Persephone
Chapter forty-eight
For the life of me, I could not quell the restlessness in my legs or in my soul. It ached to be somewhere, doing something. Anything but stationary. And the river. The Lethe’s call had yet to cease.
Cerberus padded beside me, not leaving my side since my run in with Minthe, even sleeping at the door of my rooms and eventually even at the foot of the bed beneath a mountain of furs.
Mid was quick to give warning growls at anyone who he perceived as walking too close and openly snarled at someone watching me from the shadows as I strolled through the throne room.
Glancing over, I saw it was that same aristocrat Hades threatened before.
At my notice, he visibly shrank in his effort to stop existing.
And was it just me or did Cerberus look smug about it?
The doors to House Hades were visible, down the massive hall where Hades had first declared me his, and under his protection.
The words echoed so soundly from Hecate as well.
I kept my stare straight ahead. Instead of listening to the stammered whispers spoken in the shadows, I heeded at last to the call of the river, guiding me.
It wasn’t audible, not really.
It was like it was singing, and my soul could hear it.
Interpret it, the way poets interpret feeling and emotion.
And I could feel it. Layers of emotion. Longing.
Despair. Sorrow. Pain. All of them converged, heightening, as I left House Hades and looked up at the overcast sky.
Not even the moon winked down, the diffuse light of the Styx casting everything in a subtle green glint on the opposing side of the massive castle.
I walked softly beneath the cloud canopy passing the Styx with the guardian of the Underworld protectively by my side.
I couldn’t help but smile that Mid had seemed to have accepted me, as if my brush with Minthe had shown him something.
His intelligent gaze watched me nonetheless, but the obvious hostility was absent at least. I stoked all three heads as we walked.
“You’re incredibly soft for the big scary guardian of the Underworld, Cerberus” I crooned to him. His tail wagged, all six ears perked up, and Right licked my hand by way of response.
This close to the banks of the crystal-clear waters of the Lethe River, the song was a storm of sound, beautiful and all-consuming.
The water flowed, but the surface remained unblemished, like clean glass.
The song revealed another layer; one I hadn’t anticipated; wrath.
Wrath unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
The song was one of wrath, and the sorrow that vanquished it in the aftermath.
The clear waters of the Lethe, the river for forgetting, were nothing, memories resting upon its waters like thick oil.
Memories from all. I watched in rapt fascination as each went by, the memory of a stranger floating away.
None made the song change in tune, in pitch, as the one coming downstream.
I was a moth to a flame. It was a siren song, and I wasn’t entirely in control of my body anymore. Cerberus whined, got in my way, then barked, but even he couldn’t stop me, my feet carrying me towards the source of the song. I was careening towards it slowly churning waters—
HADES
The fucking Lethe.
Of all the rivers in the Underworld Persephone would be enchanted by, of course it was the river of forgetting.
Not the Styx, where I could order what dwells within away from her.
Not the Acheron, where the souls of the dead waited on the other side provided enough of a deterrent.
But the Lethe. It holds power over us all, a kind of insistent fascination.
That river held every memory it ever stole from anyone beneath its still, crystal clear waters, mortal or otherwise.
It was fascinating, I suppose, if you’d not fallen victim to it.
Millions of memories floating down stream, all flowing and converging on one another.
It was as haunting and eerie as it was captivating.
Of the five rivers, it was the one I trusted the least. Its crystal waters looked innocent enough, but the water was murkier beneath the glass surface, oblivion and forgetfulness whispering dark promises to any too close.
Persephone stood at the bank with Cerberus starting intently into the water, watching as long-forgotten memories of strangers floated by.
Cerberus whined, loudly bringing my focus back to Persephone. Her green eyes were glassy. Glazed. Unfocused. A gentle smile tugged her lips as if the river had already laid its claim.
My chest tightened.
No.
Her foot shifted, finding purchase along the bank. One more heartbeat, one more step, and she would belong to the river.
I stepped into one shadow and stepped out of the one she cast, appearing next to her faster than mortals could even blink. She didn’t even flinch, her listless eyes never leaving the water.
“Persephone!” Her body jolted at my voice but didn’t stop her advance towards the water.
My hand shot out, ensnaring her wrist and pulling her back with more force than I’d meant.
She collided with my chest, fragile. Shaking.
I whispered her name over and over in her ear.
“Come back to me, little shadow.” A beg. A plead. Desperate. Reverent.
In the few times I’d touched her, I’d marveled at her radiating warmth. Her skin now was cold, icy like the depths of Tartarus. Panic gnawed at my gut, gnashing away with sharp claws as I threw my arms around her in a desperate bid to capture her gaze and warm her through.
Her scent, amber and gardenia, cut through the damp stone of the riverbank, anchoring me. For a moment, nothing moved besides the churning of the water. Her eyes still stared blankly at the waves. Her heart thrashed in her chest, echoing my own.
Had I been too late?
“Persephone.” I cupped her cheeks, seeing tears falling silently down her face. My heart ached to see it, my thumbs brushing them away, gently banishing them. “Come back. Follow my voice. Please.”
She blinked. Finally, my heart stilled for a beat before picking up again with the force of a thousand storms.
“Hades?” Her voice was brittle in the damp chill. It was tiny and frail, but it was hers. I shuddered with relief, the weight of my panic immediately dropping off my shoulders. I pulled her back to me, tucking her head under my chin so I didn’t have to hide the relief I felt.
“Do you have any idea what you were doing?” My voice was a rasp. “You could have been lost.”
“Lost?” She sounded dazed, like she was still waking up, though her voice became stronger. “The river, you mean?” I nodded as much as I could with her head tucked protectively under my chin. “It called to me. Like a song.”
It called to her? I tightened my grip on her, glaring at the lapping waters of the Lethe that sneered at me from the other side of the window.
Helplessness and rage were an undeniably lethal combination, one born of desperation.
I shoved down my desire to rip the river apart.
Instead, I clutched her close, as if I alone could be her shield.
If it were calling to her, that meant it held a memory of hers. She’d drank from its waters before. My mouth twisted, tightened around that thought. That was the only explanation.
It wasn’t like I could ask her. She would have no idea.
Someone made her forget something, and for them to go to these measures, it was something big.
Something that still haunted her. Shadowed her.
It was evident in the way she watched every dark corner.
The way her eyes followed the source of every source of sound with trepidation.
I doubt she even noticed she did it. What happened to her that she so desperately needed to forget?
If I ever found out, I’d destroy them slowly. Whoever had harmed her, I would see them shredded into pieces at her feet or give her the tools to light them on fire if she so wished, laughing as she did.
“If you had gone into that water, it would have been over,” I said to her. “You wouldn’t have come back. Not to yourself. Not to me.”
I cursed myself for those last words slipping out. Too much. Too raw. Too vulnerable.
I didn’t do vulnerable.
I shut down my emotions, donning the mask of the king of the Underworld once again.
Her breath caught, a reaction she couldn’t hide. “You were watching me?”
Gods above, it was true. Ever since I left Minthe, I’d skulked in the shadows. I hadn’t seen Persephone since she’d been here, a deliberate attempt at keeping her safe from the weight of scrutiny, the weight of the Underworld. Both were terrible, heavy burdens.
And yet, here she was, about to waltz into the all too hungry river of forgetting. Had I been only a breath later, she’d not remember herself. Nor anything else.
She’d be gone, with no way to bring her memory back.
Still holding her close, the shadows closed in around us, a gateway to step through. I glared again at the water as I turned away from it, gaining much needed distance from the call of its waters.
Persephone startled in my arms as she momentarily grappled with the sudden and drastic change of scenery. I didn’t let her go, keeping her close against me as she trembled. She was so slight, this little goddess, so small, and yet I felt overwhelmed by her presence.
“Does the river still call you?” I wouldn’t let her go until I had her answer. Until I was satisfied she’d not go back.
“Yes.” She hesitated, looking strangely up at me. Questioningly. “But the pull isn’t as strong.”
“Can you block it out?”
“I think so, yes.”
Satisfied, I let her go at last. “Never go near the Lethe again. It devours indiscriminately.”
Her next words were a knife in the dark, catching me unaware. “Why do you even care?” Her wide eyes watched me, edged with hurt. I pretended it didn’t make my chest ache when she took two big steps back. Her palm twitched like she might slap me. Maybe I deserved it. Her barbs.
Why did I care?
Because of the way she put her knife to my neck in Olympus.
Because her smile in those gardens had haunted my dreams ever since.
Because she was a flame, a beacon after centuries of perpetual night.
Because she was oxygen and I had suffocated for eons under the weight of the dead.
Because when she looked at me like that, somewhere between longing and anger, I couldn’t bear the idea of her forgetting me.
I bit the truth back behind gritted teeth, swallowing hard to keep it there. My shadow crossed hers as I shifted my weight.
“Bold of you to assume I do. You’re under my protection,” I answered at last, my voice flat as the stone floor beneath our feet, and just as cool.
“You’re a guest at House Hades. And because I’ve angered your mother enough.
” I twisted my lips upwards into a sly grin.
“Should anything happen to you, I fear for my eternal life.”
“You’re insufferable, just as Mother said. Figures.” Her words were a lash, but I saw what lay beneath her chiding tone. Hurt. It was there in her eyes, and I hated myself for being the cause. Carving my carefully curated grin back in place.
“Insufferable?” I laughed. “At least that makes me memorable. Unlike her endless fields of wheat. And what’s more,” I leaned down towards her, watching her eyes light with fury, “If you quote Demeter every time you look at me or a new situation, you’ll never know what you think.”
I shrank into the shadows, her wide-eyed bewilderment a sweet consolation prize for me. I turned on my heel and stepped into the shadows, not once looking back.