Xia nodded as a new wave of tears sprang to her eyes. “What happened?”
He didn’t know. And he didn’t know what to tell her.
He panicked? That seemed too weak of a word to explain the absolute terror he’d been submerged in.
What happened was you lost your anchor and wouldn’t accept help from the one person who could keep you grounded.
Brooks shook his head and closed his eyes, using every ounce of focus to the beat of what bound him to reality.
Ibind you to reality.
She was here.
She was real.
She was his.
Brooks reached out and took one of her hands in his own and placed it against his heart, pressing just as firmly as did.
“Do you feel it?” she whispered.
“Yes,” he breathed as he closed his eyes and swallowed. The rhythm beating under his hand was the same one thrumming in his chest. Their hearts beat as one. He opened his eyes then and stared at the woman that he… loved.
“This.” She patted her hand over top of his. “It beats only for you. My heart is yours.”
It took Persephone the better part of a month to heal completely. Hades stayed by her side the entire time. She was most grateful for his presence after recovering enough to sort through her muddled memories.
Every bone in her body shattered upon impact to the icy floor. The back of her skull caved in and fragmented pieces stuck through vital organs. She bled on the inside, her own body killing her slowly.
Hades was her unlikely savior.
Demeter and the rest of Olympians spoke so lowly of him. She remembered countless dinners seated around the grand dining table in Zeus’s palace where Hades was a hot topic of many harsh conversations. They talked of erratic behavior and secrecy, the illusive point of the trifecta of power.
The twelve Olympians had a fragile peace between them, each settling to rule their domain as the more powerful of them sat atop Mount Olympus. Zeus was, after all, the creator ofhumans and the piece of Earth they inhabited. A true dictator, he sat at the highest point watching, waiting, for any sign of rebellion.
The humans were his excuse. Everyone knew that he was really watching the other gods below him. Zeus was conniving and grew more hungry for power each passing year. Demeter spoke of the gleam of madness in his eye and the deterioration of his body.
Poseidon, Zeus’s second brother, was more somber and didn’t speak much. Persephone caught him on several occasions glaring at Zeus as he sipped ambrosia, his features set in restrained malice.
However, where Poseidon sat dutifully and tolerated his seat at the table for the sake of the game, Hades had abandoned them all. His seat at the other end of the table was always empty, and Persephone had found herself more than once daydreaming about the mysterious, missing king of the Underworld.
“I’ve no time for such things,” he’d told her when she’d inquired about his absence. “Souls need tending, the gates need protecting, and I have no intentions to overthrow my brother. He leaves me alone and I stay out of his affairs.”
His words said one thing, but his tone painted a different story. Demeter told Persephone once that Hades had been cast to the Underworld, that the prince of hell was the biggest threat to Zeus’s platinum throne.“His power is the only that can contend with Zeus, so he was cast down to the darkness to ferry souls where he would wither alone.”
What must it have been like to be cast down by a brother and locked away from the sunlight for eternity?
Persephone walked the halls of his home, making it further each day as she healed. It was a castle built of crumbling stonethat stood in the middle of an eerie lake with water so black it rivaled the depth of space.
Hades warned her not to cross the water without him. He spoke of hellish beasts that not even her nightmares could conjure a face to.
“Mortal beasts like the chase,” he’d told her. “Some will hunt you down until you’re nothing but shards of bone in their teeth. But the monsters in Black Mirror Lake? They stalk you even through the windows, Persephone. They yearn for the blood pumping through your veins and the fire of light in your eyes. The moment you step close to shore, they will drain you dry.”
Persephone had night terrors for days after and couldn’t make herself draw the thick black curtains in her room. The lake surrounding the home was inescapable, but she didn’t want to give lurking demons any more opportunity to stalk her throughout the house. She lay in bed as these thoughts rushed through her mind. The Underworld was disorienting since the sun never rose. The darkness made it hard to determine when she should wake and when she should rest.
Hades said that she would get used to it eventually, but she had her doubts. She was, afterall, a goddess of spring. She reveled in sunshine and notes of flora riding on the warm breeze.
That night after they’d retired to their chambers, Persephone tossed and turned in fitful sleep, reliving the nightmare of Narcissus all over again. She was at the worst part when something warm tucked behind her body. The heat pushed away the frigid water she was drowning in and she dreamt of laying in a field of her favorite blooms, tanning her skin in the sunlight. The heat was a steady presence throughout the night and brought her endless comfort.
