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"She took you away," I tell them. "Left Mount Olympus and I never saw her again."
"Mother." Lark wipes the tears from her eyes, shocked.
"But I could feel you. All this time, all these years. I could feel your hearts beating, even though we were apart. I knew you were out there, alive. And that is all that mattered. I prayed... I prayed to see you again. And now, at long last my prayers have been answered."
"And then our fathers...?" Harlow asks. "They betrayed you too?"
"I woke, asking for my daughters, but they laughed at me; told me the person I thought was my best friend was nothing but a thief. I begged them to go after you, but they couldn't find you. There was some sort of barrier between you and them, and that angered them more than anything else. They said I was the reason they couldn't find you. Said I must have conspired with Gaia to hide you all from your fathers ... and of course, I hadn’t. There was just no reasoning with them."
"And then they locked you in the Underworld?" Remedy asks.
Before I can answer her, a great boom surges through the building. I have returned to Mount Olympus with my daughters, to the very hall where I celebrated my wedding feast.
Their partners are all outside, keeping watch on the property while we talk privately. We have no idea if their fathers will be joining forces if they somehow manage to break free of their cages.
Especially since no one knows where Hades is. We are guessing he went to set the other gods free, realizing we were absent from our realms.
We may be goddesses, but we can't be everywhere at once.
Thinking of Hades make my stomach tighten. I loved him so.
All of them so.
How can love change so fast? Turn from something beautiful to something wrecked?
Hades told me, the night we met, that this love would ruin us both.
He was so very right.
"What is that noise?" Lark asks. Immediately her feathers emerge, she is no longer simply a woman. She is a phoenix, and more powerful than I ever dreamed she might be.
I shake my head; I don’t know. It's been so long since I've been to Mt. Olympus, though I am honestly surprised I got here so easily, without anyone attempting to stop me from gaining entry to the place that was once my home.
No one came to find me, not for all those years.
But who would risk the Underworld? Risk fighting the will of such powerful gods, for me?
Now, I am stronger than ever, after keeping my power at bay for so long while I was locked in a cage in the Underworld.
And now, it's not just me who is strong. I have four daughters, all full-fledged goddesses. More powerful than their fathers ever imagined they might be.
An argument grows to a roar outside, but then it stops and in walks Gaia.
I swallow.
Shock washes over me.
How dare she come here.
13
Persephone
"Gaia!" Remedy says, jumping from where she has been sitting, her hand on her round belly. "Do you realize--"
I know Rem wants to set things straight, but I have to interrupt. It's too painful to see the woman who stole my daughters from me.
"I don't want you here," I shout, standing as Harlow's hand clutches mine.
"Listen to me, Persephone," Gaia says, rushing over to me. "I'm trying to help you."
"No," I say, my voice blazing with hatred for the girl I thought was my best and closest friend.
"I knew you would be angry with me. But I'm trying to help you. I've always been trying to help you. You have it all wrong."
"I have it wrong? It was you who took my daughters in the middle of the night. You took my life right out from under me. Anything I could've salvaged with the gods was ruined the moment you stole my children. When the gods realized their daughters were gone and that they couldn't get access to them, who do you think they blamed?" I ask her, seething.
She shakes her head, tears filling her eyes. She looks so old, so weary. Like she lost a fight.
"They blamed me, Gaia. They thought I had been making plans with you to keep them from their girls."
"Is that what you think?" she scoffs as if dismissing what I am saying. "That had I not taken them you and the gods would have reconciled? That things would have been all right?"
"It would have been better than what happened," I tell her plainly. "I didn't even have a chance to fix things with them. They were so angry after the wedding and things just got worse and worse throughout the delivery until you took our daughters. You are the reason they locked me up. You are the reason they hate me."
