8. Persephone
Persephone
When I woke up I was in my bed, and Hades’ silver eyes were boring into my bleary ones.
“What happened?” I mumbled thickly.
“Your powers are returning. You lost your temper.” The fight with Poseidon came back to me clearly, and anxiety gripped my gut.
“Oh gods, that was in front of the whole room,” I groaned, rubbing my hand across my face.
“Nobody but the gods saw. Remember how I can hide us in smoke?”
“Yeah, the smoke bubble,” I said, remembering the blissful stolen kiss in that haven he had created at the ball.
“Well, Poseidon can make his own. He didn't want anyone but me to see your exchange.”
“You said he fears me. Why?”
Hades blew out a long breath.
“Persephone, your powers and your wrath were... unique.”
A sick feeling crawled through me, and I didn't want to be having this conversation any more.
“Well, I only have a bit of my power now, and I don't intend on getting any more. I'm sure I'll stay perfectly harmless,” I said, pushing myself up to a sitting position. “Where's Skop?”
“On the floor. This asswipe won't let me on the bed,” I heard his voice say in my head.
“You're not going to eat the other seeds?” Hades stared at me.
“No.” I dropped my gaze to my lap.
I hadn't been sure before, but now I was positive. There was no way I needed this dark, angry kind of power running through me. I knew it was part of a terrible past, and I needed to concentrate on the future.
“Persephone, look at me.” I lifted my head and did as he asked. His skin glowed and his eyes shone bright. He was unfeasibly beautiful. “You must never be scared of your own strength,” he said quietly.
“I've never had any strength,” I answered him, unable to keep the bitter edge from my voice. “I've let other people treat me like shit for years, because I've never had any strength.”
His jaw tightened, and fury flashed in his eyes, orange flames leaping then vanishing in his irises.
“They made me take your strength, when I sent you away. You were scared, and I wasn't allowed to fix it. I prayed the fear would leave you when you started again in the mortal world.” His words were hardly more than a whisper, but they carried a sorrow that was unbearable to hear.
My hand went to his face automatically, the need to comfort him, to relieve this heart-breaking burden from him, overwhelming me.
“I got there in the end,” I told him. “I learned, and I started to stand up for myself. In fact, until you lot showed up, I was doing pretty well.”
“There is a Queen inside you, Persephone. My Queen.”
Heat rushed me all at once, and there was nothing in the world that could feel better than hearing this man call me his queen. I sucked in a breath as I felt my cheeks burn.
“Well, I think I was starting to find her,” I said.
“I hope she stays with you when you get back.”
Physical pain seemed to blossom in my chest at his words, and I clawed about in my mind for the cause.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to go home. So why did it feel like he was betraying me by talking about sending me back?
“You still want me to leave?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“I never wanted you to leave in the first place. But you can't stay here.”
I closed my eyes and flopped back onto the pillows. This was a conversation with no ending, just endless frustration. Move on, Persephone.
“Why did I pass out?” I asked him, opening my eyes.
“The power drained you. You'll need to make sure it doesn't happen in a more dangerous environment.”
“Like in the middle of a Trial?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“You'll train with me from now on.”
“What?” I sat up again, eyebrows high.
“Every day. In combat and magic.”
I was going to see him every day? It was already getting hard to stop thinking about him all the time, how the hell was I going to stop myself from lusting after him if I spent more time with him? Smoke and death, smoke and death!
“Fine, but no magic sex,” I told him firmly. The corner of his mouth lifted.
“Agreed. No magic sex.” I shoved the disappointment that he'd agreed so readily deep down and nodded. “Good,” he said. “Now, get some rest before the Trial tomorrow. It's going to be tough.”
“OK. And... Thanks.”
“Always,” he said, and then he was gone.
I didn't visit the Atlas garden in my dreams that night. I wished I had, the calming, serene place was exactly what I needed, and the stranger often left me with more information than I'd had before visiting.
Instead, I dreamed of fire and blood. Screams filled my ears, until the roar of a beast began to drown them out. Then Hades burst through the flames, huge and monstrous and blue, his eyes burning with fury and everything around him turning to ash.
I woke up panting, fear making my heart hammer in my chest as I sat upright.
“You OK?” Skop asked, lifting his head from his paws. I nodded at him in the faint starlight coming from the ceiling. Since both Poseidon and Hades had flouted his guard duties, he had been extra protective the rest of the evening.
“Just a nightmare.”
“You want to talk to Morpheus about that,” he said, then settled back down.
There was no need for that, I thought, laying my head back down on my pillow. I knew exactly what the dream meant. It was my subconscious reminding me that Hades was dangerous.
I dressed in fighting garb the next day, and tied my hair up in a braid that kept it out of my face.
If I was to be swimming, I didn't need my vision obscured by loose hair.
I also left off the leather corset I normally wore over my shirt.
It was heavy, and whilst it offered some protection from the blows of weapons, I was guessing that maneuverability would benefit me more in this Trial.
While I sat and waited for someone to come and get me, I stared at the open box of pomegranate seeds on the dresser. They pulled at me, and I thought about the black vines that had shot from my hands.
Strength. They had felt strong and useful and deadly. I'd never had power like that at my disposal.
Ted Hammond flashed into my mind, followed swiftly by an image of the black vines wrapping around his throat as he groped at me. An ugly, alien satisfaction filled me at the thought. Stop it. You're not petty or vengeful, I told myself sternly.
I forced the image away, replacing it with the memory of when the vines had turned green, and that joyful feeling of being connected to the ground, of feeling the sparks of new life embedded in the earth. And that had just been in the starved conservatory.
The idea of connecting like that with a real garden sent shudders of excitement through me.
I had my hand on the box before I'd even realized I'd moved.
“Woah there,” I scolded myself, jumping up from my stool and snapping the lid closed. “I have got to get better at avoiding temptation.”
“You're doing a good job so far, you've managed to resist me,” said Skop.
“Gnome dogs really aren't my type,” I told him.
“I could try and change your mind?”
“Nope.”
“It was worth a shot.”
I was relieved when Hecate finally knocked on my door. The wait was making my nerves worse.
“You ready for this?” she asked, handing me her now customary gift of coffee. I took it gratefully.
“Nope. But water is better than heights or demons,” I said. “And to be truthful, I'm excited to see Aquarius. Is it underwater?”
“Sure is. The city is spread across loads of underwater domes. It's pretty cool.”
“How do people get between them?”
“Tunnels. Or they swim. Lots of water nymphs and merfolk in Aquarius.”
“Merfolk? Like, actual mermaids?”
Hecate laughed and shook her head.
“There you go again, looking like a kid who has just had a wish granted. Honestly, you should see your face.”
“You try living in New York all your life and then finding out this is all real,” I retorted, and took a drag of my coffee. Mermaids. Gods I wanted to see one.
“You've seen a Spartae Skeleton, minotaurs, a freaking phoenix, and the gods know what besides. Why are merfolk a big deal?”
“I don't know,” I lied. I'd be damned before admitting my deep-rooted love for children's animated movies to her.
“Weirdo. Finish that up, we need to go.”
The room she flashed us into followed a pattern, I realized as I stared around it.
I knew it was a throne room immediately, and not just because of the dais covered in huge seats, but because, like Hades' throne room and Zeus' dining room, there were no walls, just riveted columns holding up the ceiling. But the view here...
Turquoise-blue water surrounded us completely, and beyond I could see hundreds of glowing gold domes. Floating at different levels, they were all connected by tunnels, and I could just make out buildings inside most of them, colored white and bronze.
In the distance, behind the city, I could see a pod of massive whales meandering past.
It was stunning.
I was standing on a marble floor that at first I thought was white, but when the rays of light filtering through the water hit it, looked the palest blue.
The ceiling was painted with the most incredible underwater scene I could imagine, pastel corals hiding hundreds of brightly colored fish, and images of creatures that looked like they had come from another planet surrounding them.
The empty thrones were all plain, except the one in the center, which was shaped like a tidal wave, smooth and fierce and perfect.
“Wow,” I breathed.
“I know. Grumpy he may be, but Poseidon has taste,” Hecate said quietly.
“I appreciate that,” boomed Poseidon's voice, and Hecate winced.
“Shit.”
The twelve gods flashed onto the dais, and when the light cleared I saw the commentator standing in front of them, his white toga as crisp as his smile.
“Good day Olympus!”
I looked straight to Hades, his smoke rippling. A flash of silver in the darkness found my eyes and I suppressed my shiver of delight. Gods, I was getting worse. “Welcome to Aquarius! I'll waste no time in handing you over to your host.”
Hecate bowed low, and I followed suit as Poseidon stepped forward, and the other gods lowered themselves into their seats. The sea god looked as he had the previous night, trident resplendent as it towered above him.
“I have devised a test fit for the Queen of an Olympian. You must get the gem back in the trident. You must complete the trial alone. Other than that there are no rules.”
Put a gem in a trident. That didn't sound too bad, I thought, trying to ignore the bit about a test fit for a Queen. And at least I knew what I had to do this time. No running around guessing and trying to decipher stupid clues.
“You will be granted the temporary ability to breath underwater, and a steed,” Poseidon continued, and my mouth dropped open.
Say what? Breathing underwater and a freaking steed?
“But by no means will you be immune to any other dangers of the ocean. Understood?”
“Erm,” I said, but he banged his trident on the floor before I could say any more.
“Let us begin!”