Page 101 of Where Darkness Bloomed
In his usual habit, he’d dressed and eaten swiftly before making his way to the fields. But in the palace atrium, he’d paused. At the wide window overlooking the familiar landscape, he turned.
Shock roiled through him, his stomach twisting.
Fields that had gleamed with life the day before lay dull and ashen, their bright green stalks now shriveled and gray in the morning sun.
His sandals had slapped sharply against the stone as he sprinted outside.
Bursting into the fields, he’d stumbled, his knees strikingthe dry earth as his hands reached—grasping. The wheat crumbled to dust at his touch, slipping through his fingers like ash.
His breath turned sharp and shallow, disbelieving.
It made no sense.
The night before, the crops had thrived—lush and vigorous, brilliantly green. Now, they lay lifeless, withered by an unseen plague that had crept through in the dead of night, leaving ruin in its wake.
Panic crested, thundering in his ears. Staggering to his feet, he’d shouted for emissaries. At his barked command, they scattered in all directions, sent to inspect every field within Athenian control.
The reports arrived in waves, each one a blow to his frayed nerves.
Every field—dead.
He could barely hear over the wild pounding of his heart as he shouted for royal messengers. With frantic strokes, he scrawled urgent missives onto sheets of papyrus, sealing each with his mark.
Riders went out on the kingdom’s fastest horses. Hooves thundered down the dusty roads toward Attica, Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and Rhodes.
Two agonizing days had crawled by in long, tormented hours caught between despair and hope.
Then the messengers returned. Their horses clattered through the gates lathered and weary, the riders coated in the dull sheer of dust and exhaustion. Damp with sweat, the scrolls were pressed into Stamatios’s trembling hand.
He unrolled them, one by one. The message was the same—again and again.
The crops of Greece were dead.
A cold wind swept the barren land, rattling the skeletal stalks that whispered in mourning as they swayed. The chill cut through him, settling icily into his bones.
The earth had simply ceased to provide.
Chapter 41
Hades sat upon his throne, fist pressed to his temple, his gaze heavy as it swept over the three curule chairs before the dais. The judges conferred in somber tones, their voices low echoes in the Underworld’s throne room.
The events of Olympus had wearied him—but the sight awaiting him in the Underworld had carved deeper still.
On the banks of the Styx, souls gathered in droves.
War in Troy had turned the steady trickle of death into a flood, each soul torn from life by the bite of bronze, the brutal thrust of a spear. The air trembled with their silence, their longing and memories. Even the Styx, dark and thunderous, seemed sluggish beneath the onslaught of so much death.
When the chariot stopped, he had longed to seek her out.
Persephone.
He, who had ruled in solitude since the realm was young, ached for her. For the one that softened the silence, made it feel full—lush and living, like the gardens that surrounded the temple. He could not seem to hold enough of her. Not just her body, though he hungered for that too, but her presence, bright and unguarded.
It was a feat of will that he had dragged himself from his bed at all to attend Olympus, especially with her lying curled against him, one bare thigh nestled between his.
He wanted to retire to their bedchamber, to sink into that quiet again and lose himself in her embrace. To feel her fingers slide through his hair, her nails grazing gently. To hear her voice, soft and warm, shaping his name in the dark.
But duty held him fast.
