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“In the snow?” Persephone asked.
“I go for a walk there every afternoon with Opal,” Harmonia explained. “We took our usual route. I didn’t sense anything untoward—no violence or animosity before they attacked.”
The fact that Harmonia walked through the park often and took the same route probably meant that someone knew her routine and planned the attack. The snow also ensured few witnesses.
“How did it happen?” Hades continued. “What do you remember first?”
“Something heavy consumed me. Whatever it was took me to the ground. I could not move, and I could not summon my power.” She paused for a moment, her hand shaking a little even as it rested atop Opal’s fur. “It was easy for them after that. They came out of the woods, masked. What I remember most was the pain in my back. A knee settled on my spine as someone took my horns and sawed them off.”
“No one came to your aid?” Persephone asked.
“There was no one,” Harmonia said. “Only these people who hate me for being something I cannot help.”
Hades felt uncomfortable about his next question, but it had to be asked.
“After they took your horns, what did they do?”
“They kicked and punched and spit on me,” she said, her voice just a whisper.
“Did they say anything while they…attacked you?”
“They said all sorts of things…broken things.” She swallowed, her mouth quivering. “They used words like whore and bitch and abomination, and they sometimes strung them together into a question, like where is your power now? It was as if they thought I was a goddess of battle, as if I had done some sort of wrong against them. All I could think is that I could have brought them peace, and instead, they brought me agony.”
“Is there anything else you remember? Anything that you can recall now that would help us find these people?” He recognized that he seemed aggressive in his questioning and paused to add, “Take your time.”
She was quiet for a moment, her brows lowering.
“They used the wordlemming. They said you and your lemmings are all headed toward destruction when the rebirth begins.”
“Lemming,” Persephone said and met Hades’s gaze. “That is what the woman at the Coffee House called me.”
Harmonia touched her broken horns. It was hard to watch, to know that she had been violated in such a horrific way.
“Why do you think they did it?” she asked, her voice thick with tears.
“To prove a point,” Hades said.
“What is the point, Hades?” Aphrodite snapped sharply.
“That gods are expendable,” he said.
He had no doubt that whoever did this would eventually go to the media or at least use Harmonia’s horns as a type of trophy to prove they could get close enough to a god to wound them. Unfortunately, it would inspire others to try what they had once feared.
“And they wanted proof. It won’t be long before news of your attack spreads, whether we want it to or not.”
“Are you not the god of threats and violence?” Aphrodite asked. “Use your seedy underbelly to get ahead of this.”
“You forget, Aphrodite, that we must discover who they are first. By that time, word will have already spread, if not among the masses, among those who wish to see us fall. But we must let it go for now.”
“Why? Do you wish for this to happen again? It has already happened twice!” Her eyes were alight with her fury, and she had every right to her anger. One person close to her had been murdered, another seriously injured.
“Aphrodite,” Persephone snapped, which drew the attention of both the goddess and Hades. She’d spoken her name as a warning, and she looked like a queen doing it—perched on the edge of her chair, back straight, hands folded atop one another, completely unafraid of putting Aphrodite in her place, even in her own home.
Harmonia cleared her throat. “I understand what Lord Hades is saying. Someone is bound to let their knowledge of my ordeal slip, and when they do, you will be ready…won’t you, Hades?”
He nodded.
“Yes. We will be ready.”
