Page 61 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“The Crown of Souls wanted him stripped of his form?”

“He was too powerful. His power is what bestowed him the title of King of Gods. His taste of this power meant he would never truly relinquish it.” Hades watches me carefully. “The Crown of Souls is never wrong.”

“But you stripped him of his form—how—how does that even happen?”

“It doesn’t.” Hades eyes bore into mine. “Not without the power of the Crown of Souls.”

“How is Hecate going to contain his soul?” My question is quickly forgotten as the canvas crackles and pops, reminding me of the chilling sound of standing on ice that is too thin.

Hades grips my face between his hands, forcing my wild eyes to his. “You do not have to do this, but if you are coming, we have to go now. Hecate will not be able to hold him for long.”

“I’m coming.”

With his hand in mine, Hades steps toward the canvas. And then he steps through it. My eyes slam closed as I am pulled into the depths of an icy prison of despair that claws at my heart and soul, threatening a deadly undoing.

The sound of cracking ice echoes behind me, a growl of ominous promise as polar wind lands like a whip across my skin.

I open my eyes and see horror.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

Persephone

Hecate isnotHecate.

Well, she is—but she isn’t.

Like always, her raven hair drifts as though weightless around her body. She hovers in the air now, though, her arms dangling at her sides as her breasts heave with heavy, ragged breaths. The air is so cold here. The icy wind lashes like a whip across every inch of my skin.

Frost nips at the tips of Hecate’s glossy black nails and freezes the wispy fabric of her gown into place, casting a web of frost crystals over the black fabric.

It would be beautiful, if it wasn’t harrowing.

Her eyes snap open, and there is no white left. Glossy black orbs stare down at me and Hades, stealing the air from my lungs.

I am not sure that I have ever been so afraid in my life.

I cannot even summon a scream.

Her head angles unnaturally, and I get the sense that her black eyes have shifted to look entirely upon me. She smiles, and it cracks on her face.

Everything about this—about her smile—feels terribly wrong.

Her smile falls and her head shifts to Hades.

She opens her mouth and speaks. The voice that sounds from her lips is hers, feminine and darkly lyrical—and yet it is also a man’s, deep, and baritone, and promising the violence of thunder within the wreckage of a storm. “Hadeeees.”

The voice elongates Hades’ name. There is a rattle of deep hatred within that single greeting. A hatred that has spanned millennia. It is so old, so vast, it is webbed into every fibre of this torturous world in which the bodiless God has existed.

“Uranus,” Hades returns flatly.

If it’s possible for a spirit to flinch, Uranus does. It doesn’t affect Hecate’s body, but I see it in the black of her borrowed eyes. I feel it in the growing cold of this disturbing world.

“You couldn’t face me, Gooood of the Dead?” A dark laugh follows the question. “After ripping my soul from my body, you used your witch to contain me forwhat?” Another laugh, spiteful. “A simple conversation? Am I so frightening to you,God of the Dead?”

Hades’ title falls from Uranus like a mockery. A challenge.

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