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“I didn’t, my queen,” Kore admits.
She opens the book, stopping at the first, faded page. Turning toward Kore, Hades looks up from the elegant, looping letters. “Here.”
Hades gestures for Kore to step closer. He does, frowning at the way Thanatos snickers. Kore’s blue eyes take in the page, one Hades remembers well.
Her first prisoner.
Her first entry.
Her first regret.
“Kronos,” Kore whispers the name, as if those syllables can invoke the rising of a war. At one time, perhaps they could. Not now; not after Hades sealed her father in his empty cell—the room made for Kronos in the darkest, deepest parts of Tartarus. A place where no happiness can reach.
“My first entry,” Hades says. She looks up from the page and holds Kore’s gaze with her own. “I decided, with Kronos, that I would serve this realm as the judge and the jury. I decided that if I am going to mete out punishments, then I should also be willing to record them. So, I made every page a diary, Kore.” She pauses, noting the way he reads down her words with sad eyes—as if he is hurt by her regrets. “Do you understand why I do things this way?”
“I am not a ruler, my queen. I cannot fathom the reasoning of monarchs.” Hades grins at his answer and releases a chuckle. She’s amused by his easy diplomacy.
Hades snaps the book shut, causing dust moats to explode into existence between them. “Unlike my brothers, who metejusticefor imagined slights, I am the one who determines where the dead spend eternity. I am the last face a soul sees before they enter that eternity. I am the one who hears their last story. As ruler of this realm, I am the one who makes that final memory immortal.” Hades lets loose a breath, her gaze turning back to the endless rows of leather-bound books. “Speak a name, and I will tell you their story. Speak a name, and I will tell you my regrets regarding that soul.”
“I didn’t know,” Kore says. His gaze softens, chastised and regretful.
“You wouldn’t,” Hades replies. “You never asked. Everyone here believes I’m a sentimental fool. Everyone tries to tell me how to streamline processing souls; as if they understand the gift of waiting.” Hades spins to her gathered subjects. “Leave,” she commands, terse.
All but Thanatos file out of the room, and Hades shoots him an amused grin.
“That means you, too, Thanatos.”
“I was hoping I could help you punish the new guy.” Cheeky as ever, Thanatos doesn’t move.
“Another day, perhaps,” Hades says. Narrowing her eyes when Thanatos doesn’t move, Hades summons another cloud of smoke. An invisible sentinel takes hold of Thanatos, dragging him from the room. Hades watches as he’s swallowed into a black void. The door to the office slams. Hades waits, in the stillness, for a long moment before she turns back to Kore.
“I don’t doubt that you tried to be helpful. I don’t even hate the way you’ve filed these.” She gestures to the clean look of the office, to those glowing tablets that coldly display the names of the dead. “Perhaps we can find a way to utilize both systems, but I won’t move through souls with the same recklessness that Zeus moves through lovers.”
“Why do you care so much about them?” Kore’s question isn’t cruel or judgmental; it bleeds curiosity.
“Though I have no temples and though I have no love from mortals, you mean?”
Kore nods, shame coloring his cheeks. Hades snorts, a huffing laugh that lacks amusement. If she had to label the sound, she’d call it morose.
“I do it because they hate me. That is my vanity, Kore. For all gods have some level of vanity. Mine is to prove that I am nothing of the god they dream. I am not some hardened, cruel man. I am a soft, loving woman. One who mourns for them even when they hold no love for me.”
His hand wraps around hers, holding Hades with the gentleness she craves. She can almost convince herself this is love—the affection Hades' soul starves to know.
“I see you,” Kore whispers, his words comforting against her temple as he presses closer. “You don’t have to love, or suffer, in secret and in silence. I am here, my queen. To see you, to serve you, and to hold you when your soul is weary.”
“Hold me now,” Hades commands, the words slipping off of her tongue with the taste of desperation lingering in her mouth.
20
Kore
One of the tablets crashes to the ground, littering the black marble floor with varying pieces of glass. The screen flickers, black oozing across the cracks and eating away the light. Hades spreads her hands across Kore the same way, chasing away his reason as he presses her against the desk.
Lust morphs her eyes, an icy gray ring lines her dilated pupils, and Kore can see himself reflected in the darkness.
Hades' mouth opens to him as Kore’s crashes against hers. A warm wave against an icy shore, and their difference in temperature is electric. A spark that ignites a fire within Kore’s veins as Hades' tongue explores his with determination. She doesn’t act meek or shy; Hades devours Kore like a queen who knows what she wants.
“More,” she gasps as their lips part, a fine thread of saliva between them. As thin as a spider’s web and just as finite when it breaks from a desperate inhale. Kore’s never desired a woman so intensely. He’s never wanted to tether himself to someone the way he wants to tether himself to Hades. Kore wants to climb inside of her, to nestle there, and never return. If mortal, Kore would gladly give his mortality for a moment of her time. For a single taste of her breath.
