Page 6 of Hades and Persephone: Keeper of Sins

Good God, the way she purrs his name. It’s—I don’t even know what it is.

“Is his name real?”

“I assure you, Persephone, that Hades is very, very real.”

“I mean his name, not him. Of course, the God of the Underworld isn’t real. I’m talking about the manwho owns this club. The one they call Hades. Is that a stage name, too?”

“Like I said, Hades is very real, Persephone.” She waves her hand to the now empty VIP line. “Please, go ahead and enjoy your time in the Tower of Pluto.”

Chapter

Four

Hades

The blade slidesinto the scar across my palm, splitting it wide as blood drips in a river from the wound to mix with the ashy powder in the bowl, thickening it into a paste. Once smooth, I pour the mixture into the paint I’ll splash against the blank canvas enchanted by Hecate.

Wiping my palm clean of blood, I tie my hair back, slide onto the stool, and lift my brush. I don’t blink or breathe until I’m disturbed by a noise from behind. I realize I’m halfway through a painting, my thoughts far away as thecolors mesh into a disturbed prison of charmed canvas and blood.

The sound of an ash rock spit from the depths of the river Phlegethon is dropped into a bowl fashioned from the skull of Uranus, my grandfather. I defeated him in a brutal and bloody battle that took place shortly after myself and my brothers had imprisoned our father, and the rest of the Titans. It had been a battle unlike any other the earth has seen, or hopefully, will ever see again.

It had been assumed Uranus had died after Cronus castrated him. Assumed, but never proven. He’d simply taken to the sky to lurk in wait for his time to strike for the power he once knew. A power I was unwilling to lose, being the young and ambitious God I was when I first claimed the throne of the dead. First bowed to the Crown of Souls.

His return had been the mark of his physical end as I drained him of blood, stripping his soul of flesh and bone. It is his blood that bubbles and boils in the river Phlegethon, his furious rage that sears the souls held captive within Tartarus, ringed by the inescapable river Phlegethon.

I understand his ire. The world in which he helped to create, the lives he crafted to worship him, had slain him. I understand that Uranus is a dangerous and powerful thing that must be kept contained. I understand that such a thing is within the scope of my responsibility as God of theUnderworld, and keeper of evil. I have shouldered this burden with the utmost seriousness for millennia.

But I am tired. I am angry and I am resentful.

I am vengeful.

That which has always been my motivation, my utmost treasure, was schemed from me in a terrible, unforgivable play of betrayal.

For her, for my love,my wife, I have never stopped searching.

If it weren’t for the Fates vowing that she would be reborn, I’d have loosed Uranus’ immortal soul, and all the Titans in a damning play for revenge. I would have cast the venom of my grief wide on this Earth, destroying all that they cherish. All who worship them. I would have locked the gates of the Underworld, closing my realm from the chaos I released, damning them all above. Protecting only the souls I’ve vowed to keep safe within my realm.

But the curse of my past has been intricately woven into the fabric of the future, and I am trapped in the prison of my grief. I am bound by the shackles of my hatred for the spite of a mother.My sister.Demeter.

The bitch.

The ash rock grinds into the unbreakable skull of Uranus, disintegrating to dust under the smooth bone I pulled from his forearm. His bones are the strongest element on earth. A thousand times stronger, even, then Tungsten, the current, and wrongly suspected strongest element in the world.

If they knew how valuable, how undefeatable, the bone of a Titan was, governments would thrust armies at me in bid to infiltrate Tartarus. Little do they or the other Olympians know, that the Titans are no longer held prisoner within Tartarus. They are bound to a prison world that is entirely their own, and of my crafting.

I am the singular keeper. The beast holding the key to their damnation. I have fed them, nourishing their hatred. Their lust for vengeance.

I will continue to keep them, to pour my blood and strength into their prisons—until I have found her.

I inhale deep into my lungs, tasting the familiar, sweet scent of mint. With a roll of my shoulders, I dip the brush into a pool of murky blue. For a moment, the painting comes alive. A scream of tortured rage slithers from the canvas, swept up and sealed away in another brushstroke.

Minthe’s seductive voice crawls in the space between us. “Who was that?”

“Oceanus.”

“Ah,” she sings. “The blue. You’re giving him an ocean this time?”

“I think it’s fair.” I wipe my hands of the paint. “He suffered for the last century in a desert. He’s parched.”

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