Page 34 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“I don’t understand,” I murmur. “Surely, you’ve missed a few souls in death. You’re just one you and people die every second of every?—”

Thanatos interrupts me with a step closer. “I was born of Nyx, created in her womb alongside Hypnos.”

I gape between the brothers. “You’re twins?”

Hypnos winks. “I got the looks.”

And the charm.

Thanatos doesn’t pay his brother any mind. “When we were birthed, I held the power of Death and Hypnos the power of Dreams. Unlike Hypnos, who was full and intact, my own soul emerged from Nyx fractured. My soul has always hovered a moment from whole, but it has allowed me to spare pieces of myself while remaining where I am, my corporeal body intact. There is never a moment where a shard of my soul is not with another, guiding them as they pass between the realms. I am with them until they arrive in Souls Landing. The process of constantly lending out pieces of my soul is taxing, but familiar. It is how I know thateverysoul calls out for a guide. The need to do so is natural, engraved upon creation. And yet you did not.”

He studies me as pebbles rise on my skin. He continues, “Not only did you fail to call for a guide, but I was never able to find you. To locate the very specific scent of your soul, which is exclusive to you. It was as though the river stole your life, and the essence of your very creation. Stripped your soul of all that it was and had ever been, so much that you had become an untethered soul lost to a realm of torment—” He snaps his mouth closed, jaw clenching as he grinds his molars. “It was the way of the souls beforeyou. Before you created a realm of Afterlife.”

“Okay…”

“What I want to know, Persephone—” Thanatos lowers to a knee before me. He leans forward, as though to peer into the secrets that lie behind my eyes. The secrets even I am not privy to. “Is if Demeter did anything, said anything, that would shed answers on why it was I could not find you. How I could not scent you.”

“I don’t know—” My mind slides unwillingly back to that vision of terror—to the Goddess who’d birthed my eternal soul. A shiver quakes, pushing to the surface, and Hades tightens his hold around me.

“Little Goddess,” Hades murmurs soothingly.

“She wanted—” I gasp. “She wanted me to kill Hades.”

Behind me, Hades is impossibly stiff.

Hypnos tips his head to the side, but the starlight in his dancing eyes cuts straight through me. “Did she say how you were to do that?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“I am assuming, that because she killed you, you refused,” Hypnos presses.

This time I nod. The word is barely a whisper. “Yes.”

“Demeter wants me dead,” Hades’ rough voice spills over my bare shoulders, drawing another rise of pebbles on my skin. “If I were to die?—”

I twist in his arms when he cuts off. “What? What happens if you die?”

His eyes darken, his jaw hardens. “If I die, the binds of Tartarus will shatter.”

“What does that mean?”

Thanatos is the one who finally answers when the silence becomes too great to bear. “If the binds of Tartarus shatter, all hell will, literally, break loose.”

Chapter

Seventeen

Persephone

Hades stands,pulling me to my feet. His eyes dance with dangerous flames, and yet they are glacial as he commands low to the brothers, “Assemble everyone. We will meet in the dining hall in the Palace.”

“Everyone?” Thanatos asks, a hint of breathlessness even as he stands just a bit taller. It’s saying something, because Thanatos is already tall. At least an inch taller than Hades’ six-foot-four.

“Everyone.”

“It will take time. There are those still in the living realm.”

“I am aware.” Hades gathers my hand in his, pulling me to a patiently waiting Alastor. I can’t help the knots that tug in my belly as I turn my back on the rushing river of blue stones and crystal-clear water that whispers of stolen secrets and pains too excruciating to bear. To me, Hades commands, “Up.”

---