Page 103 of Where Darkness Bloomed
“Your husband is there.”
Her knees gave way. She fell to the stone floor, clutching her children as sobs tore out of her—grief shattering into gratitude.
“Thank you, lord,” she gasped.
Warm light bloomed around them, soft and golden as the sun’s touch. It enveloped the mother and her children in radiance and, in the next instant, they were gone.
From the middle seat, Minos leaned forward, a hand stroking his short beard. “The Greeks grow bloodthirsty, my lord. To murder a mother and her children…” He shook his head. “It is an affront to the gods.”
Hades sank into his throne once more, shadows gathering in closer. “It is,” he said darkly. “The Underworld will offer no sanctuary for such deeds nor those who commit them. Only what is owed, and it will be paid in full.”
The image of the burning home still seared his thoughts. A home devoured, innocence consumed. Not battlefield chaos, but monstrous, deliberate evil.
Destruction for its own sake.
Killing just to watch the blood spill.
The black stain of it was spreading among the Greeks like rot. Each day brought more souls: civilians slaughtered, lives torn apart by bloodied hands as the army became insatiable.
A slow, smoldering rage kindled in Hades’s chest.
Something must be done.
But he extinguished the thought as swiftly as it sparked.
It was not his place. Mortals sowed strife as naturally as they breathed. And Olympus’s interference had too often deepened the wound it meant to mend. Hadn’t the arguing of goddesses set this tragedy in motion from the beginning?
No, he reminded himself, exhaling through his nose. His role was not to interfere.
It was judgment. Swift and eternal. Long after the ashes cooled, after the world forgot the horrors it had birthed—
There was him.
And yet…
Of all the carnage he’d witnessed across the ages, this war felt different. A gnawing sense of unease lingered with the rage still smoldering, aimless and unspent.
His fingers scraped the rough edge of his jaw. “Damn them,” he muttered.
“My lord.”
The voice cut through the darkness like a shaft of sunlight through stormclouds. He looked up.
Persephone stood at the threshold, the torchlight weaving through the dark waves of her hair. A vision wrought of fire and earth.
Her eyes sought his, shadowed in uncertainty. She did not move, but something in her stillness was already reaching for him. The question passed between them unspoken, already understood.
Hades rose. His mantle rippled as he descended the dais. At the foot of the stairs, he extended his hand to her.
“My queen.”
She came without hesitation.
As she walked the length of the hall, her midnight chiton shimmeredwith golden thread like the veins of precious metal buried deep in the earth. As though the Underworld had yielded its riches to adorn her.
Her eyes flicked to the judges, who stood with heads bowed as she passed. Then she was at his side, her fingers slipping into his.
And the storm inside him went silent.
