Chapter Thirty-Nine
Persephone
Fire erupted in my skin as the blade sliced a line down my shoulder to my collarbone, before Minthe’s awkward angle forced her to lose her grip and the blade fell onto my stomach.
The sear of pain was a shock to the senses, shooting adrenaline further through my veins alongside my rage.
The very pain, I learned was a blessing in disguise, because my hands wrapped around the hilt.
Minthe regained her senses in time to snarl at me, slowly getting her feet under her. Her unanticipated collision with the stone floor dazed her, buying me precious seconds to scramble to my knees. A rumble of power, Minthe’s magic, her rebuke—was a shockwave echoing in the corridor—
—A resonant snarl captured both our attentions.
My head swung to the source to see Cerberus growling as he padded towards us. Hackles up, teeth bared, all three heads of Cerberus were fueled by rage alone.
“Cerberus, why are you here?” Minthe yelled at the guardian of the Underworld as he prowled his way between us, all three heads glaring at her. Mid gnashed his teeth, his tongue flicking out, daring her to come at him. “You protect that disrespectful bitch?”
All three heads snarled, frothing and angry. His tail swished, his ears pinned back. He leaned towards her, as if to say try it and see what happens.
“This isn’t finished,” she spat. With a final glare that levelled me with the full weight of her hatred, Minthe turned on her heel. Her retreat echoed quickly down the hall, but I didn’t move, couldn’t move, until they had faded entirely.
A whine interrupted my frozen reverie, where Left was butting his head against my open hand and Right was sniffing my wound.
Of course, now that the adrenaline was no longer pumping through my veins, pain flared at my shoulder where blood was still dripping down my arm, bringing tears to my eyes.
I needed a healer. Even as I took stock of myself, fat drops of blood marred the stone beneath me, though I doubted this was the first House Hades had seen of blood or violence.
Even Mid looked worried, eyeing me with something other than distrust.
“Can I say thank you?” I asked him, tucking my dagger into my belt and holding my hands out for inspection. Mid eyed me before nosing my hand with a flat expression.
“Thank you for saving me, Cerberus. I’m grateful. Did Hades ask you to babysit me?”
All three heads craned up to look at me as if to say, Who else?
“Can you truly understand everything I say?” I marveled at how soft, how sweet, the guardian of the Underworld was.
“You’re such a good and smart boy!” Mid looked slightly insulted, but Right and Left lolled their tongues.
“Sorry, boy,” I said over his whine. He’d jumped up, standing over me protectively.
“Do you think you can take me to a healer? I’d be happy to give belly rubs after.
And maybe a walk by the river?” Left and Right nodded in an eerily human way.
It was Mid who looked suspicious, and I realized he thinks I’m looking for an escape again.
Left gently grabbed my good hand in his massive jaws and led me down the hall.
I raised a brow, pleasantly surprised at how gentle he was for such a ferocious creature of his size and reputation.
Mid never stopped staring at me. “I’m not trying to escape, Mid.
You can even hold on to me if you feel it necessary.
I just need…” I trailed off, not knowing what I needed.
“I need some sky above me after all this.”
Looking appeased, Mid turned back to face front, Left having abandoned my hand in favor of making me scratch his ears, eliciting delighted rumbles from him that almost sounded like a canine purr. We walked down several hallways, each one looking the same as the last.
When Cerberus finally stopped, it was at a set of double doors, instead of the traditional black like I’d seen everywhere else.
The black remained a frame for a stunning view of opulent and ornate stained-glass windows.
Blues, blacks, and golds shimmered in the braziers’ light from above.
Cerberus whined, looking back and forth between me and the door.
I knocked, three hesitant raps on the door. It opened, beckoning me inside. I tiptoed in, silence greeting me. Cerberus stepped in behind me as the door slammed shut behind him. I tensed, my hand going to the dagger on instinct when a laugh reverberated around the room.
“Honestly, there’s no need for all that.” I knew that voice.
“Hecate?” I gaped. “You’re the healer?”
She ignored my question with a pointed look at my shoulder, and where my shirt had stained red. “You’re bleeding. That is no mere scratch either.” Her careful gaze missed nothing. “Who harmed you?”
I choked out a laugh. With a dismissive wave of my hand, I responded, “I’m clumsy at the best of times. I wasn’t watching where I was going. Pathetic, right?”
Hecate snorted, strolling closer. “Wounds are stories, you know. I read blood the way you read ink.” She parted the fabric of my sleeve to reveal the gash, already crusted over, barely even weeping anymore. Her eyes cut from the wound back to me expectantly. “No part of this was an accident.”
I averted my eyes, breaking under her scrutiny at last. I pressed my mouth into a thin line as I weighed my options. Hecate narrowed her eyes, losing patience.
“I don’t want to cause trouble,” I whispered, drawing back. “My shoulder is fine, it isn’t serious.” I turned to leave, to back out of the door, but found Cerberus whining as he stood in my way.
“Trouble doesn’t pull a disappearing act because you bite your tongue.” Hecate’s voice was weighted with her power. Her eyes glowed white as she approached on silent steps. “Trouble festers, growing until it’s an infection that devours you.”
Her hand snaked out, seizing my wrist with cold, slender hands.
I recoiled, waiting for the pain. None came.
Instead, Hecate’s magic was a cool bath of moonlight, a flare of night itself, and the constant sting in my shoulder was suddenly gone.
I glanced down expecting to see a line, a scar, something that proved my injury to be real, but all that I could see was unblemished skin.
Not even a freckle. I blinked up at Hecate, her face unreadable.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “I didn’t think it hurt much until you made it stop. You have my sincerest appreciation.” Hecate’s eyes were sharp, but not unkind. Shrewd, missing no details, she gave me a thin smile.
“You are not alone here, Persephone. Believe me when I say Hades will be furious to know someone caused you to bleed. It’s a favor he will enjoy repaying in kind.”
I arched my brow in disbelief. “I haven’t seen him since I got here.”
“He walks paths you cannot see. I assure you, none of them lead away from you. If I can tell you one thing, one thing Hades doesn’t want me to, let it be this: do not mistake his absence for indifference.
You’re under his protection, and by extension, ours.
” She gestured to Cerberus where he lay at my feet, who rumbled his agreement.
Left nudged my hand with a whine. “You remind Minthe of that when next you see her.” At my balk, as I reeled for something to say, Hecate barked out a dry laugh.
“I could taste her envy of you through the wound. It seeps from her like smoke from a fire and is every bit as dangerous. Withhold information like that again from us, and I will personally see to your consequence. Silence keeps her safe, not you.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” I asked wryly as I turned to leave. This time, Cerberus moved out of my path.
Hecate didn’t look up at me, having returned to her desk, another tight-lipped smile twisting her lips. “No. And the sooner you figure that out, the better. Which reminds me, Persephone,” her voice commanded me to turn back around to face her, “Your mother sends her love.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest, the first I’d felt since arriving in the Underworld. She was okay. Still, that warmth quickly turned to an ache and I briefly wondered if Hecate had any tonics or tinctures for missing your home and family so much it hurt.
Looking up at the ceiling as if I could see the mortal world above, I prayed. I prayed to Mother, giving her all my love.
There was, of course, no response.
Hades
“What the fuck are you doing?” Hecate barged into my chambers, molten-colored eyes finding me at my book-strewn desk and pinning me with a scathing look of accusation.
“You stole that girl for her safety, and what? You’re just going to leave her to wilt?
She’s the goddess of spring! Of life! And you have her withering with each passing day out here.
There’s nothing for her to do. She’s restless. Aimless. She has no connection here—”
“She has you,” I reminded her, guilt siphoning the air from my lungs.
“She needs you!” She crossed the space to me in three long, angry strides, slamming her fist down on my desk. “She wants you.”
Words bubbled under my skin, but none came up my throat, so I said nothing.
I turned away, glancing out the window to where Persephone spoke with Audenth animatedly.
Cerberus reclined on her legs where she scratched each head in turn with a smile.
She’d even managed to win over Mid. Hecate sucked in a breath, her head swiveling between her and me.
“You care for her. Don’t you fucking deny it. I see it in the way you look at her.”
Once again, I said nothing. Needing something, anything, for my hands to do, I took a sip of my drink, relishing the burn as I did so.
“Minthe attacked her yesterday. Made her bleed.”
The glass in my hand shook, threatening to shatter. “Excuse me?”
“I took care of Persephone. But you may wish to deal with your former paramour. And you know that’s not why I’m here.”
I didn’t respond, my jaw grinding as my fury built over Minthe. She drew Persephone’s blood?
“Hades.” Her tone was nothing if not a warning.
And I knew her well enough in our years as friends that she would not stop, bringing my mind back to an even bigger problem.
One I had no answer for, even with all the books on my desk, all the books in the libraries of House Hades, answers stubbornly eluded me.
“The barrier is weakening. Severely.” There.
I said it. Hecate stopped, paused as if time itself had stopped, with her expression of utter shock slowly dissolving into a rare flicker of fear.
“Little by little, someone chips away at it. One day, and one day soon, it’ll break.
And I don’t know what’ll happen when it does. ”
The Underworld itself will be under siege. Persephone—
I slammed my drink back down, banishing the intrusive thought through sheer force. My jaw clicked, rigid from head to toe, and she noticed.
“You’re preparing for war. That’s why you’re not with her. You’re afraid,” she chewed the words over, neither approving nor disapproving, “of falling in love with her and losing her.”
I didn’t make the decision to do it. My body, fueled by anger with no outlet, threw the dagger I kept at my side at the wall, hitting its target with a resounding thump.
“We just have to kill the bastard,” I said, resolute in my decision to bring the Morningstar to his demise. And nothing would bring me greater pleasure. It could only be him doing this. The question was why? Why now? What did we want Persephone for so badly that he would destroy the barrier?
And how? How was he powerful enough to destroy the barrier that even the Titans could not?
“Zeus and Demeter in particular have not rested.” She was the picture of calm, but I knew her.
Her posture was too erect, the breeze her magic usually wrought was less a gentle touch of wind and more like the slow acceleration before a cataclysmic storm.
“They search Olympus and the mortal plains themselves. Still, they cannot find him.”
Silence trickled, uncomfortable and tense. Hecate’s pacing was unnerving. She never paced. Never showed signs of turmoil, yet it was there in the pressing of her lips, biting back what she wanted to say.
“Go to Persephone. Be with her. It’ll be good for both of you. She’s a breath of fresh air—which means a lot more when fresh air doesn’t exist down here.”
I pursed my lips, my eyes trailing to her once more under a canopy of my furrowed brow. I couldn’t help but agree with her.