“NO! You don’t understand husband; do you not hear what I am telling you? I love you, I have loved you but I will love you no more if you continue to try and possess me as something that belongs to you and no one else. I belong to no one, not even a husband.”
He glared at us, this time his face far more expressive than before, “you are mine.”
“I am not.”
“You are. Your father gave you to me.”
“Because you tricked him, as you have always tricked everyone. You are the trickster God; the one who cloaks himself in darkness and calls it mystery. I know it is not real, I know you wear weariness atop your cloak longing for a time when someone might see under it. I have seen under it, but why should I help you when you refuse to help me? Your brother, my father, for all his passing whims understands love better than you.”
“Even despite his tricks he knows that people cannot be tricked unless there is something already there planted underneath their surface that will allow the trick to grow to love. I would not have gone with you the first time, or Valentina this time, if there were not something there that allowed us to trust you. It is what you do with that trust that discerns you from the rest, you suffocate and you smother the light of those that blindly trust you. There is nothing here for me to win your love, you say, but what is your love worth if my freedom is its cost?”
He stared down at us, long and hard, silence filling the space like thick smog that threatened to choke us with every breath. It was a different silence than the one Griffin and I had shared. It wasn’t comfortable, it was frightening, like the calm before a storm. But this didn’t stop Persephone, if anything it invigorated her as she took another long breath and continued.
“This time is different husband, it is not me you must win over but this girl. I can assure you that long as you smother the boy within you, and you destroy his soul with your need to be in complete control you will lose her. She doesn’t care for you, she only worries for the boy you’re hurting. I have no doubt either that even now, if you were to search yourself and listen to his voice you would find he worries not for himself but for her. That is love: putting someone else before your own desires. You need to let us all go to learn whether the die of love has been cast in your fortune.”
She stared at him, willing him to listen but as he didn’t say anything else she spoke again: “Think on it, but know that your time is limited. You cannot suppress Griffin’s soul as you have for this long and not lose him. King of the Underworld, you know souls best and you know when they’ve reached the point of hopelessness... Do not let that boy find himself lost and wandering.”
Hades continued to stare and the longer he did the more I found myself worried that he hadn’t listened to her, he had simply tuned her out and he was biding his time until he could retort cleverly. But then, a miracle happened and he bowed his head. It was a small motion but it was enough, as he turned toward the door and walked to it slowly.
“It will do you some good Hades: focusing more inwardly than exhausting your efforts on making me, and the others, love you. Love only comes once you learn how to love yourself, for without that knowledge how can you expect someone to love you back in the right way?” I crossed my arms and waited as he left. I sensed the Persephone expected that considering her victory the door would be left open for us to leave but as soon as he stepped out of the apartment we were trapped again.
“What?” I said in disbelief, closing the distance between the door and myself reaching out for the wall and touched it lightly. It was as solid as ever and we were as much trapped here now as we had ever been. “No.”
Hopelessness crept up on us slowly, consuming us from the outside in. Sinking to my knees my hand gripped the wall for support as I sat there, head bowed trying to hold in the torrent of emotions coursing through me. After all that, after he had finally heard us and agreed he had still walked out and locked us in.
Even Persephone sensed this was it, she had nothing left to say. As it was she had said too much, it was not in her nature to allow such vehement emotions to control her. She returned control to me but I didn’t move. I stayed like that for some time before Cerberus sadly made his way over to me, bouncing my small body against his three heads and pulling me from my thoughts.
This was like being with my uncle all over again, I quickly decided. This was the same helpless and lost feeling that I had felt when I realized I wasn’t going to be going home, only this time Atlas wasn’t going to come to save me.
I was completely and utterly alone. Everyone I thought cared had forgotten me.
Chapter 16
Panic began to seize me: “Griffin... Please Griffin... Don’t leave me here.” My eyes began to burn and I felt childish and angry with myself. I wiped the tears away desperately but it didn’t help. They simply came faster and with more of a vengeance.
Cerberus nudged me again, unsure of what he could do to console me as I clung to his fur and pressed my face into the softness while I cried. As I sat there, holding onto the dog like he was my life support, memories resurfaced to haunt me and they drew a parallel to my past and my present.
Big as the apartment might be, it suddenly felt as small and claustrophobic as the closet in which my uncle had kept me. I could only imagine the terrible things Hades would do when he got bored of fighting and arguing with me, there was always a need for something more. He had tried to take it from Savannah; I knew there was an insatiable hunger. I didn’t want to try and satisfy it, the idea frightened me.
Cerberus shifted, slipping his head under my arms and stomach to lift me up, carrying me on his back over to the couch. He carefully rolled me onto the cushions. Before long all three heads laid themselves on the edge of the couch, 6 pairs of eyes staring at me with blatant worry.
I vaguely wondered if he understood my pain had been caused by his master or if his intelligence was only limited to the present. It was clear though he grew more distressed the more inconsolable I was, not that I had the will to stop myself. It wasn’t long before I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion, my body no longer able to function through the grief.
I naively hoped that when I woke up I would be back in my apartment, on my bed, surrounded in my blankets and someone would be standing there relieved to see I was alive. But what I found instead was Cerberus had slipped back down onto the floor, curled up in a ball and fell asleep too, waiting out the time it took for me to rouse myself again.
I sighed heavily, sniffling back the moisture that had carried itself through my sinuses before sitting up and trying to stretch out my aching muscles. Apparently crying for hours on end had done nothing to soften Hades’ cold heart and I was exactly where he wanted me. Standing up carefully I moved around the apartment until my legs regained their strength and then I stopped at the bookshelf, staring at the empty spines listed there.
I knew what was inside of them, and why I had been avoiding them the entire time, but they were the only things left unexplored. I could only hope not every page of each book listed the deaths of my loved ones. It was far too many pages. Grabbing one of the books I flipped it open, this time though my brothers and sisters’ names didn’t appear.
Nothing, in fact, happened.
I flipped another page, then another and then glanced at Cerberus like the dog held the answers I was looking for. Glancing back scrolling writing started to fill the pages again, only this time it wasn’t names or dates; it was events.
On the blood moon, the mount will ascend.
Three offerings shall be made and the sacrifice accepted.
One shall die for the others to live.
I flipped the book shut, shuddering slightly at the last event. What did that mean? I decided I didn’t like the books, but they seemed important to what Hades did in the Underworld. Perhaps they were relevant to our fate as Gods.
I glanced down at the book once more, contemplating its power before putting it back and making my way toward the kitchen. Halfway there,
I stopped and stared at the wall that Hades had come and gone through. I paused for a moment to stare at it and it took me a moment to realize something was different.
“A door!” I gasped, unable to contain my excitement as I rushed toward it and pushed it open. “Cerberus, come!” I commanded and the dog happily obliged, trudging out of the apartment after me. The hallway we exited into was darker than the apartment. I had a mind to go back and find a flashlight when the door shut behind me.
Cerberus growled slightly, either out of fright or because of something else, and I slipped my hand into his scruff holding on for both of our comforts. Together we made our way through the darkness, while I was mostly blind I hoped the Cerberus could at least tell where we were going and what was ahead.
The further we got from the door the colder the hallway became and darker still, if that was possible. In the distance, an echo reverberated along the walls bringing the sound of running water to my ears. Throughout all my research I had not once focused on anything about the Underworld, never expecting that I, of all people, would turn out to be the Princess of it. I knew nothing of what to expect or what should be obvious to me.
I followed the noise of water hoping that wherever it was coming from it would be able to lead me back to where I wanted to be. Surely there had to be a way back to Olympus. If only dogs could talk.
As I walked, the walls of the hallway seemed to grow tighter, the rocky and rough edges brushing against my shoulders. I had to let Cerberus walk behind me, his heads bumping against my legs with each step to let me know he was still there.
Finally, the hallway ended and I found myself overlooking the edge of a worn away ridge, water gushing past in torrents underfoot.
“Whoa.” I stepped back, grabbing Cerberus’ scruff again as I peered down at it and then back along the river looking for which way I was supposed to go now. But there was nowhere to go except back, or if I wanted to chance it I could try to walk the small ledge along the rock wall. Cerberus most certainly wouldn’t be able to follow me though and I didn’t want to leave him behind. I didn’t want to go on alone into this dark and frightening place I didn’t fully understand.
“Now what then?” I thought aloud to myself, slumping back down on the ground and letting my feet hang over the edge. The water was moving too fast to jump into; I would drown. The closer I looked the clearer the shape of the water became. Each wave that dashed over the rocky bottom of the floor held in it an anguished face. The river consisted of white, foamy human shapes and the noises I heard were people screaming for help.
“Oh my....” I gasped when I realized what this was; it was the souls who were stuck in purgatory. This was hell...
I was the Princess of Hell. I felt my heart speed up with panic, the revelation hitting me like a ton of bricks. How far I had fallen in my life, not only had I assumed a sacrilegious identity but one of evil. I was the Princess of Evil.
All my life I had been taught to fear hell and to do everything in my power to avoid coming here. And yet now, here I was not even dead and I was supposed to rule it alongside the King of the Dead. Cerberus bumped one of his heads against me, nuzzling my back as though he sensed my discomfort. Reaching around I ran my fingers through his fur thoughtfully. This was also Cerberus’ home, and I didn’t find him evil. Perhaps there was more to this place than the hell my father had painted in his sermons.
There was no eternal fire, no devil sitting on a throne of bones taking delight in torture, there wasn’t even goblins running around with forked tongues and tails trying to inflict more agony on the departed. No one was screaming in pain; the souls of the river were simply screaming for attention. They were as trapped here as I was, and as caught in Hades’ whims as I would ever be. I understood that for the dead there was no way they could leave but that didn’t mean he had to treat me like one of his subjects.
I looked away from the river. Nothing about this place was welcoming. The dark, looming stones were frightening and along the river of souls a heavy fog rolled in, swallowing everything in its path. It was of such a heaviness that even sound couldn’t escape its grasp and the noises of the voices slowly disappeared. I was both thankful and nervous at the same time. What would happen when it reached me? Was there an escape from it? I stood quickly and backed away from the edge of the river, taking Cerberus with me as I watched feverishly from around the edge of the wall while the fog got nearer and nearer.
At the last possible second I pulled away from the edge watching it like a white curtain being pulled on the opening I had occupied. Every often the face of a soul passed by, pressing itself toward the edge of the fog and screaming at me for relief. Did they recognize me as their Princess? Was that why they called loudly in my presence?
I swallowed hard, inching back more until I felt Cerberus firmly pressed against the backs of my legs. We waited for the fog to roll on. Eventually its density began to diminish on the other side and I could see again.
But nothing had changed, I was still on the ridge and the river was still beneath me teeming with souls. Chasing the flood of fog a boat drifted along the current heading in my direction.
“Look Cerberus!” I pointed at it and he barked, as though he recognized it. The boat turned on its own volition and moved slowly over to the side of the embankment, perching itself on the hazardous rocks below the ridge. A man in a hooded cloak appeared, beckoning us down to him with a staff of bone. My stomach knotted in worry but torn between going with him and going back to Hades’ captivity; it was an obvious choice.
“There’s no way down!” I shouted to him, coming to stand at the edge. He pointed slowly to draw my attention down to my feet where I saw a rope ladder hanging limply from the rocks, held in place by nothing.
“Cerberus.” I exclaimed, turning around to look at the dog but he was gone and when I turned back to the boat, he was already sitting in it. This place was getting stranger and stranger... Taking a deep breath I turned around and lowered myself down carefully, gripping the rocks tightly before switching my grip to the ladder and started to descend into the boat. I expected it to rock as I stepped into it but the boat was steady as ever and as soon as I had both feet in, it began to move again.
The sudden movement jarred me and I tipped sideways, catching myself on Cerberus’ second head before sitting down. I turned to look over my shoulder at the man steering the boat and frowned slightly.
“Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer, he simply held onto the stick of bone and continued to steer us further down the river. The voices were louder down here and every often I swore I heard someone cry out my name. It was a discerning thing that made me turn to look over my shoulder more than once but the spirit was long gone.
“You don’t belong here.” The man finally spoke and I turned again to look up at him, shrinking back immediately as his hood slid down onto his shoulders. A gaunt, skeletal face stared back at me with nothing in its sockets and its mouth sewn shut. My heart hammered heavily in my chest and I swallowed the fear that crawled up the back of my throat.
“No.” I said, my voice shaky and giving away my true feelings, “I don’t. I was brought here against my will, I am trying to find my way back to Mount Olympus.”
“There is no way back.” He sighed ominously, making my skin turn cold as I turned to look toward the bleak horizon of ghosts.
I felt sick, mostly with worry but also with fear. If he knew I didn’t belong here was he going to do something to rectify that? Would he take me to where I could get back to Olympus or would he simply dispose of me into this river of lost souls where no one would ever be able to find me again?
“Where are we going?” He didn’t answer me this time, dipping the edge of his shaft into the water and propelling the boat forward like a punter. His silence was unnerving but the message was clear: he wouldn’t talk again.
Almost immediately I decided it would’ve been better to stay in the apartment and wait for Hades, unless this
had been his plan all along to dispose of me when he couldn’t get me to turn to his will by getting me lost in the Underworld.
“Persephone?” I whispered under my breath hoping to wake my Goddess up from whatever reverie she was in, “Persephone are you there?” I frowned more, wishing I knew what to do and wishing Atlas had better prepared me for this. The boat stopped again suddenly and I turned, looking around to search for whatever the reason was.
“Out.” I didn’t need to be told twice. Jumping out of the vessel Cerberus was right behind me, I turned back to the punter when he cut me off, “those without payment cannot enter or leave.”
“What?” I looked at him helplessly before looking down at the sad dress I was still wearing from Savannah and Aidan’s party. He was staring at it too, like it held the answer. “What do you mean cannot leave? Like ever? Am I supposed to” I looked back up and he disappeared, right in front of my eyes. I gasped in surprise, twisting around quickly to see if there was anything to explain it before my mind reminded me that nothing was reasonable in the world of Gods and Goddesses, Titans and monsters...
“I must’ve heard wrong.” I muttered to myself, turning around on the landing rock he had disposed of me on and moved toward the foggy other side. But I had barely stepped into the fog when I found myself completely turned around and facing Cerberus once more. “No.” I said, trying a different direction with the exact same result. No matter what direction I went and however far I went I always reemerged to a sympathetic Cerberus, sitting patiently and waiting for me.
I let out a scream of frustration and fear, falling onto the rock floor in a ball. Curling my arms around my knees as I buried my face into them, holding my breath until my lungs burned.
This was hopeless. Why would Hades do this to me? Why would he do this to us?
Surely, he must’ve known that with me in control instead of Persephone it would be easy for us to get lost. Unless that had been his plan all along, the voice in my head reasoned once more. But what purpose would it serve to force me to wander through the Underworld aimlessly and risk getting myself thoroughly lost even he wouldn’t be able to find me again.
Grace of Gods Boxset: Reincarnated Greek Gods YA/NA Series Page 39