“Hades is the outsider,” another goddess cries—I cannot see who. “Send him back to his realm before he drags us all there with him.”
“I will not leave without my queen,” Hades says. “And?—”
Thunder strikes beside us as Zeus throws a lightning bolt.
It does not hit Hades, but crashes into the floor, leaving a large, burned crack in the shining marble. The smell of ash hits me with a force as the rubble crumbles.
Hades narrows his eyes, arms wide with a blazing fire in his palms.
Chaos erupts. Gods and goddesses turn on each other, running away for safety and pushing past one another. Powers crackle and sizzle through the air. Aphrodite pushes me to the side, attempting to save me from harm’s way? I cannot tell what she is doing. A cloud of smoke rolls across the room, obscuring the others from me.
In the back of my mind, my vision obscured from the smoke, I hear Hecate’s voice so clearly. Blow it now if you will, and all will live in their regrets within a deep slumber, including you. If you are too weak, I can do it for you, the dark goddess offers. With smoke burning my eyes, I envision the turmoil I ensued. The pain that ripped from my palms as I starved those who called out to me for mercy. Tears prick my eyes.
In the corner of my eyes flames burn hot higher and higher.
“No,” I answer, coughing on the smoke. It chokes me. “Stop. This is not—this cannot be the way?—”
It’s all spiraling out of control. This was not what I had planned.
“Stop this,” a booming voice commands, cutting through the screaming assaults, calm and strong. “Stop this now!”
Persephone
“Stop this now!” The voice that rises from my throat is one of spite and detest. This fight does not have to do with me. Rid my name from it. It is the anger of their chains and their discontent with fate that causes them to rage against one another. My chest rises with a hollowness that’s undeniable. I cannot stop this war if they continue to believe it steeps from my taking my new place as queen of the dead.
No, that is not what this war is about.
The chaos of the gods and goddesses of Olympus is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
The gods, in my father’s great hall, attacking one another?—
It fills my lungs with the need to scream. Viciously and violently. The vibrations and power in the courts could call a thousand years’ worth of life. It could build and rebuild Olympus, even if Olympus itself were thrown to the ground in the mortal realm and left to crumble into ash.
Olympus does not fall underneath this power. It shudders and shakes. Holes appear in the walls and the ceiling, letting the thunderous rain through, soaking all who stand here. Beatrice holds tight to my hand.
“My lady,” she says into my ear. “I told you it was not safe. My queen. We must go. We must leave this place. This is a matter of the gods?—”
“I am the goddess of life and the queen of the dead,” I argue back, not looking at her. I search for any glimpse I can get of Hades. There he is, throwing shadow-demons out ahead of him. They fight off the gods who join my father’s army and attack Hades. My heart tumbles with fear. There is my mother, her hand on Aphrodite’s wrist, the two of them facing out into the fray. There is another one of my father’s lightning bolts. It’s maddening. All of this pain, for what?
It all happens in slow motion.
I attempt to step forward, but Beatrice pulls me back. “My lady, please—it is too dangerous. Let us retreat to somewhere safe, and then we can pray?—”
“To whom?” I ask, searching her gaze for an answer. “All the gods are here. They are fighting. It is not the time for prayers, Beatrice.”
“You cannot fight!”
“I will not.”
“But my queen?—”
A bolt of power—a lightning bolt, perhaps, though I cannot see exactly what it is—slams into the corner behind Beatrice. It cracks and shatters the stone that’s been there for centuries.
“Enough!” I pull her with me into the hall, step up onto a fallen fragment of the ceiling. I draw my power from every being. Their life is my source.
With my eyes pitch black, my robes a haunted ash, and no crown atop my head, I raise my hands, my fingers bent and twisted as vines creep from the ground, winding around limbs and holding those who fight in place. Screeches cry out as the vines twist and slowly silence the slaughter.
I’ve never felt so powerful and I command once again, “Enough!”
