Page 78 of Hades and Persephone: Crown of Souls

“That is Hydra’s Sinkhole. It was once?—”

“Lake Lerna.” I can’t ignore the fluttering response of my heart to the call of the inky darkness that is the pool surrounded by jagged crystals of amethyst.

“You know of it?”

I do my best to sound uninterested. “Hades told me about the Hydra. About how Zeus sent Hercules to murder her, but instead he sentenced her to an eternity of torment.”

“Zeus has always been a monster.” Minthe shakes her head. “And Hercules has always been his prodigy.”

“Funny.”

Her eyes slide to me. “What’s funny?”

“How myth makes Hercules out to be the good guy.”

“More like annoying.” Minthe snorts. “He’s far from the good guy. He might even be worse than Zeus.”

“And that?” I point beyond the inky black pool to the swirling columns of deeper purple, blue, and crystalline white that stretch high between mountains that literally look as though they’re on fire. Like a galaxy trapped in a burning universe.

“That’s the Erinyes,” Minthe explains cautiously. “They aren’t exactly friendly. They rarely leave their temple of vengeance.”

“And the red mountains?”

“We call them the burning mountains.” Her tone takes on an almost wistful quality. “They are made entirely of fire opal,and I swear, they are one of the most beautiful things in the Underworld.” She sighs on a half smirk. “Too bad they’re in Tartarus and that’s a no-go place for us ordinaries.”

“We’re not ordinary.”

“True. But we’re not the kind of being that can withstand the scorch of Tartarus and come out unscathed.”

“I’ll give you that,” I concede.

Minthe bumps my shoulder. “Tell me you won’t try and go there, Persephone.”

“Why would I do a thing like that?” I ask instead—and it works, because Minthe laughs a light laugh.

I force myself to laugh, too, grateful I don’t have to outright lie to my friend. Because there’s something about that dark pit surrounded by that jagged garden of amethyst that calls to me like a siren in the deepest dark of the sea.

The time will come, I suspect, when I will be no more able to ignore the call of that inky darkness than I can ignore the call of my need to connect with Hades.

My eyes map out another path down from the White Mountains. Over the boiling river on a bridge of thin amethyst, into a garden I sense is more treacherous than even the Garden of Silence and it’s sound-devouring stones.

I know that I won’t be able to resist forever. The time will come when the call becomes too much.

I can only hope when that time comes, I’ll be strong enough to survive whatever it is that lives and lurks in the dark depths of that garden.

Because I know something lurks. And that something is the thing that calls to me.

Chapter

Thirty-Two

Hades

Her call for me,drenched in fear, was enough to shred my bones of the flesh I wear.

And then Thanatos told me where she was.

I’d very nearly destroyed him then. I might have, if it weren’t for Hypnos and Hermes staying my wrathful hand. But I know what can happen in the Vale of Mourning and the Elm of Lost Dreams.

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