Page 92 of Where Darkness Bloomed
Persephone searched his face with quiet understanding. “But you value it now.”
An unspoken question was tucked into the words.
He met her gaze. “Greatly.”
“What made you see it differently?”
Another difficult truth. In those earliest days, mortals had been Olympus’s pride—sculpted from earth, gifted divine breath. They danced in the sun’s warmth, built temples, ruled with joy and fire and wonder. The gods had watched from a distance, amused, indulgent of the creation.
A paradise. Until the first death.
“A child,” Hades answered at last.
Persephone stilled, waiting as he wove the memory into words.
“A mortal child,” he repeated. “Drowned in a river swollen with spring rain. She was the first to die, and her spirit wandered, lost and afraid. There was no place for her then, and she wept at the gates of the living.” His voice grew slightly rougher. “I saw then—if the dead had no guide, no home, then death itself was cruel.”
“So I crafted law, order. From the chaos, I carved out a place in the cosmos where the dead might be received with justice. With peace.”
His gaze shifted down again. Persephone watched him, staring into his face as though she had never seen him before. Perhaps she had not, not like this.
He cleared his throat. “I can show you.”
She hesitated, looking down at the blanket drawn around her. “But I—”
Before she could finish, he stepped forward and lifted her into his arms. A soft breath caught in her throat, and her hands rose, clutching his shoulders as her weight settled in his arms. Holding her close, he stepped through the linen hangings onto the balcony.
The Underworld unfurled before them, eternal and vast.
Mountains loomed around the temple, wild and wind-carved. Silver rivers wound through dark, fertile valleys, glinting beneath a sky of obsidian and jewels. Far below, the Stygian waterfall thundered into mist-veiled gorges of moss and stone, its roar rising over the Underworld like the voice of time.
Hades set her on her feet, remaining at her back. One hand framed her waist, drawing her close until her spine touched his chest. Together, they gazed out at all he had built, the creation that had been crafted by his hand.
His kingdom. Now theirs.
With quiet care, he lifted her hair from her shoulder, his fingertips grazing the soft curve of her neck. His jaw brushed lightly against her temple.
“First, I appointed judges. Three mortal kings, wise in life, incorruptible in death. They separate the wicked from the worthy.”
Taking her hand in his, he lifted it, guiding her gaze eastward. In the distance, silver fields rippled, stirred by the breeze.
“Then came Asphodel,” he said. “For souls neither wicked nor virtuous. There, they face neither punishment nor reward, only eternal peacefulness.”
He drew her hand north, toward a turquoise shoreline barely visible in the distance, kissed by the light of an unseen sun.
“Elysium lies there. A land of eternal reward for the honorable and innocent.”
Finally, he moved her hand westward to the green plains stretching innocently toward the horizon.
“And there, the Fields of Punishment,” he said, tone darkening. “For those who sowed evil in life. There, the scales are balanced, evil repaid with evil.”
A shudder rippled through Persephone. He drew her closer, his arms tightening against the memory of Alecto’s lash slicing the air. Then her arm.
Never again.
Silence lingered, but it was peaceful, calm.
Then, at last, she spoke. “You created all of this?”
