"Because she was terrified. Because she knew that once you came here, you would need to face the truth. You would need to decide which side you would belong to—the resistance or the court of a wicked God." My aunt was furious, her eyes blazing with a fire I hadn't seen before.
"Zeus is the reason we are all trapped here," Hades added.
"You don't know that for sure," Artemis argued.
"Don't I?" He glared at the woman. "Then tell me, Artemis." He came closer to her. "How is it that your dear father held traces ofherblood? How is it that none of us could find out where he went or where he was when she died?"
"I—"
"You may think I'm crazy," Hades continued. "You may think I'm generally insane for spending all these years trying to find the real truth, but one day you'll realize that it was your father who condemned us to this fucking hell. One day you'll accept that it was your father who destroyed the only woman I would ever love, destroying my soul in the process." His chest rose and fell rapidly as he kept approaching Artemis. The shadows I saw earlier swirled violently, hissing at the woman in front of him. "And the only reason he did that. The only reason why he would want to kill her, the second piece of my soul, is because he's a narcissistic tyrant, desperate to hold all the power, unable to share even though he knew we would have never tried to take over his fucking throne."
Apollo kept his eyes on Hades, slowly approaching them, but Hades didn't see him. It was as if he couldn't see any of them—any of us. His vision was zeroed in on Artemis and I had a feeling if he wasn't stopped, someone would get hurt. Someone that shouldn't get hurt.
Without thinking, without really realizing what I was doing, I stood up, jumping over Megaira's legs, thankful the table wasn't as long as the couch, and rushed toward the God holding violence in his hands, raising them toward Artemis. She suddenly stood up, her hair blazing with cracks of fire I had never seen before, escalating the situation.
"You have no idea?—"
"Stop!" I bellowed, placing myself between the two of them. My hands landed on Hades's chest, feeling the power beneath, ready to be released.
His hands landed on mine, that scent of death hidden within his shadows sliced through the barrier I'd unknowingly erected around my power, calling it out. And this time I didn't mind.
This time it wasn't fear or anger that called the power inside me. This time it was him—his presence, his anger, this call of his soul to mine, and as he looked down at me, I imagined a different place, a different time. Calmer than this. Quieter than my mind.
And as my hands fisted his shirt and his fingers wrapped around the back of my neck, the room around us disappeared, replaced by the emerald green colors of his shadows and the eternal void of mine. But as the shadows dissipated, I realized we were no longer in the middle of Elandra's living room.
Nowhere near close to her living room.
23
HADES
Life and deathhave coexisted since the beginning of time. Eternal companions, both equally important, equally heavy, but one had always been regarded as the villain of the story. As horror awaiting every single mortal being.
For me, death was one companion that had avoided me no matter how hard I tried. It was the one wish always on the tip of my tongue as I begged to the cruel stars, pleading with them to take me to her. To show me mercy, just a little bit of mercy, and to stop this bitter existence I was a part of. Because if I couldn't have her, this air I breathed was not worth having.
For five millennia I had waited, prayed, for the ending every single time the versions of her ceased to exist, ripped away from me even before I had a chance to meet her. To touch her. To tell her everything and to get her to remember who we were. Who she used to be.
Hope didn't exist in this dark void I had called life. Not after I spent days and nights, letting them blend together, searching for her, begging her to hear me, visiting her in her dreams, only for her to die as a mortal woman, lost to my realm. Lost to my touch.
And now she was here, in my arms, looking up at me with equal amounts of apprehension and curiosity, because she felt ittoo. It was impossible not to feel it, this eternal tether between the two of us.
The Persephone I knew carried her strength quietly, too concerned about the feelings of others to ever show them who she truly was. Or what she truly was. She was the Goddess of my heart. The Goddess of the Underworld, but never did she carry the darkness like a cloak covering her shoulders.
She was my light, the one person I could go back to when the shadows of my own mind tried poisoning me against every single thing. She was the only one able to pull me back, to show me with the softest of touches how beautiful life could be, no matter what it threw at us. And I thought it was the only version I could ever fall for.
I thought she was as perfect as the dark skies just before the thunderstorms she loved to watch, but I never realized that Persephone wasn't just the soft breeze of a summer's night. She was thunderstorms and rage, and none of us were strong enough to allow her to show us who she could be.
But this version of her, this thunderstorm I held in my arms, didn't fear showing her emotions as they came. This version of her, filled with rage, with a desperation so thick I could almost taste it on my tongue, made me see how wrong I was for trying to keep her in the ivory tower so many years ago, instead of letting her become the true Goddess she was meant to be.
Kaira was the reincarnation of the woman I loved so many years ago. The woman I lost. The woman I grieved. But she wasn't Persephone, no.
This fierce warrior glaring at me as I refused to let go of her arm was not someone that would allow any of us to push and pull until she relented to our constant nagging and requests. This version of her was as loud and as proud as any other God, and the longer I stood there, holding her pressed to me, the more I could feel the decaying thread connecting our souls heal.
Even in her darkness she had the sunshine I craved. Even in her bitterness and pain, she still looked at me as if she wanted me but didn't know why.
My Persephone didn't ask questions. She didn't fight fate, letting it guide her where she needed to go. But Kaira—Kaira fought with everything she had, refusing to bow down just because something was written in the stars.
She had no idea who she was and that was another thing I needed to rectify. That was another secret I had to share. Another burden I had to pile on top of all the others she carried, but it wasn't something that could wait.
