❛THEY WOULD TELL YOU OF A KING WHO STOLE ME HELPLESS FROM MY SUNSHINE GARDEN.❜
They won't tell you about the woman who came to him sublime, lily eyes and lily lips. A king does not ask permission from his prize, but she, oh she, she knelt, kissing m...
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FOREST OF THE FURIES, THE UNDERWORLD.
PERSEPHONE
THE DAWN THAT FOLLOWED WAS MISERABLE AND GREY.
We buried the remains under the ancient silver oak.
It had been but a few hours since it happened.
Since all of it happened.
Since my mother destroyed my life. Since she destroyed my child. Since she wrecked my home, killed my husband - made me watch as the life bled out of his eyes.
I couldn't even remember what happened next. It was nothing but a blur. Couldn't remember, as Hecate said - the bloodcurling scream that ripped from my throat as death claimed its master. Couldn't remember my palms on the fading heat of his chest. Couldn't remember breathing that life back into him. The strain of it, pulling out more and more and more of that life giving essence... the grief in me desperate to not give up. The floor slipping from under my feet as he blinked, his eyes widening - the jolt of steady heartbeat hammering again under his ribs.
I could not remember anything with the lightheadedness swirling in my skull.
But I remembered this - the blood between my legs, hungry and wet and warm, the punishing hand inside of me struggling to keep that life alive. The twitching, writhing, the twisting of my body like it was a living thing, something with a mind of its own. The struggle - the painful, heartbreaking struggle to keep that soul growing in me alive... pulling it back frantically, screaming at it to stay.
And I remembered what it felt like to lose that grip, to feel that helpless life float away.
I remembered.
And I would never forget.
I had tried again, desperate with grief, mad with it - tried again when that consciousness jolted me awake. Tried to bring it back. Bring my child back. Bring my boy back.
Hecate had had to hold me in a gentle grip, wincing even as she did so. Let him go, my child. Let him go. Because what it had taken to bring Hades back had drained my body of far too much. Left it too weak.
Not enough to bring my dead child back. Not without losing my other one.
He had wept at my side the whole night, into the early hours of the morning. His fingers clutched mine with desperate urgency, even as hot, fast tears dripped down my cheeks. I didn't even try to stop them. That night. I would never forget that nightmare.
She stole the life of my child.
She paid the cost of her obsessive revenge with the blood of my offspring.
And I would never, never, ever forget that.
"Perse? Persephone?"
And Hades was peering into my face, deep bruises under his red, swollen eyes. Nearly black shadows in their hollows. He had aged a century in the last few hours - his face was now a dead, lifeless thing -
