Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls (Gods of Myth #3)

Chapter 14

Chapter

Fourteen

P ersephone

I can’t stop thinking of Hades’ words as we ride through the Underworld. I am deeply bothered by them, even though they were rich with a devoted sweetness that really shouldn’t bother me. They nag at me like a splinter deep under the skin. There is something there—something under his words that I am desperate to understand, and yet can’t. There is something in my mind, a thought just out of reach. Like a name that is known and yet impossible to recall.

Our ride is slow and leisurely, as though Hades and Alastor want to offer me a view rather than hurry me to any specific location. I’m happy for it, even as that nagging tug in my mind fails to abandon me. The Underworld is beautiful. It’s like nothing I imagined when I studied the ancient myths.

The sights are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life. I know Asphodel City is ancient, but it’s ancient in the way that feels intimate. This precious intimacy is a thing that most of civilization on Earth has long since lost.

Clustered stone buildings with uneven, sloped roofs in burnished reds, deep blues, and earthy greens sprout knobby stone chimneys that spill little puffs of smoke into the starlight. Windows framed in twisted, richly stained wood offer little peek-a-boos into tiny homes that bustle with life.

The stretch of darkness might blanket this realm, but it’s very obviously awake time here. And as we pass the city, I loose a longing sigh to explore more . I’ve been teased by the quaintest of homes that skirt the winding, bumpy cobble paths that maze through to the heart of the city. Sprouting like trees from the earth are black wrought iron lanterns, each designed apart from the one before it with drastic curlicues, lit with the flame of the Underworld. A dancing reminder of the sacrifice Hydra made for the souls who, eventually, all find their way here.

Bordering the entire city are pockets of asphodel flowers painted in the ghostly blue hues of night.

A warm voice with smoky undertones rumbles a promise at the shell of my ear. “You will see everything soon.”

Around a sigh, a soft smile plays at my lips. The man knows me so well . “It’s so charming here.”

“Did you expect something else?” There is dark amusement in his question. He knows I did.

“The Underworld isn’t exactly portrayed as a beautiful thing in myth, you know?”

“Oh?” His hand presses into my belly, his thumb shifting to caress me. “What did you imagine it to be, Persephone?”

Dragging my eyes from the passing city as Alastor lumbers on, I focus forward. Garnishing the distance before us is a stretch of softly rolling hills. Tall pockets of asphodel flowers sway in a gentle breeze between stretches of land that are painted a deep, midnight green under the brushstrokes of night. Beyond the life that drifts from the city is a faint sound of rushing water.

“I don’t know that I ever really imagined the Underworld,” I answer after some time has passed. “I suppose I thought it would be hot. Reminiscent to Hell.”

“Mmm,” Hades murmurs. “And what is Hell supposed to be like?”

I frown. “Hell is unimaginable torment.”

“There is unimaginable torment here.”

“You mean in Tartarus?”

“Yes.”

“Where is that?”

Hades is quiet for a long moment. “Tartarus is guarded by the river Phlegethon. Tartarus clings to the edge of this realm, across the marsh, opposite the Palace of Hades.”

“I see.” I don’t really. The Underworld is a maze.

“Tartarus is a dangerous place, Persephone. It is a place I never want you to travel, do you understand me?”

Instead of answering, I ask, “Do you go there?”

“I am the God who rules Tartarus,” he says in answer.

I bite down on the corner of my lip, my mind racing with thoughts of Hades—the man I’ve come to love deeply—in a place of indescribable torment. It hurts. The thought of him there is like a talon-tipped pinch to my heart.

I press, “But do you travel there? Into Tartarus?”

He sighs, seeming to understand that I have no intention of letting this go. “I do.”

“Why?”

“Again, I am the God who rules Tartarus, Persephone.”

I press. “What is your purpose there?”

His chest expands against my back with a deep breath. “Is this really what you wish to know, little goddess?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “I want to know everything. I see no reason why we shouldn’t start with, what I imagine is, the worst.”

“It is the worst.”

“My father always said I should save the best for last. He was usually referencing dinner, but I figure his logic applies here, too.”

Hades lets loose a surprised chuff of laughter. “How can I refuse such logical reasoning?” I don’t answer his question. It’s rhetorical, anyway. “My purpose in Tartarus is exactly what you imagine it is. When I am there, I punish those who are deserving.”

“How is that decided? How can you truly know that a soul is deserving? Everyone sins. Everyone has regrets, but there are clearly a lot of souls who make it into Asphodel City.” I frown. “I can’t imagine that every one of those souls lived their entire human lives in the earthly realm and never sinned once.”

Hades pulls me closer, his thumb again sliding absently against my belly. I focus my thoughts determinedly on his answer so as not to encourage the hollow ache I feel threatening to yawn in my core.

“Sin is not measured quite the same way in Christianity, as it is measured in the Underworld. At the end of a life, when a soul finds themselves in the Underworld, they arrive in Souls Landing. It is a piece of land surrounded by the River Acheron, the Marsh, and the mountain range that borders the Western side of the River Phlegethon. It is an unclimbable mountain range from which the House of Judgement sprouts. It is connected by this same range, to the River Phlegethon, which no soul who enters can escape without my aid.” His hold around my waist tightens. “This is why you must not dare entry into Tartarus, Persephone. Your soul would be ravaged beyond repair before I could hope to reach you—to find you amid the torment.”

“I understand,” I tell him softly. I don’t know why I am unable to promise him that I won’t go, however. There is something drawing me to the burning pits of torment. Something that I can’t explain. It is deeper than curiosity. And although it frightens me, I can’t ignore it.

“When a soul arrives in Souls Landing, it is instinct to drink from the River Acheron. Some souls will feel a pull to enter the river—they are usually the ones with no coin. Others will walk the land.”

“Why would the souls with no coin feel pulled into the river?”

“For direction. Those with a coin simply know the way to the House of Judgement. Those with no coin are truly lost. They are confused. At times, they are angry. When they enter the River Acheron, the current takes them where they need to go.”

“And where is that?”

“All souls pass through the House of Cerberus, whether in the river or on land.” His arm tightens around me as he continues, “The truly evil souls—the ones beyond any form of redemption—whose souls are so dark they leech the acrid sins of their mortal lives into the space around them—those souls are scented and captured by Cerberus. They never make it to the House of Judgement. The first entrance into Tartarus—into the Pit of Tartarus—is through the House of Cerberus.”

“What is the Pit?” I have a feeling I know, but I need to hear it. I need confirmation.

“It is where the most evil souls are placed. It is where I kept the Titans.”

I have two questions: How could a soul not be given their time to stand before the House of Judgement, and what does he mean he kept the Titans in the Pit?

“Shouldn’t every soul have their chance to stand before the House of Judgement?”

“If a soul cannot pass through the House of Cerberus, they have no right to stand before the Crown of Souls,” Hades says simply, and it’s like that thread in the back of my mind is tugged. Crown of Souls . I’ve never heard it, and yet it rings with familiarity. “Cerberus has never made a mistake,” Hades assures me. “The souls Cerberus carries to the Pit are deserving.”

“Does a soul ever get to leave the Pit?”

“Are you asking me if the most vile of souls ever reform enough to be granted reprieve from eternal torment?”

I nod, swallowing hard. “Yes.”

“No.” A shiver climbs to the surface of my skin at the absolute way he says it. “I’ve never granted forgiveness to the souls who find themselves in the Pit.”

“Why?”

Hades shifts behind me on Alastor. “The Pit is reserved for the souls who choose to harm children in their mortal lives. It is for the serial killers, for those who hunt other people, stealing their lives in brutal, gruesome ways. Who harm for pleasure or capital gain. There is no reformation for such souls. For the pain they inflict in their mortal life, they earn themselves an eternity of torment. And it is my pleasure to see it through.”

Well, when he puts it like that…

“I understand.” My voice comes out quiet and raw.

“But do you agree?” Hades presses gently.

“Absolutely.”

I can’t be certain, but I think he smiles. I don’t know how I know it, but I sense it.

I’m about to ask my second question when Alastor crests a hill, and a land of sweeping blue diamond’s glitters under the starlight.

My breath snags in my lungs and a chill prickles the length of my spine. Around the knob of the saddle, my fingers grow numb.

Rolling hills of blue glittering stones stretch so far into the darkness, I can’t see the end, but what I can see takes my breath away. The stone garden is dotted with polished benches crafted of the same blue stone that blankets the land. There is not a tree in the entirety of the open blue expanse that is ringed, as far as I can see, by a crystal-clear water that rushes over the same blue stone. It sings a melody of sighs and whispers with every rapid that sweeps into the surging rush of water before it. Blue crystal bridges wink under the shimmer of stars, calling to me even as something deep inside the core of me repels it.

The garden of blue is exquisitely, tragically beautiful. I don’t know how I know it’s tragic, but I do. Perhaps it’s intuition. Perhaps…

The vision—the memory—slams into my mind with the viciousness of a freight train.

It is the first thing in the Underworld that I recognize, I realize.

The River Lethe.

The whisper falls from my lips like a confession pulled from the signing river of forgetfulness. “The Garden of Silence?—”

Alastor stops walking abruptly enough that my body jolts.

Behind me, Hades is impossibly stiff. I’m not even sure he is breathing.

Memory fuses with reality and I see the scene flash before my eyes. My mother—the Goddess of Harvest and…horror—she killed me.

That raging river with its song of sighs invades my mind as it once invaded my body—bursting my very lungs even as it stole every memory.

Demeter—Goddess of Horror—transforms in my mind. The vision is so real, I’m not certain that it isn’t real. A scream rips from the deep of my throat.

I don’t even think of my second question. Like it has stolen so many other thoughts, the River Lethe steals this one, too.