Page 106 of A Touch of Chaos

Normally, he would watch his world wake, but it seemed it had never slept—not the souls who hammered steel in Asphodel or Cerberus, who patrolled the borders of the Underworld.

He knew they were restless because they were afraid.

Theseus had brought battle upon them in a life where they were only supposed to know peace. Hadesfelt angry that his people had suffered, guilty that he had not been here to prevent the chaos Theseus had unleashed.

None of this would have happened if you had been here,he thought bitterly, but those words felt wrong. Mostly, they minimized what Persephone had gone through to protect their realm, and the last thing he wanted was for her to think she had not done enough—that she had notbeenenough.

“What are you doing out here?”

He stiffened, straightening at the sound of Persephone’s voice. He turned to see her standing just inside the threshold of the balcony doors. She looked beautiful and sleepy, illuminated by the morning glow of the Underworld and wearing nothing but black silk.

He felt like an idiot for not returning to her side.

“Just…observing,” he said in answer to her question.

She paled, and her eyes shifted from him to the dark horizon where the mountains of Tartarus gleamed like black glass.

“That is Iapetus,” she said, though he already knew.

She took a breath and shivered violently, which only deepened his anger and his guilt. He wished he had been here to protect her from this horror.

She left the threshold and came to stand beside him, her eyes locked on the monstrous mountain.

“I tried to hold him with my magic alone, but it was not as strong as yours,” she said.

“There is no difference in our magic, Persephone.”

As soon as he said the words, he realized how frustrated he sounded. It had not been his intention to reprimand her. It had to be overwhelming, to haveonly just grown comfortable with her own power and suddenly have access to his, but one was not more than the other.

He tried again, gentler this time.

“Some things work, and others don’t. It is that simple.”

She glanced at him and then away toward Tartarus, tapping her fingers against the stone railing, anxious.

“I thought maybe you could change it back…to the way it was before,” she said, almost as if she were suggesting a new addition to the castle or a plot in the garden.

“Why would I change it?” he asked.

The thought had not even occurred to him.

“Because of what it represents,” she said.

He frowned, brows lowering. “What do you think it represents?”

“Terror,” she said.

“Is that because you were afraid you couldn’t contain him?” he asked.

Her jaw tightened, and she did not speak.

He stepped up behind her, grinding his teeth against the pain that radiated down his leg as he caged her against the balcony. She felt rigid against him, and he willed her to relax to no avail.

“You have not seen how the souls look upon them,” she said, hands fisting beneath his. “As if they do not trust they will hold.”

“It isn’t unusual to fear something happening again, Persephone. It is not your magic they doubt.”

He could feel her shudder against him as she took a breath.

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