Page 31 of Curse the Flame

It is not the voice from Hades’s memories. It couldn’t be. That woman lived thousands of years ago.

Still, recognition moves through me.

Not memory. Something deeper. Something all-consuming.

It’s instinct. I haven’t even seen her yet, and I know that she’s mine.

Cerberus darts through the brush. Taking a moment to compose myself, I step into the clearing after him.

The Roman stands near a dying fire, one hand wrapped around the hilt of a short sword. His armor is old-fashioned even by the Other’s standards, polished bronze, with a red cloak trailing down his back. He looks young, though age means little here.

I pay him almost no attention. Why, when he’s nothing, and the woman behind him… she’s everything.

For the first time in eighty years—for the first time since I enlisted and was shipped off to fight a war—I feel a deep-seated peace inside of me just getting my first look at her.

Every Persephone has been unique, but I’m fucking certain no one has been as beautiful as mine. Her fair hair is cut short, to her chin, and her big blue eyes are wide and afraid as she stares in shock at the Roman who has her…

How dare he!

For once, I’m in perfect agreement.

How dare he tie my queen to a tree?

She is terrified. Dirt streaks one of her pale cheeks. Her clothes are strange. They’re much shorter than anything worn in the Other, and it’s nothing like the dresses that the women in Brooklyn once wore. Her long, lean legs are visible, and if I thought I couldn’t want my bride more, that’s nothing compared to the way every part of me comes alive to look upon her.

I don’t know her name, but that’s all right. I know her.

And I know that she was born to belong to me.

CHAPTER 8

SOBBIN’ WOMEN

WILLOW

So… my cousin is a huge Broadway nerd.

Not the casual kind who knows the really popular shows and has a playlist she puts on whenever she’s cleaning her apartment. No. Daphne knows original casts. Revivals. Understudies. Which performers were robbed at the Tonys, which movie adaptations destroyed the source material, and which shows were doomed from the second some producer decided they could turn a beloved book into a musical without understanding why anyone loved it in the first place.

Her favorite is Newsies, though she’ll deny that if she thinks anyone is going to tease her about it. She also loves Into the Woods, has very strong feelings about Hadestown, and once made me watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers because she said I needed to understand why kidnapping a woman has somehow been treated as romantic since the beginning of recorded storytelling.

Those women were sobbin’, sobbin’, sobbin’...

That line had been looping through my head for the last ten minutes, which was probably not a good sign. I couldn’t help it. It was either turn my current predicament into something amusing and hope that I’ll find my way out of it before the Roman guy makes good on his threat to make me his wife or start sobbing myself.

Once I gave up on trying to escape since all I was doing was giving myself a nasty case of rope burn, I tried to make sense of what was going on. That’s when I remembered the story of the abduction of the Sabine women. When the Romans needed brides, they did exactly what those seven brothers did: they stole them.

I also remember what Cassandra said about playing my part and living out a myth. I guess I thought me supposedly having Persephone’s soul inside of me meant it would have something to do with that, but who knows in this nutty place? I’m one of the Sabine women now, and I’m really, really trying hard not to freak out when I remember the other name of that Roman story…

Five minutes ago, the soldier returned. He came back with a fistful of some greens, plus a small vial that glittered in the firelight. I don’t know what that is or where the heck he got it from, but he pulled a leather satchel toward him that was hidden in the shadows. Yanking out a small pot and a jug of what’s most likely water, he dumped the contents of the jug into the pot, placed it in the fire, then added the greens and the glittering powder.

Just now, he removed the pot from the fire. He transferred it to the jug, and though it’s gotta be boiling hot, he opened his mouth and tossed his concoction inside.

I hope it at least burns his throat. Nope. He even smacks his lips when he’s done swallowing it, and if his neck seems to glow a strange golden color for a moment, I blame it on a trick of the light as he pulls himself to his full standing height.

He marches in front of me. “Wife.”

Hang on⁠—