Page 7 of A Touch of Chaos

Theseus raised the knife between them, stained with his blood. Hades recognized it as his father’s scythe. Part of it anyway. The end was missing, having been found in Adonis’s corpse after he’d been attacked outside La Rose. He had been the first victim of Theseus’s campaign againstthe Olympians, a sacrifice made to antagonize Aphrodite. Later, Hades would discover the Goddess of Love had been chosen as a target by Demeter for her influence over his relationship with Persephone. It was the price she’d asked for in exchange for use of her magic and relics.

“Well, look at that,” said Theseus. “You bleed like I bleed.” He took a step away as if to admire his work. “You would do well to remember that beneath that net, you are mortal.”

Hades had never been more aware as he struggled to breathe, his chest rising and falling sharply. He felt cold, his skin damp.

“You think you can make us all mortal?”

“Yes,” said Theseus. “Just as easily as I can become invincible.”

The demigod did not explain what he meant, but Hades could guess. There were only a few ways to become invincible in this world. One was through Zeus who, as King of the Gods, could grant invincibility. Another was to eat a golden apple from the Garden of the Hesperides, Hera’s orchard, and since the two had formed some kind of alliance, he assumed that was the avenue the demigod would take.

Theseus sheathed the bloody knife and then picked up the Helm of Darkness before reaching into his pocket to withdraw something small and silver. Hades’s heart squeezed at the sight of it.

“This is a beautiful ring,” Theseus said, holding it between his thumb and forefinger, twisting it so that even beneath the dim light, the gems glittered. Hades watched it, his stomach knotting with each movement. “Who would have guessed it would be your downfall?”

Theseus was wrong.

That ring was Hades’s hope even if he could not hold it, even if it was in the hand of his enemy.

“Persephone will come,” he said, certain. His voice was quiet, his eyes heavy.

“I know,” Theseus said, his fingers closing over the ring. He spoke with a dreadful glee that made Hades sick, though perhaps he was only feeling the weight of the net and his wound.

“She will be your ruin,” Hades said to the demigod, his chest tightening with the truth of those words.

“You would burn this world for me? I will destroy it for you,” she had said right before she had torn his realm apart in the name of a love she thought she had lost.

Theseus considered their love a weakness, but he would soon discover how wrong he was.

CHAPTER III

PERSEPHONE

“Where is my husband?” Persephone asked.

Hermes and Apollo exchanged a concerned look, but no one spoke.

The longer their silence continued, the more frantic she felt.

“Hecate?” Persephone looked at the triple goddess whose troubled expression did nothing to ease her worry. She took a step toward her. “You can track him,” Persephone said, her hope rising, but there was a strange look on Hecate’s face, a strange and terrifying look that instantly made her feel a keen sense of dread.

Hecate shook her head. “I’ve tried, Persephone.”

“You haven’t,” Persephone said. “When?”

She refused to believe it, but she knew something was wrong. She had always been able to sense Hades’s magic, but even that sensation was gone, and the emptiness made her tremble.

“Persephone,” Hermes started, stepping toward her.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, glaring at him, glaring at all of them.

She did not want their comfort. She did not want their pity.

Those things made this real.

Her eyes blurred with tears.

She had come to expect certain truths—that dawn would break and night would fall, that life preceded death and hope followed despair. She had come to expect that Hades would always be by her side, and his absence now made the world feel wrong.

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