Chapter seventy-seven
Persephone
Adeep, resounding rumble sounded where the sky continued to fissure, pieces of the ward falling like shattered glass.
Hecate’s magic was nullified instantly, rot winning out over the fragile new growth in the wards.
Weapons met the air again as we loosed a collective breath.
What had begun as a hairline fracture was now a complex, weeping open wound.
A cacophony of roars and shrieks sounded the arrival of another myriad of demons.
Dripping fangs, glowing eyes, pinchers that could crush bone all unfolded from the weakening line of rot that cleaved the sky like an angry grin.
What Hecate called a calculation had been wrong.
Perhaps it started that way, perhaps he saw something by way of opportunity.
But the sheer number of monsters coming at us was only growing against the canvas of a black and red sky.
Hades stepped up, shadows flaring behind him like omens of death. But the explosion beneath my feet found me.
Like a battering ram against a rag doll, I was bludgeoned skywards, my lungs too empty for me to even scream.
I tumbled until something solid broke my momentum.
I hit the barrier between this realm and Hell with enough force to rattle my bones and seize my lungs.
For a beat, all was soundless and dark and cold.
My eyes adjusted to the strange light, a pulsing light.
The scent of decay choked me, reaching into my throat with perilous intent.
I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. Something black with red veins threading through it.
A vast, trembling thing with a life of its own, just shy of sentience. The wards.
Weakened. Infected—and dying.
“Persephone!” Hades’ voice sounded like it was leagues away, underwater, fighting to reach me. His fear, his dread, rattled the air. My consciousness stirred at the desperation there, enough to guide me back to reality.
The corruption that had embedded itself so thoroughly into the wards had entangled me as well, the only reason I wasn’t falling into the Styx.
Even from here, I saw the horrid maw of the Scylla so frighteningly far below me.
Still, I had to wonder if that was pure chance or if the Morningstar meant to take me from here. If this was his design.
From here, I saw the wards at last, like mist given tangibility, threads with veins.
The ley lines. Those veins were ley lines, I realized.
And they were coursing with corruption. And beyond was a void that felt far from empty.
The hair on my nape stood on end, a warning.
The small sections of the wards where the rot hadn’t yet reached was lukewarm to the touch, clinging stubbornly to life.
The corruption was easy to spot, easy to feel.
It bled into me the moment my hands touched it, making me cry out.
Hot and freezing at the same time. Too much and not enough.
Two horrid extremes, like frostbite made infection.
I held on tightly, clamoring for a plan, ignoring the creeping chill that chased all vestiges of warmth, a sickness that numbed before it kills.
My every breath and movement ached, like ice injected directly into my veins, my bones, every careful movement disjointed, every breath thready and wan.
I choked on a cry when I felt it strangling the wards from the inside out.
Below me, the battle raged on. Below me, Hades, my parents, my friends fought for their lives. For the very Underworld I’d come to fiercely love.
Ignoring the lashing bite of fear and relying solely on the thrum of instinct, I plunged my hands into the wards.
They shuddered beneath my touch. A pulse of rot echoed out.
Of decay, like a heartbeat only seconds from its final, grave faltering.
The Underworld was always cold with the chill of death.
This was like sinking your hands into the coldest day of winter.
Sparks exploded where my magic clashed with the infection.
I could feel it chafe against me, my magic.
I threw myself into it, pouring everything I had.
Everything I was. Everything I would ever be.
Every drop of magic I had within me, powered by my guilt, my rage.
The visceral need to protect the place I called home and all who lived under her banner, an urge that did not dim even as an ache began to build where my magic rested, like the wards were hollowing me.
“You were not invited,” I seethed into the stirring void, my power flaring in a dire collision of ruin and wrath.
My anger found a seat there, crying out for vengeance.
A cry I echoed. I knew the Morningstar could hear me from the void beyond.
Could see me. Good. Let him see the monster he helped craft.
My magic searched, sought, and repelled, chasing the rot through every corner, every ley line.
The wards screamed, not a sound, but a shockwave, like the echo of an explosion.
I didn’t know if it were in anguish, or a cry of vengeance, retribution or triumph, but I didn’t stop.
I pressed all I had into it, my magic, my will, bleeding power into weakness.
“You call yourself a god, but you’re nothing more than a persistent blight on the cosmos,” I spat, closing my eyes in the wake of my effort. “Be gone!”
The temperature beneath my hands grew warmer. When my eyes finally opened again, I saw it.
The corruption, the infection of the wards—
—was abating.
“You cannot be rid of me so easily,” the Morningstar whispered into my mind, the hair on my nape rising in warning once again. A smile broke over my face at the strain in his voice, his confidence and victory slipping with every breath. “Infection springs from life.”
I snarled into the void above the wards, “If you insist on clinging… then you shall die clinging!”
My stomach twisted, dread taking up arms when light flared, so blindingly bright I had to resist throwing an arm over my eyes.
I didn’t see it.
I felt it.
Like threads being withdrawn from a tapestry, so too did the freezing, oily feel of the corruption.
The infectious red and black tendrils of the rot withdrew, forced out by the magic pouring from me in droves, the likes of which I’d never expressed.
This wasn’t just flowers and thorns, but life as a whole.
I thought I wasn’t capable of something like that, such power bowing only to Mother.
My magic sputtered, staggered, thinning from a blast of light to an ever-thinning thread of sparks and embers. Each healing pulse was weaker than before, like a candle drowning in its own wax. I could feel the corruption rooting, digging, searching, waiting to surge for the moment I faltered.
I fought the tremors running my arms, the toil in my chest. I struggled to breathe through the effort. My knees shook, buckling.
“Leave this realm,” I barked through gritted teeth. “I said be gone!”
Another flare of light, this time pure and untainted by the caustic corruption bleeding through, collapsing inward on itself like the swell of a wave. The cold shattered, leaving only warmth beneath my hands as a final scream shuddered the realm—infinite in its fury.
Its echo became more distant.
Until silence.
Try again, Hecate. Seal it now.
My plea didn’t form on my lips, my exhaustion so thorough, so complete. I couldn’t even speak, couldn’t scream as the air rushed over my face.
I fell.