Chapter Sixty-One
Persephone
The thing about the Underworld is it's a dark sort of beautiful, that even in my confusion and concern I couldn’t ignore.
It was the kind of beautiful of midnight stars, the black sheen of wrought iron in the fire light, or the moon’s reflection rippling on the tide.
This side of the Acheron River was littered with waves of fog and blackened bare trees, that despite being dead were also lovely in an unexpected way.
There was an overwhelming sense of finality here on the shores of the river.
Of no turning back. There was a restlessness settling into my bones as I watched Charon ferry a new batch of fresh souls to this side.
All were silent, but instead of words, I could feel their longing.
Their fear. Their dread of the unknown, the mourning they had for the life they’d left behind, and the people they’d loved.
That silence festered, too thick to be truly peaceful.
It felt more like an intake of stale, old air. Unpleasant but not offending.
Charon was halfway across the water with his boat when I reached the waterline, frothing with fog and hissing at my proximity to its border.
“Turn around,” the river whispered in warning, sounding so like a disembodied soul itself.
“Shut up,” I told it, matching its tone.
“I was summoned. Where is Hades?” Looking around brought me no answers.
No footsteps in the damp, grey-tinged soil.
If it could even be called soil. Something had to live and die to create soil, and the scent of decay had long been gone from this bank.
It was as lifeless as the souls that approached me, closer with every pass of the ferryman’s oar.
Even my magic recoiled, bouncing back to me like an echo searching for something to latch onto. Anything alive.
Hades had once said I shouldn’t ever come here. That this bank belonged to no living soul aside from his. And would answer to none other than him in return. I shivered, the dread settling over me, every bit enthralling as the River Lethe’s call.
But Hades’ message today had been clear. Come to the river.
“Looking for someone?” A distinctly feminine voice, low and sharper than jagged glass, froze me. A figure stepped from the shadows, watching as the puzzle sorted itself before me. Hades never sent the message. Hades had no idea I was here.
“Minthe.” I narrowed my eyes, keeping my composure though my throat tightened.
Minthe’s answering smile was as dry as it was wan.
She stepped closer, savoring the way I stiffened in response.
“Gods above, it was too easy. You didn’t even hesitate.
Pathetic,” she spat. Before I could respond, Minthe chanted in a tongue older than the decayed grit beneath her feet.
The air shimmered in response, coming to her aid at her call.
With a kiss to her closed fist and a shout reeking of her fury, she flung a handful of the black water into the air between us.
It caught the air, hissing like an omen before crashing down over me like a wall of mist.
I staggered back at a strange pulse of black light. The air itself rippled as it surrounded me, clear as glass. I reached for it cautiously. My skin sizzled. I couldn’t contain my shriek when my palm seared, smoking where it contacted the veil between me and the triumphant Minthe.
Her smiled sharpened to a razor’s point.
“Isn’t it just perfect? Pretty too. The perfect cage for the pesky little bitch goddess of spring.
A little bit of the Styx, molded to my will.
” She pushed her hand through the barrier in a taunt.
So, she could pass through, but I was effectively trapped.
“A fun trick. And you know what’s hilarious?
You only need a little magic to break it. But yours still doesn’t work, does it?”
My lips pursed. She was right. I reached for my magic, but it fizzled in my chest with nothing living to grasp, recoiling back into me like a whip.
The air shifted. A long, flat scrape of wood against stone signified Charon’s arrival. The boat emptied, the feral souls converging on the bank. They writhed, wild eyed, gnashing teeth, clawing the air as if they’d starved for centuries.
Minthe giggled, her voice dipping low, poisonous. “They smell you. The living amongst the dead. They’ll rip you into pieces before Hades can find you. He’ll forget you and he’ll remember who has stood by him time and time again.”
“No….” I backed away from the oncoming horde, but the foreboding hum of the barrier warned against even a hairsbreadth further.
My blistering hand sang, a warning of what would happen.
I glanced around, looking for an escape, but the shimmering air followed my gaze at every turn.
Minthe was thorough, I’d give her that. I was trapped.
“You’re nothing, Persephone,” she hissed, calling out to the dead to assure their attention.
“I can’t wait to forget you. To watch him forget you.
” She laughed, gloating her victory with a sneer.
“So much for those thorns you boasted about. They won’t do you much good in there.
Oh, and those shades? They’re not affected by the barrier either. Fare you well, plant bitch.”
Charon didn’t acknowledge me, my last hope turning to dust. Once his boat was empty, he soundlessly stepped back into it and began rowing to the other side.
He left me with thirty souls that now roamed the riverbank straight towards me.
They moved as a collective unit. Their silent, eerie steps made no imprint on the ground.
I froze, hoping against hope, praying to any who might hear me that they might not hurt me.
The shade in front, closest to me, was the first to make a sound.
A shrill scream that sent warmth scurrying away from me.
The first shade lunged at me and I fell backwards to the ground.
A scream of my own pierced the stillness as I scrambled backwards on my hands and heels as they continued to lurch my direction.
I turned in my attempt to flea, falling to my knees as panic seized me in her icy grasp. Minthe’s barrier was absolute, blocking off my escape. I didn’t know what to do, where to go. There was only the screaming urge to run.
I didn’t know what was more terrifying—their lurid, silent approach, or the screams they unleashed when they got close.
I ran, but the sand of the bank slowed me down.
Tripping over a gnarled dead root from one of the old blackened trees, I sprawled to the ground, ignoring the bite of the root digging into my flesh.
I couldn’t concentrate on anything aside from the fact that I had been caught.
If I Pressed back anymore, the skin would sear.
I pondered if I would live jumping through the barrier or not.
If that was a better fate than leaving myself to these shades.
Hands, white and ghostly, exactly what the oldest of myths had described souls to be like, latched around my throat with another scream from it, and a croak from me.
Though it was translucent, its grip was firm as it dug into the tender skin.
I swung at its face, nails aimed at its eyes, but my hands went straight through.
It smiled.
A dastardly, scoundrel smile before it shrieked once more. My lungs begged, burning for breath as I continued to fight with leaden limbs, clawing, punching, and kicking to no avail.
A shadow split the veil. Power crackled the air and tore it apart like a knife through silk.
Hades stepped through, calling my name. It sounded far away, but the familiarity of it wrenched a sob from my throat.
Hades. The soul screamed once more, but didn’t let go.
Black prongs skewered it then, reaching savagely through his chest, changing the scream from that of a battle cry to the higher pitch of agony.
The hands around my throat vanished and I crumpled, my legs entirely incapable of holding me upright.
My throat ached against my sputtering for breath, giving my lungs the reprieve they so desperately needed.
“Anyone else fancy eternity in Tartarus?” Hades’ anger wasn’t a flare so much as a descent, his voice lowering in pitch, in cadence rather than rising.
He wielded that bident as a threat, stepping between the horde of angry souls and me.
He gestured to someone I didn’t recognize, someone with grey skin and massive, black feathered wings.
“Hermes isn’t here. Take these souls where they need to be, Thanatos.
And when you see that bastard, send him to me immediately. ”
“Yes, Lord Hades.” Thanatos bowed respectfully before herding the angry souls away from us with bored words and a scythe.
Hades' hand enveloped mine, dragging me to my feet and crushing me into him. His other hand lifted, his bident pulsing overhead. His command rolled out, rivalling the earlier thunder. The feral souls froze, some mid-step, others mid-scream. Bound by the bident’s magic, by the weight of their king’s will, they sagged, forced into submission and silence for Thanatos to herd away.
Hades’ wrathful eye found Minthe already withering under the weight of it.
“You were warned.” The finality of the echo of every tomb ever sealed away.
Minthe flinched, but held her chin high, her shoulders back.
She did not look away. “You dare touch her. Trap her. Entomb her,” he seethed, keeping his grip on me tight even as I regained my wit.
“I should tear your soul from your useless flesh and cast it into the Styx. I should let you drown in its waters for a mortal generation before I finally let you rot in the Scylla’s teeth.
And did you know that those waters burn like acid? ”
Of course Minthe knew. That was how she trapped me. He was toying with her.