36. Nat

36

Nat

For my Gods

The street purges of air instantly. My lungs panic, and then a delightful floral breeze drifts along my skin.

A melodic voice says, “I should collect his bones for Cerberus.”

I drop to the pavement so quick, the skin of my knees splits open. “My Queen.”

Persephone waves her hand at me. “Stop with that. You’re worse than Hades. Come here and give me a hug.”

It’s all I need to rise and close the distance between us. The Queen of the Underworld unwraps plump arms and reels me into her, squeezing tight.

She smells like spring, like sunbeams, wet soil and petals. She’s wearing gardening clothes. Yellow marigold dotted overalls and a seamless white t-shirt, cinched at her waist with a pink paracord to accentuate her full hourglass figure. Her rich mahogany curls are tucked in a crown braid and pinned at her nape.

If it weren’t for the preternatural glow, the hard to comprehend symmetry and her youthful features, she could be mistaken for a mortal. None of the extravagant trappings that the rest of the Gods prefer. No togas or tiaras, no thunderbolts in back pockets or snarling hounds flanking her. Just a massive fucking black diamond on her ring finger and a twinkle of mischief in her eyes.

Persephone, Goddess of Spring.

Queen of the Underworld.

Clutching me close, gently caressing my hair down my back, she whispers, “You’ve left a lot of bodies lying around, missy. Kept me pretty busy.”

I step back, still holding her, afraid to let go. Then I do the worst thing a Fury can.

I sniffle.

The bridge of my nose burns, and suddenly my throat’s dry. I’m shaking.

“Natasa.” Persephone wrenches another, firmer hug out of me, concern darkening her voice. “Tears. What is it?” She pushes me back to examine me under the streetlights. “Who did this? That boy? I’ll …”

“It’s not him,” I hastily blurt, wiping away the wetness on my cheeks. “I just missed you. I’m surprised you came.”

Her chocolate eyes soften and she threads her arm into mine. “What? Because I’m away from home, I’m a different Goddess? I’m still Queen of the Dead. Friend to Furies.” She laughs, springing us down the road. “I’ve kept my eye on you since Hades hasn’t been able.”

“You have?”

“What else am I to do?” she asks, like she’s a retired schoolteacher and not a Goddess. “Attend the symposiarch alone? Listen to Zeus and Hera bicker? Try not to stab Hermes each time he brags about visiting my husband.” She pulls on me, rolling her eyes. “Incredibly boring bunch. They care only about appearances and representing Olympians as they were in the times of old. It’s not a wonder no mortal prays to them anymore.”

“This is where Hades would warn you the Gods are vicious.”

“Downright bloodthirsty,” she agrees, checking the road signs and turning us south. “Not that it matters. We can say whatever we want about those fuddy duddies because, however sinister they are, Hades can be ten times worse.”

I roll my eyes at her, and it occurs that she’s the one I picked the habit up from, not my aunts. “Don’t repeat any of this, because I’ve been making the opposite argument.” At her confused look, I clarify, “He has a bad rep up here, and it’s not deserved.”

She smiles at me softly, stopping us short in an alley, and asking politely if I’d pull the ladder of the fire escape down. I do, and it crashes to a halt with a grind of metal, my palms coming away black with grime.

“You’re liking it here, then? You’ve made friends?”

“Yes, mom.”

“And I’ve noticed some intense power circling you. Are you handling that?”

“Yes. Mom .”

“Gripe all you want, I’ll ground you for sass talking.” She extracts a handkerchief from the pocket at her chest and wipes the metal slats of the ladder. Sets ginger hands on it. “I had a feeling you’d like it here. I told Hades to give you a proper goodbye, and he sulked through it like a pouty man child.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s possessive and protective.”

As if I don’t know that. “Why did you think I’d like it here?”

She climbs foot over foot up four rings and when she looks back, she’s at my eye level. “You know, Megaera would never defend Hades if he was disparaged. She’d stab them in the gut, but she wouldn’t list reasons to defend his actions. She knows he’s good. Therefore, he is.”

Megaera’s more of a throat slasher, but … “Your point?”

She scurries upward, cleaning with each new rung. “You need a reason. We all know Hades is wonderful. But when a creature says otherwise, you don’t disagree, you defend. My husband has not done everything right, but he’s done enough.”

Enough.

It’s enough, Sin.

I avert my gaze, fiddling with the hem of my shirt. The praise feels as heavy as a lead weight in my stomach. “I don’t like when he’s accused of being bad because of his position in the dead realm.”

I grab the rung behind her and start climbing, skipping every other step. “It’s not fair …” I murmur, almost to myself.

“ That ,” she butts in, reaching for the roof of the building. “That’s why you’ve never totally clicked in the camps, never completely fit in.” She slips and bumps her face on the brick facade. Giggles. “Oh, butterfingers.”

It takes zero thought to balance on the ladder, lace my hands and offer her a step up. She’s so light, I barely register the smooth surface of her beige flats on my palm as she steps up and hikes her leg over the wall, half rolling, half belly flopping onto the roof.

I leap up after, pulling her to stand as she pants and help her dust off her overalls.

“It wasn’t love at first sight,” she says once she’s clean, peering at the city beyond. “I hated him for taking me from my garden and my family. I gave him the worst fight of his life.” She giggles, the sound like tinkling chimes. “I grew wolfsbane and aconite and served him them as salads. And he’d eat them, leaf by leaf, telling me they were delicious. The filthy liar.”

She smiles, her silver blush so deep, it glows.

“How did I not know this?”

“It was a long time ago. I assumed he’d change his mind and return me to Olympus if he realized I wasn’t the fragile petal like everyone thought.” She chuckles again. “Then, when he fell in love with me still, I worried that he’d never want the flower. Never think the flower could be mother to Furies or live among souls. So I leaned into the darkness. I returned to Olympus wearing it as a cloak and it blew up in my face. I was two months wed and Zeus threatened to invade the Underworld. My Underworld. He was going to attack my babies.“ She rises to her tiptoes to smooth my hair behind my cheeks.

The touchy feely gesture reminds me of Sin, causes my stomach to turn. “I was never a baby. Megaera bore me with her helm and Hades’s breath of life.”

“Furies can be born, though.” She presses her tummy as if imagining it. “Not by me. Obviously, Tisiphone nearly got her stomach torn out.”

I grimace, not wanting details, and bring us back to focus. “You were on the brink of war?”

“Oh yes! Zeus sent me home with a message that he’d replace Hades with Poseidon as the helm of the Underworld, and Hades …” She sighs. “You know his temper, the minute I stepped into his office to tell him, he started showing me his armies of the dead. Introducing me to lost heroes that vowed to fight me. Plain and simple, he showed me the successful overthrow of Olympus.”

“Holy Hades.”

“I started crying. His tough wife, the Queen of the Underworld sobbing. I was horrified.”

“You cried when Leva pierced her tongue.”

“Yeah, I wanted to do it,” she defends, sighing again, walking to the roof’s edge and sitting on it, legs dangling over the alley. I sit by her side.

“Back then, though, I never cried. I expected him to look at me with disgust and push me away. His powerful queen was an illusion. Instead, he held me close, and I’ll never forget how he he kept repeating right in my ear, let it out . As if he’d known I’d bottled it up.”

She wipes her eyes and I squeeze her hand. “Guess even Hades gets it right sometimes.”

“Demeter threatens him at the turn of every season. Have you ever wondered why he’s never taken five seconds to end her? Because I asked him not to because she’s my mother. She doesn’t understand that flowers can have thorns and still smell sweet.”

Persephone twists her palm, revealing a blue rose in full bloom, petals plump and dew soaked. “I created the rose for Hades to hold close when I leave. Mortals, on their own, turned the bud into a symbol of love.”

The silence stretches as we watch the lights twinkle below. It’s a comforting quiet, the kind I sometimes wished for in the Underworld. A quiet that I hated after the first month in the mortal realm, never quite finding the correct balance. Never feeling peace.

Even with Evan, I’d been half of who I am. He’d loved the flower, not the thorn.

Until.

Quiet sunrises and shouting dinners. Sin’s hands gliding into my hair, yanking. Want me. Love me.

“We can be both.” Persephone’s voice is soft yet strong. Same as her. “Kind and cruel. Compassionate and dangerous.”

“I’m not dangerous, I’m deadly. Evan …” She pulls me tighter into her. “I was death to him. Not a thorn. I was ivy around his neck, from the moment he touched me, he was doomed.”

“Evan had a fair soul. You loved him for it. I did too.” She winds around me, cheek on my shoulder. “Hades loved the Goddess of Spring, but he waged war for the Queen of Death.” She strokes my palm. “You could go to Evan. Hades would let you go if you wanted to enter Elysium. You could be with him forever.”

I shake my head, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “No. Evan wouldn’t want that. He’d want me to keep living.” He was happy like that, selfless. I look out over the glittering city lights, and find them not so different from the luminescence of the Underworld. “Besides, there’s still work to be done here.”

She nods her understanding. “Like the boy? The one who thinks it’s acceptable to abandon you in the street with his scent all over you?”

I groan, burying my face in my hands. “He was right to do that.”

I should’ve said no, I should’ve resisted.

Persephone remains skeptical. “Right to hurt my Fury? I think not.” Her voice steels with protectiveness. “You may be able to handle yourself, Natasa, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.”

I sigh, rubbing my temples. How can I explain the tangled web of emotions and duty that binds me to Sin? That his rejection, however painful, is necessary to his survival. “I’m going to hurt him,” I admit, going with the simplest explanation. “I’ve already done it, but tomorrow, he’ll realize exactly how good I am at destroying things.”

The sun’s golden rays begin to peek over the horizon, casting an ethereal glow over the city. Dark blues and purples pushed aside by bright pinks and oranges.

I try to picture my husband in the same sphere as Sin. Evan, the cafe owner with his auburn hair and bright smile, his faith in me, his loyalty. He was so easy, so happy to live simply, turning his eye when I came home drenched in blood, leaving the house when the thrall struck to give me space.

Sin devours all my oxygen by entering a room. He forces himself into my problems and into my mind.

Persephone’s countenance softens as she reaches out with delicate fingers to tilt my chin up. “Natasa, you are not a destroyer. You are a protector, a guardian of balance. What you do, the role you play, it is vital.”

“I’m messing it up.” Evan, Theia, Sin.

“No, you’re playing close to the center of Themis’s scales where souls teeter, and that’s the most vital job of all.”

I lean into her touch, letting her words wash over me like a soothing balm. “I missed you.”

She winks at me, linking our arms together as we watch the sunrise. “I’ve always wondered what a Fury would think of my mortal spring.”

“It’s pathetic.”

“I think it’s up for interpretation.” Her voice sparkles with mischief. “You’re used to being spoiled. Perhaps I’ll have to try a smidge harder so you don’t think less of me.”

I swallow with effort, blinking back the sting of tears. “If I stay.”

“I don’t like that this male has upset you,” she says at last.

Her words hang in the air between us, the unspoken question of what exactly transpired with Sin lingering like a dense mist.

I inhale deeply, the scent of blooming flowers and fresh dew filling my lungs.

His defense rests on my tongue, reasons and explanations. I pushed him away. I told him it would never work. I’ve been shoving since we met. Threatening and spitting because I knew I’d ruin him.

I just didn’t expect it to wreck me as well.

“It’s complicated,” I finally manage.

She pats my arm reassuringly. “Spring destroys winter. I rip the frost from trees, steam the ground, and steal the snow.”

I roll to my feet, dusting asphalt from my shorts. “You’re not destroying. You’re … fixing.”

“Imagine if you defended yourself the way you did those around you.”

Sweet, tender Goddess.

I pace the rooftop, my head a whirlwind. The rising sun casts long shadows across the concrete and I kick through them one after the other.

Persephone scuttles to her feet. “Spin around,” she instructs. I do without thinking, and she chastises, “You’ve got a smudge.” As if there’s not warm come leaking down my thigh, teeth marks on my neck, sweat everywhere, glass embedded in my palms. “The tall one with the pretty eyes. I’m not killing him?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” She claps and my skin feels freshly scrubbed, scalp tingling, my hair neatly brushed. She walks a circle around me, claps again, and my borrowed clothes vanish, replaced with skin tight, red drakon leather. Cropped pants fitted for movement, a sword sheath on my left hip. The halter top has double straps for support. Along my ribs there are slots for short blades.

Sin’s blades.

“Subtle,” I note dryly.

She smirks.

Still, I flex, feeling more like myself than I have in months. “I’d prefer armor.”

“I do not have my love’s gold touch,” she laments, walking another lap around me. I straighten my shoulders, hold my chin high. “What if I gave him a pollen allergy? Or I whispered to the bees he’s worthy of a sting?”

“Leave him alone, P. He’s mine to torture.”

A flare of surprise. “Consider him left.”

“All of them,” I insist, selfish and territorial, no idea why. “I’ll take care of the guard, all of them.”

Her expression softens, a sly smile set on her face. She kisses my hand, glances at my hair, and purses full lips. “You figure out my riddle yet?”

What’s the secret to accepting death?

“I’m close,” I lie.

Her smile is sweet as spring. She draws me down to her for a hug and squeezes me as tight as she can, rocking us side to side.

Her lips press on my ear and suddenly she’s frantic, whispering. “Zeus has forbade all of Olympus from interfering tomorrow.” She clutches me tighter. “Let go. The guard will betray you.”

Then she’s gone.