Page 124 of Where Darkness Bloomed
But the silence was worse than a thousand confessions. It fanned the fire tearing through her, until grief, rage, and something wounded twisted together inside her like an ancient beast roaring to life, tearing free of its bonds.
Her hands trembled at her sides. “You are like her,” she said, her breath shaking with fury. “You’ve treated me as a child. Shielded me. Hidden from me what I had every right to know, choosing what truths I can bear. Just as she did.”
The words landed like daggers. And across from her, something cracked. Darkness rose in his gaze, matching her fury, feeding it.
“I am like her?” The words came low, sharp with cold vehemence. But beneath, she heard the fracture. A wound struck deep.
He cast a hand toward the riverbank, where the dead gathered in pale, endless silence. “I would never do this.”
“But neither did you stop it!” Tears spilled hotly down her cheeks. Her hands fisted in the folds of his himation. “You—who speak of justice and value balance—is this fair? Isthisright?”
“Fair?”
The words tore from him in a growl, low and dangerous. Anger bled off him in dark waves, swallowing the air between them.
“Do you know what she demands?” he snapped, and she felt the restraint cracking. “You. She would see the world turned to ash to take you back.”
“Hades—”
“Do not ask it of me!” His voice tore through the chamber, raw and thunderous. Shadows reared like a tide around them, and the stone underfoot trembled in warning. “I will not.”
“I cannot watch her murder women and children because of me!” Persephone sobbed, flinging a hand toward the river. “You cannot make this decision alone!”
“Yes, I can!”
His roar split the marble beneath them, fissures rending in every direction like spiderwebs. The face that normally wore quiet, immovable strength was transformed—contorted in rage, carved not of ice but of molten wrath.
For the first time, fear licked down Persephone’s spine. She had never seen him like this—his temper fully unbound, its force unbridled and terrible. He shook with it, composure shattering under the force of ancient wrath.
Hades leaned forward, crowding her with the breadth of his body. She stepped back until her back met the stone of the balcony’s edge.
His eyes burned, but not with hatred.
Anguish.
“Do you know how long I was alone?” he ground out, each word forged in the bitter heat. “Eons.Since the moment I drew the lot that crowned me. All others lived on Olympus, together beneath the sun. But here, I ruled in silence.”
He exhaled harshly, a broken sound. “I bore it, remembering the Fates had not forgotten me. That they had chosen you. That one day, you would come to be with me, to rule at my side.”
He turned from her abruptly, as though scorched by her nearness. His hands raked through his hair, shoulders stirring with each deep breath.
Persephone stood motionless. The fury that had gripped her lay broken at her feet, hollowed out by his words.
She had never thought of it, not truly. But hadn’t he spoken of it before? The centuries of endless creation that he had undertaken when hetook the Underworld’s throne. Thousands of years had passed, an endless stretch before her arrival. Silent eons spent believing that a promise whispered by the Fates would one day come to fruition.
I would have you rule with me. In everything.
He’d said that to her, she realized, her chest clenching.
But he hadn’t spoken of titles, nor thrones or duties. What he’d offered her had been far more. A place within him, beside him. A place of belonging, one that eternity itself could not erode. He’d offered himself in full—placing the choice in her hands, even when she hadn’t understood the shape of it.
Now, her heart was rending in two, torn by the silence radiating from her husband’s turned back.
Slowly, Persephone stepped forward. Her cheek met his back, her arms slipping around his waist. She pressed herself to him, offering the only comfort she possessed.
“I did not know,” she whispered, remorse breaking the words.
His body was stone to her touch.
