Page 158 of A Touch of Chaos

“I don’t know,” he said and finally met her gaze.Within his eyes, she saw his dread and felt it in her own heart.

When Persephone woke, she thought she saw a crimson haze from the corner of her eye and turned her head with a quick snap only to find the morning sun warming the windows. She took a shuddering breath and tried to calm her racing heart.

“Are you well?” Hades asked.

She turned to look at him, wondering if he noticed her fright. She shifted closer, melting into his warmth. If she could, she would stay here forever, but that was not possible for either of them.

Today, Aphrodite would announce the funeral games, and Persephone would return to work. She, Sybil, and Leuce had been working on a piece forThe Advocatethat would provide a detailed timeline of the atrocities committed by Triad and their Impious followers.

In the face of Theseus’s accusations, they hoped it would demonstrate his hypocrisy and undermine his call to cease worshiping the gods.

As much as Persephone believed in this work, in the importance of exposing injustice, she feared retaliation, not against her but against everyone she loved.

Hades had the same fear early in their relationship and now, in the aftermath of Zofie’s death and Sybil and Harmonia’s kidnapping and torture, she understood his worry in a way she wished she never knew.

“It feels wrong,” she said. “To…attempt thisnormalcywhen so many are suffering.”

Hades’s thumb stroked across her upper arm. Shefocused on the feel of his touch, distracting her from the static anxiety in her chest.

“If we do nothing, we cease to live,” Hades said. “And if we cease to live, Theseus wins.”

They were harsh words, but she knew they were true.

“Where will you be today?” Even as she asked the question, she wondered if he would tell her the truth or avoid answering altogether.

“I will visit Hephaestus,” he said. “We have long planned for the need to arm our followers in battle.”

Persephone stiffened at his words.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said, her voice a half whisper, but in truth, it was the first time he had talked about equipping their worshippers for battle. “I just…do not think I imagined that this fight would extend beyond us, beyond the gods.”

“Theseus has riled the masses,” said Hades. “When we clash, they will too.”

“And what about the innocent?” she asked, pulling back to look at him. “The children? Where do they go during this war?”

Hades looked haunted. “I…do not know.”

“We must know, Hades,” she said. “How can we engage in this horror without a plan to keep them safe?”

He hesitated, and she knew the meaning of his silence. In all the battles he had seen, he had never considered it before. After a moment, he brushed a strand of hair from her face, a gentle move that contrasted starkly with their dark conversation.

“Then we will plan,” he said. “And hope Theseus dies before we have to use it.”

Persephone waited until Hades left to rise and shower. She could not shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen, which made sense given everything that had occurred in the last few weeks and knowing what they had planned for the funeral games.

Still, this felt different.Shefelt different.

In the time since Theseus had turned her world upside down, she had become someone else, a person she did not recognize—a person she did not know if she even liked.

This person, the one who wore her skin, was a murderer. It did not matter that she had not intended to kill her mother; it had happened, and she could not decide how to live with the shame of it. Even more unnerving though was the anger that burned beneath that despair, poisoning her blood with a need for vengeance, and she did not think she would rest until she bore witness to Theseus’s suffering.

Perhaps this is how gods are truly made, she thought.

When she was dressed, she left her room and walked down the hall to the queen’s suite to collect Sybil. She and Harmonia were still staying in the Underworld. Persephone did not wish for them to return home, not until everything with Theseus and Triad was settled.

She knocked and waited for Sybil to answer, not expecting that when she did, she would look so stricken.

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