Page 58 of Where Darkness Bloomed (Of Stars and Salt #1)

Cypress trees rose like solemn sentinels around Persephone, their dark limbs whispering in the dusk.

The air had begun to soften into shadow, folding quietly around her as she walked through her husband’s grove, each step heavier than the last. Fatigue dragged at her limbs, her thoughts dulled by sleeplessness.

Worry had long banished any hope of rest. When her eyes did close, dreams came—haunting, urgent.

The goddess and her child, Achilles, disappearing into the cave of dark crystal. Always seeking, always beyond her grasp.

Thetis had visited the Underworld with her son. That much was certain. How she’d done it, Persephone could not say. But there, in the earth’s shadowed heart, something had shifted. Achilles’s fate had been altered, twisted from the path of mortal men.

The dream always ended too soon, its truth hovering just beyond reach. Still, she felt it with bone-deep certainty: the secret of Achilles lay hidden in the Underworld.

At the grove’s heart, Persephone knelt to the moss-carpeted earth, her fingers pressing into the dark loam.

A vine slowly unfurled—thin at first, then thickening as it crept along the ground. Heart-shaped leaves blossomed, tendrils twisting and curling. Tiny green buds formed, then opened into pale flowers. As the petals withered and fell, clusters of burgundy grapes swelled in their place, ripening.

Persephone plucked a cluster, then stood. Holding her hand out, she squeezed, crushing the fruit until juice bled through her fingers, falling in decadent ruby drops to the earth.

“Dionysus,” she whispered. “Hear me.”

For a heartbeat, all was still .

Then, a warm breeze swept through the trees. Warm and sweet, it stirred her hair and filled the air with the scent of rich wine.

Suddenly, he was there.

Dionysus.

Dark curls spilled over his brow, half-tamed by a careless hand, framing a face both beautiful and terrible. His eyes were midnight-dark and bright, sparkling with mirth and promising pleasure and ruin alike. His lips tipped faintly, a mouth made for laughter and seduction.

He was tall, lithe, masculine grace and sensuality carved from sun-warmed skin. A leopard skin draped his shoulders, the fur brushing his naked chest. A himation of indigo was fastened low about his hips, an afterthought.

“Fair Persephone.” His voice was a slow pour of wine, warm and languorous. “An unexpected honor.”

The grove seemed to lean toward him, drawn by the quiet gravity that rolled off him in waves, like the warmest notes of a lyre. The grass beneath his bare feet trembled with life, whispering a welcome.

Persephone inclined her head. “My lord, I seek your help.”

A flicker passed through his eyes—interest, touched with surprise.“Help?” he echoed, curiosity winding through his voice. “What aid could I offer the Underworld’s queen?”

After a pause, she said softly, “You journeyed to the Underworld once, while you were still mortal.”

At once, something in him stilled. The amusement in his wine-dark eyes dimmed, pulling inward. There was no mistaking the ancient memory that settled heavily behind his gaze.

“I did,” he replied, quieter now. “Many ages ago. I sought to rescue my mother.”

“Semele,” Persephone said gently.

He nodded once. “Zeus’s beloved.”

“You reached the Underworld from the mortal world?”

“I did,” he murmured. “Though I was too late.”

Persephone hesitated, sensing the wound buried beneath his words. “Too late?” she asked slowly.

A shadow drew over his face. The grove fell into silence once more, the wind catching like breath.

“Zeus loved my mother,” Dionysus said finally. “He swore to grant her any wish. She asked to see him as he truly was, his divine form.” His gaze turned distant, as if watching the moment unfold. “When he revealed himself, his power consumed her. I saved her soul, but her mind...”

He paused, the silence heavy with old grief. “Her mind was lost.”

The grove stood hushed, as though the trees bowed in mourning with the god of beautiful sorrow.

“As recompense,” Dionysus continued, “Zeus made me the god of wine.” Then, quieter, rougher: “And of madness.”

A half-formed truth slid suddenly into place. Madness. Not a punishment, a sanctuary.

It was why Dionysus didn’t fear it, why he embraced it. Let it course through him like sacred fire, drank it like the richest wine, breathed it in like a lover’s sigh. In madness—chaotic, fertile, consuming—lingered one that he had loved. Only there could what was lost be touched again.

It was devotion. A son too wild to surrender. A god too divine to forget.

The terrible beauty of what he revealed stole the words from her lips.

“I never knew,” Persephone murmured at last.

Dionysus looked at her then, the wildness unmasked, dancing behind his eyes. But when he smiled, it was bittersweet.

“It is easier to toast the god of wine,” he said softly, “to dance and drink in my name, than to acknowledge the god who walks among the untamed, the unbound. I am a liberation to some. A warning to others. A reminder of how fragile the mind truly is.”

Her heart clenched at the raw edge in his words, but she pressed on softly. “How did you find your way to the Underworld?”

“I took the path.”

“The path,” Persephone repeated. “Where does it begin?”

He studied her for a moment. “There is a cave in Epirus,” he replied. “Near Thesprotia, along the coast, a cave of black crystal.” A nod. “The path begins there.”

A cave of black crystal.

Like the dream—

Her breath hitched. She inclined her head and, with quiet reverence, whispered, “You have my thanks, truly.”

With a languid shift of his stance, Dionysus offered a rueful smile. “There is an obstacle.”

“Yes.” Persephone straightened, nodding with quiet determination. “But I believe Charon will grant me passage. ”

Dionysus laughed—a rich, indulgent sound. “I have no doubt he would,” he replied smoothly. “But a different obstacle.”

Persephone drew in a breath, then asked, more carefully, “What is it?”

“Cerberus.”

The sun’s warmth seemed to bleed from the air, leaving a ghostly chill behind. A shiver curled down her spine.

Cerberus. A monstrous hound with three vicious heads, insatiable hunger, and a scent for trespassers. She’d never seen the famed beast, Hades’s most loyal guardian.

Her voice emerged as a whisper. “Cerberus guards the path?”

“It is the only pathway between the living and the dead,” Dionysus confirmed with a nod. “And it is fiercely guarded by him.”

“But he let you pass,” she countered, hope flaring like a torch in the dark. “How?”

His eyes lit, amusement sparking within. “Cerberus did not stand guard when I made the journey. No mortal had dared to enter before me.”

A wicked smile broke across his face. “Your husband was... displeased by my intrusion,” he added, the words humming with quiet relish. “After my journey, Hades sent Cerberus to guard the path.”

A cold knot tightened in her chest.

The path was real. It was there, tantalizingly close. But Cerberus was impossible, a barrier too great to overcome.

She let out the breath trapped in her chest. “Then... there is no way.”

Dionysus’s expression softened. The irreverent laughter ebbed, becoming almost tender. “There is another way,” he said. “Call out to your husband. Hades would not deny you.”

The words curled around her like a ribbon of incense—dark and sweet, tempting.

She ached to do just that. To whisper Hades’s name and feel him at her back, arms drawing her down into the sanctuary of his realm. Into the warmth of their bed.

But what would follow—

Demeter’s fury would ignite once more. The fragile accord with Zeus would shatter. The earth would plunge into further chaos. More death, more needless destruction.

She swallowed a sigh. “I cannot.” The words were hollow. “Zeus and Hades have reached an agreement. One my husband cannot break. ”

Dionysus tilted his head, a lazy movement, his dark gaze slipping over her. “Then permit me to offer you a piece of advice.”

She waited.

His smile bloomed, sensual and full of mischief. “Only a fool would attempt to subdue him,” he mused. “But Cerberus, like most creatures, has his hungers. He craves sweetness found only in the world of the living. This is your key.”

A warm breeze stirred through the grove, fragrant with crushed grapes, pine needles, and something heady and forbidden. It slipped across her skin like a caress. Then Dionysus was gone.

God of madness, indeed.

She exhaled raggedly, frustration thrumming beneath her skin. “Not entirely helpful,” she muttered to no one.

The path lay before her. Epirus. The crystal cave. All within reach.

All, except Cerberus.

He was no ordinary beast. A nightmare made flesh—colossal, terrible, born of the Underworld’s darkest fire. The old tales called him a living mountain, black as coal, with claws that shredded bronze and teeth that gleamed like spears. A force even gods approached with caution.

She closed her eyes, rifling through memories, seeking any scrap of knowledge.

One surfaced—

“Koios, the Titan of wisdom, came the closest just after their imprisonment . . . He was forced back by Cerberus.”

A soft groan escaped her lips as she sank to the grass, heavy with dread.

Cerberus had repelled a Titan. Not just any, but Koios, the ancient keeper of wisdom and forethought. There would be no slipping past him. No clever ruse. No whispered entry. Not when even a powerful Titan had failed.

Persephone stared up at the dark canopy overhead, defeat closing over her like a crashing wave.

Then a flicker of movement.

Her head turned sharply, eyes finding the spot where Dionysus had stood moments earlier. She stared, startled.

There, nestled in the grass, sat two barley cakes. Thick golden honey clung to them, glistening in the last lavender threads of dusk. The scent rose, warm and decadently sweet .

A gift from the god of revelry.

Her breath caught.

Sweetness found only in the world of the living.