“Father,” a low voice called. “You help?”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Creon and Zotera lingering a distance away. If the scribe was waiting for Hades to join him in order to start recording names again, I didn’t want to hold him back. Yet, I didn’t want to tell Hades to go ahead without me. I hated the idea of being alone in a room again. The fear that he wouldn’t return lingered in the back of my mind.
“Rather than dine here, could I eat something in the Throne Room with Zotera?”
Surprise flickered in Hades’ eyes before he offered me his hand.
Feeling a bit triumphant, I slipped my fingers into his and suppressed my smile as we trailed after the other two. My feet were tired by the time we reached the Throne Room, but Hades already had a table with a padded stool waiting near the base of his statue.
“You will tell me if she does not eat,” he said to Zotera before he and Creon left us.
She waited until they were gone to give me a sad smile.
“I’m sorry Father is being cruel to you, Mother.”
I glanced at the table and the bowl of stew.
“Cruel? What is he making me eat?” A horrible thought invaded. “Is it people?” Pre-throw up saliva pooled in my mouth.
“The stew is ox and roots. Too delicious for such a terrible place. Even the bread is fine. After you graciously allowed him to touch you, he should have allowed your preferred meal of wet, moldy bread.”
“So, let me get this straight,” I said. “When he makes me ox stew, he’s being cruel to me?”
She nodded. “Very cruel.”
Grateful that Hades didn’t seem nearly as vengeful as I’d first thought, I looked at the stew. Just ox and roots. Normal human food.
The need to throw up slowly receded, and I took my seat at the table.
"Father is wrong to try to make you find joy in a place you hate with every measure of your essence,” Zotera said, sitting on the floor beside me.
Persephone’s hate of Hell astounded me. I knew the tale that she’d been tricked and then trapped here. I would have been angry about that, too. But mad enough to do all the horrible things she’d done? No.
While Hades was trying to be nice to Persephone to win her over, she obviously hadn’t been having any of it. Instead, she’d made him feed her like crap and had done everything in her power to make this place miserable, including torturing the people who helped to keep it running. And Hades still wanted her?
It was a good thing for me that he hadn’t given up on her yet. However, that level of dedication worried me more than a little. Again, I wondered what Hades was going to do once he found out Persephone was really dead. I had a feeling those rages that had shaken the building would be nothing compared to how he would react then.
“Do you want me to find some dirt to throw in it?” Zotera asked, jarring me from my thoughts.
I looked down at the stew and shook my head.
“No. But thank you for your offer.” After taking a bite and feeling uncomfortable with her watchful silence, I asked, “Can you tell me more about Hell? Does everyone here have a task like Creon does? There seemed to be a lot of, um, individuals in the dining space.”
“Yes. Most monsters chase you through the halls, but they’ve been bored since you left, so they mostly eat and wander around.”
“Wait. They chase Persephone because that’s their job?”
“Yes.”
As the look-a-like, I had no desire to be chased by monsters and wondered what I would need to do to get that to not happen. Then I remembered that, before we’d entered the room filled with those creatures, Hades had said something about there being no just cause for their treatment. The tone he’d used had sounded like it was my fault I’d been chased. And based on what I’d been learning, maybe it was. Well, not my fault but Persephone’s. If Hades hated the way she was trying to make herself miserable, perhaps he would be willing to make them stop chasing me.
“And what’s your task?” I asked, curious.
“To help you in every way. I’ve been bored, too, since you’ve been gone. I finished your chair ages ago.” She gestured to the small, thorny chair then held up her hands to show me her nails. “It took a long time. My nails kept falling off. You were right that you made me too weak and soft. I’m sorry, Mother.”
“I think you’re perfect just the way you are, Zotera. There’s no need to apologize for being yourself.”
She beamed at me, and her eyes began to water.
