“Tell me what you are thinking, my queen.”
I take a deep breath.
“I…must go back.” My throat tightens and I nearly choke on the admission. It hurts to say the words, but it will hurt more to pretend they are not true. We must be able to discuss this. The pomegranate seeds. The mortal realm. The duties I have to the mortals who dwell there. The duty to my mother. He must realize the pain it causes her and that she too would rather destroy herself than live in that agony. “You know that, don’t you?”
“You must stay,” he answers coldly, both his hands tightening on my waist. “You know that. Don’t you?” The air chills around me with his possessiveness.
I stare into his steely gaze, unable to make myself argue with him. My heart ticks, ticks, ticks. I know I must do both. I cannot see how I could choose one life over the other when they are both mine. It would mean abandoning one of the realms, and every time I think of that possibility, I’m sick to my stomach. The churning revolts inside of me.
Hades frowns as my thumb brushes over his lips. He has marks from my fingernails on his chest and shoulders. It would be much easier to lose myself to his kiss and his body than to have this conversation, but it is unavoidable, just like the choice I must make.
“Do you not feel your power here?” he asks as he lifts one of his hands from my waist and brushes a lock of hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. “Do you not sense your belonging?” His question is a whispered hush; a deep crease forms between his brows.
Without my conscious permission, I release another breath, this one carrying both the sorrow I feel at being separated from Hades and the joy I feel at walking the paths here and having the power of the Underworld within me.
I don’t know how to explain to him that I know it is a gift I have been given. My father should not have poisoned me with the wine. He should never have tried to make me into a mortal. But the absence of my powers taught me how valuable they are—in every form.
I crave it all. I am destined for it all. I know it so.
“I do belong here,” I answer him, looking back into his eyes. I hope he can see how much conviction I have in the statement. I don’t need to return to Olympus because I think the powers I have there are more worthy of my time. That is not the reason. “I have never felt more powerful than I do beside you.”
He studies me, his expression a mix of sadness and pride and need and love. It’s a very complicated expression, but I understand it without him having to explain.
Hades takes my face in one hand and strokes my cheek. “I have a gift for you.”
“What?”
He reaches over to the table at the bedside, eases the drawer open, and takes something out.
It’s a crown. With sharp obsidian points that reflect the light beautifully.
It’s dark, and yet it shines in the light. There are black, crystalline jewels worked into the delicate palladium and brushed silver, and when Hades turns it in various directions to show me all its angles, I cannot catch my breath.
“For me?” I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. I’ve never seen anything that made me think it was mine with such a strong feeling other than Hades.
“For you, my queen.”
Then he uses both hands to lift it up and set it on my head. As I close my eyes, it feels as if it belongs. With a spell, it binds to me.
I place my palms on Hades’s chest, and he drops his hands and looks at me, his eyes moving from my face to the crown and back.
“How do I look?” I question with a simper.
His mouth curves in a smile that is filled with satisfaction. It fades slowly until he has never looked more serious.
“You look as if you were made to rule at my side,” he says. “You look as if you could not possibly live anywhere but here. You belong here, Persephone. You look as if you are my queen and will never be anything else.”
“I am,” I say, my heart pounding. I mean it. I am his queen. But I am also my mother’s daughter. I am also a goddess of life that many in the mortal realm pray to. They rely on me to bring life, and I rely on them to know where I stand as a goddess. “I will always be your queen.”
Swallowing thickly, a new fear rises inside of me. I don’t know if I will always be here, where Hades wants me. And I don’t know what hell he’ll unleash when I inevitably leave. Or whether or not he’ll forgive my betrayal.
Hades
There’s a trembling rage just beneath the surface. The surface of my skin, the surface of the Underworld, the surface of all of my existence. It’s ominous and although I’m aware of it, I ignore the tremors out of fear of what I’ll do next.
The one thing I crave the most is to stay in bed with my queen until she speaks the truth I need to hear: she belongs here with me for all eternity. Only here and only with me.
It is a great irony. If she hadn’t come back, the Underworld would not have started to heal from my rage. If she hadn’t done magic with her mother and said whatever it is she said to Demeter to stop the carnage on Earth, the previous rage would still be unleashed…and that is quite harmless compared to what resides within me now.
