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“Wait for me,” she had asked of her husband, and he'd, well…he’d gone and promised it. Promised to wait, promised to try.
Through some miracle or inner strength of will, or some steely combination of the two, old Hades had managed to take the bit between his teeth and do just that. He'd waited, and waited, and then waited some more just because she'd decided to be a bit contrary--to test him, y'know--and through that blazing star of uncharacteristic patience she could do little more than to assume he was tryin'.
And tryin' hard. Patience wasn't any part of her man. It never had been. Wasn't part of his makeup, wasn't writ atop his bones or carved in his skin or woven into the muscle-fibers that caught and curled beneath his tailored clothes.
Finally, waiting stopped being a joy and turned right-quick into it's own sort of stress.
She'd first stepped off the train on a brisk March morning, blinking as she emerged beneath the blazing warmth of a fledgling sun and into the stirrings of a new world. Spring had passed seamlessly into summer without so much as a whisper from down below. She hadn't trusted it, not at first, had spent the first two weeks looking over one shoulder or the other as she waited for the other shoe to drop. Then she had gotten…comfortable. She had sunk right on into it all as the world up above began to blossom, buryin' her feet in the warm soil of this newly-hatched Earth and planting her toes alongside the sprouting seeds. The human world had started to thrive as it hadn’t in so many long years, and the mortals, well...they thrived right alongside it, their Lady bloomin' and growin' and singin' right alongside them.
But when September had passed in a blaze of fading greens and bursts of red and gold, and October had erupted onto the scene in an explosion of jeweled leaves and sweeping sunsets, with nary a train whistle to be heard, well…
…Persephone slid from pleased to concerned right quick.
“It’s not like him to be this late, even after everythin’ that happened last year,” she told her Ma as they settled down to a late supper as night closed on another successful harvest. Persephone watched the sun set a blazing trail across the heavens as it skimmed the glittering tree-tops, all orange-and-gold-and bloodied red, the entire sky set ablaze. “He’s not that kind of man, no matter what you think about him.” As she spoke, sharp spikes of pink and coral erupted from the inferno, settling into a muted haze of ochre as it met the creeping tendrils of the fledgling night sky and erupted in another breathtaking whorl of color.
Eyes locked on the sky, all Demeter offered in response was a thoughtful “Hmmmm .” She rocked back on the heels of her chair and sucked the rest of her tea— delightful stuff, those mortals truly had outdone themselves there—through her straw. “You sure you trust that man of yours?” was all she finally asked, hands folded across her belly and doing a sure and certain impression of a grizzled, world-weary matron as she creak-creaked back and forth atop their little wooden porch. “That brother of mine, he’s a sharp one, all harsh edges and stern words. Never has any give, just pushes and pushes until everyone else breaks.” She arched a grizzled eyebrow at her daughter. "An' then pushes some more."
And wasn’t that the crux of it all? Persephonie had given and given and given, given him all that she had for centuries, and her man, well…he never really did yield, did he? And then she’d just…surrendered to it, broken herself and drowned in her drink and her own misery, never really tryin’ to break free of the pattern they’d formed.
Did she…
Could she...
How could she expect this time to be any different? Was there any promise that he'd truly chosen to walk another path? Any guarantee that she'd go back downstairs and find anything different than the industrial hellscape and the fierce, unyielding dictator she'd left behind?
And yet, irrationally—she did.
She believed him. Believed in him. Despite it all, through all the rocky roads and thick and thin that they had weathered, she trusted that stubborn, stupid man of hers. Even at his worst, he’d only ever acted out of his love for her, and she, well…she’d have to be harder of heart than she currently stood to be able to ignore that.
Persephone clenched her teeth, nails digging into the arms of her own chair firmly enough to gouge out a matching set of four matching strips of splintered wood. “I…I do, ” she finally sighed, releasing her death grip on one arm of her own chair to draw her own tea to her lips and drain it dry. Was no substitute for the liquor that’d sustained her for so long, but her version of tryin’ had manifested in its own way, and she hadn’t touched a drop since that gods-awful night in her speakeasy so many months before—
Tongue flickering out to wet her dry lips, she hissed out a curse, boots scraping across the worn wood of her mama’s porch as she stretched and then stood, arms extended over her head and shoulders poppin’ as she leaned back with a groan. “He’d’ve come for me by now, if everythin’ were okay,” she murmured. Her tongue flickered out from between her lips, tasting the truth of her words in the cool-dry autumn air that surrounded them. There was a hint of something fell on the air, a touch of dark deeds and darker days that clung to her like a particularly persistent shadow.
“I gotta go, Ma,” Persephone said abruptly, fingers twisting in her hair, teeth dug into her lower lip. “I think…I think he needs me.” Saying it felt right, made it true, and all the worry she’d been pushing back behind her own wall burst free in a single cascade of concern.
She’d been expecting resistance from her Ma—she’d been fighting her coming and going since she’d first learned of her daughter’s erstwhile marriage—but when Demeter rocked back in her own chair and gave Persephone a stern, steady look of her own and said, “I agree, darlin’---not like the old man to be so late,” Persephone practically tripped over herself in shock.
“You…ya what?”
“I know my brother, daughter.” Demeter rose to her feet to meet her, stepping forward until she was close enough to curl her palm around the curve of Persephone’s jaw, thumb slipping upward to sweep across the sharp arch of her cheek where it met her ear. “He’s not one to leave what few things he cares about behind, even with the promise to take his time comin’ back to ‘em.” She sighed, breath spreading across the air in a fog of vapor, tempted into physical form by the crisp, cool air of the early-autumn evening that spread across their lands. “If he’s not here by now, there’s trouble down below.”
Persephone’s heart surged in her chest, thudding a mile-a-minute against the cage of her breast, drawing panic and pain as her mind leapt ahead of fact and conjured an entire array of what-ifs for her to fixate upon as she paced back-and-forth across Ma’s porch. “I can’t just let him be, Ma,” she said fiercely. “We…we both made promises, this time. Tryin’ to make things better. Tryin’ to understand each other, after too long doin’ everything but .”
She clutched Ma’s hands to her breast, willin’ her to feel the flutter-thump of her erratic heart against her fingertips, to take her own worries and make them her own. “He’s on his own, Ma,” she added, imploring where she shouldn't have needed to be, fingers clenching about their rigid counterparts, eyes vibrant where the glow of the harvest clashed with the simmering embers of the Underworld that even Up Above she couldn’t quite manage to shed.
Demeter seized Persephone’s hands in her own, fingers too-warm against her daughter’s rapidly-cooling skin, drawing them over and up until she could press a quick kiss to the trembling fingers and knuckles she held trapped in her iron-strong grip. “Go to him, then, girlie,” she directed, her blessing coming in the way of an order, evermuch the goddess giving clemency to her subject rather than a mother ceding authority to a daughter. “You go find him, and you remind him why it was he married you.”
In her younger days, Persephone might’ve contested the authoritarian slant of her Ma’s words, the outright directive chafing against what she’d come to call her free spirit as she squirmed and writhed beneath the scrutiny of Ma’s gaze and authority. Today, though, she simply bowed her head and nodded, old enough to accept a benediction when it was handed to her, breathing in her Ma’s words like a prayer.
“I’ll get ‘im,” she murmured, already half-fixated on the realm of possibilities that sprawled out before her, all the futures unfolding beneath her feet as she stepped out across the close-cropped field of hay. Fledgling sprouts of growth flickered in vibrant shades of green beneath the heels of her boots as she strode out toward the tracks that lay just outta sight, arcing and dancing in tandem with her shadow.
“You gonna call Hermes?” Demeter asked, her voice ringing true across the fields between them, Persephone’s mind already half a world away. “He’d getcha down below real quick, if you raised your voice to ask.”
Stubborn to a fault, Persephone shook her head. “It’s more’n that. Ma,” she answered, feeling suddenly more sure of herself than she’d felt growing season and harvest. “My man, he needs me. And...the train, it's not runnin’. I can feel that much.” Her eyes were heavy with the weight of multiple realms as she split two of them asunder to glance back up at her Ma. “I’ll walk, like the best of them do.”
Demeter shook her head. “Then you’ll be needin’ this,” she said resignedly, sweeping her own cloak off her back and flinging it about her daughter’s shoulders. “Keep ya warm, it will, and it has…other qualities you might find useful, too.”
Persephone offered a small, tenuous smile and slid a fingertip along the length of the warm cloak. It was nothing like what she herself would’ve chosen, in years past. It had none of the flashiness and pomp of her countless other garments and was Ma through an’ through, well-worn and much-loved, warm to a fault and as far from fashionable as anything Persephone had ever worn. It was…everything she needed, in that moment. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I’ll…be seein’ ya next spring, then,” she declared.
Not one for long goodbyes, she turned on one booted heel and strode back off on her chosen path, refusing to linger to see the inevitable flash of sadness to dance across Ma’s face before she did.
It was a long walk ahead of her, and she took it one step at a time.
Same as the boy, who’d done it so bravely the year before. Wasn’t somethin’ he should’ve ever had to have done, but those were the Fates for you, and the Muses besides—and then there was the girl–
Her lips curled despite herself. She didn’t blame the poor slip of a thing, not really. Hades was a strong presence even amongst the gods, and to mortals, well, he was overwhelming. If anyone were at fault, it was her big oaf of a husband, and for all their attempts at reconciliation she still had more than one bone to pick with him for all of that.
Provided, of course, there was still a him left for her to fuss at.
She might’ve downplayed it to Ma, but her man’d never disappeared outright before. She worried, probably more than she should. Each step led her further down the empty tracks, closer and deeper into the reaches of the Underworld and farther from the boundaries of Ma’s lands. Every crunch of her heel into the gravel that lined the railway summoned a new wave of concern, the gradual darkening of the air around her heralding the arrival of darker thoughts to match.
Finally, she felt the air shift, that tell-tale curl of cool, wet air that heralded her arrival at the river, and Charon’s ferry. The tracks ran straight across the roiling waters of the Styx, but she didn’t overly fancy tiptoeing across the treacherous steel beams when she had a much easier way of passage available instead. “Charon,” she said, summoning a smile despite her grim circumstances. The old man had always been kind, ever since the beginning. She fished a coin from Ma’s cloak and flipped it to him. “Might I disturb you for a bit, my friend?”
He bowed deeply, so low that his long beard scraped the worn decking of the dock upon which they stood. “My lady has only to ask,” he said. It did not stop him from biting the coin with one of his few, sharp teeth and tucking it away into his purse. “You come at a grave time, if I might be so bold.”
Persephone flinched. “That’s what concerns me,” she murmured. “Have you any details?”
The ancient guardian shook his head, guiding her onto the ferry. “None that might be useful, my queen,” he said regretfully. “The work continues, if sporadically, but things are…quiet. Too quiet, if I might be so bold.”
Persephone offered a low hmm in the back of her throat, her eyes locked upon the distant shore. She could barely see the glitter of the diamond gate, where Cerberus no doubt prowled, ever-watchful, ever wary. As the boat launched, cutting neatly through the churning current and rapidly-flowing water, she found herself chewing her lower lip between her teeth and paying the actual course of her passage little mind. It used to be she watched their passing with a keen, curious joy, the inky water topped by icy foam a marvel, the fleeting flash of the residual warm air from Above giving way to a bone-chilling, frigid cold as she formally crossed the line that separated the Underworld from the rest.
Instead, she ignored it outright and sat fidgeting, worrying the simple, platinum wedding band she wore on her left hand between the thumb and index finger of her right. The metal was cool to the touch, an anchor to everything that awaited her beyond the river channel. There hadn’t been an engagement ring, since they’d gone and wed right then and there when he’d proposed, but she had her ring and he his, and for untold millennia that had been enough.
Persephone remained lost in her worries for the duration of their crossing, only stirring when Charon gently jostled her arm to draw her from her darkening thoughts. “Would you like company on your journey to the gates?” he asked, his wizened brow furrowed with ill-concealed worry. He’d been there from the start of it all, when she was little more than a thin strip of a girl sauntering across her new husband’s threshold like the owned the place, all wide-eyes and toothy grin. The offer meant more than she could say, his unwavering support across the many years that separated her naive little self from the hardened, sour thing she’d grown into more precious than any physical thing might’ve been.
She shook her head, squeezing his hand briefly in thanks. “I’ll be fine,” she murmured. “I believe—I know my husband needs me, Charon. Whole realm prob’ly does, if I had t’guess.” She patted his hand and slipped him a jar of Ma’s good honey in thanks, not missing the way his face nearly split in two with the force of his holey grin. Never hurt to appeal to the old god’s kinder nature, and she knew for a fact he had a hell of a sweet tooth.
Giving his wizened hand another soft pat, she slipped from the ferry’s deck and shuffled out into the first stirrings ofthe Fields. The gates sat high and glittering upon the horizon, but beyond them, the Fields of Asphodel. Dry, desiccated weeds crunched beneath the heels of her traveling boots, clouds of ash and soot puffing up into the air like little mushroom clouds. The horizon was a study of brown and grey, the few, stubborn traces of life-green and flickering daylight fading to a crusty monochrome, life leeching from the world around her with every step she took.
They said this was the path that led to the nicest part of the Underworld.
She’d seen her bedroom in her husband’s palace— their bedroom, once upon a time—so she had to disagree. For any stranded shade, though, it had a lot going for it. There was at least some green, some life, sprawling, endless fields of half-dormant grains and grasses, the faint hint of sunlight upon the unending horizon.
Persephone was used to the view by now, so it took her by surprise when the green clung to her a little harder, latched onto her a little more firmly, the fern-fronds and briar tendrils and grass-stalks feathering caresses up an’ around her bared ankles like a favored pet. As though sensing the turn of her thoughts, Cerberus bounded up to meet her with an enthusiastic bark , leaping into the air and turning a full circle as he spun joyfully around, tongues lolling out and dripping with drool.
“Atta boy,” Persephone cooed. The hellhound settled on his haunches, one head poking forward, ears cocked and eyes bright as he all but shoved his nose into her waiting hand. She stood on tiptoe to scratch behind his ears, then twisted to offer the same attentions to his second and third heads as the curled down and around to seek the same treatment
The gates were even more breathtaking from this side of them, when she finally reached them, sprawling things of diamond that glistened in the silvery-grey facsimile of moonlight from a sky that did not exist. It danced across the interwoven curves and arches, reflecting across the barren fields she’d cross and even farther to cascade across the glistening river water. It had been a long, long time since she’d seen them from such a vantage point, and she surrendered a single breath to gasp in awe at the breathtaking sight spread out before her.
Then her gaze slid to the wall and she gasped again—this time in shock.
It still stood, yessir it did, a sprawling labor of love that’d cost them centuries, but it was cracked, failing . The foundation held, but the mortar, the blocks—they were weak, crumbling. Shards of light pierced the once-impenetrable fortress, gaps big enough to shove a fist or a head easily as common as the stretches where the old thing towered some two stories high, as insurmountable and domineering as it had ever been.
Persephone’s heart plummeted to her stomach, her gut turning somersaults as her brain churned right alongside it. It wasn’t like her man to let his kingdom falter, to allow for cracks in his wall. Wasn’t right, wasn’t natural. Much as she hated the thing, it’d become a symbol of his power…of him.
“Somethin’ ain’t right, is it, boy?” she asked, trailing her hand slowly across the top of Cerberus’s middle head. He whined deep within all three throats, the sound harsh and harmonizing and making the air sing, and flicked six ears back as he lowered his head.
Persephone exhaled heavily. “That’s what I thought,” she murmured. She gave the hellhound one final scratch along his hindquarters, grinning despite herself as one massive back leg rose to thump against the ground. “Keep everyone out for a while, hmmm?” She dug her nails in and that heavy tail swung through the air like a ship’s mast comin’ about, back-and-forth-an’ back again. “My brother’s as bad as any of the ol’ ladies, or Pa, gods forbid, and I got a feelin’ we won’t be needin’ any company for a while.”
Cerberus panted and then gave a sharp, howling bark, jumping some ten-odd feet into the air and landing amidst a plume of soot as his massive paws dug into the barren ground.
“Good boy,” Persephone said softly. She trailed her right index finger along the seam of the glittering diamond gate and it simply melted, dissolving into nothingness long enough for her to step nimbly across the threshold that separated the Underworld from the in-between. The tracks crossed at a different section of the wall, a narrow, looping tunnel burrowing under Hades’s outer barrier and carrying its cargo deeper and deeper into the heart of his industrial kingdom. That last glimpse of almost-daylight from the near-banks of the Styx was the closest thing to the golden glow of the sun that any passenger on that infernal train was likely to see, be it in their life or afterlife.
It was nice, for once, not to be aboard that train.
Persephone paused long enough for the gates to re-form behind her. She took half a step forward and then paused, lips pursed, a sharp exhale escaping through her nose. Wouldn’t do to leave them so vulnerable right now, not without knowing the state of the rest of the kingdom, of Hades himself—
Her gut gave that uncomfortable twist again and she grimaced, spinning on one practical heel to slam the palm of her left hand against the nearest block of her husband’s blasted wall—
She gasped, for it was ice-cold to the touch, the very proximity of it to her own aura enough for her to feel its desire to leech, leech and draw every bit of life and love and laughter and inherent spark of joy from every bit of her—
Persephone bared her teeth and pivoted to drive her other hand against the stupid thing as well, pouring her power into the cracks and crevices, every exposed nook and cranny and weakening anchor and footing—-she wove herself into that wall, watched roots and vines grow and twine across the weakened foundation, reforming what’d been lost, rebuilding what was broken. As she did, she felt the wall itself, the surge of raw purpose that flooded her senses, its purpose to protect, to provide, to hoard—
— that one she drove out, focusing on the protection, the preservation of their realm. There was already too much time, too many resources, wasted on hiding themselves away. A barrier against unwelcome forces was what she crafted instead, a fortress to keep out those with ill-intent, those who sought to take and pillage and plunder and ignore the laws writ by both gods and men. On the inner walls, she crafted ladders, handholds, vines with enough bounce and give and stability to afford the most enterprising a way out , should they choose to seek it—
“Least I can do,” she murmured quietly, looking toward the dormant smoke-stacks of Hadestown, her mind flickering to one shade in particular, that slight form and dark bearing and red, red flower all but branded into her conscience.
Palms sliding down the hips of her dress, she shook off the worst of the ash and dust left by the wall and stomped along the dusty road. “You better be mightily outta sorts, Hades, for things to be so bad,” she blustered, teeth bared and eyes bright as she ploughed across sweeps of tall grass and white flowers toward the city.
Despite her ire, she was terrified. Never, not once in their near-endless marriage, had she ever seen such a thing. The Fields were near-silent, shades settled here and there, talking softly amongst themselves as they sought refuge amongst the few, scattered trees that dotted the rolling hills. Endless waves of asphodel unfurled before her, six-petaled gems smiling up at her with their white-and-orange faces, and she bent at the knew to trail her fingertips along their petals as she passed, feeling them burst with life as she passed quickly by the waving stalks and pearly flowers.
The city was eerily quiet when Persephone finally reached its shadowed depths. The Fields had offered company and comfort, of a sort, for the brunt of her journey, but as she strode fearlessly into the depths of the ramshackle homes and huts and towering mills, she felt her inner fire flail and flicker. The forges that lay at the heart of it all were unnervingly quiet, tamped to dull embers and hissing smoke and not a single light flickered in any corner of the city. Nor, too, did any axes strike from the mines that lay beyond Hadestown and below , her husband’s pride and glory silenced beneath the heavy, stifling wave of whatever ailment had taken the city by storm.
Instinct drew her to her bar, a fly drawn to a honey she had only to imagine to be able to sample its nectar. She veered toward the rundown brick building, her treacherous, traitorous feet taking her some twenty-odd steps in that direction, lured by the siren-song of the drink and willful amnesia before she was able to catch herself. She flung one hand out against a worn brick facade with a groan, her head bowing as she only just staved off the urge to collapse into her chair and order her drink and simply…drown out the pain and hurt and wish it all away.
Instead, she barreled onward, chin tucked against the hollow of her collarbone and fists dug in tight to the worn fabric of Ma’s cloak, the warmth of it almost stifling against the residual heat that even now radiated out from the forges and fires that powered the great engine of her husband’s glorious city.
Not one shade came out to meet her.
Things had passed well beyond alarming and had settled onto terrifying . She slipped into their grand home, set apart from the mills and factories and warehouses, lofted above the forges and fires and smithies and smeltings. Boots clacking across the floor, she flung open door after door in an increasingly panicked frenzy, tearing into the innermost chambers of their sanctum until she realized, sharply, that he was not there.
She all but sprinted to the factory, after that, launching herself into the too-quiet building with none of her usual poise. He was not there, either— nobody was there.
Persephone had not known such terror in aeons. Heart pounding her chest, lungs heaving, she bit off a pained groan and fell to her knees atop the unforgiving factory floor. “Think,” she muttered to herself fiercely. “ Think , damn you!” She gathered up her senses, those tendrils of power that had become instinct to her once they had been wed, and wove them into a net. It hovered about her, a spider’s web cloaking its master, before she cast it out in a series of spindly tendrils, twining and coiling and searching for the one she so very desperately sought.
Drawn by the magnetic pull of her magic, she followed slowly behind her weaving, led by one particular strand that urged her forward, onward, until she was forcing open the great door of his long-ignored palace, shuffling across stone floors and the sightless gaze of immobile statues, prying open the steel door that separated the entrance hall from his grand throne room—
–and there, finally, was her man, propped up on his Titan-sized chair, his great head bowed as though he were about to drop off to sleep and hands resting fitfully atop the massive armrests. A crown of steel and coal-dark diamond rested atop his brow, metal and gemstone interwoven until one could not tell where the first began or the other ended.
Persephone’s breath caught in her chest. He seemed… fragile up there on his dias, diminished somehow and a shadow of the god she’d left behind not six months ago .
Hades was many things, but never fragile, never weak. Heart as hard as iron, her man. In all her experience—and she had millennia of it—the only time she’d seen it soften was for her. Tiptoeing closer, she eyed his drooping form through lowered lashes, gnawing her lower lip as she took in his wrinkled, striped trousers, bared forearms and frayed shirt tucked haphazardly beneath a waistcoat that was well past rumpled—
“What’s happened to you, husband?” she breathed.
He started, jolting upright at the sound of her voice with a hoarse cough and something that sounded like a gasp, breath rattling through lungs that didn’t necessarily have need of air. “Seph?” he rasped. Wool scratched across steel as he shifted, head lolling back against the rigid crest of his throne. “Have I fallen far enough to dream of you here, to see you before me even as I wake?”
Persephone blinked, swallowing a sob before it could escape and drag him further into whatever abyss he had fallen. “I ain’t no dream, Hades,” she murmured, stepping properly into the throne room. She slammed the Titan-sized door behind her, the crash of it echoing between them with a resounding bang .
It’d been so long since she’d felt anything like true uncertainty— other than the last year and that girl and her boy—but she felt it then in that moment, a gnawing, incessant thing that dug its claws into her calves and twined its way up along her legs and waist and torso until it could burrow into the very heart of her. Like a buzzard set upon a piece of carrion, it gnawed away at her, ripping and tearing and making her feel things that she’d long since thought lost to them both.
One step at a time, she crept closer to his prone form, her own brow furrowed with ill-concealed worry, her heart thump-thumping in her chest. She’d never— he’d never—
This was nothin’ like what she’d been expecting when she’d started her trek, but it made his absence at the beginning of the fall all that more painful, because who knew how long he’d been sittin’ here alone, in the dark—
She heaved out a sharp, shuddering breath, feeling her shoulders quake. It was a thousand times worse than any shakes or shivers she’d suffered while shedding the drink that last summer, because this one bit down into the red-bloody heart of her, fangs sinking into the throb-pulse meat of her and all but tearing her in two. “Hades,” she murmured, feeling a sob bubble up from her chest and then catch in her tight, twisted throat.
Those dark eyes blinked again, pale lids shuttering over coal-dark irises, his craggy brow furrowing. “But it’s still summer, is it not?” he asked, eyes hazy with confusion. “Your harvest thrives, your fields ripen. Why’re you down here, lover, when we promised you’d remain up above full-term?” He shook his head, neck drooping until his chin brushed across the silk of his undone tie. “The shades, they’ve been slackin’, gotta…I’ve gotta…things gotta be right when you return, lover. I promised—”
Now that she was close, she could see the fever-bright glow of his dark, glassy eyes, the tensing of the muscles of his jaw his his teeth clenched and gritted against an invisible pain, the muscles in his neck and shoulders flexing against the white silk of his shirt, his forearms tight where they gripped his chair.
“You’re immortal,” she cried, suddenly terrified—for him, despite it all, despite these countless last, long years. A god could not die, should not be subject to the ailments and illnesses that was testament to the fragility of the mortal condition. The notion that he was inexplicably vulnerable rent her down to her foundation, freezing the marrow in her bones and turning her heart to ice in her chest. “You can’t—”
“Start actin’ like a mortal, lover, and it seemingly begins to catch up with you,” Hades rasped, that sin-dark voice of his hoarse from disuse, his thin lips curled in a mix of self-loathing and wry acceptance. He shifted, forcing his spine to unbend, bones scraping and creaking and cracking as he straightened, a bowed and skeletal tree trunk righting itself in the face of an unforeseen breath of relief.
The movement brought the rest of his body into motion, a great rumbling of boulders and stone as plates settled and shifted, his fists flexing and tensing against the unyielding steel armrests and his legs drawing close to the chrome-plated seat.
Persephone felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart stuttering and skipping a full beat as his left leg kicked out slightly.
“Hades,” she murmured, skipping up the three tall steps that separated the floor of his empty throne room from the dias upon which he sat, falling to her knees at his side and planting both palms on either side of his strong and steady thigh. “Husband.” She paused, the break imperceptible to any but they two, then breathed, “ Lover. ” She ducked her head, pressed a kiss to the knee hidden behind creased pinstripes, slipped her hands lower to curl her fingers around the thick cast of black diamond and steel that encased his lower leg from calf-to-toe, nails scratching against the unyielding mineral as she clutched it to her.
Resting her chin atop his knee, she tipped her eyes up and up until she caught his coal-dark gaze within her amber-tinted glower. “Hades, what happened? ”
He leaned forward, although it was more of a fall, his shoulders slumping and back bowing once more, palms landing heavily—but gently, always gentle with her, her man, even at his worst—on her shoulders. Though he kept the press of his fingers light, she could feel the power in his grasp, bearing all the weight of a third of the universe and held at bay only through his raw strength of will. “Was inspecting the wall, lover,” he murmured, his lips ghosting across her brow.
She did not miss the exultant sigh he released as the green-fresh scent of her caught in his flared nostrils, laced upward and curled into his head and reminded him of early-morning sunrises and fresh-cut grass and the hazy, heavy scent of warm air just after a summer rain.
“The wall?” she prompted, kissing his knee again, fingertips tiptoeing higher, creeping up the seam of his trousers as she sought to assure herself that he was there, that he was real , nails caressing the meat of his strong thigh. She pressed her forehead to the unforgiving diamond cast he had crafted for himself, breath echoing shakily off the unforgiving gems.
“It…was failing, lover,” he said, shame tinting his words a dark, angry red, the color of it flashing across her closed eyelids as readily as any sort of alarm or siren. “It was wrong, rotten—I stood beneath the highest point and watched the peak of it crumble and collapse.”
“And you didn’t think to move outta the way?” she asked, enraged at him, for him. Her fingers dug into the meat of his thigh, causing him to wince.
His hands swept around the width of her back, fingers flexing gently. “There was a part of me that thought it might be for the best,” he murmured, the shame coating his words like molasses, thick and heavy and cloying as they left his throat and caught in hers. Persephone opened her mouth, furious, but he barreled onward gracelessly, head shaking back and forth as though to forestall her ire. “Then…” he looked down at her, and oh that look in his eyes, “then,” he repeated softly, “I thought of you.”
She bit back a harsh sob and reached up blindly for his hands, relieved when he took her fingers in his wide, worn palms, thumbs sweeping back and forth across the skin of her knuckles. “Couldn’t do it, Seph. Couldn’t leave ya.”
“Left me up top, though,” she accused, the effect of her anger diluted by the tears streaming freely down her cheeks. “Promised we’d try again this fall, an’ then fall came and you didn’t— ”
He caught her cheeks in his palms, hands slipping under the arch of her jaw to tip her head upward, his own bending down low enough to mouth at the glittering jewels that stained her cheeks. “Didn’t mean to,” he murmured apologetically. “But…you came.”
She sniffed. “Course I did, you ridiculous man. I made a promise too, didn’t I?” She squeezed his hands before levering herself back to her feet, biting back a wince as her knees and joints protested the sudden movement. Age wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially when you multiplied by thousands. “And we’re…off to an auspicious start, it’d seem.”
Hades snorted.
Persephone swatted his arm, blinking back more tears. “What about the shades?” she asked, indignant on his behalf. “They didn’t think to—”
“Sent them away when they tried to help,” he said sheepishly. “Told ‘em to consider it a vacation, if they would, and shut the city down for a bit. Keep to their own devices, hold to their own schedules. Thought it would be a mighty fine gesture of goodwill for ya, if ya did come back.”
Of course he had.
“Still on contract, of course,” he added, “just…rethinkin’ a few things right now, lover.”
Of course he was.
She wouldn’t deny the way her heart skipped a beat as he met her eyes with a dark, earnest gaze that she hadn’t seen reflected so clearly within his eyes since that night so many countless eons ago. There was her husband, shining out so fierce and clear, wearing his heart on his sleeve and all but warping the arm of his throne beneath his terse grip.
“Good things, I hope,” she whispered, taking up his hand before he truly did his throne irreparable damage. His hand was cool to her touch, and she raised it to her lips. “Cause I been thinkin’ too, and working on my own change, and it’s just about time for us to try anew, lover.”
He nodded, unable to form the words to agree but the willingness to join her in trying a bright, tangible thing that bound them as tightly as the rings they each still wore wrapped about their fourth fingers.
Persephone slipped her fingers lower, found that wedding band, traced the curve of it and the letters she knew were engraved beneath it. She sighed, then shimmied a half step away and pinned him in place with a glare that could level cities. “How long, exactly, have you been sitting here moping?” she asked archly, unable to help herself as the initial surge of agony dulled to a slow, flickering ache.
He reared back in shock, mouth forming an astonished little ‘o’ as his eyebrows scrunched uncertainly, clearly warring between snapping together in sharp fury or fluttering up toward his hairline. “I–what— moping?” he finally ground out, the word full of grit and gravel as he bared his teeth in a sharp grimace. “I do not mope, wife.”
She scoffed, dropping effortlessly onto his lap and looping her arms around his neck, fingers tangling together at the back of his head as she pulled it down level with hers. “Yeah?” she challenged, grinning slightly at the stubborn little crease that marred his brow. “Coulda fooled me, then.”
He growled, pressing his forehead against hers, one hand lifting to bury itself in the mass of curls at her nape. “Aggravating woman,” he muttered, fingers determinedly smoothing through her hair.
Persephone hummed, twisting to press a kiss to his bristly cheek. “Foolish man,” she returned in kind, tucking herself against his broad chest and claiming his free hand for her own, cradling it between both palms and ghosting a kiss across his scarred knuckles. She knocked her knee against the unforgiving crust of his shin. “My man, though.”
Though he only grunted, the steady, heavy thump of his heart against her cheek was answer enough, and she grinned against the crease of his waistcoat where she knew he couldn't see it. Demons they each had aplenty, but….it was time to slow down an’ face them, hand in hand, arm in arm, side by side.
All of that.
She slipped from his lap. “Right.” Extending her hand, palm up, she waggled her fingers in his face. “C’mon, then.”
He blinked up at her. “What?”
Had he always been this willfully obtuse? She knew the answer, of course, and it was yes, but really—
Levering a shoulder beneath his left arm, she hoisted him up out of that blasted chrome-coated throne and onto his feet, tucking his left arm around her back and bracing a solid chunk of his weight against her shoulder. “You’ve lost weight,” she accused, aiming for levity and landing somewhere in the realm of concerned instead.
“Seph,” he hedged, eyes wide and worried, instinct forcing him up and away and keeping him from resting the full brunt of his weight against her slender form. “I can—”
“No you can not.” She cut him off fiercely, eyes flashing fiercely. “Don’t do me the disservice of thinkin’ you can deceive me, Hades,” she informed him tersely, deftly levering him down the three steps that separated the dias from the widespun throne room. “I know better.” She felt him tense and then relax against her, all but sagging into her side as the fight slipped free and he surrendered to the exhaustion that’d been gnawing at his old bones.
She paused, squeezed his side, and slipped a hand between them to touch his roughened cheek. “Trust me?” she asked, heart leaping into her throat as she cursed her feckless choice of words.
But Hades, her man, her sweet, stupid, stubborn injured man—
—he just looked down at her, and leaned more solidly against her, one strong arm wrapping like a vice around her waist to hold her up much as she was holding him —
—and he nodded.