There are other ways for me to ascertain what is happening on Olympus, but I am in no mood for reaching out through my intermediaries. I suspect that the specific details of Zeus’s dark mood are unimportant. There are no other rumors swirling in the Underworld. Zeus can only feel threatened by one person.
My queen. For she knows hints of what he’s done.
He should be frightened of her. He treats her as if they’re not equals. As if she is still less powerful than he is by virtue of her name, or her lineage, or her time in the Underworld. A deep anger simmers within me.
Cerberus nips at my hand, losing patience with my stillness. It is only then that I feel the clench of my jaw and how anger has tortured my expression into one of vengeance. My faithful companion whines, begging me to move. To do something. He may not understand the inner workings of the Underworld as Minox does, but he knows that things are usually not done by standing in the garden and watching the sky.
“I know,” I tell him. “It is quite the storm. You are right.” With a long exhale I release the rage for only a moment. “I must do something.”
And yet, my thoughts are drawn right back to Persephone. Cerberus whines yet again.
It feels as if Cerberus is the only being in the Underworld who understands what it is to need Persephone to return. It is like a constant pressure that aches in my bones. It’s caused pain every second since I watched her leave.
Yet still my love is stronger than my endurance. My love for Persephone is what keeps the various pieces of me from crumbling. It will hold me in a firm grip until she returns, and then it will wrap her in my obsession as well.
Cerberus curls around my shins, pushing me. There is nothing left to see in the skies. If Zeus rages at her again, if he attempts to harm Persephone…
I will not be the only one who knows. Every being in every realm will know of Zeus’s fatal mistake. The tales they tell about it will last for eternity.
With tightly held breath, I turn on my heel to leave the garden and find Minox waiting there, his dark robes snapping at his ankles from the wind. The darkness clouds him. I do not know how long he has been out in the garden, watching me. I do not know how long he has been waiting for me to notice him.
“My Lord,” he calls, his voice carrying over the brutal gusts. It’s grown stronger now, though I cannot tell if it is because of Zeus or because of the unrest in the Underworld. Chaos surrounds us in all ways.
“Minox,” I answer and move toward him, then past him, not slowing in the least. I’m returning to my bedchamber. I need a few moments to think. I need to walk through the halls of my home. I need the familiar floors. The familiar walls. The familiar doorways. I need to be where I am known and have found stillness and power before.
Minox marches beside me, his hands folded in front of him and his expression neutral. He does not speak, and neither do I. Cerberus goes ahead of us and waits for me to open the door. Then my dog darts ahead as if he’s been given orders.
I continue the walk to my rooms. Minox does as well. He still says nothing.
Movement is the only thing that seems to give me clarity, so I don’t take the shortest path. I stalk through the corridors of my home, turning one way, then another, treating it like a labyrinth.
If it were a labyrinth, then my queen would be at the center, waiting for me. She would be the conclusion to all my introspection. She would be the place where my mind arrived when it was at peace.
It doesn’t make me feel at peace to know that she is nowhere in my home or in the Underworld.
It makes me feel like tearing souls in limbo apart until there are none left to destroy, then starting on the rest of my realms. Clenching my jaw, I force the thought away.
I will not unleash that on the Underworld again. I cannot. Regret runs through me, and I can only imagine what Persephone would say.
Not now, at least. For now, I will walk the halls of my home, concentrating on my queen and what she would wish, and when I have reached my rooms, I will act.
Minox stays at my side. The tension is thick between us. Perhaps he is in need of a labyrinth as well, because he remains silent as we walk as if he is deep in thought. Perhaps he is. It would not surprise me. Minox spends most of his time in the shadows, watching the goings-on of the Underworld and keeping it running smoothly.
When my queen is restored to me, I will owe him a gift of gratitude for all he has done since she left.
But I remind myself, she has only gone so that she may return. She is only gone so that Zeus can feel the consequences of the errors he has made. She is only gone so that balance can be brought back to all the realms, and a truce can be called, and we can resume ruling, as we should have been doing all this time.
It is the way it must be. As angered as it makes me.
It is not until we reach the doors to my rooms and enter that I decide I have waited long enough to hear what he has to tell me.
“I hope it was not urgent,” I murmur as I pour myself a goblet of wine. The sound of it pouring against the gold fills the room.
“What are you referring to, my Lord?”
“Whatever news you came to bring me. I assume it was not urgent, otherwise you would have said it by now.”
“I did not come to bring news.”
