The gods have created an imbalance.
If they do not return her… Anger bristles. I’d rather they destroy my own soul than to live a single moment of peace knowing she is not by my side.
She is my queen, and I cannot even speak to her!
I let out a howl of pure anger. It’s rough on my throat, burning as it leaves me. I thought my self-control was already gone, but now it is splitting. Now it is crumbling under the force of my loss. The demons of the realm return the howl. Ready for war. Ready to fight where I command them to.
Persephone should never have had to leave. A queen should never have to leave her realm.
It is a cruel trick that she has.
A trick I have, in part, played on myself.
My own mind seems to split from the pain of what was and what could have been. What should be. Again, my body trembles, the power within me barely contained.
Crazed perhaps. Will I lose my mind without her?
I love her. I spoke the words. She knows, and now she will have that truth with her in Olympus, where it is dangerous.
Deadly.
I turn around on the path simply needing to move. Every hall is suffocating. I’ve been moving without paying attention and have crossed great swaths of my realms, leaving me alone in a wide, foggy field. The place of a thousand years of memories.
This is not where I need to be.
I need to be at Persephone’s side, with her hand in mine and our realms spread out before us, but I cannot go to her.
Instead, I go to the river.
My realms blur as I move through them again. My heart pounds and what rushes through my veins is not blood. It must be oil or acid. It feels like it should melt through me, reducing me to nothing, but it does not.
I let out a horrible, bitter laugh. Of course this feeling will not kill me. Of course I will keep surviving. I did that before when I had no hope of seeing the sun, and I will do it now, against my fucking will.
In the meantime, someone else will pay. Anyone else.
I set my sights on the vision before me. The banks of the river teem with souls. The blue hues seem to melt together. The souls in the water fade to a gray as the life leaves them, and on the shore, pushing past one another, confused and looking for comfort. Searching for peace and an end to their suffering.
I am not here to comfort them.
I lunge at the nearest souls, hate and grief overwhelming me completely. If I cannot have Persephone, these souls will not have a life in the Underworld. If I am to be denied the only touch I have been able to stomach in a thousand years, then I will deny them everything.
I rip souls in two with my bare hands. Ash coats the roughness of my palms as they fall to pieces beneath me. The souls are less substantial than their mortal bodies, but not by much. This is why the Fates carry shears. Most souls have strength in them—a strength that grew from their will to survive in their mortal existence.
The cord of their strength resists being cut. It fights against the shears, too, but the Fates are determined.
I am not determined. I am obsessed. I cannot see past this pain. It is red and black. The color of fire. The sound of a scream. Is that the souls, or does the wretched sound come from me?
I do not care. I do not need to know either.
Demeter and Zeus are not the only gods who can create an imbalance. It is within my power too, and they would do well to remember that. I picture them as I end the souls’ existence before me. They will pay for this pain. If they do not return her, I will allow the imbalance to destroy us all.
“Hades.” The voice echoes behind me. A chill runs down my spine as my body is paralyzed.
The voice is three-toned. I know it at once, but the anger cannot be tamed for me to return attention to them.
I destroy another soul. It fights, digging its nails into my skin, forcing blood to spill, but I hardly feel it. I ignore the ferocity in the soul’s eyes and pull until it comes apart with a last, dying scream.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see them. The Fates. Standing there in the gowns that shift and change. Their clothes seem to match, then shift again. Part of their trick. They are of the past and the future. They are of the present. They are of fate and prophecy, and yet they have given me this.
