❛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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HALL OF HADES, THE UNDERWORLD.
PERSEPHONE
HADES LINGERED IN THE DOORWAY, LOOKING LIKE A LIVING GHOST.
He'd gone paler than death. Paler than I had ever seen him. As if he were in a dream.
"Persephone?" Hades whispered, his eyes moist, his gaze clouded with something distant, something miles away. There were such shadows in that haze, such darkness lingering behind it - a dangerous fire shimmering with the blazing feeling of loneliness.
The infant in my arms squirmed in the silks I'd swaddled her in, a tiny fist clenching and unclenching in her blankets.
I kissed the top of her warm head, leaning back. Afraid to wake her, I softly beckoned to her father who stood frozen in his own courtroom. I grinned at him, and the hopeless smile that tilted his lips broke my heart into a million pieces.
"Perse?" his voice was barely audible, as if daring not to believe this was real. "Is this... are you...? Lords," he breathed, spots of color blooming on his white cheeks. "I can't - I can't... this isn't-"
"Ssh," I said gently. "Come here, Polydegmon."
Because this - this was finally not a dream. This was not the silver face of my nightmares, the miserable grief of my dreams. This - this was real. He was real. He was alive, and he was real. He was the father of my child. My tiny little daughter who had spent the first two months of her life without the man who had loved her when she was but a seed inside of me, before she was even born. Before she was a rosebud that bloomed into this perfect, perfect infant sleeping peacefully in my arms.
Hecate pushed him forward with a sulky grin.
"She's back," Hecate pushed Hades forward with a sulky grin. "Go. Kiss her."
And then - and then he moved to me as if in a trance, daring not step too fast lest some part of this vanished into thin air. I could see him trying to be too excited - could see it in the tightness of his jaw, the vein throbbing in his temple - could see him carefully restrain the happiness he was holding back, because he moved like a dream, walked like a dream.
"No," I said softly, and it was then that I finally took hold of his cold, icy palm, gripping it hard enough to tell him it was real. "I love you. I want to stay with you. And my daughter - our daughter - she deserves to have her father in her life."
He glanced down at his feet, as if bowing his head - as if trying to say that he was not good enough for me and I was not good enough for him. I put a hand under his trembling chin, tilting it up to look in his eyes.
"Hecate..." he paused, unable to string his words together as he searched my eyes for an answer. "She - she said you brought back the spring to Olympus."
