Page 3 of A Touch of Chaos

She smiled back. “Hey, Apollo.”

“Rude,” said Hermes. “I didn’t get a greeting.”

“Hi, Hermes,” she said, looking back at him.

He scoffed. “It doesn’t mean anything if I have to point it out.”

She grinned and burst into tears at the same time, overwhelmed with gratitude by their presence.

“Don’t cry, Sephy,” said Hermes. “It was just a joke.”

“She isn’t crying over your stupid joke,” Apollo snapped.

“Oh? And you know her so well?”

“He isn’t wrong, Hermes,” Persephone said, wiping at her eyes quickly. “I’m just…really glad you are both here.”

Hermes’s expression softened, but their attention was soon drawn to Tartarus again when the Hydra roared and launched itself from the peak upon which it was poised, landing in the Forest of Despair. Trees snapped beneath its massive body as if they were nothing but twigs. The monster’s heads whipped about, slinging its poisonous venom. It landed across the Underworld like a deadly rain, burning and blackening whatever it touched, including a chimera whose horrid wail filled the air as the poison burned the creature to death.

At the same time, Iapetus had managed to free himself further, and now his entire head was exposed, down to his wide shoulders. His face was thin and his eyes sunken and angry, gleaming as if filled with fire. He looked wicked and unkind, and while Persephone had expected nothing different from the Titan who had been locked away for centuries, it was another thing to be faced with the sharp force of his fury.

Persephone could feel Hecate’s ancient magic rush over her, as if she were drawing energy from everything within the Underworld. It raised the hair on her arms and the back of her neck, stole the moisture from her tongue. Then Hecate released her power in a greatburst. Iapetus folded beneath its weight, his head striking the mountains, but Persephone knew it was not enough.

“We have to get them back into Tartarus,” Persephone said.

“We’ll work on that,” said Hermes. “You worry about that massive hole in the sky.”

They must have sensed her doubt because Apollo added, “You’ve got this, Seph. You are Queen of the Underworld.”

“The one and only,” said Hermes. “That we know of.”

Persephone and Apollo glared.

“It’s just ajoke,” Hermes whined.

Apollo sighed and took a few steps forward. His bow materialized in his hand, his quiver on his back. “Let’s go, Hermes.”

The God of Mischief took a step and then twisted to face Persephone. “If it helps at all,” he said, “there is no one else.”

She knew what he meant. No one else could trap the Titans or contain the monsters in Tartarus. No one else could mend the broken sky.

That was power granted to the King and Queen of the Underworld.

It was either Hades or it was her, and Hades was not here.

His absence made her chest ache, though she knew it was not time to agonize over what had befallen him since she’d last seen him. She had to deal with what was before her first, and the sooner she was able to contain this threat, the sooner she could find her husband.

Hermes’s wings unfurled behind him, and helaunched himself into the air before bolting across the realm to the Hydra with Apollo in tow.

Persephone teleported to the edge of the Asphodel Fields. Alone, she took a moment to observe the chaos.

She had often been aware of her faults but never so much as she was at this very moment. The mountains of Tartarus were nothing more than piles of rubble, the beauty of Hades’s magic was marred by patches of scorched and smoking earth from the Hydra’s venom, the air smelled like burning flesh, and amid all this, the souls still fought the chimeras. Hermes wielded his golden sword against the Hydra while Apollo sent rays of blinding light to cauterize the wounds and prevent the heads from regenerating. Iapetus continued to rock the Underworld, fighting beneath Hecate’s magic.

Persephone took a breath and closed her eyes. As she did, she felt the world around her go quiet. Nothing seeped into her space save her anger, her pain, her worry. Her ears rang with it, her heart pumped with it, and she used it to draw on the darker part of her magic. It was the part of her that ached, the part of her that raged, the part of her that no longer believed the world was wholly good.

“You are my wife and my queen.”

Hades’s voice echoed in her mind. It sent chills down her spine and cradled her heart. The sound brought tears to her eyes and made her chest feel tight, stealing the air from her lungs.

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