Chapter nineteen Persephone
Chapter nineteen
Persephone
The Morningstar was alive.
“You’re dead. Hades has you.”
"Does he now, little goddess?” That sinister grin he'd donned shot ice into my veins, this time with the overwhelming gravity of realization ricocheting it through me; that it wasn't a dream. My hands trembled in time with my knees.
The world shrank, time collapsed—
The Fates sent me that vision, or perhaps the Morningstar had some power over dreams, or even Hypnos, the god of sleep himself.
The thought sat heavy in my stomach as I watched Zeus and Mother arguing frantically, but I couldn’t hear them through the cotton shoved in my head and the buzzing of a thousand bees.
“You’re mine, Little Persephone.”
He was coming for me. But why?
“I can protect her here in the mortal realm!” Mother's seething had softened, turning into something quieter. Fervent. There was a hollow look in her eyes that reminded me of what remains after death. Mortals spoke of haunted homes. Mother looked as if she were the one who haunted empty halls. “I’ve done it before, I will do it again. He’ll not have her. ”
“She’ll be safer in Olympus!” Zeus’s frustration was evident, lightning sparking to life over his body once again.
“Was she safe last time?” Mother’s voice boomed, her conviction returning. Her voice thundered, echoing off each wall. Air swelled and moved, her hair floating on a magic-induced breeze. “Olympus is full of monsters.”
A loud laugh echoed over and over around the room.
A laugh that made the nausea rise and gather in my throat and my breath burn stubbornly in my chest. The hearth flame surged as if oil had been thrown on it, shadowy smoke billowing.
The world outside the windows turned white—not with the light of dawn, but with the divine light that consumed everything.
Zeus snarled, lightning forming in his hands and crackling over his shoulders. “He’s here.”
“Little goddess.” The voice wasn’t loud but it penetrated every part of me, nonetheless. My hands shook. When he spoke, it wasn’t a memory that unraveled me, not a vision I could distance myself from.
He was here.
“You belong to me.”
“Persephone!” Mother called, whipping towards me, summoning me behind her.
“I’m here!” I cried out, surging towards her, my arms finding her quickly.
Mother’s hands craned my face up to hers, blocking my view of Zeus launching his attack with a shriek of the enraged gods. “I need you to run, my daughter. Can you do that for me?”
“But what about you?” My tears stained my face, burning my eyes. “Where would I go?”
“I love you. Your father loves you.” My father sent another lightning bolt at the Morningstar.
The bolt bent, curving away from his target as though ashamed to mark him.
It struck the wall to the side, blasting it open in an explosion that would have toppled us if we were mortal.
“Run! We’ll find you!” Her words dissipated in the explosion's wake.
“Father of the gods, still not understanding what I am. What I want,” the new god crooned as he launched an attack of his own. “I am starlight incarnate. The first star. You think a little lightning is more than a light singe to me?”
Mother waited for nothing. She whirled her magic, lifting vines through the floor, entwining, seeking, ensnaring as the door blew open on squeaky hinges.
“You think to hold me like this again, harvest goddess?” he murmured, almost bored. “How quaint.”
With a wave of his hand, they turned white, brittle, before falling into dust at his feet. Mother’s face was bone white, as if the life had leeched from her as well.
“Run!” Zeus boomed as he jumped into the fray. “Run, daughter. And don’t stop!”
The world tilted as Zeus bought me time to escape. “I love you!” I called to them. As I prayed I wasn’t leaving them to their doom.
The floor lilted and fell away.
Light lurched.
My heart leapt into my throat. I turned against the world on its axis, bolting for the door I could scarcely see through my tears or my rising guilt.
I ran from the only place I’d ever called home.
The only place I’d ever been truly safe.
Even as my mother and father begged me to run, even as lightning and thunder and pelting rain descended upon us all, I ran.
I sobbed—
—through the guilt.
—through the dread.
—through the fear that gripped my very soul.
I ran blindly, ignoring the sharp thorns and brambles that tore my skin, an offering for the cover they offered. Blood mixed with tears on my cheeks—
—a streak of black crossed my vision. I skidded to a halt, my head whipping around, every sense on high. How could the Morningstar have found me so fast? Did that mean that Mother, Father…?
My magic whipped out like a lash, vines and thorns tripping and ensnaring anyone within reach.
They grabbed nothing.
I opened my eyes to see the strange black butterfly again, the one from my vision earlier. It floated in the air, fluttering in place, unaffected by the whipping rain and wind. Soft tendrils formed its wings, stunning, almost ethereal in its beauty. It didn’t feel like the Morningstar.
It felt divine. Haunting. And in some strange twist of fate, it felt strangely, achingly familiar.
It flitted nearby, at eye level, then disappeared into the trees.
Was it a trick? Or was I meant to follow it?
An explosion behind me startled my feet into motion, immediately running after the butterfly.
It flew faster than it should have been able to, always keeping several feet ahead of me with each step I took.
I ran, dagger still in hand, after the butterfly hoping against hope that this wasn’t the Morningstar’s ploy.
My feet slipped in the gathering mud, spraying water with each step.
The heavy rain made forest evasion difficult, but at least the Morningstar would have a hard time tracking me if he couldn’t see me.
And entirely without warning, the butterfly, my guide, vanished.
At first, I thought I must have just lost the butterfly in the pounding rain, but try as I might to find it, it had vanished. Raking my free hand through my hair, I considered what to do next.
“Little shadow.” A gasp tumbled from my lips to see Hades standing between two trees, staring at me. “You made it.”
“The butterfly.” Realization dawned on me. “That was you?”
“Brains and beauty,” he drawled, but his face hardened when he glanced over my shoulder. “We don’t have much time; we have to go now.”
I took a cautious step back. “Go where?”
“Where the Morningstar cannot reach you,” Hades held his hand out to me. The silence that stretched between us grew oppressive, taking on a hostile energy. It crackled between us. “I don’t know what he wants with you, but the Fates warn of catastrophe should he obtain you.”
A scream rent the air. From behind me.
Mother!
I turned to go back, to help the only family I had, but Hades lunged, grasping his hands around my waist. “Forgive me, Persephone.”
In a cloud of black smoke, I felt us fall through space, through realms, through time itself. And when I opened my eyes, the mortal world was gone. All that remained was the blackened pit of the Underworld.