Page 77 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“Hey,” Minthe calls, forcing me to meet her eyes. “It wasn’t you. It hurt you to share him. It hurt him to be shared. I sensed it then, I think, even though I didn’t understand it until now. Maybe I thought you enjoyed the pain.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know. I only know that Demeter had her hand in everything you did.”

“Not that,” I insist. “She was enraged that I’d done it.”

Minthe snorts. “Oh, I know.”

I peer at her. “What do you mean?”

Minthe frees a strained laugh as she tips her eyes to the stars that shimmer in the sky. “Myth is always steeped in truth, myfriend. The myth of me being turned into a mint plant is one of those myths that are steeped in truth. Only, they got some of it wrong, as myths are prone to do.”

“What did it get wrong?”

“Myth tells the tale that you turned me into the plant in a jealous rage because Hades took me to his bed.” She watches me closely. It was a jealous rage, and the reason was, in fact, because I’d been invited to Hades’ bed. But Hades never invited me there. And it wasn’tyourjealous rage that turned me into a mint plant.”

“Demeter,” I whisper.

“Yep.” She pops her lips. “Bitch of a Goddess is crazy.”

Her earth slang makes me laugh. I can’t help it. Minthe has been much more reserved and put together here in the Underworld than I ever recall her being in the living realm. Now, hearing her like this again, it’s familiar in a comforting way.

“Yeah, she really is.” We laugh together until our laughter dies naturally.

“You were the one who saved me, Persephone. You stopped her spell and brought me back. Hades and Hecate both tried and failed. Demeter’s magic was too strong. But not for you.” She stretches her legs out for me to see the twisting vines of green that crawl up her legs. “You could have completely healed me, but I like the vines.”

“I—I healed you?”

Her eyes drift over my face. “Leuce, too. Demeter tried to turn her into a poplar tree on the mountain. She kept the silver-green of the underside of the leaves as the color of her eyes.” Minthe’s eyes sparkle. “They used to be this rich chocolate brown and mmm,” she moans, “I’d loved them.”

“I didn’t realize…” I frown, because Demeter’s angry words calling me a fool for saving the nymphs echoes in the maze of my memories.

“I’ll love you forever for saving her, you know?” Minthe squeezes me around the shoulders. “Demeter hurt her a lot more than she hurt me. Leuce was—is—” She pauses, and I wait. “She was far prettier than me. Demeter took Leuce’s presence in Hades’ bed as a personal threat, and she wanted her to suffer. The screams that rode the wind down the mountain that day were—” Her shiver is violent. “They were the worst thing I’ve ever heard. When we got to her, she’d fused to the earth. Bark protruded from her skin that seeped with blood. She was in agony.” Minthe flicks away a single tear. “She hadn’t begged to be saved, like I’d begged. Leuce had begged for death.”

“Minthe.” I grab her hand and squeeze it.

“You worked yourself to exhaustion to save her, but you did it. You never gave up on her.”

“I want to punish her,” I admit quietly. “I’ve never wanted to punish anyone in my life.”

“We all want to punish Demeter. She deserves it more than most.”

Minthe sets her face as she looks down at a garden of amethyst. It seems to spear up from around a gigantic hole of black. It’s on the wrong side of the River Phlegethon, so I know I’ll never explore it…and yet…

It calls to me.

“What is that down there?” I point to the black hole.

“Tartarus.” Minthe’s voice is filled with warning. “We don’t go there, Persephone. I’m serious. It’s not like the Elm of Lost Dreams.” I can’t miss the urgency in her voice. “I wouldn’t be able to save you from that place. No one but Hades would—and that’s if he could find you.”

“I never went there before? In my other life?”

“Never.”

“How did Demeter do it? Go in there—into The Pit—and mate with Hyperion?”

“It wasn’t as well designed then as it is now. Remember, it was well before you were created. Well before you birthed the realm that is now the Underworld. Since then, it’s had millennia to become the place of torment that it is. I’m not certain even Demeter and her cunning could survive it now.”

I sigh. It’s a heavy thing wrought with frustration.

“I still want to know what that place is.” I point again to the black hole in the land.

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