Page 11 of Hades

She pasted on a smile when everyone looked worried, even Thanatos. It faded a moment later as something dawned on her.

Hades was troubled. Worried. Which meant there was one place he might have gone.

She should have thought of it sooner.

The changes to the Underworld would have made clear how troubled he was even if she hadn’t known him as well as she did and could see beyond his calm façade. They were small right now. The new volcano. The fact the mountain behind the palace was more unsettled than usual. How turbulent the river that separated the palace grounds from that mountain was. The realm was responding to Hades’s mood, and she had been doing her best to calm him, but it was difficult.

He often didn’t come to bed, and she was beginning to suspect he was avoiding her for some reason.

Because the darker side of his nature was emerging again?

He hid that from her, but she had seen it. Felt it. Try as he might to pretend he was fine, he wasn’t, and that was why he was avoiding her. He didn’t want her to know how bad things were. He was trying to protect her. Both from this war and from himself.

Foolish male.

They were husband and wife. Partners. A team. He didn’t have to hide things from her and bear the burden alone. He could share it with her and she wouldn’t balk. She wouldn’t run. She would stand strong beside him and be all he needed her to be.

Hadn’t she shown him that a thousand times?

She wasn’t afraid of his darker side.

She never had been.

That wicked side was part of the reason she had fallen for him.

And she was going to show him all over again that he didn’t need to hide things from her.

He never had to hide who he was.Never.

She looked at Ares, and then the others.

“I know where he is.”

Persephone didn’t say another word, just hitched her skirts and swiftly covered the ground between the palace gardens and a place few visited, refusing to let her eagerness to see Hades make her run there.

There were too many guards stationed around the palace and all of them would panic if they saw her sprinting towards the boundary. Hades had issued them strict instructions to ensure she remained in the palace grounds at all times. It was more than a little stifling, but she knew why he had done it.

He wanted to protect her.

If she had her way, she would issue the same order to him and make him obey it.

As soon as she was clear of the guards and could feel no eyes on her, she increased her pace, moving from walking quickly to a run.

Ahead of her loomed an imposing black wooden stable with a tiled roof. It was almost as tall as the palace. Next to it, a huge tract of land had been walled off.

Land where Cerberus had lived before Heracles had stolen him and Hades had felt the need to move his beloved pet to somewhere only he or Persephone could go.

The place she was heading now.

She set her sights on the mountain beyond the paddock, her focus on the large cave at the base of it. As she reached it, cool air swept around her, rushing from deep within the mountain. She didn’t hesitate to run into the darkness, aware that there was nothing inside that could harm her. Her steps were sure despite the darkness that robbed her of her vision, her bare feet unerringly following a path they had trod many times.

When she was deep inside the cavern, she halted and held her hands out before her, her palms facing the tunnel that continued ahead of her. The chilly air hummed with power that vibrated through her and then a small spark of violet light burst to life, hovering eight feet above the ground. It grew into an orb that illuminated the cave, throwing shadows into the hollows of the black rock walls.

Those shadows flickered like living beings as the orb flashed and the first ring appeared, edged with glyphs that shone in hues of green and yellow. The ring of light expanded outwards and the orb pulsed again, birthing another that filled the space between them. This one had two bands around it and within it were larger symbols that shone with red and pink light. The gate continued to grow before her eyes, another ring of glyphs and then another forming, both in shades of purple and green and blue.

And then a final ring appeared, this one crimson and blue, reminding her of Hades’s eyes and how they changed with his mood.

The gate stopped growing and the rings of it rotated lazily, each one heading in the opposite direction to the previous.

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