Page 83 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

“It is a sealed portal into the Underworld, Persephone.” Demeter taps her nude talons to the swollen stone horns. “This is the…”

“Gate of Horn and Ivory,” Addison cuts her off.

Demeter doesn’t look impressed. “Yes.”

“Holy shit,” Addison whispers. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

Demeter rolls her eyes, annoyed. “Silence or I will silence you eternally.”

Addison’s jaw closes so fast, the clap of his teeth is audible, echoing in the stone chamber.

Buying time, I ask, “How did all this happen? We didn’t—we haven’t unearthed this.”

Demeter waves her hand, a coy smile playing at her lips. “It was nothing. A little storm wind and centuries of packed earth just,” she shrugs, “vanished.”

My mind flashes back to the storm wind that had cut through my nightmare, swallowed by the Lethe. She said she would kill meagain, if I failed her. Doesthat mean my nightmare had been more than a dream? More than a vision?

Had it been a memory?

From another life? Could it be possible?

Either there is a lot more to this world than society knows today, or I’ve completely lost it. Maybe none of this is real and I’ve finally slipped into the insanity of my mind.

Somehow, I know that’s not the case.

“Come, Persephone, we don’t have time to waste.”

Swallowing hard, I try to release Addison’s hand, but he squeezes mine in response. When I look up at him, his blue eyes tell me that we’re doing it—whatever this is—together.

My heart aches, because I’m afraid we won’t make it out of this tonight. Aside from what Demeter is requesting, confident I possess the ability to open a portal into the Underworld, I know that I can’t.

If she is really the Goddess I saw in my nightmare, I know she hides a dangerous beast beneath her flesh. A winged thing with talons that slice into flesh with ease and screams a vicious storm of wind so violent it can puncture organs and destroy land.

Can clear away centuries of packed earth and the secrets it conceals.

Hand in hand with Addison, we walk across the ancient room. My mind comes alive with memories. I’ve walked this path more times than I can count—as me before I was who I am now.

Images of me standing below the Ivory Gate flash like a collage of images in my mind. I have red hair then white. I wear black satin then white. I am pale then tan. I stand with Minthe, Leuce, Adonis, Herman, and Hades. There are others—others I don’t recognize but feel deep down that I know. But my mind sticks on one face.

Hades.

The man who spills his blood into canvases of torment, who denies my insanity with knowing calm, who smells of woodsmoke and sin and ignites me with flames—Hades.

Could he be…

If this is Demeter…

I can’t make myself ask the question, not even within the safe confines of my own mind.

This can’t be possible. None of this is possible.

The God of the Underworld bears a shocking resemblance to the man I’ve fallen in love with these last few months.

A shuddering cry spills from my lips as I pull my hand from the swell of the horns. I hadn’t even realized I’d touched the swollen stone.

I sob, “I can’t.”

Demeter growls low and menacing. “Try again.”

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