Page 63 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

Behind me, Hades stiffens, but he does not retreat. He does not pull me away.

Inside my chest, my heart quickens in a haphazard pattern of fear. It shows itself only in the rise of new gooseflesh that pricks my skin.

Hecate’s form stops outside the circle of warmth, nostrils flaring as Uranus works to catch my scent. There is an arc of something like light in those pit-less black eyes, before Uranus’ voice speaks alongside Hecate’s again. “Demeter’s daughter.”

I say nothing. Neither does Hades.

I can’t begin to fathom what has the dethroned king of Gods speaking his truths, but he speaks them all the same.

“I took Aether first,” the dark rumble of Uranus’ voice has a chill slithering along my spine. Hades holds me tighter, crushing my back to his front. The black eyes flicker over us with curiosity as he speaks again. “I had a theory that it could be done. That one God could consume another, even though such a thing had yet to occur.” Hecate’s face twists into something truly hideous.“I’ve always liked to be first, and Aether and his light—” Hecate’s nose wrinkles. “Annoyed me.”

“Why?” I can’t help but ask.

“The sky was always meant to be my domain. He was always lighting it up with his light. Playing where he was not meant to play.”

I don’t ask where else Aether was meant to shine his light, if not in the sky. I simply prompt, “So you consumed him for his power?”

“Yes. His was not a power I desired—” A dark little laugh falls into the icy wind between us. “He was a test to see that it could be done.”

“The true goal was Chaos’ power?”

“The power to create from nothing?” Even through the pit-less black, greedy excitement spills. “Of course, it was the goal. With her power, I could create an entirely new universe where I alone would rule. A planet entirely my own.”

I don’t let myself respond to the horror of such a thing. I simply wait.

“Aether’s power was easy enough to harvest. It came to me naturally, you see. But Chaos was—” His head tips to the side. “She was difficult to defeat. She knew my intentions when I came for her. Her power could sense Aether within me—and she knew my intent for her. She fought me. I was weakened, but I overpowered her in the end. I swallowed her immortal soul and the power bound to it.” A low growl hums from the deep of Hecate as she begins to pace slowly before us. She reminds me of a caged animal. “But her power was not so easily used. It was, for lack of a better word, chaos.”

Bitterness radiates from him, and this world of torment in which he has been cast responds to that bitterness, feeding off it. The howl of the wind kicks up as the bite of the cold sinksits teeth deeper, as though aiming to battle the soothing heat of Hades’ warmth.

I stand tall and strong against it, even as fear quakes through me.

I am not fool enough to think myself powerful enough to best a Primordial God, even one stripped of his bodily form and contained within the confines of another. Even limbless, I have no doubt he could tear my flesh to shreds, my soul to ribbons.

Hecate tips her head to the side, eyeing me though those chilling black orbs before the blend of lyrical feminine and ruthless masculine sounds. “Such a brave, tiny human. I believe the glory for that is mine, child.”

Confusion is a bud that only grows into a full bloom as Uranus continues to speak. But behind me, Hades has stiffened. As though he is plucking the thorns from Uranus’ confusing words and somehow drawing sense of them.

“Let me tell you a little bedtime story, my child.” Uranus chuckles like the literal psychopath that he is. He is very possibly the first of his kind.

I straighten my shoulders as I lift my chin, not missing the shine of disembodied pride that flares in those pit-less windows to an ancient, treacherous soul.

Uranus’ chuckle dies, but the smile on Hecate’s face stretches wide. Too wide. “Ah, yes. A brave little human you are.” He takes a single step closer, Hecate’s body bumping into what can only be a wall of power in which I can’t see. But I feel relief in the tightening of her features, the anger orresentment? that bleeds from her very pores as she settles there.

Uranus sets in to tell his tale. “The power of Chaos whirled inside me, wild and unchecked even as it was contained, for centuries. The sky I’d held such tight control over was, for a time, chaotic. Rain one day and snow another. Sun pushed through chilling winds that taunted the waves of the seas to playwild games. It took a great time to master the Chaos inside me enough that I could once again relearn my own gifts. To control the very thing I’d been created to possess, the thing that wasofme. The sky. I knew, in the end, my efforts would be rewarded. I would craft a universe all my own in which I would design the Goddesses who would sire my spawn. We would create a new species, a greater species than the humans Prometheus loved so much.” Hecate’s lip curls on the wordhumans, but the black orbs somehow soften as they fall on me, as though the sight of me alone is altering his view on a species he obviously abhors, if just a little. “I wanted a better species, one with the intelligence to understand the Gods who ruled above them and offered appropriate sacrifice.”

“Appropriate sacrifice?”

“The blood of the innocence, of course.”

“Like virgins?”

“Little Goddess,” Hades’ rumble behind my ear is one of terrible warning.

Hecate’s brows furrow on her pale face touched by frost. Then Uranus laughs, as though I’ve said something hilarious. It is a bone-chilling sound. Horrible. It strokes my soul with a talon of despair. “Human sacrifice, child.”

I can’t even summon the ability to gasp. My ears ring, but I think I hear Hades curse softly at my back.

Uranus continues, “It’s a practice my pathetic grandson allowed to fall, and such an act eventually led to our waning power. The very reason the pathetic species that is the human race no longer worships the Gods, feeding us the blood we are owed for this world in which they pillage. Zeus demanded sacrifice for a time, like the rest of us. But while Zeus was weak enough to hear the pleas of mankind and accept the blood of the beasts they brought him, I suffered no such sympathy. I accepted nothing less than the finest boy on the stone of myaltar.” Hecate’s chin lifts proud and tall. “It was Zeus’ allowance of his subjects to spill the blood of beasts that eventually led to the discontinuation of our worship. They feared us less and less as the centuries spanned, and then they forgot us entirely. We became myth, and even our wrath was seen through blind eyes.”

---