Persephone rushed forward, enveloping Cyane into her arms. Cyane burrowed her nose into her friend’s hair and smelled the flowers of the world.
They cried together.
“You’re so...so wet,” Persephone breathed.
Cyane’s arms tightened around her, shaking with joy. “Haven’t I always been?”
Persephone laughed. “Yes.”
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too, my dearest friend.”
A Deep Sigh
Cerberus staredafter Cyane and his queen as they walked hand-in-hand out of the ballroom. Hades followed them to the foyer but stopped, letting the women go.
Cyane hadn’t glanced Cerberus’s way, not even once, not even when he was about to kill a god for her. He had been ready to start a war.
But he didn’t mind. Seeing Cyane’s face when she’d embraced Persephone was gift enough for Cerberus. He finally sensed that she was safe. If his queen loved her as Cerberus loved her, Cyane was the safest being in all the realm. No one would dare touch something their beloved queen held so dear. Not even Hades.
Hermes lay, bloodied and broken, on the floor under his boot. Cerberus wiped the blood off his mouth and kicked Hermes away toward Melinoe. She bent down next to Hermes with a strange look coming over her face. Hades turned back around and eyed the fallen god with boredom.
Cerberus flicked his xiphos clean and sheathed it. He wanted to shirk his duties and go after Cyane, even if it was just to fill his eyes with her once more, to convince himself that she was really back, and to remind himself she was safe despite the crisp salt of her tears in the air. But he didn’t. He chose to scan the ballroom and consider the destroyed ceiling that had crushed the once slick black floor.
The ruin was a testament to his and Hades’s unfinished business. Business that needed to be settled before Cerberus could steal Cyane away to his rooms and reacquaint himself with her warm flesh.
Hades tilted his head for Cerberus to follow, and they silently made their way to Hades’s study, Cerberus several steps behind. He deftly withdrew his hounds to return to the gates and begin another year of servitude because—if he knew Hades as well as he did—the God of the Underworld would never give Cerberus his duties back without a return of their age-old trust between them.
Trust that couldn’t be broken by something as small as a fight, even if that fight had been on the brink of a violent match for power, all over a situation Cerberus could now see that they had both made disastrous miscalculations over.
A short time later, they sat in their respective chairs and Hades brought the hearth fire back to life. It burst upward, excited, unlike the two Underworld-weary companions before it.
Hades sighed. “Is Hermes dead?”
“He’ll survive.” Cerberus’s gaze roamed over Hades, reading his lord’s countenance. He struggled to place it, especially when he realized he thought Hades might be...satisfied. “It will be some time before he heals.”
Hades laughed low. “Melinoe will enjoy his company. It’ll keep her busy and out of our lives...for a time.”
Cerberus shrugged, leaning back. “She’s out of my life forever. It was part of our deal—for the truth.”
“You didn’t bother to consult me before making such a bargain?” Hades’s eyes darkened. “I won’t tolerate not having anything between her and me going forward. I do not like her bothering me.”
Cerberus smiled, amused. “I suppose we’ll have to discuss that at a later time, my lord. For now, let’s enjoy the satisfaction of not only breaking Hermes but that, as he recovers, he becomes a shield for both of us when it comes to Melinoe. If he ever recovers.”
Hades glowered. “You’re enjoying yourself.”
“Aren’t you? Your plan has come to fruition, has it not? Cyane is here, and Persephone clearly loves her. And everything she loves, you protectively cherish.” Even Cyane. Cerberus ran his finger over his lips.
“Ah, my friend, but she still must serve. She still must accomplish the task I’ve set out for her. If she doesn’t…”
“You’ll do nothing because Persephone will destroy everything you seek so dearly.”
“You think I fear my wife’s hate?” Hades laughed. “She has hated me, she has loved me, she has felt everything under the sun and more for me. She would get over it.”
“But the difference is the gift,” Cerberus stated, leaning his elbows on his knees. “How many more could you give her, how many gifts are better? How else can you receive the gift you’ve been seeking from her? After all these long years? She will not accept a queendom, power, nor obsessive devotion. She will not take the birth of life in a realm of death, the breaking of nature’s ways to grow all her favorite flowers and foliage here. She does not need love, nor family, nor purpose. She has all of that already. And most of all, she does not want jewels, clothes, or material possessions.
“Giving Persephone back someone she loves… Now that is different. That is what you did, did you not?”
