Page 65 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“What do you want?”

Persephone whirls in my arms. “I won’t bargain with him, Hades. He’s evil.”

“Nothing is wholly good or wholly evil, little girl. You should know that already.”

I ignore the plea of her eyes even as I feel them searching my face. I ask Uranus again, “What do you want?”

“I want what I’ve always wanted. My own realm, and to be whole again.”

“Is that it?” I work to keep the racing of my heart steady as I bargain with an entity far older than I am.

“That is all I have ever desired.”

“And your world shall worship you,” I vow to him. “If you help us understand how it happened, and that understanding aids us in the defeat of Demeter.”

Hecate’s black eyes—the inky color of Uranus’ soul, spark with dark interest. “It would be my pleasure to watch Demeter fall. To watch her destruction.” At his excitement, Persephone instinctively cowers against me. To sooth the fear, I increase the heat I allow to pulse from my form as I hold her even tighter.

Uranus begins to tell his tale. “Before the Hydra’s portal was sealed, Demeter was known to frequent Lake Lerna, was she not?” Before I can answer, he continues, “The ancient Lernaean Mysteries were sacred to Demeter, you recall?” His smile stretches. Pure evil. “It was in her honor the great festival was held on Lernaean Lands. This accounts for much of her time spent surrounding the deadliest portal into the Underworld.”

Demeter was always known to insert herself wherever there was a temple for me and the Underworld. For the dead.

Prickles of unease rise on my flesh as Uranus continues, knowing my mind is racing far beyond the knowledge he relays.

“Demeter used her temple in these lands to excuse her presence there for decades. She went entirely unsuspected by you or the Underworld. Not that you cared who entered your domain at this time. You were a monster, spending nearly all your time in the beast form of your God, were you not?”

At Persephone’s stiff response, Uranus raises a brow. He taunts, “Oh, does she not know about that yet?”

“Get on with your story, Uranus,” I grit through the grind of my molars, ignoring the way my fangs lengthen with a need to spill the blood of a God I’ve long since drained dry.

He chuckles a sound of malicious delight. “Demeter visited Tartarus frequently, under the cloak of her God’s beast. She used the village youth to distract the Hydra so that she could enter unseen.”

Fucking Demeter.

“I don’t know how she knew I’d stolen the Gods’ power, but she did. She convinced me of a way that I could use the power of Chaos that I had stolen to recraft the physical form you’d stripped me of. A way that I could again be whole. You see, even stripped of my corporal form, I’d been unable to utilize the powers of Chaos. But Demeter convinced me of a plan she had concocted with Zeus to overthrow the Kingdom of Gods and begin anew. A plan I was, in my state, delighted to be part of.”

Fucking Tartarus, this is far bigger than I imagined.

Uranus speaks. “Demeter’s plan was to sire a child with her. To infuse the souls of Chaos and Aether into that child, a daughter. When that child was born, she would be a weapon we would use—a weapon we would forge—to overthrow the Kingdom of Gods.”

The curse that ghosts over my lips is enough to make Uranus throw Hecate’s head back and laugh. Persephone cringes from the sound.

When he composes himself, he continues, “She would be a child of power greater than any other to ever live. But the powers of harvest, light, chaos, and sky weren’t enough for Demeter, and since we needed a host to provide the seed in which would transport the souls I would offer to the child, possession became the only way. It was with great deliberation we chose Hyperion to be my host.” Uranus smiles a dark and dangerous thing, his voice pitching low along with Hecate’s. “You see, the light of all life, paired with the other gifts she would be bestowed, would create within the young Goddess a power of ultimate fertility. The ability to birth from nothing. She would be the mother of all life, much like Chaos, but far, far more powerful. For she would not be bound to the form of matter, and from her virtue, worlds would sprout.”

“You took possession of another to—to have sex with Demeter—to createme?” The horror in Persephone’s voice is so great, I regret allowing her to accompany me in this visit. I regret the pain I know her soul will suffer in the whiplash of this knowledge I wish I could have had the foresight to shield her from.

“I did what I had to do,” Uranus says through Hecate. “I recall the day the Goddess was born, the child of my spirit and Hyperion’s seed. Even the Underworld felt the birth of what had never been born before. A child of many gifts—only she quickly became known as the giftless Goddess, did she not?”

At the curl of Uranus’ lips, I growl, “She has never been giftless.”

“Oh, but she was. Although not by her choice. The Moirai do love to play, don’t they.”

I stiffen at the mention of the Moirai.

“Who?” Persephone asks.

Uranus sighs. “Does she know nothing?” I don’t get the chance to explain before he’s talking again. After millenniaalone, he is hungry for conversation. I can’t say that I blame him. “The Moirai are The Fates, my child.”

“Don’t call me that.”

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