Cyane continued. “Don’t you want to know? Want to know what Hades has planned? If not for my sake, then for Persephone’s? If I helped you once, you know where my loyalties once lay.” She hoped she sounded convincing. She couldn’t hide the racing of her heart that seemed to grow louder with every passing second. She was sure Hermes heard it. “Help me remember, and I’ll always be in your debt.” She lowered her voice. “I’ll be eternally grateful.” She threw the same words Melinoe used on her, at him.
“Grateful, we’ll see. Take my hand, Cyane.” He threw his hand in front of her face, almost threatening her with it. “If you are who you think, Demeter and I owe you a debt, but if you’re not… You’ll be left there with nothing but that flimsy dress on your back, stranded.”
Cyane swallowed. She reached up, took his hand, and didn’t care for once about her own wellbeing.
The Final Descent
Cerberus returnedto the ballroom where Hades awaited him atop his dais. He tapped his foot, rapped his fingers, and scowled with an angry frown on his face.
My face.Cerberus shook the thought as he approached his lord. The reminder of their shared face only filled his head with recent memories of Cyane. It hurt to think of her, knowing he would never see her again. It hurt to think of what he discovered in her arms, only for it to be taken away. He’d treasure the memories he had and paint her on his wall. So she could forever be immortalized in his haven.
He rubbed the place her hair still wound over his thumb with his forefinger. It was all he had of her.
That, and her note.
The ballroom was empty. The others had yet to arrive for Persephone’s descent, and he had a feeling he knew why.
Cerberus stopped before Hades.
They stared at each other for a length of time. Hades licked his lips and eventually sighed.
“You’ve angered me, my friend. A great deal of anger is not what I should feel when I ought to be exuberant and anxious for my wife’s return. Yet, I feel nothing but fury, and I know it is because of you.” Hades looked around, raising one ebony brow. “Cyane is gone. I no longer sense her presence, and I can’t help but feel it has something to do withyou.”
Cerberus reached for the note which rested in his armor and handed it to his lord. “Why didn’t you tell me you were her father?”
Hades scowled at the note. It burst into flames as if it had never been more than a simple piece of paper. Cerberus dropped it as it turned to ash and ember between them.
“I share my mind with no one, not completely, not even you—despite our great many conversations. You know this, hound,” Hades spat.
Cerberus glared. “You don’t trust me, after all we’ve been through.”
“Trust? You dare to speak of trust? I trusted you like no one who has ever existed in this realm or the next, this life or the after! I trust you more than my sweet, honest wife, whose loyalties are, and always will, be strung between Demeter and myself. But I have every right to take my trust away, especially after you ruined what should have been a grand celebration that I had planned for decades.”
He was no longer bothered by Hades’s anger. Somehow, Cerberus realized nothing, not even his lord’s fury, compared to watching Cyane walk away.
“I did enjoy your celebration,” Cerberus said.
“A little too much! I told you to enjoy the celebration, not dismantle it! You did far more than enjoy!”
Cerberus scowled. “If I had known your intentions for Cyane—”
“Is that your excuse for disobedience? I know you enjoyed your debauchery, but she is a mortal—a weak mortal. I can help you find a replacement. The nymphs of this world are delicious, many of them maidens yet themselves, but if you want something more innocent to spoil...”
“Cyane is irreplaceable.” he snapped. “She was something else before you stole her.”
“Oh, so she told you, did she?” Hades glanced up at the ceiling, his hands shaking. “Who knew she’d grow so fond of a monster like you in such a short amount of time.”
“You steal too much, Hades,” Cerberus fumed. “Every time you do this, it never ends well. Minthe, Leuce, Persephone.”
Hades surged up from his chair. “Don’t you dare.”
“Would you not hear the truth from me? Or would you rather Zeus say as much?”
The ballroom darkened round them. The candle flames throughout the room danced back and forth as if a wind whipped them. Cracks filled Cerberus’s ears as the stalactites from above elongated and sharpened. Several fell upon the floor with aboomand shattered.
“I’ve been too kind to you, my friend,” Hades whispered. “You dare to act childishly, speaking out of turn when you don’t know the truth of what you speak of.”
Despite his enraged lord, calm filled Cerberus. Did the way Hades spin it really matter? The outcome would have been the same either way. The thought alone of Cyane being used and hurt made him want to kill. “Then for all the damned souls, enlighten me! I love her.”
