‘But now you’ve got your crown you’re –’
‘Hecate isn’t your biggest fan.’
He arches an eyebrow in moderate interest but his eyes are sharp and piercing. ‘Is that so?’
‘She thinks I’m powerful. More powerful than the goddess of flowers has any right to be. And she thinks you know that.’
It’s almost imperceptible, the way he tenses, his jaw clenched, his fingers tightening on his glass. But I catch it all like I have been training for nothing else these last few weeks than reading him.
Which of course I have.
‘Is she right?’ I prompt when he doesn’t answer.
He turns his stare from me to the flames and drains what’s left in his glass. ‘Yes.’
I expected it and it still hurts. That ‘yes’ cuts right through me.
‘Right … so you were going to tell me this … when?’
‘When I knew for sure.’
I’m cold despite the fire. I feel the threads of everything we’ve built falling away. I search for the moment he saw me, or at least the potential in me, to be as powerful as Hecate suggested. How long from then until he proposed marriage?
‘Or when I had more of an idea of what I knew,’ he adds.
‘So you didn’t, for instance, marry me because you were scared I had some power in this realm. And this way you can control it.’
Hades flinches. ‘Fates, no. Is that what you’ve been thinking?’
‘Not really,’ I say, coldness seeping into my words. ‘I have been trying not to think of what she said at all. But now it’s all I can think about. She said I could rule this place without you.’
He considers it, that thoughtful crease etching itself into his forehead. ‘Well, of course you could rule this place withoutme. You’ve got far better ideas than anything I’ve managed to come up with in the years it’s been mine.’
‘Don’t put yourself down to lift me up, especially not when I’m mad at you,’ I scold. ‘Besides, I don’t think she was talking about my diplomacy skills.’
‘Persephone,’ he says, adding a weight to the name that makes it hurt every bit as much as ‘yes’ did.
You lied to me, Hades. You don’t get to say my name like it means something to you.
‘You’re one of the most powerful goddesses I’ve ever met. You created a rift in Hell.’
‘Ididn’t do that.Wedid.’
‘No, you tore through the ground and you used my power and Styx’s to do it.’
‘You gave your power to me.’
‘No, we didn’t. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but it certainly wasn’t an active choice of mine. I haven’t spoken to her, but it didn’t seem that way to Styx either. And afterwards we were exhausted, ready to collapse. But you just straightened up and swept the souls across the divide. Besides, even if your theory is correct and you managed that incredible feat with nothing more than your power over flowers and their connection to the land, there’s still the fact you’ve been restoring souls and stopping their decay.’
‘Any god could do that.’
‘I don’t think they could,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘Of course you could if you went near them! I didn’t do anything to make their souls start repairing. I just walked through them or stood near them and they started leeching divine energy from me.’
‘Which I think is a sign of how incredibly powerful you are. You didn’t even need to think for your power to take hold. You shouldn’t be able to do any of this.’
I stare at the flames. I’m not sure I can look at him right now.
