Page 123 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Her gaze drifted across the bedchamber.
The scrying pool.
She had seen Hades command it to see Troy, to peer into the mortal world and glimpse things otherwise unseen.
Standing, she approached the edge. The surface was bright and clear, waiting.
“Hades,” she said softly.
At once, a desolate hillside appeared. It stood bleakly beneath a leaden sky, sleet and snow falling. The mortal world.
And then—Hades.
He stood still, the bitter winds curling around him, whipping against his dark mantle.
Her eyes searched the image, confusion rippling through her as she focused on the skeletal trees clawing at the sky, fields stripped of life. The earth, drained of its warmth.
But it was summer. Itshouldhave been summer.
Movement stirred behind Hades, a figure emerging from the swirling snow.
Shock lanced through her.
Her mother.
“You’ve hidden it from her.” Demeter’s voice was soft, taunting. “What her absence does to the earth.” She watched Hades’s back with cruel satisfaction. “Are you so terrified, Lord of the Underworld? Do you fear she’ll flee you at the first chance?”
The world tilted. Her heartbeat quickened. In the reflection, she watched Hades’s regal face darken wrathfully.
He would not lie to her.
The mortals—
Dread gripped her with talons. She staggered back from the pool, spinning on her heel, and ran out to the terrace, her feet barely touching the floor.
Clutching the balustrade, she looked out.
The air crushed from her lungs.
On the distant banks of the Styx, a sea of souls. Hundreds. Thousands.Their forms grew sharper in the coming daybreak, an endless mass. Men, women… and children.
Dead.
Her stomach twisted. She lurched forward, bent over the stone edge—and vomited.
A harsh breath dragged in. Then another heave wracked her body, forcing her to empty again.
Hands touched her shoulders, gathering her hair. She knew who it was without looking.
Slowly, she straightened, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her throat burned. She shook slightly as she turned to face him.
“How could you?” Her voice cracked, raw with disbelief—louder than any scream.
Hades stood unmoving, as if hewn from stone. His eyes were dark, solemn. “I did not wish you to bear the weight of what she had done.”
Her breath caught. Anger, sharp and rising, bled through the shock—fury laced with betrayal, scalding in her veins. “You hid this from me? You let them die... for me?”
He said nothing.
