Page 92 of His in the Dark

“Why is this happening?” I question and it’s not Hades who answers. It’s not my lover who looks down at me with sorrowful eyes.

“Because you are here,” Sylvie tells me. “Isn’t that right, my Lord?”

My heart pounds at the confession. “My father knows?” I ask in a whisper.

“Your mother,” Minox reveals. His voice deathly low and I don’t miss how Hades glares at him.She knows.My heart shatters as well and yet it is still whole with her there. As if she holds it together herself.

Stunned I say nothing.

From the distance the ground shakes and the castle trembles as the battlements break and tumble down stories to the ground. Shreiks are heard. It is pure chaos that has seemingly come from nowhere. But I remember the past few days. I remember how Hades would not tell me.

“You knew?” I whisper and still Hades does not speak. He offers me nothing as tears well in my eyes.

“I love you and I will not let them take you,” he finally says.

“Give her leave to go, my Lord,” Silvie begs. There is too much magic and power whipping through the valley, it batters her hair around her face. “Our queen will find her way back.”

My pulse slows as does the world around me.This chaos.This is because of me.

I cannot bear the destruction.

“No,” Hades calls, without turning to look at her. “She belongs to me. She belongshere.”

“My Lord, there are too many dead.”

Hades tightens his jaw.

“Please,” Silvie starts, but we are moving again. His hand in mine, our robes tattered in the wind. Where can we even run when everything collapses? Why has it come to this?

I recognize this place in the realm—the isle of Achilles. The water lashes at the shore, pummeling the island. The rain is so thick that I can hardly make it out.

Whatever Hades does calms the storm to a driving rain.

“Does she not miss her mother?” Silvie tries and words catch in my throat. I am torn. The Fates warning comes back to me. I do not feel that I could ever be complete. My head spins with the chaos and the knowledge as small pieces fit into place.

It is difficult to look back at the God I love. For he played a part, did he not?

“Does she not miss the flowers?” Minox argues. It is strange to see a man I have not spoken with much make arguments about the things I must long for.

“You could allow her to simply see them, my Lord.” Silvie raises her voice to be heard as we move again. There is fire in the trees. “A visit would be enough. She must be allowed to?—”

“They will take her from me!” Hades thunders, working his magic on the fires that plague the Underworld. Is he less powerful when he is holding my hand? He has not let go in all this time, and now his grip tightens on mine as if it is me he’s saving from the fire and not the trees. “I cannot leave the Underworld. I cannot accompany her. They will steal her away!” he screams and his fear is evident.

Be careful of your thoughts, is all I can think.

Minox steps closer as the fire jumps to another stand of trees, and Hades follows it. The fire roars louder, then subsides a little.

“Hekate will return with the end of the new moon. Surelyshecan accompany her?”

“It is not the accompaniment out of the Underworld that troubles me.” Hades stops on the path. It is windy here, too, with leaves filling the air and branches cracking into each other. “What if she does not return?”

“We will take her back,” Silvie suggests fiercely. They speak of me as if I am an item and yet, I cannot find an argument. For my father’s vengeance is harsh and my mother… to do this? I cannot imagine her state. It cannot be true. None of this is true, I will myself to change what is here, and yet when I open my eyes, nothing has changed at all.

We move again, this time landing in a meeting hall on the floor below the rooms I share with Hades. The quiet is intense after so much ear-splitting noise.

“I need to know the truth. All of it!” I demand into that silence. My voice echoes in the large space. It is not one of the courts, but it reminds me of one—stone pillars, a polished floor, a dais on one side that people could approach. “This is happening because of me?”

Hades’s eyes flash. He pushes one hand through his hair. “They wish for me to live in a hell of my own making. Zeusalwayshas.”

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