Page 75 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

Hermes pulls a sheet from a roll over a bookshelf, hiding the statues and ancient tomes that reside there. Saying nothing, he moves behind his desk. I wait, watching, as he taps at the keys of a sleek black laptop. It’s probably the single most modern thing in this room, save for the massive safe.

Hermes taps another key, and his eyes lift from the laptop to the sheet he dropped. My own eyes follow. My breath catches. It burns in the prison of my chest.

What I’m looking at is familiar, and on a much larger scale. It’s terrifying. For a moment, I consider using the information I possess from the knowledge in the ancient tome I’ve been studying, and using it to at least attempt to permanently destroy Hermes.

With this knowledge, he is a threat to Persephone.

I will destroy anything that dares to threaten her.

When I finally tear my gaze from the sheet to look at the man I once considered my brother, my ally, I find his eyes are already on me. Waiting.

“Since her murder, I have done everything I can to win your forgiveness.” A small smile cracks the sober lines of his face, tainted with sadness. “I have not forgiven myself. I trusted Demeter, wholly and completely. I would never have brought her to Persephone had I?—”

“Your act went against my rule.” In my mind, I roar the words so loudly I crumble the foundation of this building Hermes crafted. His oasis from Olympus—his limbo away from the Underworld. Contradicting the rage I hear in my mind, my words are terrifyingly quiet, dangerously composed. “Your act resulted in the murder of my Queen.”

He can’t know that in her absence, the Underworld suffers. That without her, it draws from those who dwell there with power—feasting on our souls—bleeding us all dry of the ancient magic we possess.

“Her death has scarred my soul as my greatest regret.”

I peer at him, studying the son of Zeus, whose loyalty I once believed belonged to me. “Why did you not return to Olympus when I banished you from the Underworld?”

Simply, he says, “Olympus is not, nor will it ever be, my home.”

“But the Underworld was?”

The pain of loss scores his face. “You know it was, Hades.”

In the corner of my eye, I see the collage of CT images flashing in a way that seemingly crafts a video. It’s playing on loop. Her very damnation if the Gods in Olympus ever learned this truth. It threatens to freeze the flame that lives, ever present, in my veins.

“And Zeus?”

“I’ve not acted as his messenger since you closed the portals into the Underworld,” Hermes says blandly. “His use for me died with my access to the Underworld.”

I did not know this. As a rule, I tend to avoid the Gods in Olympus, and their drama. I ask, “And if they reopened?”

“If they reopened to me, I would gladly pledge my soul to you and the Underworld.”

“You would give me your soul?”

“Yes.”

For a God to give another, much less the God of the Underworld, their soul is a thing rarer even than Gods’ bone.

When his declaration is met with nothing but silence, Hermes says, “I know the danger that threatens her.” His hand drifts to the flashing images that craft the video on the screen. “I know, because I can clearly see that she is the most dangerous being alive today. More dangerous, even, than the legend of Chaos.”

If there is a God who has fallen into the ether of skepticism and myth, it is Chaos. It has been so long since I’ve heard her name spoken. So long that even I had to admit the idea of the Goddess is more legend than reality. More myth than truth.

Still, even I can admit when I saw the universe flash in Persephone’s eyes, I also thought of Chaos, the first of the Primordial Gods, long since vanished.

It’s not a surprise, given Hermes’ intellect, that he came to the same conclusion.

I take a step toward him. Even though I can taste the tension that rolls from him in waves, he does not flinch. He does not flee.

I’m not sure if he is stupid or brave.

“In my regret, I have let centuries of anger grow for you, Hades. I’ve blamed myself enough for my part in what happened to Persephone, and if I could, I would go back. I would go back and protect her as I should have done that night. I never should have allowed Demeter passage. I never should have allowed them to walk the bridge over the Lethe into the Garden of Silence. I never should have trusted Demeter to care for her as a mother should care for her child.”

He scoffs a laugh, though there is little humor in it. “Look at our own mothers. Mine gave me to a mountain nymph to raise, preferring to sink into Poseidon’s city than care for her child. And Rhea—” With a curl of his lip, he says, “Rhea might be the worst of them all. If she wasn’t mad from the horrorsshe stood by and allowed Cronus to enact, I would advise you to seek her council now.” He casts his gaze to the images of a galaxy that appears, with every flip of the image, to be growing. Expanding.Morphing. “She might be the only one who could look at this and provide answers. The Moirai know none of the other Titans would be willing to speak with you.”

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