Page 159 of A Touch of Chaos

Persephone’s heart fell.

“Sybil, what’s wrong?” she asked, taking a step forward. “Is Harmonia okay?”

“Oh, Persephone,” Sybil said. Her eyes were red and teary.

“Sybil,” Persephone said again. “What is it?”

The oracle turned her tablet around, and her eyes dropped to the screen. A loud ringing filled her ears as she stared at the words screaming back at her:

Goddess of Spring Accused of Matricide: Helios Tells All

CHAPTER XXX

HADES

When Hades arrived at the island of Lemnos, Aphrodite did not greet him as usual, though he was not surprised. She was likely organizing and preparing to announce the funeral games. As much as Hades understood Hephaestus’s fear for her, he also felt that the games were the best way to lure Theseus into the open. If they succeeded in killing him there, it could easily be attributed to an accident despite the rules. Theseus might be a demigod, but he was slow to heal, and if he happened to be slain with a weapon of his own creation…well, Nemesis would call that karma.

Hades continued over the bridge that connected Hephaestus and Aphrodite’s house to the craftsman’s forge deep in the belly of a volcano. The last time Hades had visited, he and the God of Fire had discussed weapons. Specifically, Hades had wanted an arsenal of blades laced with venom from the Hydra and something that could cut through the inescapable nets Theseus hadbeen using to trap and kill gods. He had not expected to find that weapon in the labyrinth in the form of the Nemean lion’s claw, but he supposed he could count it as the only good thing to come out of that horrid place.

The problem was he only had one claw, and while there were more in Theseus’s maze, they were not worth the terror of retrieving. They would all have to make do with the one.

The steady roar of the ocean brought Hades out of his thoughts. The last time he had been topside, everything had been frozen under layers of ice and snow. Now the sun was out, burning hotly against the bright blue sky. Hades could feel the scorch of Helios’s rays. The God of the Sun did not like to be overshadowed or ignored, and the fact that Hades was the reason for the recent snowstorm likely made him even more angry.

Hades wondered if Helios was at all worried about Cronos. He was certain the all-seeing god had witnessed the murder of his mother, and given that he had sided with the Olympians during the Titanomachy, it was likely the God of the Sun was on his father’s kill list, and Cronos, with his ability to manipulate and destroy with time, was not a god Helios would see coming.

Hades found reprieve from the heat as he entered Hephaestus’s cavernous workshop. It was in its usual state of organized chaos, packed to the brim with inventions and weapons, leaving only the narrowest path through to his forge, which was at the base of a twisting set of stone steps.

As Hades descended, the air grew hotter, warming him from the inside out. When he finally entered the forge, he found Hephaestus standing before a table piledhigh with swords. He was holding one and polishing the blade, which had a black tint to the usually bright steel.

Hephaestus looked up when Hades entered.

“Have you forgiven me?” Hades asked.

“I will let you know after the games,” said Hephaestus.

“Fair enough,” said Hades as he approached the table, though as he had said before, they both knew Hephaestus would not let anything happen to Aphrodite.

“Weapons for your mortals,” said the god, nodding toward the table and also to his right where there were piles of spears and arrows and buckets full of gleaming bullets.

“All laced with Hydra venom?” Hades asked.

“As you requested.”

“As I requested,” Hades repeated, though he could not help worrying over arming thousands of mortals with weapons that could wound and kill gods. “Am I making a mistake, Hephaestus?”

“If we cannot have better weapons, then they should at least be equal,” said the god.

“Once they are in the world, there is no getting them back,” said Hades.

“That is true of many things,” said Hephaestus.

“Yes, but few things have such grave consequences,” Hades replied.

In the past, he would not have thought long on the implications, but that was before Persephone. Now, all he could think was that the existence of these weapons was a threat to her safety, and he wanted to eliminate it, but he knew that was impossible. Even if they tried to take the weapons out of circulation, they would endup being sold on the black market. The same thing had happened after the Great War, and no matter how hard Hades worked, relics still slipped through his fingers.

“If we cannot take the weapons out of circulation, we will have to find another way to combat their effects,” Hephaestus said.

“What do you suggest?”

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