Page 48 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

There's a darkness that passes through Hecate’s eyes of swirling grey. They spark with an anger that rages with a violence that would terrify anyone.

As it is, I take a quick step back, bumping into Aethon.

“She is a wretched Goddess, and you were the picture of innocence.” Her eyes meet mine again. Softly, she pleads, “Be patient with him. He has been hurt in ways that you cannot understand. He may not have been sentenced to Tartarus, but he has sentenced himself to his own eternity of torment.” She peers into my eyes. “You understand, my goddess?”

I nod, even though I'm not sure I do. Hecate’s smile is sad. Her eyes drift to the open stable doors that look out into a starry eternity of night. She inhales deeply through her nose and out through her mouth, before her gaze drifts back to me.

“You always loved the sea, my goddess. Why don't you go there now? Take a moment of peace for yourself. Explore your thoughts.” Her eyes slide to Aethon. “Aethon will take you. He was yours once, and he will be yours again.”

With those words, there's nothing more for it. She floats away like a wraith on the wind.

I turn to Aethon, who bows his head inviting me atop him. And suddenly, there is nothing that I crave more than the splash of the sea.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was compelled.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Persephone

I cannot definethe divide between the sea and the stars. Bioluminescent organisms ride calm waves toward the shore of a white sandy beach, bracketed by a cove of sandstone peaks that rise high in pillars from the ground. Between the crevices of their time-hewn stone are rivers of crystalline white quartz that capture the glow of the sea.

Looming over the smaller mountains of sandstone is another that is so massive, it seems to overlook the entirety of the realm. I think it may even be the mountain in which the Palace of Hades sprouts, though I can’t see the Palace from here. That mountain—the black mountain—had stood before I’d birthed life into the realm with the sacrificial blood of my stolen innocence in another lifetime.

It is so massive that even the stars do not overlook its peak, and it appears to be formed entirely of onyx and obsidian. Even from here, I think I can see the etchings of deep designs that remind me of earthly runes stamped to ancient cave walls.

After my talk with Hecate, I’d climbed on Aethon’s back and he’d moved out into the spread of everlasting night. Like Alastor, he must be able to understand the words spoken in his presence, because without me urging him in any direction, he simply began his trek.

This was where we ended up. At the sea.

Exactly where Hecate said I should travel.

Now, I’m in awe. When I initially awoke in the Underworld, I thought I'd never see anything like the ceiling of Hades’ bedroom. Then, I foolishly believed the grove of Persephone would be the most exquisite thing I would witness in my entire life. I think, perhaps, I might be wrong on both counts.

The shimmering waters of the sea that bleed into the twinkling night sky is utterly breathtaking. I am alone on the beach, just me and Aethon.

Oh, and my thoughts, of course. My mind is a mess, but what's new?

I lived a whole other life centuries ago, a life I'm getting snapshots of now. It's difficult to identify myself within the girl who came before me.

She was so innocent in a shamefully naive way. It's hard not to be frustrated with her, because how could she have been so foolish? How could times have been so vastly different that she would believe the tutelage of a vicious Goddess who clearly had never loved her? How could she have been so desperate for the love of a mother incapable of such an emotion, that she missed the obvious love of her husband?

I just don’t understand the girl I’d been, or the reasons I had for the sins I’d so clearly enacted.

I'm frustrated, and I am tired.

I am tired because I can see no way that telling Hades of her naïveté could be beneficial to our relationship now.

And it’s not like he wasn’t complicit. Clearly, he enjoyed sharing her. He never stopped it. She'd been hoping with a desperation that made me ache even now, that hewouldintervene. That he would claim her in front of everyone, for all to see. That he might one day declare her as his, exclusively.

Under Demeter’s scheming tutelage, the girl whom I shared my soul had tried desperately to push the God of the Dead to a point of snapping so that he might forbid her from sharing herself with others. And had he fought for her, she would have surrendered to his every desire happily.

I am disappointed to know that he stood by and watched again and again as she foolishly slaughtered the very heart that beat in her chest.

These are the thoughts that have been playing on a loop in my mind.

I can't say how long I've been here, but it's been a while.

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