41. Chapter 41
Chapter forty-one
Corre
I t was surreal watching Markus enter the throne room so resolved, his hand guiding hers. A thousand and one thoughts were probably pounding in his head, and she desperately wanted to know each and every one of them. Was he scared? Was he excited? What was he going to do next?
When they reached the steps to the throne, he stopped and turned around. His shoulders were back, and his face was set in a stoic, unreadable expression. His eyes locked fixedly on Thanatos as the husk of his former master was brought before him. A role reversal that Markus had probably waited much of his life to experience, at least to some extent. If he’d ever believed it would come.
The wicked god was tossed to his knees by his former guards, his hands still chained behind his back. Thanatos chuckled dryly. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Markus’s expression didn’t change. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Thanatos let out another dry laugh. “Oh, boy, you have no idea.”
Corre’s eyes swiveled to Markus’s, her hands wringing, hoping Thanatos wasn’t wriggling his way into his pupil’s mind. Her heart raced, but then the corner of Markus’s mouth turned up.
“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” His deep voice resounded through the chamber. “You’re nothing now. Beneath everything and everyone you’ve ever pushed around. You can’t take it. Can you?” Markus smirked, which made Thanatos growl and stagger to his feet.
“You think you can rule this place, boy ?” He turned to Corre and pointed one gnarled finger at her. “And what about her? You’re okay damning her to this place?”
“I make my own choices,” Corre spat, and Thanatos gawked at her, as if not realizing she had the ability to speak.
After an uncomfortable amount of staring and silence, the withered god burst into rickety laughter and looked back at Markus. “You have her fooled for now, but she’ll eventually see what you are.” His laughing faded, but an evil grin stretched across his face. “She’ll leave you once she sees your true worth. Or rather, your lack of it.”
Her blood boiled, and she stepped forward, opening her mouth to say something, but Markus grabbed her hand. “It’s okay.” He smiled softly at her. “Really.”
She nodded and let her hand fall to her side.
He took an even breath and walked closer to his former master. The closer he got, the more twisted Thanatos’s features became, until fury shot from his hollow eyes. “Do you truly think she cares for you? No one could ever care for you. You know that.”
“You can’t hurt me anymore,” Markus said, and Thanatos let out an ear-splitting yell and dove forward, but Markus took him by the chains and threw him to the ground. Thanatos toppled over in a heap of resounding clanks from the chains binding him to his former servants.
“Take him to the dungeon,” Markus said, shifting his gaze to the guards. “And prepare him for his fate.”
Thanatos heaved shallow breaths, growling with his face pressed against the floor. “And what fate is that?”
“With no power and no strength, there’s not much you can do for yourself. Is there?”
Pride was all Thanatos had left, and it was quickly slipping away. The realization was written all over his face. Markus smirked. “Sentence him to the underbelly of Tartarus. In those deep trenches, only the beasts wander. Give him a task impossible to reach. Something he almost attains but forever cannot grasp.” He shot a look at Thanatos. “Give him a taste of his own cruel games.”
The miserable god’s face lit with fury, but the guards took him by the chains and led him out. “You won’t be able to detain me for long! You need me!” Markus scoffed, but the monster continued, perhaps seeing a glimmer of hope. A crack in a door. “You’ll need advice. My guidance. I’ve been running this place since its beginning. You’ll need me. You’ve always needed me.”
Markus folded his arms and narrowed his eyes on his malicious former mentor. “I’ll manage,” he spat.
The last thing they saw on Thanatos’s face as he was dragged from his former domain was the look of defeat when he realized he no longer had a hold on his victim.
That he had lost.
When only a handful of guards remained, Corre grabbed Markus’s hand and rested her head against his arm. “I’m so proud of you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said, gently trailing the back of his hand down her cheek as she looked up at him.
“No. You did this all on your own," she said, and his eyes softened. The warmth of his gaze spread through her chest, but then something out of the corner of her eye snagged her attention away.
She frowned as she focused her eyes on the general. The one Markus despised. The one she just now realized she’d never really looked too closely at before.
Something shivered in her mind.
“Wait. . .” She walked toward him, and Nikias’s eyes latched onto her. Markus instinctively grabbed her wrist, but she turned back to him and said, “It’s okay. I’m okay.” But she was in a daze. She looked back at the general. “I . . . I know you. Where do I know you from?”
“You probably saw his pompous ass walking around this place—”
“No . . .” she said, and it was like she was slipping into a dream. An unsettling, familiar dream. “It was . . .” The space between her eyebrows creased. “Before . . .” A horrible pain split through her head, and a scene from a memory flashed across her mind. One that had been locked tight, but its bolts and pieces were now breaking apart.
She saw a terrible fire burning a familiar cottage. She winced.
“Correlia, are you okay?” Markus asked, but when she turned to look for him, she couldn’t see him.
All she saw was that moment. The moment her home had been destroyed and a familiar cackle had broken through the crackling flames. She tried to blink herself back to the present, but her mind wouldn’t let her go. There were children everywhere, their parents holding onto them, desperate to save them. Except for one. A boy, with hair as bright as the moonlight spilling over his burning home.
And then she was released from it. The memory came back to her, every detail solidifying in her mind. Retrieved. She looked at Nikias. “You were taken that night, too. Weren’t you?” Her head was throbbing. Maybe some of Hypnos’s powers had stuck around, or maybe a part of them had lifted. Maybe something had been sleeping within her this whole time, only now awakening. A part of her that had remained dormant since that horrific night.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he spat. “Don’t you pity me.”
“I’m not. I’m just trying to remember.”
Nikias’s face pinched. He opened his mouth to say something else, but Markus stepped forward, giving him a death glare so fierce the general practically shook in his black leather boots.
Corre couldn’t help but smile, but the blonde still shot her a glare. Despite everything, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him—at least a little—at the memory of his mother pushing him toward Thanatos in juxtaposition with her mother desperately clinging onto her until her last breath. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him about it, but she knew what had happened that night. It gave a little bit of humanity to someone devious enough to hurt, for all these years, the man she loved.
She wouldn’t forgive Nikias for that, but somewhere inside that cold heart was a boy. A boy thrust into this life in the worst possible way.“You were there,” she whispered, looking down at him from the steps of the throne. More memories were unlocking. She knew him. As a child, she’d known him. “You were my neighbor.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nikias said, turning away from her. “And you don’t belong here. You’re not worthy to walk these halls.” The words didn’t hurt her, but the memories sinking into her mind left a hollow feeling in her chest that she couldn’t reconcile.
“She belongs here as much as I do,” Markus said. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be here.”
Nikias stared at her like she was an insect, and as she got closer to him, she could feel Markus’s unease, but then she stopped, her stare heavy on the general’s. “You’re a vile monster,” she said. “I understand why you might have become one, but it doesn’t excuse what you’ve done.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” He stood up and lifted his hand, ready to strike her, but was immediately propelled backward.
Corre looked back at Markus. His hand was raised, and his eyes were on Nikias. The move was effortless. When Nikias got back to his feet, the young Hades pulled him forward through the powers surrounding them until the front of the general’s uniform was in Markus’s hand.
“Do not touch her,” he hissed and threw Nikias to the ground.
Nikias leapt to his feet, refusing to back down. “You’re not fit to run this place! Everything Thanatos said is true! You shouldn’t have been deemed Hades! You’re not worthy to be the ruler here.”
“What would you know of that?” Corre challenged, and Nikias looked at her like he’d already forgotten she was there.
“You—”
“You could have found a friend in Markus," she said, her voice shaking. “But you chose to hurt him instead. You spent a lifetime tormenting him.”
Nikias barked out a laugh. “A friend in him ? This worthless creature?” He pointed to Markus and laughed again. “Please. He’s always been a weak, sniveling child. Just as our master always claimed.” Markus’s hands tightened into fists at his side. Nikias grinned wickedly. “See? So easily combustible. He’s always been weak. It’s why he was never given the throne. He doesn’t deserve it.”
Markus didn’t move, but his face was lit in anger.
“He does deserve it," Corre said, “and that’s what makes you furious. It’s so easy to see.”
Nikias’s mouth formed a tight line on his renewed scowl, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he turned to Markus. “You’ll ruin this place, and then you’ll go crawling back to our master, like the pathetic worm you are.”
“Don’t talk to him li—” Corre started, but Nikias shot her a look and screamed back at her.
“This doesn’t concern you!” He looked her up and down. “You little brat! You b—”
Markus yanked the general into the air, his hand outstretched. “Be careful what you say next,” he hissed. “We won’t ruin anything.” Something zipped through Corre when he’d said ‘we’. “But you will have to follow my orders now.” Markus stepped closer, a triumphant smile flickering across his face. “So, you will leave this room at once and you’ll get ready for the next stage of your life. With your new leader.” He cocked a brow. “Okay?”
He threw Nikias to the ground, and the blonde quickly shot to his feet, straightening himself. He narrowed his eyes and sucked on his teeth until he reluctantly grumbled. “Yes.”
“Yes, what ?”
Nikias rolled his eyes back to the new leader of the Underworld. “Yes, sire .”
Markus’s smile widened. “Good. Now, take the guards with you and leave us be.”
The general threw one more nasty look at him before striding out of the room, the rest of the guards trailing behind him.
As Corre watched them leave, she wondered what had made him hate Markus so much. She’d known vaguely of his cruelty. Markus never said much about it, but she knew he’d gotten under his skin and that the general had been a great source of pain in his life and that he had been instrumental in separating them and getting Markus tortured mercilessly.
If only Nikias had chosen differently. What could have been done about all of this—about Thanatos and Hypnos and the throne—years ago if Nikias had found a comrade in Markus instead of an opponent?
“What is it, my love?” Markus’s hand found her chin, and he lifted her face to his.
Warmth pooled through her, and her mind went hazy. She would never grow tired of the way he looked at her, or the way her body turned to water when he gazed at her like this. Like she was all that mattered. Like she was a precious pearl taken from the sea.
“Nothing,” she said breathlessly. “I just . . . I wish your life could have been different.” Her chest tightened, but when he smiled softly and stroked her face, that familiar warmth took its place.
“I don’t care about anything that happened before I met you.”
She looked into his dark eyes, and the world around them disappeared. He leaned forward and kissed her, and she let her body fall against his. He took her face in his hands and kissed her over and over, and she hungrily accepted each one and matched it with equal fervor.
“Are you ready?” he whispered.
“For what?”
He took a step back and moved his hand in one swiping motion at the seat of the throne. Branches and materials from across the room pulled together, weaving into two solid-black crowns. One with tall, spire-like branches fit for the God of the Underworld, and then a smaller one. Fit for his queen.
He looked at her and kissed her again. “For our coronation.”
Her lips parted slightly. “ Our coronation?”
His smile faded. “Well, that is, if you . . . want to . . . be my queen . . .” Panic flooded his face, and Corre couldn’t help but think it was adorable.
She lifted her hand to his cheek and leaned closer. “Of course I do.” She scrunched her nose in a smile, and relief washed over his features. His shoulders relaxed.
“Oh good,” he said with a laugh. “So . . .” He took the hand she’d placed on his cheek and led her to the crowns. “How shall we do this?”
She pursed her lips, then picked up his crown and lifted it to him. “You are an exceptional god, with the strength and capacity to rule the Underworld in a way no one else can.” She smiled at the pink dust creeping up his face. “I hereby name you the official ruler of Tartarus.” She went up on her toes and planted a kiss on his lips, then, stretching her arms above his head, she placed the crown on his inky waves of black hair. Her arms fell to his shoulders. “My Hades,” she whispered, a smile dimpling her cheeks. She kissed him again.
She leaned back, and he smiled down at her with tears forming in his eyes. His eyes didn’t leave hers as he reached out toward the throne and fetched her crown with the power in his fingers. The warmth inside of her grew until it felt like sunshine was spilling from her fingertips as she lifted them to her lips. She suppressed an excited giggle as Markus raised the thin crown over her head.
“May I?” he asked, and her legs weakened at the deep richness of his voice. She nodded giddily. “Then, with this, you are my queen. Do you agree to this? To be Persephone, Queen of Tartarus and wife to Hades?”
Wife .
Her heart fluttered. “Yes,” she said, barely managing the word as she looked into her groom’s eyes.
He smiled. “Then you are hereby declared Goddess of the Underworld. And you are mine.” Her body heated at the deep rumble of his voice and the seductiveness of his tone.
He placed the thin black crown on her head, and a rush of magic coursed through her. A gasp escaped her throat as she watched the silk of her dress turn black. Her rose-like gown no longer reflected the gardens of Olympus. It mirrored the shadows of her new world. She now looked like a flower plucked from the sky on a low-lit night. And something in her clicked. Like a piece of her had been loose all her life until this very moment, when it fell into place.
For the first time in her life, everything felt as it should.
Everything fit perfectly.
When she looked back up at Markus, she noticed his eyes flick up to her crown. Before she could ask him what he was looking at, the answer fell like fairy dust from the top of her head. Blood-red roses had bloomed on the sharp curves of her crown, their soft petals falling around them.
He tipped her face to his, pure adoration reflected in his eyes.“I love you,” he whispered. “So very much.”
“I love you, too,” she breathed, pressing into him. Something shimmered in the darkness of his eyes. “I am yours.”
“Forever?” he asked softly.
“Forever,” she whispered, and he kissed her.
The sweet intoxication that followed was overwhelming. Her hands trailed up his back, her fingers pulling at the fabric of his shirt, as he sunk deeper into their kiss.
And she let everything else slip away.
She was his wife. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
At last.