Page 5 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“This grove belongs to Hades?” the goddess asked, her lovely face lighting with curiosity. “But he dwells in the Underworld.”
“Of course he does,” Erato replied curtly, already turning to leave. “But this place was consecrated to him long ago. Come, we’ve lingered too long.”
The goddess hesitated, her gaze sweeping the grove once more.
Her eyes brushed past him without stopping. For a heartbeat, she lingered there, her expression shifting, growing thoughtful—pensive in a way he couldn’t discern.
Then she was gone, following Erato from the wood.
Deep shades of violet and indigo feathered across the sky. Twilight deepened, fireflies emerging to weave lazy, golden arcs in the night. Stillness returned to the grove. But it was changed now, subtly disrupted, as if her presence had cast a ripple across its tranquility.
Hades stepped from the shadows, his frown etching deeper. He dragged a hand against the short beard clinging to his jaw as a flicker of unease shifted within him.
His memory stretched, vast and unbroken, across eons. The birth of mankind, the rise and ruin of kingdoms, the shifting of mountains and seas. All known to him.
And yet...shewas a stranger.
Erato had called her Kore, but that was no name. It was only a description, a word.
Maiden.
Before the thought could settle, something caught his eye at the water’s edge.
Slowly, he approached the place where she had stood moments earlier.
There, beside the pool, a cluster of dainty cobalt flowers threaded through the grass, unfurling as he watched. The delicate petals shimmered faintly, as if reflecting the gathering dusk, their fragile beauty defying the shadows.
Chapter 3
Coarse ropes bit Helen’s wrists, the fibers grinding against her raw skin. Bruises bloomed across her body as the ship pitched violently over churning seas, each wave dragging her further from Sparta.
Her whispered prayers to Poseidon had been answered with silence.
But when the ship’s hull finally slid onto sand, she dared—briefly, foolishly—to hope. Perhaps the sea god had granted her deliverance.
That hope was swiftly dashed as she was drawn roughly from the ship’s belly. A soldier hoisted her over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and pain wrenched through her. Helen gasped, the noise lost to the cold night air that nipped her tear-streaked face.
She was dumped unceremoniously into a horse-drawn cart. It lurched forward, trundling away from the unfamiliar shoreline.
In the distance, the horizon glowed with fire.
As the cart creaked closer, the flames separated into a sea of torches, the light spilling from towering stone walls of a vast city.
Helen recognized it instantly.
Troy.
The name slammed into her, heavy as a fist, dredging memories from a lifetime ago. Fragments resurfaced, unbidden: sunlit streets, grand halls, and exotic markets.
She had walked these streets once as a child, her small hand clasped in her father’s. King Tyndareus of Sparta had brought her here on a diplomatic visit, where they had been received as honored guests in King Priam’s court.
Those had been hopeful days. Then, a promise of unity had blossomed between two great kingdoms of the Aegean Sea—Sparta and Troy. But the years since had turned that promise to ash. The friendship had withered to dust.
It had all begun with Helen’s marriage.
When she came of age, Tyndareus had considered wedding her to one of Priam’s handsome sons. It had been expected, a gesture to honor a natural ally and seal the friendship in bloodlines.
But the Fates—or, more likely, her father’s greed—had warped the course of her life.
