietly.

Her heart splintered. She rose onto her toes, framing his face with her hands. His skin was warm, his jaw clenched tightly beneath her touch.

“No,” she said, fierce—tender. She poured every drop of her will into the word, every measure of the aching, growing warmth that lived inside her for him. “I would choose to find another way. Together. ”

Her thumbs brushed over the firm lines of his cheekbones, her eyes holding his. “Help me, husband. Please.”

For a breathless moment, the world held still. The air itself, strained and aching, seemed to hush.

Slowly, his fingers closed over hers.

A spark caught between them—small, steady, and bright as the first light ever born into the dark.