Authors: Stephannie Beman
He leaned against the cavern wall. “But that’s the thing, Thanatos. I can. Her power is
bound.”
Thanatos stalked toward Hades, the black cloud of fury on his face. “You didn’t? Not even you could do such a vicious thing?”
He should say yes. Tell Thanatos that he would do such a thing. Then Thanatos could wipe
him from existence. Then the god of misery, the god of suffering, the god of the dead wouldn’t cause anymore harm to anyone.
He opened his mouth to speak the lie and said, “No. She’s mostly as I found her.” He combed his hand through his hair. “Although I have a good idea who did.”
“Who?!”
Hades looked into the face of his friend and felt the first twinge of fear. The god was furious, and he had never seen Thanatos angry.
“First, the Furies. Second, we’ll heal Persephone. And then…”
Jaw set, Thanatos nodded. They flashed out of the Underworld and into the world of the
living, tracing the destructive path of the Furies. Hades was spoiling for a fight, his Phlegethon blood demanded it.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
PERSEPHONE SNEEZED. She opened her eyes and glared at Eris. The goddess was stifling
a laugh and waving a blue feather in front of her.
“Rise and shine little flower. It’s time to be an adult.”
Persephone shoved the feather from her face. “Go away.”
“Demeter did a great job of hindering any inclination you have to escape a situation.
Although the escape attempt yesterday was a grand first step. Sloppy, but at least it was an attempt.”
Persephone groaned and climbed from the bed. “Go bother someone else.”
Eris leapt off the bed and straightened the sapphire dress which hid no more skin than the red dress she’d first seen her in. Low cut and split up to her hips, revealing long legs.
Erisa sighed. “I’m trying to give my daughter-in-law a backbone.”
Persephone slipped out of the shift and grabbed a silken jade cloth from the wardrobe and wrapped it around her naked body, fastening the shoulders with pearl broaches and twining a silver cord around her waist. She unbraided her hair from its plait and picked the brush from the dressing table. “I tried to escape. Hades won’t let me leave. There’s no point in fighting him.”
“Did I tell you to fight him?”
Persephone stopped brushing her hair and turned on the woman. “You said—”
“Learn to defend yourself? Take back your power?” She took the brush from Persephone’s
hand and began to brush through the tress. “You need to break through the blocks on your mind.
Then even my son can’t hold you.”
“Why can’t you all let me be? I was fine before you came!”
“Little idiot, you’re as blind as my son. No one’s going to take care of you but you. You have to be your own advocate. You’re only escape from this world is to let Hades help you.”
“My Mother will come for me!”
Eris broke into another fit of laughter. “Your faith in others is amusing but very much
undeserved.”
She twirled around to face the annoying goddess. “I don’t want you here. I demand you
leave.”
Eris tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips, as if thinking it over. “No.”
“I’m the queen. You have to obey me.”
Eris sighed and started to brush her hair again. “You’re a child throwing a tantrum, using any means to get what you want. You denied yourself the power of Queen of the Underworld. If you invoke your right now, you claim the Underworld as your home and Hades as your husband.”
“No!”
“Then I don’t have to obey you. Besides, it only applies to those who live here. And I don’t live here. I just randomly come to visit my darling little boy. I don’t plan to see him this time.
Congratulations! I came to visit you instead.”
Persephone groaned and closed her eyes. She could call Hades to come and take care of his mother, but he had other problems in the world above. She could leave, only Eris would probably follow her. This left her only one option, face the goddess and hope she survived the encounter with her sanity.
“In the month since you became my foolish son’s wife, you haven’t made a bit of progress.
You have enormous potential, but you refuse to tap into it. You still expect someone to rescue you. Demeter must have really done a number to your mind, because I thought I sparked
something in that brain of yours.”
Persephone scowled at Eris, she had indeed sparked something, but it wasn’t magic. She
stood and headed for the door. This conversation was done.
“The first thing you need to do is face up to reality. You can’t go on believing things are as you think they are.” Eris stalked forward and Persephone retreated until she hit the wall. Eris stopped a mere foot from her. “Demeter lied. Gods and goddess are born with magic. They wield it from cradle.”
She grabbed Persephone’s arm as she tried to dart right. Using Persephone’s momentum, Eris swung them around and tossed Persephone onto the bed. Persephone gasped for breath,
struggling against the blankets hindering her escape. Eris was quick. She leapt onto the bed, pinning Persephone under her.
In that single moment she saw Eris, not as Hades mother, but the decisive warrior she was on the battlefield, in full battle gear. This was the true Eris. This was a heartless killer. There was nothing maternal in her now. There was nothing kind in what she was about to do.
Persephone fought. She had to get away. She had to stop this. It was forbidden. It was wrong.
They would find her. Eris was about to destroy her. And there was nothing she could do.
“No!”
Eris touched her temple and there was pop. A stabbing sensation began in the front of her skull, expanded and raced down her spine. Her heart beat slowed. Her muscles grew sore and tired. A thick gray cloud crept around the edges of her mind.
Eris released her and sat back. “That should do it.”
Persephone gasped for air. Her lungs burned, deprived too long of precious air. The pressure left, but her head still ached from the effort to absorb the flood of information rushing at her. The pain disappeared. Her weakened body refused her commands to move. She couldn’t even turn
her head or move her mouth to speak. She felt tired. So very tired. Her eyes closed.
“Now you’ll see the world in a different way,” the goddess said into her ear.
In the next breath, lights exploded in her mind. The door opened wide, giving her more than a glimpse of eternity. She saw the swirling maelstrom of pure energy clawing at its prison, reaching for her, taking hold. Its whispered promises became a roar of triumphant. It crashed over her like a torrent of water.
She screamed and screamed as the energy surged through her veins, saturating every cell of her body, encircling her, going through her over and over again. It was too much. Her heart raced. Her head pounded. She couldn’t breathe. Her back arched and her hands clawed at
bedding.
“Hades!”
PERSEPHONE JANGLED cry slashed across his mind, distracting him at the most
inopportune moment. The claws of the Fury tore through cloth, flesh, and muscle, glancing off bone. He winced but refused to retreat or surrender. It was time to end this.
“By the power of the Underworld, I command you to cease.”
The flock halted and five blood-red eyes turned to him. They flexed their bloodied talons.
They exuded waves of fury.
“Return to the Underworld, now!”
“You can’t stop us, God of the Underworld. We will have our vengeance,” they hissed.
“The guilty will pay the price of their evil. But what of the innocent? What crimes have they committed?” He motioned to the bodies littering the ground. “They don’t deserve this fate.
Please return to the Underworld. And after I figure out what is happening, I’ll help you in your task.”
The Furies inclined their heads. “As you command, but we hold you to your oath.” They flew off and Hades turned to Thanatos. “Persephone’s in trouble.”
Thanatos didn’t ask. He grabbed Hades arm and the world shifted as they flashed from the
world of the living to the world of the dead, and Persephone’s room. Hades turned. Eris was standing above the prone body of his wife, smoothing the front of her dress. He reacted. Seizing Eris’ wrist, he tossed her into the wall. She thumped against the stone, bounced off, and crumpled to the ground.
He left Eris where she lay. Rushing to Persephone and rested his hand on her chest. Her heart beat was weak. Her breathing shallow. He closed his eyes, willing his fears to subside. She can’t die, he reminded himself, she’s immortal.
He faced his mother. “What did you do to her?” he asked although he knew the answer.
She’d broken the cracked barriers surrounding Persephone’s magic. Unlike him, she hadn’t been kind or subtle about it.
Eris slowly rose to her feet and brushed herself off. “Her powers needed to be awakened—”
“You had no right!” He flashed to her and Eris remained still, neither flinching nor blinking, even when he crossed his wrists and effectively closed her wind pipe. “Don’t touch my wife,” he growled. “Ever.”
She kneed him in the groin, felling him like an ox. She stood over him, her voice hoarse, and as flippant as ever. “Well, that’s a fine way to showing gratitude. I try to help and you attack me!”
Grimacing, he stood with the help of the wall. Good thing he was a god, because if she’d
kicked any harder he’d have been a eunuch. As it was, his healing magic expanded to include the tender member.
“You can’t fully open the blocks to her mind, Mother! Without time to adjust, the flow of power to her system could overwhelm her.”
“Well, it didn’t hurt you!”
Rage flowed through him. “I almost went insane! Can you image what affect it has on her?
She doesn’t remember how it is! She’s never had your training!”
Eris glanced uncomfortably at the sleeping Persephone. “You give her too little credit.”
He wanted to hit her, but settled for the wall. He shattered the bones of his hand and cracked the wall. “You give her too much!”
“She’ll be stronger when she wakes up.”
“If she wakes up!” he roared. “She could sleep for eternity! She could be insane!”
He didn’t know which was worse. Persephone deserved neither. This was his fault. He should have never brought her here. Why did he always destroy what he loved?
“This is ridiculous. She’ll be fine. I didn’t harm her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Idiot boy! Can’t you see what is happening to her?! She’s dying!”
He blinked. “What?” He looked to Thanatos who was leaning against the far wall watching
everything. “Does she speak the truth?”
Thanatos released a breath and nodded, closing his eyes. “If it was as you told me, then
without magic she can’t sustain her immortality. And just by living here, she’s dying like any mortal.”
“You really should thank me.” She pushed against the magic holding her to the wall. “There were so many layers over her power there was no effective way to open her mind in time. I made her stronger.”
“Or weaker.”
“Stronger,” she snarled. “She’s your equal. Your mate!”
“You don’t know that.”
She frowned and tilted her head to the side. “Are you serious?” She chuckled. “I thought you chose her because you knew.”
He clenched his hands, tiring of her games. “What don’t I know?”
She grinned and leaned back against the wall. “Release me and I’ll tell you.”
“No.”
“Then you don’t want to know who her father is?”
“Zeus.”
“Don’t be naïve.” She shook her body, as if shrugging off an invisible layer of water. She walked toward him, picking a sapphire feather off the floor. He watched her, his mouth in a tight line. She halted before him, swirling the tip of her feather around the slash in his tunic. “Nasty cut that.”
“What don’t I know?”
She blinked. “Demeter didn’t bind her power or steal her memories. She also lied about Zeus being Persephone’s father.”
“Who?”
She grinned and shook her head. “When she wakes, and you feel the strength of power, have a taste and tell me who it reminds you of.”
He took a step toward her and she skipped away. “Just wait until you find out who it is. Oh, it’s going to come as such a surprise!”
She disappeared.
Damn woman! Whatever did he do to deserve the misfortune of being her son? He paced the
length of the rug a couple of times, wondering if he should go after her and demand she tell him the truth. Only it wouldn’t do any good. She refused to tell him and that was that. He could threaten her with Tartarus and she’d laugh in his face. He knew when he was beat.
He sighed and looked at Persephone. He touched her ashen face, caressing her cheek before searching her mind. Nothing. Emptiness.
He swallowed the lump in his throat and sent his energy into her, but nothing penetrated the barrier. She’d closed everyone out. It could be temporary. It could be permanent. The barrier could mean so many things. He had to fix this.
“Hades?” Thanatos laid his hand on his shoulder. “For once Eris is right.”
“I can’t lose her, Thanatos.”
“I know.” He sat on the bed and touched Persephone’s hand. “Persephone is powerful. I
thought she hid her power like you do, but if her magic was bound, then she was dying long before you met.”
Hades looked at Thanatos. “Why bind her power?
“That is something you’ll have to ask Persephone.”
He didn’t see Thanatos leave, but he knew he was gone. He laid down on the bed beside her, drawing his wife into his arms, and holding her close. If only he could trade places with her.
He buried his face in her neck, and breathed in scent that was uniquely hers.
Persephone,
don’t leave me here alone.
THE SPRAWLING palace on Mount Olympus rose before her. She ran up the stairs and
entered the palace, her heart leaping with joy at the sight of her mother. She rushed in the palace gardens and skidded to a halt. This had to be an illusion, a clever deception. This couldn’t possibly be true.