Page 53 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

Poseidon stiffens, but not for long. It’s there and gone before I can think to search our surroundings for intrusion. “I was already tasked with rule over the sea, sequestered to life with only the creatures of the sea for company. They were all I hadoutside the rare times I stole away to the land, desperate for affection. For touch. For reprieve.”

God, but Poseidon’s story sounds too much like Hades’.

Poseidon tells me, “I often found that reprieve amongst the nymphs and humans of Atlantis. Still, I longed for a Queen, but each one I dared pull into the depths of the seas passed in my arms.”

“I’m sorry,” I gasp, horror-struck.

He shutters his eyes for only a moment, before those eerie blue orbs land on me once again. “I’ve forgotten myself. I am not here to share my story. I apologize.”

“Poseidon—”

He interrupts, “It was on one of my visits to Atlantis, a night far darker than usual, where clouds stretched to conceal the light of the stars, and just the faintest glow of a full moon could be spotted through the cover, that the artery to the Underworld throbbed. It shook Atlantis like the tremor of an earthquake. To my wonder, I recall the faint glow of a white moon shimmer, for a moment, blood red.” I don’t miss the way his gaze drifts to the thin sliver of the two moons in the sky above us. Both blood red. One veined in gold, the other onyx. His eyes slide back to mine. “It wasn’t much later that a child was born. A girl. A Goddess with no power.”

Pebbles rise on my skin. “Do you mean me?”

Poseidon doesn’t nod. He doesn’t move at all until he speaks. “When Hades claimed you as his, that artery again throbbed, and for a while, Atlantis glowed with her rich light, before she again dimmed. For centuries, you moved between the Underworld and the Living Realm, and Atlantis remained unchanging in all that time. Until the night you were taken. Murdered. I had, again, been on Atlantis, although I’d given up my search for a Queen.” He looks to the sea again, where it glitters under starlight. “The echo of Hades’ grief, and the lossof the Underworld shook so great, it surged into the Heart of Atlantis. Tethered to the Underworld as she was by her single remaining artery, the agony of the Underworlds’ great loss devastated her. From the Heart of Atlantis, the roar of Hades’ grief spilled for the world hear in an arc of light that speared into Olympus. A great and terrible rain began to pour onto the lands. Hades’ grief powered great quakes that rumbled across Pangea. It split the land for the rest of time—and Atlantis made her decision to flee to the sea.”

“She sank…because I died? Because Hades grieved?”

“She sank because her hope to restore what had been stolen had died.”

“I don’t understand…”

Poseidon’s eyes lift as a deep, dark, enchantingly rich voice agrees, “Neither do I, brother.”

I twist to see the man who owns my whole heart. My mate.

He is drenched in the shadows of the pillared mountains that spear from the earth, but he is impossible to miss even so. My heart quickens and my womb responds with a tightening I can’t ignore.

He pushes from the shadows. “Please, continue.”

Chapter

Twenty-Three

Hades

“I am not donewith my story, brother.” Poseidon’s face is the picture of mischief. “Not even close. You see, this has been my obsession for centuries.”

I move closer to my little goddess, and my brother. My stance is wide where I stop to tower over her, folding my arms over my chest. “Do tell.”

“When Atlantis sank into my seas, she bound herself to me as so many Gods before me had tried and failed to bind her. It was my acceptance of this bind that allowed me access to the secrets within her heart. And do you know what I learned?”

“I’m waiting,” my reply falls dryly between us. “Apparently, I’ve been waiting for centuries.”

Poseidon chuckles, like the annoying little brother he so often is. “I learned that Persephone carried within her, buried deep, the missing power of Chaos.” Poseidon watches me closely for my reaction. I do not give him one. He narrows his eyes. “You already know this?”

“I suspected, yes.” I give him nothing more. If it weren’t for Persephone between us, we would be in a stare-down for far longer than we are.

She stands, her hands flying to her hips. “I donothave the power of Chaos!” She whirls around to glare—surely—at Poseidon. “That’s what you insinuated when you said the Underworld glowed after Hades spilled—spilled my?—”

She can’t say it. Poseidon does not share her struggle and I fight my flinch when he says, “Your innocence, yes.”

I watch as my brother stands, and I feel a brow climbing on my forehead at the sight of his seaweedskirt. “What?—”

“Your Goddess was offended by the sight.” Poseidon smirks, standing just a little taller.

I let my gaze slide to Persephone, but the barb that falls from my tongue is for my brother. “Too small for you, little goddess?”

---