Page 91 of His in the Dark

I should not have wasted time hoping.

I go to Zeus and call his name, letting it ring in the air as I stand tall behind him. My heart breaks for Olympus and for the mortal realms and even for myself. The magnitude of this shift overwhelms me. This is not the way it is meant to be.

“Zeus,” I shout over the noise of the storm. “Where is my Demeter?”

Zeus turns and looks at me as if he cannot understand what I am saying.

I scream at him, my hounds growling at my side, “Zeus! The realms are collapsing. You can see this with your own eyes! Bring me Demeter!”

This is the last hope I hold—that Zeus can influence Demeter. That he can reach down to whichever realm she has fled to and bring her back to Olympus. Or send me to her.

Lightning flashes over us, so bright it turns the sky dark.

“You’ll have to find her yourself,” he says. Useless. The drunken God is useless. “She has fled me.”

“If you will not air me, I will go.” I turn my back on Zeus.

“Where are you going?” he shouts after me, his powers carrying his voice through the screeching wind.

“I’m needed elsewhere.” I will return to Persephone in the Underworld. Zeus does not need to know this. If Demeter will not come to me and cannot hear me, and if Zeus cannot get Demeter’s attention, then I must go to where I can make a difference. Persephone must be returned.

He catches my arm, stopping me. “Don’t do it, Hekate?—”

Ripping my arm away I stand tall against the God of the Sky. “I know what you did.” The storm is too intense to say more than necessary. It cracks around us and the God stares back at me, lightning in his eyes.

He searches my face. I am certain he is trying to decide whether I am telling him the truth. “I do not lie. I am privy to what led to this.”

“Do you know where she is then?” he asks, a brow arched. After a moment, he huffs a humorless laugh and then shakes his head, taking a step back. “Of course you do. Everyone will know soon enough.”

More lightning rattles Olympus. Screams rise from all around me—both on Olympus, and from the mortal realm as well.

“The war has begun,” I shout to Zeus. I lower my voice to add, “Because you allowed it.”

Zeus narrows his eyes. He has decided, then. “Obtain Persephone. By any means necessary.”

“I did not come for your blessing on such things. I came for Demeter.”

Zeus throws his hands up, his face flushed with frustration. “She hasgone,Hekate. As has the sanity in the world.”

“Balance will be,” I insist. Another wave of lightning bolts streaks down, drilling molten holes into the very foundation of Olympus. “Promise me, before the next full moon, my daughter will be returned, although I fear she is not what she once was.”

His gaze falls to the stone beneath us and I make no promises to the God. All I insist upon is that balance will be restored. In whatever capacity that may be.

PERSEPHONE

The sky above us seems to tear apart.

I hold tight to Hades’s hand while he moves along the path so fast the world blurs to either side of us. Fire and brimstone crack and souls scream. It is not the agony of the penance they pay but the terror of being obliterated. The voices of the Gods blend with the screams for mercy. I can hear them if I focus, but Hades tries to keep his realm from collapsing, and every time we move, I lose some of the meaning.

Still, I heard mention of my mother. IswearI heard my mother’s name. Prayers for her to help. Questions of why she has forsaken them. Pleas for forgiveness for they know not what they’ve done.

Just yesterday the sky was darkened but did not break. Today it has shattered. My heart races. Has our bonding destroyed the balance? Has my father discovered my betrayal? I fear the worst as I hold onto Hades desperate for all of it to stop.

We pass by the River Styx. There are so many lanterns on the water. Not all of them are crossing smoothly. Some speed across the river at such speed that they resemble a streak of light in the air or a falling star.

Silvie and Hades’s companion Minox are with us, following every step Hades takes.

The stone ceiling high above us rattles as if someone’s on the bottom of every realm in the Underworld, pulling up pieces and throwing them all the way to the sky.

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