Page 40 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

Eighteen

Persephone

The moss iscool and spongy under my back. It’s a reprieve from the rough scrape of the tree bark. My limbs feel like liquid, and my brain is starstruck as I gaze up into the forest of magic.

Silvery violet strands of silk and tinsel dance in a breeze that does not kiss my skin. Beside me, on his side, Hades is propped up on one elbow. His chest is still bare, still magnificent.

He is where the expression‘carved like a Greek God’came from, I just know it.

I don't think his gaze has left me once, and I can't summon the energy to move to test my theory. I am thoroughly, deliciously spent and utterly hypnotized by a kind of nature the like I’ve never seen before.

From where violet strands of silk spill are tiny button-like blooms that resemble a perfectly white, hued at the very center in softest lavender, Artemis flower. The kind one might see in a garden of succulents. The starburst bloom is thick and strong, and it is the only comparison I can possibly make to anything that blooms in the living realm. They remind me, fleetingly, of acartoonish image of shooting stars, the flower being the star and the weeping strands the dust in its wake.

It’s beautiful, reminiscent of a dream.

“What do you think?” Hades’ voice is warm. It reminds me of the crackle of fire on a cold winter night, burning in a stone hearth. I feel his warmth all the way to my bone.

Or maybe that’s just post coital bliss.

“I'm thinking that the living realm got the short end of the stick.”

Hades chuckles, deep and dark. It dies as shadow-drenched thoughts rise.

His silence is heavy, and I find the energy to shift my head to the side to give him my eyes. “What is it?”

“For so long, I envied those who were offered to dwell in the living realm. I envied Zeus for his time in the sun, for his mighty ruling of Mount Olympus, and the Gods who bowed to his bidding. I even envied Poseidon in the seas, for at least the creatures of the sea spoke to him. I hungered for conversation, for compassion. For so long, I harbored so much resentment for the fact I'd been sequestered to this very land, to this realm, for which your heart has only ever known love.”

I don't know when I lost my breath, but I did. I catch it and whisper, “It wasn't always like it is now, even I know that. And I understand why you resented it. I really do, Hades.” My voice shifts lower. “You were in solitary confinement, locked in a prison of mourning souls, exposed only to torment and loss for—how long were you down here alone in the darkness?”

“Centuries,” is the only answer he gives me. Even that is threaded into the quietest of breaths, I’m not sure I heard him right.

His eyes shutter closed and when they open again, there isn't even a speck of flame in the dark. I have a feeling, the same feeling I had when he had me pinned against the tree, that thereis more to Hades. So, so much more than he is willing to show me.

So much more that I yearn to know.

I don't want to push him, though. Ican'tpush him.

It's hard, but I let my eyes drift from the man who owns my whole heart and soul, back to the trees that sway to sing a song of whispers.

I inhale deeply, my bare breasts peaking as my nipples harden. I make no move to cover myself, entirely content with the blanket of his gaze.

“I love it here,” I confess quietly after some time.

“You always did.” I can feel him studying me. “You spent much of your time in this grove. Especially upon your return, and before you would leave. You loved the weeping blooms.”

“What happens with them?”

“The flowers will die, releasing their hold on the silk threads they’ve wept.”

“But—” I am breathless. The magnitude of that is—well, it’s massive. “There must be hundreds of pines.”

“Thousands,” Hades corrects.

I am, quite literally, gobsmacked. “But each tree has hundreds of blooms, Hades. There are so many, I—I can’t even see the sky through the thick of them.”

They create a sky unto their own, complete with tiny stars and glittering purple strands so fine they could be dust. This grove has amassed its very own orchestra, the needled limbs of the pines pluck weeping strands like fingers over a harp. The melody rains down on the forest, captured within the canopy of thickly spilled blooms.

“When the blooms have released their weeping vines, many will travel from Asphodel City to spool the thread. It will then be made into a versatile textile in which clothing, bedding, and upholstery will be assembled,” he assures me with a smile. “Donot worry, little goddess, their silken tears do not go to waste, and never wither and die.”

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