Chapter seventy-six
Persephone
Ididn’t stop. I couldn’t. Thought and logic left me like a receding tide, leaving only room for ruin.
Exhaustion tried and failed to reach me through the adrenaline thrumming angrily through my veins.
I fought. I carved. I swathed. My magic burst from me like an untapped torrent, like nothing I’d ever experienced before.
I had only ever used my magic to grow, to nurture.
Never before had I used my magic in throes of violence, and from the churning of my stomach that mimicked the Styx, I knew I’d bear the weight of my deeds later.
The air hummed with power as Hades and I viciously fought back-to-back.
More roots and vines exploded from the ground, entwining any demons unlucky enough to be close by, their sickening shrieks nauseating me even in victory.
I fell into a deadly rhythm; magic to destroy far away assailants, and the shadow bident I held brought death to any who was unlucky enough to best my thorns and get too close to me.
Hades’ bident danced with lethal precision, the shadows answering his every whim, every command in an invasion of darkness and steel.
Metal clashed against metal, a scream punctuating the moment it cleaved flesh.
Our magic snarled together, blackened shadows entangling with the shimmering emerald of spring, as if even the Underworld itself fought at our side.
For the first time, my magic didn’t feel fragile or fickle—it felt sovereign.
This realm was mine, too.
And I would defend it with every breath in my body.
“She fights like a goddess after my own heart.” Ares grinned, covered in so much blood it was unclear if any of it were his.
After he quick beheading of a skeletal warrior awash in flame, he used the discarded shirt of a fallen nymph to wipe it clear from his eyes.
Eyes that sparkled with violence, and its revelry.
“Goddess of spring, you say? You deal death like you’re born for it! ”
“She fights like her father!” Zeus flung another bolt of lightning into the fray. Chaos kept coming for us in waves—disorienting, disquieting, and horrific.
“She fights like the Queen of the Underworld,” Hades roared, doling out his brand of vengeance in a spray of blood that ended in a sickening, choked gurgle.
There was no end to these things coming through the wards. Wave, after wave we battled, until we began to labor under the new beast we face; exhaustion. I glanced at Hecate, appearing and disappearing in the throng of bodies.
Hurry Hecate, I begged silently. I buried the ache in my bones, refusing the tremor that shook my limbs. Every cut of the bident was taking its toll, every surge of magic threatened to hollow my insides. I forced my body onward, refusing to break.
A scream found every ear at once, breaking the battlefield. A scream that made us all stagger, slow.
Ares’s raw agony bled through us all as talons erupted from his gut.
He cringed, glaring over his shoulder at the too-wide grin of the monster that sought to add fangs to his shoulder.
Inky black skin made it impossible to see features on its humanoid body, other than its horrifyingly large jaw with rows of teeth, the first few danced over the skin of Ares’ shoulder as he struggled against its onslaught.
Ares managed to get a leg between them, a mighty kick sending the damnable abomination back into a horde of other demons clamoring for Athena’s blood.
With a sick grin and incredible speed even for a goddess, her spear found them all in rapid succession, leaving them bereft of their goal.
Hades and I ran to Ares, hurrying to aid him.
“Your breath reeks. Maybe try flossing!” He two-handed his axe up over his head, swinging in a wild, savage arc and embedding into the demon’s skull as it righted itself.
“Ares!” I eyed him as he slumped over, refusing to fall to his knees, despite the blood loss. Three more demons jumped out of the pandemonium, but another swipe of poisonous vines bought us some time. “Are you okay?”
Ares smiled even as he grimaced. “Worried about me, little goddess? How sweet. Worry about yourself, for now. It takes more than a few stab wounds to defeat the god of war.”
“Big talk from someone who can’t stand up,” Hades goaded him as the bident flashed out.
He fought, cutting, swathing, slicing his way through anyone who got near.
Ares was Hades’ family by choice, the son of the being who saved him from his fate inside Kronos’s belly.
He’d die before letting harm come to Ares in his own realm.
A whispering hiss, before a stillness to the air.
A single glance upwards showed Hecate had done it. She’d patched the barrier, where it shined with a surplus of magic, lighting the Underworld like a sun.
The wards were in place.
Though the Morningstar had proven they would fall like flames in a bitter wind at his whim.
A pulse went through the air, as if the Underworld itself breathed out a sigh of relief. Not loud, as subtle as a heartbeat rippling through space. The air stilled as Zeus destroyed the last mindless beasts with a few blasts of lightning, streaking the sky in light, dust, and blood.
I succumbed to the quaking of my knees, falling amongst the lake of blood and grit that lay beneath me, but I couldn’t find it within myself to care. Cerberus whined, all three heads inspecting me for injury.
“I’m okay, boy,” I whispered between forehead kisses and ear scratches. I hastily inspected him, seeing so much blood on him. “None of this blood had better be yours,” I told each slobbering face sternly.
All three heads turned to me with a combined, feral grin that didn’t seem canine in the least. I breathed a sigh of relief.
Hades hoisted me back from my knees. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, shakily. “Is everyone else? Is it really over?” I asked, finding everyone in turn, alive and in various states of well-being.
Mother pressed close to me. Even in her anger toward me, she wanted me close.
I slipped my hand in hers, elated when she squeezed it back.
Still stunned, we gathered in a cacophony of assessing looks and the occasional healing burst of energy from Athena. It was Zeus that broke the din first.
“He could have easily broken through,” he seethed at the sky. “Why didn’t he?”
An ominous pause as Athena’s shrewd gaze swept the horizon from the sutured tear to where we lay, exhausted and bloodied, but intact. “He wanted to see if we would unite or falter.”
Ares found an unrecognizable piece of fabric to wipe the blood off his eyes and mouth, his grin devoid of humor for the first time. “He wanted to gauge how long it would take to bleed us.”
Hecate lifted her head at last, her voice rough but certain. “I could feel him watching as I closed the rift. He still watches. This wasn’t yet conquest. It was calculation.”
Hades met her eyes, realization descending over us like a second skin. “A test run.”
Lightning streaked violently overhead, a backdrop to Zeus's fury. "He toys with us!" He looked around like he was looking for something to hit. When nothing presented itself he sent another bolt at the nearest mountain just to watch it crumble. "Like a cat with a mouse!"
The air shifted, as if sucked from the battle ground. A faint whisper from above, an impossible one threading its way through the quiet like a person weaving through a crowded room. The familiar voice sent panic scattering through my limbs as his laugh curled around us like smoke.
“You look so proud, as if patching that little crack makes you gods again.”
His croon wasn’t loud, barely above a whisper over water, but it didn’t need to be loud for it to find its mark.
I went eerily still, hearing his voice again.
I felt slimy even with the wash of gore all over me, his voice made me feel even more dirty.
Finding my courage, my rage, I glared up at the voice.
Ares’s axe twitched and spun in his expert grip, his rage radiating off him in palpable waves. Hades ground his heel into the blood-soaked ash at his feet, teeth bared in a silent snarl.
Athena stood utterly still, knuckles and face paling in tandem. Her jaw clicked, not from fear, but strategy. She marked every word, every nuance in emphasis, dissecting the cadence of the Morningstar’s calculated cruelty.
“You patch the wound, and still it festers. Did you ever wonder what the Lethe knows, little goddess?”
“How do you know about that?” I demanded, though my brow furrowed. His words had hit something I’d tried so hard to repress. The hold the Lethe had on my memory. If it were so important, why did I let myself forget it? More importantly, how did the Morningstar know about it? And why did he care?
Mother was stricken, her hands wringing the life out of her sickle, the air thick with a fear from her I couldn’t understand. She wasn’t glancing at the spot the Morningstar chided us from. She was looking at me. I kept my hands fisted at my sides to fight their tremble.
“Let the breaking of the Olympians commence,” the Morningstar continued with a laugh. Athena’s careful mask faltered at last, her grip on her spear tightening. “The chess match begins now.”