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“Am I?” Hades whispers near Demeter’s ear, pressing the sharp prongs of her bident into Demeter’s back. Threatening, but not piercing.
“Yes,” Demeter replies, her words little more than a hiss.
A vine shoots from the ground, up toward the space where Hades is hidden. She falls away from Demeter, dodging the sharp spikes that shoot out of the glossy stalks.
“My son doesn’t want you, Hades.” Demeter talks to the vast skies.
Hades knows Demeter can’t see her—she can’t even sense Hades—but Demeter grins as if she’s struck some horrible blow.
Shehas.
Hades feels the words with the same sharpness as a rapier to her spine.My son doesn’t want you.Those five words ring in her ears. Hades' breath gets trapped in her throat, choking her with doubts.
“If he wanted you he’d be here!” Demeter shouts into nothingness. Her manicured nails look like bloody talons, and the way Demeter twists her fingers doesn’t help.
Hades watches her with a trembling jaw no one can see. Hades' wrath shivers through her bones.
“He hates you,” Hades spits at Demeter, giving away her position with her words.
A grin full of malice curls at the corners of Demeter’s slim mouth, “Yes dear, and what must it mean for you that Persephone chose a mother he can’t stand?”
Another of Demeter’s glossy, thorn-covered vines shoots toward Hades. She avoids the flora with ease.
“Persephone is mine,” Demeter yells when her attack moves through nothing, her frustration heavy in the sound. She directs another vine, but it moves in the opposite direction of Hades. “You always ruin everything.”
Hades stops, shocked by the memory that seizes her.
She’s a girl again, green in youth, as she stands before Rhea. Still mangled from centuries spent in her father’s stomach—punished for her birth—Hades watches her mother with a clenched jaw. Rhea sprawls across her bed, sheets of the finest woven fabric bunched up in her hands.
You always ruin everything, Rhea shouts the words. She turns that phrase into a mantra against Hades, who stands helpless.
Uncrowned then, but still the keeper of her father—Hades became the bane of her mother’s existence the day Zeus handed her the chains that shackled Kronos. Rhea, who loved Kronos more than she loved her children. Kronos, who loved his crown more than his progeny. The man who allowed a prophecy to blind him, causing him to run faster to that destiny.
A stupid man.
Rhea was equally stupid. Hades watched as her mother chose madness and called that love.
Love ruined lives.
Yet, here Hades hovers above Olympus, and watches as her love devastates the lands.
Here she unchained her father and allowed him to ruin what she fought to restore.Peace.
“By Chaos,” Hades whispers, watching Kronos as he crushes Athena. Her darling Athena, who she loved since she first beheld that golden child. Hades stands, crying out as she watches Athena fall. Kronos discards his eldest grandchild as if she is nothing.
“Athena,” Hades shouts, flying away from Demeter.
Demeter taunts her from behind, reminding Hades her beloved will truly hate her now. Hades doesn’t listen; only memories haunt her now. Tears blind her vision as she pushes herself faster.
She dodges between vines when they surge into the air, seeking her invisible body. Hades weaves around them, an elegant sky-dancer that only Chaos can see. As her cold palm reaches for Athena—her fingers close enough to feel Athena’s warmth—Kronos swipes through the air and catches Hades in his grip.
Kronos burns hot and cold; his palm reminds Hades of those years spent in his stomach—where she withered, lonely, until Poseidon came. A baby she raised while trying to raise herself.
“Let me go,” Hades demands, as Kronos' hold knocks her crown from her head. The heavy diadem falls, catching against the hem of her dress. Cushioned between the fabric and the swell of her breasts. Hades squirms, trying to keep the crown from crashing toward the earth. However, at Kronos' mercy, Hades watches with a helpless scream as her crown falls through the clouds.
“No more of that,” Kronos booms, his voice shaking the heavens. “You will face me, Hades.”
“You are mine,” Hades reminds her father, though terror steals the confidence from her words. “I am your keeper.”
