Page 4 of A Touch of Chaos

“You are everything that makes me good,” he said. “And I am everything that makes you terrible.”

She swallowed the thickness that had gathered in her throat. Before, she would have balked at those words, but now she understood the power in being feared.

And she wanted to be dreaded.

“Where are you?” she asked, desperate for him to manifest at her side where he belonged, but the longer she remained alone, the darker her energy became.

“Waiting to carry you through the dark if you will bring me to the light.”

Her heart felt so heavy, a weight in her chest.

“I need you,” she whispered.

“You have me,” he said. “There is no part where you end or I begin. Use me, darling, as you have for your pleasure. There is power in this pain.”

And there waspain.

It radiated through her, a bone-deep sorrow that had become so much a part of her that it almost seemed normal. She could not remember who she was before the hollow ache of grief had carved a spot in her heart.

“You are more now that I am gone,” said Lexa.

Persephone squeezed her eyes shut against her best friend’s cruel words, though she knew they were true. Strange that life granted power in the face of loss, stranger yet that the person who would be most proud was not here to witness it.

“I know your truth,” Lexa said. “I do not need to witness it.”

Something cut through Persephone then, a pain so deep she could not contain it, and when her eyes opened, her vision was sharpened from the glow of her eyes. Her power waited, obedient to her will, a flame wreathing her body. For a moment, everything stilled, and she felt Hades’s presence as if he had come up behind her and wrapped a possessive arm around her waist.

“Feed it,” he commanded, and with his warm breath on her ear, she screamed.

Her anguish became a real and living thing as her power gathered around her. It flooded the Underworld, darkening the sky. Shadows flew from the palms of her hands, turning into solid spears, impaling the chimeras and the Hydra. A cacophony of shrill screams and pained roars filled the air, and it fueled her, made her dig deeper until the earth began to tremble and the ground beneath the Hydra and the mountains of Tartarus turned dark and liquid. Thick tendrils shot out from the pool, latching onto the Hydra’s large, clawed feet and what remained of its heads, dragging the monster down into its depths until its screams were suddenly silenced.

Her magic rose in dark waves over Iapetus too, aided by Hecate, whose power drove the Titan farther into his cell in the mountains, though he fought against it, arms stretched out, reaching for the still-open sky. Her darkness continued to climb, matting his hair and blinding his eyes, spilling into his open mouth. He wailed in anger until his throat was full and he could no longer speak, and when he was covered, the magic hardened, and the mountains of Tartarus shone like glistening obsidian against the dark horizon.

From the tallest peak, which was the tip of Iapetus’s hand, now frozen in hard stone, her magic continued to build, mending the broken sky, and when it was finished, she dropped her hands, and her magic reeled back, ricocheting through her. She trembled but remained on her feet. She felt something wet on her face, and when she reached to touch her mouth, she found blood.

She frowned.

“Sephy, you were amazing!” Hermes said as he appeared before her. He swept her into a tight hug.Despite the way his armor dug into her body, she welcomed his embrace.

When he set her on her feet, it was before Apollo, Hecate, and Cerberus, who was still fused into a large three-headed monster. He ambled forward and nuzzled her hand gently, all three sets of jowls dripping with saliva and blood.

She didn’t care and stroked each of the heads anyway.

“Good boys,” she said. “Very good boys.”

In the meadow below, the souls cheered. Their enthusiasm would normally lift her heart, but instead, she felt dread.

Would her magic hold? Could she keep them safe?

Her gaze shifted to the horizon and the strange tower that now connected the mountains of Tartarus to the sky. She had no idea how she’d created it, but she knew what had fed her magic. She could still feel those emotions echoing inside her.

“I like it,” said Hermes. “It’s art. We’ll call it…Iapetus’s reckoning.”

Persephone thought it looked more like a scar, a blight on Hades’s kingdom, but perhaps he would fix it when he came home.

Something thick gathered in the back of her throat, and she couldn’t swallow. She turned to look at everyone, searching each face as if one of them might hold the answer to her greatest question.

“Where is Hades?” she asked.

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