Chapter XIX

Chapter XIX

Helios Is an Asshole

It had felt like an age since Hades had managed to handle anything related to the Graeae and Medusa, between Hera’s tasks and Persephone’s struggle with losing Lexa. He needed to make plans to lure Helios into helping him locate the sisters, but before he did that, he wanted a moment with Leuce.

The next day, he manifested outside the nymph’s apartment door and knocked furiously until the door cracked open. He knew he had just woken her from sleep. She was bleary-eyed, and her white hair was a tangled mess.

“Good morning, Leuce,” Hades said, pushing open the door.

The nymph stumbled back, tugging her robe around her.

“Ha-Hades,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me truthfully,” he said. “Did you give Persephone the password to Iniquity?”

She was silent.

“Tell me!” Hades yelled.

“What else was I supposed to do?” she demanded. “You weren’t there. You didn’t see her crumble!”

Hades blanched. “What are you talking about?”

Leuce huffed a sigh. “She had a panic attack while we were out because of something that happened to her friend. The one in the hospital. It scared her, Hades. I don’t have much, but I wanted to help, so excuse me for trying!”

“You sent her to Iniquity for help,” he said.

Despite the fact that Leuce had not been in the modern world long, she understood the purpose of Iniquity and knew it was not a place he’d want Persephone to know about. It was hard for him to believe that she thought sending her there was a sound decision, rather than believing it might create a divide. “You could have had coffee!”

“ We did , you idiot bastard!” Leuce seethed. “How dare you think a hot drink will cure what she’s going through!”

There was no curing this, he wanted to yell. Therein lay the problem—Persephone was grieving .

“You expect me to believe you sent Persephone to a Magi because you wanted to help?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“That you sent her into a trap!”

“Because I could never do something nice for someone, is that it?”

“How many times do I have to say, sending Persephone to a Magi was dangerous. Not to mention you knew I would find out. Were you hoping to create a divide between us?”

She had already tried once when she had introduced herself as his lover. Hades had suspected then that her intention was to cause trouble. Why should he believe any differently now?

“This is why our relationship never worked! You never trusted me.”

“Obviously, I had good reason.”

Leuce turned and reached for the nearest object—a winged statue—which she flung at Hades, who dodged it. “Get out!” she yelled as it crashed into the wall behind him.

Hades straightened slowly, glaring at Leuce.

“Fine, but mark my words, Leuce. I will find out who you are working for. In the meantime, stay away from Persephone.”

* * *

Upon leaving Leuce’s apartment, Hades returned to the Underworld and now stood among fifty heads of snowy-white cattle. When he had taken them from Helios, he’d only intended to choose the best among his herd, but he had run out of time, so he’d stolen them all. Later, Helios would refuse to drive his golden chariot through the sky if Hades did not return them, and Zeus thought it such a threat that he called Council over the ordeal.

In the end, Hades refused to return the cattle, and the sun still shone. Though, Hades had to admit, he did not exactly understand what it meant to suddenly own fifty new animals.

“You all stink,” he said. “I will never understand why Helios likes all of you so much.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” Hecate had said when he brought them back. She’d been so ecstatic, she’d named each one and made garlands for their necks, though Hades could not tell them apart. Now all he really needed was to choose the best among them so he could lure Helios into helping him locate the Graeae and maybe even Medusa, though he feared bringing up the powerful gorgon. He did not trust the God of the Sun.

How did one choose a prized cow?

He turned in a circle while they grazed around him, looking for signs of superiority, but he was at a loss. They were all the same color and the same build, as if Helios had merely made clones. Perhaps this was a job for Hecate, who seemed to appreciate the finer details and differences of the animals she took responsibility for, though before he could summon her, his eyes caught on Thanatos approaching almost apprehensively.

It was strange enough that Hades stopped and stared. Thanatos’s presence was always vibrant despite his black robes and his pale face and hair, and while he never looked particularly overjoyed, he did always look serene and peaceful.

Except today.

Today he looked stricken, which put Hades on edge.

“Thanatos,” he said as the god drew nearer, his heart hammering hard in his chest.

“Lord Hades. I…” Thanatos paused and took a breath, then began again. “I went to see Lexa today. To…prepare for the next phase. It’s…almost time.”

Hades swallowed hard. He had no words, because there was nothing to say. As much as he did not want this for Persephone, it was the way of things. Lexa had made her decision, and it would be hard to grasp, given that Persephone would never quite understand why Lexa would choose to leave her.

“While I was there, Persephone…”

Thanatos’s voice trailed off, and instead of speaking, he chose to project his magic into Hades’s mind. What he saw play out before him shocked him. He could see Persephone through Thanatos’s eyes, demanding, “ You’re working. I want to know who you’re here to take. ”

“ I can’t tell you that ,” Thanatos responded.

Persephone’s gaze flashed, and three words slipped from her mouth like a weapon.

“ I command you. ”

“ Persephone. ” Hades could hear the desperation in Thanatos’s voice. Those words had hurt the God of Death because they had communicated Persephone’s mistrust of him, and despite the fact that she did not want Lexa’s soul reaped, all Thanatos was trying to do was make the process comforting.

“ I won’t let you take her ,” Persephone snapped.

“ If there were another way —”

Thanatos felt desperate to communicate to Persephone, to help her understand he was not the enemy but Lexa’s advocate, and her soul had called to him, had decided it was time to leave.

“ There is another way, and it involves you leaving! ”

Then she pushed him, and Hades did not know whose shock he felt more acutely—Thanatos’s or his own.

“ Get out. ”

“Enough!” Hades shouted, and the images vanished from his mind.

A heavy silence followed. Hades stood still as a stone, processing what he had just seen. His feelings raged, a storm of emotions that he couldn’t quite place. In that moment, he had seen Persephone’s raw fear, but he had also seen a side of her that was angry and a little manipulative.

The greater issue was that she was still trying to stop Lexa’s inevitable death.

“How long does she have?” Hades asked.

“A day,” Thanatos replied. “Maybe two.”

Another long bout of silence.

“She’s ready, Hades,” Thanatos added softly, and the note in his voice was exhausted.

Hades could just imagine that was how Lexa felt. She was tired.

He could do nothing but nod.

“Reap when you are ready, Thanatos,” Hades instructed. And I will deal with Persephone , he thought, even as he dreaded the encounter. She would not understand, though there was a part of him that did not understand either. He liked Lexa, knew that she was a good friend to Persephone. Every interaction they’d had was fun and pleasant. Despite this, the girl still wanted to leave, but Hades was not one to deny pure souls, and he would not deny this one rest, even if it hurt Persephone more than anything in the world.

Hades approached Thanatos, placing a hand on his shoulder. He had hoped it was a reassuring gesture, but the contact only made his dread deepen because he could sense the chaotic emotions in the god’s energy.

“I’m sorry, Hades,” Thanatos said, and it was a reminder that despite their familiarity with death, some things never got any easier.

Hades left the meadow and made his return to the palace on foot to give himself time to process what he had seen through Thanatos’s eyes. By the time he made it to the throne room, he was no closer to releasing that strange frustration, disappointment, and pain. He considered how often he had talked to Persephone about this, how he’d attempted to prepare her for the possibility of Lexa’s death and still she seemed determined to prevent it, and that worried him far more than anything else, because she had already tried to bargain in exchange for Lexa’s life.

Perhaps she needed to hear the consequences from the King of the Underworld, not her lover.

He sat on his throne, hands curled around the arms, closed his eyes, and searched for the familiar pull between them, the strange link he shared with no one else. He always knew when he found her because he felt instantly at peace, as if he were somehow more complete. This time, as he latched on to her magic, he pulled her to him, teleporting her to his realm.

It was, for the most part, a move designed to illustrate his power, and when she appeared in the dark-reddish light of his throne room, she looked severe, angry, and hurt. She didn’t even speak to him when she arrived before she was already attempting to teleport. When her magic did not work, she snapped.

“You cannot just remove me from the Upperworld when you please!”

“You are lucky I removed you and not the Furies.”

“Send me back, Hades!” Her voice was raw with anger. It was a tone he had never really heard from her before, but grief was strange, and it transformed emotions into monsters. For Persephone, it also made her magic riot. It boiled between them, thickening the air, and he wondered what she would do with all that energy building inside her. Would flowers bloom at her feet, or would vines burst from the floors?

“No.”

He wouldn’t keep her against her will, but he wasn’t going to let her leave until they discussed how she had treated Thanatos. Persephone’s magic seemed to have other ideas, and he felt it ripple and watched in horror as thorns erupted from Persephone’s skin like blades—at her shoulder, her side, and her calves. She was immediately covered in blood, and she sank to her knees with a cry. Hades’s shock brought him to his feet, and he raced down the precipice to her side.

“Stop!” she sobbed, shaking from her pain. “Don’t come any closer!”

There was no fucking way he was going to leave her alone. She’d nearly exploded in a bloody heap of thorns, and he didn’t think that was an exaggeration. Her magic had done this. It had gained power from her anger, and when it had nowhere to go, it just manifested like this.

He knelt beside her, unsure of what to do. She had gone so pale, and it was made worse by the light, which made her blood look black.

“Fuck, Persephone. How long has your magic been manifesting like this?”

“Don’t you ever listen?” The words slipped from between her clenched teeth.

“I could ask the same of you,” he said humorlessly as he lifted his hand, intent on healing her, though he hesitated a moment, waiting for her to protest. The pain must have won out because she said nothing.

He winced as he placed his hand on the first wound. The thorn was sharp and wet from her blood, the skin around it shredded. He gritted his teeth as it healed and moved to the next one on her side, then the two that protruded from her calves. When he was finished, he sat back, hating the feel of her blood on his hands so much, they shook.

“How long have you kept this from me?” he asked, knowing it had not gotten this bad overnight.

Has she told Hecate? he wondered.

“I’ve been a little distracted in case you haven’t noticed,” she replied bitterly, her breathing still not quite right. “What do you want, Hades?”

She sounded defeated as she spoke, and the tone of her voice put Hades more on edge. He felt as though she were pulling away from him once more, but this time it was worse. It should have made him desperate, but instead, he was angry.

“Your behavior toward Thanatos was atrocious. You will apologize.”

She glared. “Why should I? He was going to take Lexa! Worse, he tried to hide it from me!”

“He was doing his job, Persephone.”

“Killing my friend isn’t a job! It’s murder!”

That word— kill —he hated it. It tore through him like an arrow to the heart. She acted as if he wanted this to be Lexa’s fate, as if she’d forgotten who exactly he was.

“You know it isn’t murder! Keeping her alive for your own benefit isn’t a kindness,” he hissed. It was the harshest he’d ever been with her. “She is in pain, and you are prolonging it.”

“No, you are prolonging it. You could heal her, but you have chosen not to help me!”

“You want me to bargain with the Fates so that she might survive? So you can have the death of another on your conscience? Murder doesn’t suit you, goddess.”

Throwing the word back at her must have hit her just as hard because she tried to hit him, but he caught her hand and pulled her close. The blood that coated his palm was drying and felt sticky as he held her. Being this close added another level to his pain, as it reminded him of the night before, when they had come together so passionately.

Was this their love? These two extremes that felt so desperate all the time?

Then her hand curled into a fist, and her head fell against his chest as she began to cry.

“I don’t know how to lose someone, Hades.”

It was moments like this when he realized that his heart no longer belonged to him.

“I know,” he said, taking her face into his hands. “But running from it won’t help, Persephone. You are just delaying the inevitable.”

“Hades, please,” she said, desperate, and then whispered, “What if it were me?”

No .

He released her. “I refuse to entertain such a thought.”

“You cannot tell me you wouldn’t break every Divine law in existence for me.”

Hades’s power preened at the thought.

“Make no mistake, my lady, I would burn this world for you.”

He had said it before, but perhaps she did not quite understand what that meant. There were no rules, Divine or otherwise, when it came to her. She was the exception. It did not matter that no one else thought so. He did, and he was the end.

“But that is a burden I am willing to carry. Can you say the same?”

She did not speak, and he was not surprised. Likely she was thinking of all those threads burned into his skin, though that was not even the worst part.

The worst part was the guilt.

“I will give you one more day to say goodbye to Lexa. That is the only compromise I can offer. You should be thankful I’m offering that.”

* * *

Later that day, Hades stood unseen in a large, open meadow. On the springy, green grass, he placed one of Helios’s pristine cows. By the time he had returned to the Underworld to retrieve a cow, he no longer cared about choosing the best, and the only reason he saw this plan through was because he’d like to locate the Graeae. It made him anxious that there had been no contact from their abductors, no hint of where they had been taken. He considered that perhaps Medusa had something to do with their disappearance, in which case it would have been more of a rescue. Perhaps that was why no one had come to collect the eye.

The cow mooed, drawing Hades’s attention.

There was a flash of light across the way, at the very edge of the field, and Helios appeared. His purple robes fluttered around him, as if seconds behind his movement. There, he paused and scanned his surroundings, obviously suspecting a trap. Still, he vanished once more and appeared closer to the cow, again peering into the trees surrounding the meadow. The next time he appeared, it was beside the cow.

He rested his head on its back and threw his arms around its middle.

“Oh, Rosie!” He moved around to her front and lifted her long face in his hands, touching his nose to hers. “I have missed you.”

Watching this exchange made Hades feel very uncomfortable.

“I’ll take you far from here where you can never be taken away from me again.”

He kissed the cow’s nose—once, twice, and as he went in for the third, Hades appeared.

“I’m sorry. I just can’t watch this.”

Helios released the cow and stepped back, glaring.

“ You ,” he said, gnashing his teeth. “I knew it.”

“Yet you came anyway.”

“Where are the rest of my cows?” he demanded.

“Waiting to be returned to you,” Hades replied.

The God of the Sun narrowed his unsettling amber eyes. “You want something.”

“Of course I do. I know you’ve been watching the trials Hera’s put me through.”

Helios saw everything that transpired on Earth, even the things he pretended to ignore. The entire reason Hades had abducted his cattle in the first place was because he’d refused to give the location of Sisyphus, the man who had stolen souls with a relic he had obtained from Poseidon.

The god gave a lazy smile. “I watched long enough to see your face get beat in by Heracles. That was a satisfying fight. Pity he did not win.”

“Or better that I won,” Hades said. “Or your cows would have become permanent residents of the Underworld.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Is this your peace offering? Rosie? Or are you offering the whole lot?”

“Think of Rosie as a start,” Hades said. “The more cooperative you are, the more Rosies you get back.”

Helios’s mouth tightened. “What do you want?”

Despite knowing that the God of the Sun was very aware of what Hades needed, he decided it was best not to quarrel with him—as much as that was possible given his mood.

“I need to know where the Graeae are located. They were taken from Dionysus’s club.”

Helios laughed and Hades frowned, uncertain about what exactly his response meant.

“You are so busy searching for the gray monsters, you haven’t even noticed what is unfolding around you.”

“And what exactly is that?”

“Unrest,” he said. “And do you know what unrest breeds?”

War.

Hades did not say the word aloud because he did not wish to speak it into existence, but he knew what Helios was implying.

The god laughed again. “I predict another war soon. Olympianomachy,” he said in a lofty voice, smiling. “It has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“So certain we will lose?” Hades asked.

“I have no doubt.”

Helios was loyal to only himself. Even his choice to side with the Olympians rather than his fellow Titans was born out of a wish to maintain his well-being rather than loyalty to Zeus.

“You forget that you are all seeing, Helios,” said Hades. “Not all knowing.”

“I’ve always chosen the winning side,” said Helios. “That has never been by chance.”

“Treason is a poor look, Helios.”

“I have taken no action,” said the god. “And I am helping you. That is far from treasonous.”

He was helping, albeit resentfully.

“What does all this have to do with the location of the Graeae?”

Hades could speculate all day long, but he asked because he wanted a direct answer.

“Everything,” said Helios. “I am doing you a great service in telling you that the Graeae were intended to be a weapon. Their gift was supposed to be the foundation on which a war was built against the Olympians.”

Hades was not surprised.

“Intended?”

“We both know you are in possession of the eye, and without it, the sisters are blind… useless .”

Hades gritted his teeth. They were not useless, even without the eye. In fact, Hades felt like the greatest power they possessed was the secrets they kept.

“You said they were intended to be the foundation on which a war was built. What do you mean?”

He did not want to mention Medusa, even if Helios was aware of the gorgon. He’d rather the god bring her up on his own.

“Hades, don’t play dumb. Their eye gives access to the future. It is a valuable tool for anyone in battle. In the…wrong…hands, it is an avenue to lay the foundation for victory.”

It was a thought that had crossed Hades’s mind before.

“Who took the Graeae, Helios?”

“Is that what you wish to know? Who took them, or where they are? You only get one question, one answer. I have already given you a mine of gold.”

“Are you not interested in obtaining the rest of your cattle?”

“Rosie here will do,” Helios said, patting her back. “With her, I can breed a new herd.”

Hades curled his lip in disgust.

“Choose wisely, Hades,” said Helios.

He did not need to think long. The most immediate need was obtaining the Graeae. Hades would find out who abducted them later. In fact, he thought he could already guess who was responsible. There was only one organization bold enough to think they could go against the gods—Triad.

Though that thought was paired with the image of Hera and Theseus sitting side by side during his second trial. Had Hera found an avenue through which she intended to overthrow Zeus?

“Where are the Graeae?” Hades asked at last.

Helios offered a wicked smile.

“Lake Tritonis,” he said. “You’ll find them held in the caves.”

The God of the Sun pulled Rosie close, his great strength allowing him to carry the animal under his arm.

“You are about to find out, Hades, that you’re on the wrong side.”

Hades narrowed his eyes at the message but said nothing. Not that Helios would have listened, because in the next second, he was gone. Hades could safely say that while he’d suspected an inevitable uprising against the Olympians, he had always thought that relics would be the avenue through which an opposition would attempt to gain power over them—not via literal divine monsters. Worse yet, divine monsters could be created, and if Triad was responsible for this, if they had managed to gain the support of a handful of Olympians, then they were far more of an adversary than Hades had thought.

At least now he had a path forward, and it began at Tritonis.

He called up his magic to teleport when Hera appeared in the clearing.

“Fucking Fates,” he said, the words coming out slowly as a hiss.

“Hades,” she said, a wicked smile on her face. “I’ve been looking for you.”