Chapter Sixty
Persephone
Over the coming days, Hades kept his promise.
He didn’t abandon me again. He’d find me in the library and take me to the garden in Elysium since my magic worked there, however temperamentally.
Every day, he tucked a new Hades’ Whisper behind my ear.
I observed him dole out justice when the judges requested it, admiring his fairness at every turn.
A little at a time, day by day, Hades showed me that he wasn’t the villain Mother painted him to be.
He was simply buried beneath the weight of the dead, and every other god and goddess watched him suffocate and did nothing to help.
They cast him a villain, a story to keep mortals in line.
Hades wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t even evil.
Olympus might be though
And when the threat of the Morningstar no longer loomed over us like a caustic storm, I’d get answers on Hades’ behalf.
I snuck up next to him when the final shade was dragged from the throne room, grinning at his bident. Hades glanced up at me, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“What’s got you so amused, little shadow?”
“You know, you’re not nearly as scary as you think you are.” I pointed at his bident with a smirk. I leaned my elbows on the armrest of his throne, pointing to his bident with a sly grin, “Your pitchfork is broken. You’re missing a spoke.”
The God of the dead melting down over calling his bident a pitchfork might be the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
And if he’d condemn my soul to Tartarus for it, it’d be worth it.
His narrowed eyes landed on me as he pointed it at me.
I smirked at him, mostly confident I wasn’t about to get skewered with it.
He cut me with a glare. “It’s a bident, not a pitchfork.”
“Back in the mortal world, we had a mortal neighbor who was a farmer. He used that exact thing to toss hay.” My smirk widened into a cheek-splitting grin as I laughed. “I hate to break it to you, Hades, but that’s a pitchfork. Guess you should have gotten a trident like Poseidon.”
“Unfortunately, your father had a very specific vision for the three of us, and he wanted me to have the bident. As insufferable as he is now, he’s worse when he doesn’t get his way.
” His head didn’t lower so much as it flattened as if his irritation with Zeus were slowly crushing him.
“Besides, my bident has been my trusted companion for millennia. It works perfectly fine.”
“Don’t all males say that about their staffs?”
The joke was barely out of my mouth when the bident came rushing at me.
I jerked back, my eyes closing as I realized I’d pushed too far.
The crashing sound of steel embedding into stone exploded on either side of my head, forcing me to look.
The bident had effectively trapped me, wrapping around my neck and keeping me lodged against the stone wall.
I struggled, my hands flying to the cold-as-death metal of the staff, but it refused to budge as if it too resented my calling it a pitchfork.
“Don’t you look nice, trussed up like this?
” Hades crooned as he strolled forward, completely unhurried, to trace his hand along the staff as he closed in to tower over me.
He didn’t need to put his hand beside my head to block my escape as the bident had me effectively trapped, but he did anyway.
He didn’t need to bring his face so close to mine to taunt me, dropping his voice to that irresistibly husky tone, but he did.
“I want to point out how if this were a trident, you’d be dead.
As I’ve said before, my bident has many uses, some of which are—” his voice dropped further to a whisper, sending a shiver down my spine, “— unorthodox.”
“Are you done with your tantrum now?” I breathed in the limited space between us, deliberately not noticing how good he smelled, like smoke, spice, and musk.
Sparks of heat rose up unexpectedly. I should be afraid, but fear was a stranger to me now.
The Morningstar had trapped me similarly, and yet the spark in Hades’ eyes didn’t make me afraid that he would hurt me.
At least not in any way I didn’t want.
“Nope.” Without another word, he turned on his heel and swaggered away. He tossed me a look over his shoulder. “Not until you admit my bident is awesome.”
“Are you sure you’re talking about your bident?” My joke washed harmlessly off him in the wake of my breathy tone.
“If I were talking about that, this conversation wouldn’t be happening because there’s no argument about that.
Now be a good captive, say the magic words, and earn your freedom.
” I swallowed thickly, his eyes tracking the movement.
I focused on keeping my breathing easy, rhythmic, even as my heart galloped in my chest.
I told myself that pressing my lips together was an act of defiance and not staving off a laugh. I told myself I wasn’t biting down on a smile. That the heat flooding my body was just a panic response.
“Please can you remove the bident?” I finally asked in the sweetest voice I could conjure.
He tsked, his smirk stretching wider. The light in his eyes sparked like an ember, a supernova in the galaxy of stars. His face drifted closer, his warm breath skating over my cheek and making my eyes flutter closed—
“Until next time, little shadow.” My eyes flew open at his chuckle in time to watch him step into a shadow and disappear.
“You aren’t actually about to leave me here?” My mouth dropped open as his dark laughter echoed the halls in tandem with his fading footfalls. The cold from the metal around my neck became prominent in the absence of the warmth of his body.
“Fine,” I muttered into the negative space. “It’s a bident, and it’s awesome.”
Just as the silence began to compress me, almost to the second, the bident hummed, a black mist pouring over it before disappearing. I was free. Another laugh sounded from the darkness, echoing everywhere, making it impossible to pinpoint where he watched me from.
I couldn’t help the smile that rose to my lips.
Audenth was busy, Hecate was nowhere to be found, and one could only wander halls aimlessly for so long before boredom crashed in.
I settled myself fitfully on a small sofa amidst a mountain of soft cushions and fuzzy blankets, my newest dust covered book freshly picked from the library.
I inhaled, letting the scent of parchment, ink, and dusty tomes calm my mind.
The one I held was massive with ancient text, not all of it legible, greeted me like an old friend upon opening it.
Cerberus rested at my feet, grunting or snoring, I couldn’t tell.
Perhaps both. Refusing to disturb him, I thumbed the pages, praying it would contain information on the magic of the Underworld.
While I knew I could ask Hecate when she returned from wherever she was, and that perhaps I should, I wanted to at least attempt to sleuth my answers first.
And if I were honest with myself, a little alone time would do me good.
Thunder from above, deafening in its fury, shook the library.
A few books even tumbled from their places on the shelves.
Cerberus was up, all three heads changing between whining and growling.
I pet all three heads in rapid succession, hoping to soothe him under the comforting shelter of soft blankets, my book already forgotten.
“You mean to tell me the big, scary guardian of the Underworld is afraid of thunder?” I chided him between chin scratches.
Mid was the only one who managed to look at me reproachfully before submitting to the siren song of my long fingernails behind his ears—a place I learned I could absolutely buy his affection.
I grabbed the nearest fluffy blanket that wasn’t already on Cerberus, throwing it over his heads like a hood.
Immediately, Left sighed contentedly, submitting to the call of the soft fleece.
“I’ll be back. I’m going to look out at the storm.
” Mid whined, grabbing my hand gently, Right tilting his head adorably.
“I won’t be taken by the river again.” I shivered in the wake of the river’s thrall.
That was not a pleasant experience, and I’d given that river a sneer and a wide berth ever since.
“I’ll even promise you to stay inside and look out the window if that helps.
I’ll be right back. Keep my spot warm for me, please? ”
A lick to my hand and another whine from Mid. Right also looked concerned. Left was already asleep. I put the blankets over their eyes, promising to be back in five minutes or less, when another crack boomed and echoed through the cavernous library. I smiled.
If anything would make me feel closer to my mother, it would be a storm.
She always made the best ones when she was angry, and considering the long weeks I’d been here, and my circumstances, I could imagine the tempests that were ravaging the mortal realm.
I wondered briefly if that were what we were witnessing: a storm so colossal that it reached us all the way down in the Underworld, but I waved that off immediately.
That wasn’t possible. If my magic didn’t work here, hers certainly wouldn’t either.
I hurried to the nearest window outside the library, a towering thing with intricate stone engravings, only to frown.
The sky was still overcast as always, with the slight green reflection from the Styx.
No wind barraged the adamant stones, no rain pelted the worn walkways and dead gardens, no lightning lit the grounds in stark shades of black and white.
Another deafening crack rattled the glass enough to take a healthy step backwards.
Whatever was happening was no storm like I’d ever seen.
Footsteps echoed in the hall, drawing my notice. A courtier, dressed in fine fabrics and a haughty expression, side eyed me suspiciously before continuing along.
“Excuse me.” I bowed my head in an intentional show of respect. “Does it always storm so strangely here?”
His feet never stopped. Glaring down his nose at me, he gave me a single answer that only left me with more questions. “It doesn’t storm here.”
A specter rounded the corner, his eyes meeting mine immediately. I opened my mouth to ask some of the questions that burned in my throat, but something in his hand stopped me. A familiar flower, one that had my chest tightening; Hades’ Whisper.
“Lady Persephone.” The specter bowed, stiff and formal. “I’ve been instructed to bring you this. I’ve been told to emphasize the urgency with which you should respond.”
He pressed the flower to my open hand, its slight wilt only making the dread creep in. “Is Hades okay?” I asked, needing more details.
The specter’s face was grave. “He sent me for you. His need is great.” At my ashen expression, he softened, his hand touching my shoulder gently. Bracing me. “Go to him. On the shore of the Acheron.”
I hesitated, Hades’ warning coming back from that time in the chariot. “But Hades warned me from there. Are you sure that’s where he needs me?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’m certain. He waits for you there.”
With my heart in my throat, I sidestepped him, moving quickly but stopping just as abruptly.
“I don’t understand. Does this have to do with the thunder?”
But like the ghost he was, he was already gone, his absence like a warning. A warning that would go unheeded, because if Hades needed help, I’d damn well be there.