Page 137 of Aïdes the Unseen
I pressed my hand gently over his heart.
Right where Melinoë had given him her parting gift. A thread, woven in silence. A spark he didn’t yet understand.
Until now.
His eyes widened.
“You kept it,” he whispered. “All this time…”
“I had to hide it,” I said. “When I was taken, beforeDemeter,before the names, before all of it, I had to tear away this one truth. To keep it safe. Until I could return.”
“And it’s…” He trailed off, voice breaking with something he couldn’t quite hold.
“Our child,” I whispered. “The one we made before the gods fractured us.”
He dropped to his knees.
Not in worship.
In awe.
His arms came around my waist and his forehead pressed to my stomach, reverent and silent. Kerberos curled close beside us with a whine, sensing the sacredness of the moment.
“They have been waiting,” I said, voice raw with wonder. “Waiting to be called forward again. And now… I remember where I placed the spark. Melinoë carried it. So you could gift them to me again. So we could return whole.”
He looked up at me, his eyes wet, luminous with the weight of a thousand years of devotion. “I will protect you both,” he said. “I will raze the world thenrebuildit if that’s what it takes.”
I knelt beside him, pressing our foreheads together.
“You already have,” I whispered. “You found me, Graven. You waited, Aïdes. Younever stopped.”
The garden rustled around us, alive with more than just wind. The Underworld pulsed beneath us—not as tomb, but aswomb.A place where all beginnings were once endings, and all endings could begin again.
The Underworld had changed.
Or perhaps it would be better said that the Underworld merelyremembereditself.
The throne was not made of iron, nor obsidian, nor gold. It was a living thing now—grown from the roots of the olive treewhose branches still curved above us, canopying the chamber in a soft, silver-green halo.
The light here came from nowhere, and everywhere, and in my arms, the twins stirred.
One was flame and hunger, gaze too ancient for the softness of his skin. The other was twilight itself, a silence that moved like thought, fingers curled tightly around my thumb.
“They are perfect,” Aïdes whispered from beside me.
He stood watch, one hand resting lightly on the back of the throne. Constant. Eternal. Kerberos lay sprawled beside the dais, all three heads drowsing, though one eye always watched. The others returned to offer gifts and blessings of their own.
Hermes had left them a gift: a map that folded and refolded itself in infinite shapes—always changing, always guiding. Aphrodite had whispered blessings of devotion and strength. Even Hephaestus had left behind an unbreakable circlet: not for ruling, but forremembering.
Poseidon’s gift had come in the form of still water, a mirror that revealed only truth. He had bowed low. He had meant it.
Only two had not come.
Demeter had never returned or reached out. Neither had Zeus. But their silence did not undo the moment. Could not unravel what had been hard-earned, soul-bound, and forged in fire, grief, and devotion.
I looked down at my children, mysecond bloom,the seed I once hid in fear and returned to in full knowing—and smiled.
Aïdes moved beside me, and knelt. He kissed each child’s forehead, then mine. When he met my eyes again, I saw not the Lord of the Dead, not the lost man from Thanatek, not the god forged from ashes and waiting?—
