Page 105 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

All along, I’ve been drawn to Tartarus, though. Perhaps it has to do with the fact my soul was conceived in this place of torment. Perhaps there’s a more sinister reason.

Perhaps it’s a trap set in place millennia ago by Demeter and Uranus.

“Why am I here?” I ask the stiflingly warm darkness.

No surprise, it doesn’t answer.

I continue through the darkness for so long, my feet ache. My entire body aches, probably partly due to the way Hades had me only hours before.

I miss him.

What if I never find my way out of Tartarus?

What if he can’t find me…?

I swallow the burn of acidic fear that rises and continue forward. I keep walking until I see a shimmering hue of purple. The amethyst is beginning to glow, and that must mean I’ve made it out of the grave of jagged, giant stones.

I hurry my steps, overwhelmed by the flicker of relief that loosens the tight knot of anxiety in my chest. The pull in my belly only grows though, as I break through the last of the amethyst to find myself facing a gigantic canyon.

From this vantage point, it’s clear the walk through the towering amethyst had been a sloped one toward this very canyon. Looking out from the bowl I now stand in; the stones jut higher and higher in layers and layers of what appears an endless wave of violet. I can’t even see the White Mountain from here. The amethysts are too high and too many.

I think I’ve walked for hours in this place of warped time, but I am not sure. The journey should have taken days. Maybe it did.

I’ve arrived at the location of the inky black pool of the Hydra’s Sinkhole. The shore is pebbled with polished onyx stones and smaller cuts of raw amethyst. It’s surprisingly gentle on my feet as I move cautiously toward the glittering black of the massive lake.

Between my ears, my heart thunders violently as I creep over a beach of pebbles toward the black water that is still as glass.

I freeze, heart stuttering, when a fearsome sound echoes from the edge of the pebbles, closer to where the giant stones jut from the earth. The ground shifts beneath my weight, humming like a vibration—an echo of sound that moves through a sea of stone.

Fear is acrid on my tongue where a silent scream builds.

The stones settle, and the tremor of tiny waves in the glass of the pool’s surface stills. Heartbeats pound in my ears and the silence that follows that single fearsome sound is deafening.

Breath is caught in the net of my lungs, burning.

I stay impossibly still for long seconds. Maybe even minutes.

Then I dare a single step forward, waiting for a second tremor.

Nothing happens. I release my burning breath.

Prayer is an instinct I don’t fight, even knowing that it may offer my location to Hades. Such an act has been engraved in the making of me after a lifetime with Mom and Dad.

The thought of them brings a sharp pang of pain that I promptly shove into a box for later.

Right now, I have—bigger—problems.

Bigger like the black whole of inky water that looms in the earth of this treacherous land. It’s maybe the size of two large swimming pools. I could probably swim the length of it, if simply looking at it didn’t terrify me so much.

As I get closer, I realize there isn’t a gradual slope of land into water. Defying all physics, the pebbles border against what appears to be a literal tunnel of endlessly deep black water.

Slowly finding my knees, I glide my fingertips over the rim of pebbles to confirm the abrupt transition from something solid to somethingnot.

I was right. The water isn’t simply so dark that it conceals the stones of a gradual sloping into the water. It’s simple beach and then a harrowing drop-off into an inky abyss.

What propels me to dip my hand deeper into the water, I willneverknow.

It’s not warm, like I expected. The air surrounding me is muggy enough to cling to my dewy flesh, but somehow this water is cold enough to offer my overheated flesh a kiss of reprieve. With my palm pressed to the column of stone, I dip my hand deeper until I’m lying flat against the pebbled shore, shoulder deep in the water.

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