Page 92 of Hades

Persephone looked off to her left, towards Cerberus as he whined.

She was coming.

She willed him to be strong a little longer. She would get him free. She wouldn’t let Mnemosyne and the vile witches hurt him.

No one noticed her running towards him, not even the illusionist who had moved further from him, closer to the battle.

Persephone made the daemon her target and unleashed her power over nature. Sharp spikes shot from the ground, catching the female in her calf, and she unleashed a cry as she quickly moved, narrowly evading the next wave that burst towards her. Persephone ignored the sword that sat heavily in her hand and focused on using her powers, keeping herself concealed. If she attacked directly, the illusionist would know where she was and that she was invisible, and might alert Mnemosyne.

If she was going to succeed in taking the titaness down and freeing Cerberus, she needed to remain hidden.

Brambles snaked from the earth and twined around the daemon’s leg, their thorns digging deep into her flesh to hold her in place. The female struggled, grunting as she gripped her leg with one hand and tried to rip at the vines with the other. She cast a look over her shoulder, and fear swept through Persephone as she realised the daemon was going to call out to Mnemosyne.

Before she could utter a syllable, a huge thorn exploded from the black ground and punched through her heart.

Shattering the illusion that was keeping everyone busy while Mnemosyne was edging dangerously close to opening the gate.

The titaness turned as the noise of battle faded and silence fell across the plain, her silver eyes widening as they landed on the dead daemon. Her red lips flattened and her black eyebrows pitched low as she curled her hands into tight fists at her side.

“Take him down!” she yelled and swept her hand out, pointing at Hades.

The men who had been hauling Cerberus to the gate released the chains that bound him and obeyed her at once, drawing their weapons and running to join their comrades as the battle began anew.

Persephone eased down and pressed her palm to the earth, focusing on it. She reached out through the rock and dirt, connecting with nature and travelling through the roots that linked everything in the world.

Sending a message to her children in the mortal realm.

She hoped they would understand it.

She didn’t have time to spell it out with flowers. All she could do was chill their feet and produce a circle of black brambles in the middle of the courtyard of the Tokyo mansion, and she barely had time to do that when three orbs of magic shot past her. She gasped and they turned, spinning back towards her, as if they had heard her.

The witch who had cast them grinned as Persephone hurled herself flat on the ground and grabbed the helmet to stop it from falling off her head and revealing her location. Apparently, the witch didn’t need to see her to know where she was, because the spells she had launched slammed into the ground far too close for comfort, showering her with dirt.

Persephone hoped her message would be enough to tell her children that the gate in the Underworld was under attack, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.

She surged to her feet and focused on the ground ahead of her, and the rock split, jagged fissures snaking across the land. Lava flowed into them as they spread and widened, rocketing towards the witch who stood close to the dead illusionist. The female sneered at them and waved her hand, somehow halting the fissures before they could reach her.

Persephone wasn’t deterred. While the witch was distracted with protecting her comrades from another wave of fissures that crept towards her, Persephone focused on the gate. The ground before it shuddered, drawing Mnemosyne’s gaze to her feet, and then the titaness stumbled backwards as a towering wall of earth shot upwards, covering the smooth vertical face of the mountain where the gate was.

No sooner had Persephone built it than the witch closest to her tore it down with magic, blasting rocks in all directions and earning herself a glare from Mnemosyne before the titaness hurried to check the cliff behind it. Her hands skimmed over the smooth rock.

Persephone fought the urge to turn that rock into sharp spikes, unsure what it would do to the gate. The gate was part of it, the rings and symbols matching those used in the gates Hades had created for each of their children, only rather than being drawn in the air, they had been carved into the rock. If she damaged those markings, there was a chance the gate could react badly, and might even open and refuse to close.

She summoned another series of vines that burst from the ground, arcing like great snakes to burrow back into it, heading at speed for the witch to keep her distracted while Persephone tried to figure out how to stop Mnemosyne.

She glanced across the battlefield to Hades, sure he would know. His frantic crimson eyes constantly searched the fray as he barely paid attention to the men he was fighting, focusing on them for only a second at a time before his gaze leaped away. He was looking for her. She tamped down the urge to show him where she was by removing the helm and instead reached out to him through the earth.

He cut down another foe, pinning him to the ground with the sharp end of his bident, and stilled.

Staring at the red rose that grew and bloomed before him.

A hint of relief swept across his features, softening them, and then his lips peeled back off his fangs and he launched himself back into the fight, taking on two more men with the help of Calindria.

The vines Persephone had sent at Mnemosyne reached her, slamming into the ground close enough to knock her to one side. The titaness lashed at one of them with her blade, slicing through it before it could attack her, and the witch nearest her halted the other ones. They crumbled as the wall had when a bright burst of crimson light struck them, leaving a trail of dark dust that drifted across the gate.

Mnemosyne moved away from it, her silver eyes narrowing on the plain where Persephone stood.

“I know you are there, little lamb,” the titaness crooned with a smile. “Proving everything I thought about you right. You lack courage. Here we are in the midst of a battle, and still you are hiding.”

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