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His face remained hard and cold, but he walked along side her again.
Glaring at the side of his face she said, “And stop using your power to intimidate me.”
“Stop forcing me to intimidate you with it.”
She wanted to yell at him more, but she knew it would do her no good. She had little power in their relationship. For now.
34
QUEEN OF THE DEAD
The world before them burst into light. It was as if thousands of fires had been lit at once, bathing the Underworld in a fiery golden light.
The fires lining the road they walked along were as tall as five grown men stacked atop each other. They crackled loudly, and Persephone jumped a little with every pop of the burning wood, making Hades smirk.
As they walked the gravelly road, souls emerged ahead. They were lined up down the road, some single-file individuals, others in groups, chatting loudly among themselves. The hue of their bodies took on a soft sunset colour with the flames, their hair and clothes a shade darker than their translucent skin.
Hades pushed through them roughly as they passed. Souls stopped speaking to watch as their King made his way through the crowd with his new Queen close behind.
Nobody waved or smiled. Not a single soul uttered a hello or bowed to them as they shoved their way through the mass of translucent people.
Persephone smiled once, meeting the eyes of a woman who glared at her. After that, she fixed her eyes on the back of Hades’ curly head, distracting herself by remembering how soft and bouncy they had been when she ran her fingers through them.
Eventually they reached the front of the line and faced a man seated on a small mountain of marble. Persephone stared at the beautiful mountain, it’s peak just taller than the flames surrounding it, and imagined the smoothness of the rock under her fingers as she dragged them lightly across it.
As they approached, Persephone instinctively reached out to touch it, yanking her hand back so quickly she lost her balance and her shoulder rammed into Hades’ back.
It was not marble at all. The man sat on a mountain of gleaming white bones.
Persephone’s face fell, her eyes widening as she stared at the gaps in the skulls where eyes had once been. She wondered if Pelops was among them, and shook the thought off, trying to dispel the feeling this mountain of human remains gave her.
Hades glared at her, but she was too disturbed to care. She grabbed him by the wrist, and tried to look nonchalant, like she wasn’t using all she had to keep the contents of her stomach down. He rolled his eyes and faced the bone-mountain once again, tugging her around it.
“Minos,” he called, waving up at the man.
The man – Minos – stretched his neck over the slab of gold surrounding him, his golden-brown eyes staring at Persephone longer than necessary before disappearing behind it again.
As Hades led her around the mound of human remains, Persephone kept her eyes averted. Every time she glimpsed the bones ice sloughed down her spine and she shivered all over again.
Minos stood at the bottom of the hill, at the foot of a golden ladder. His dark hair sucked up the light emitting from the fires, the crown of asphodel atop his head a dull grey even in the golden light. It was almost like the light could not touch him.
The white robes he wore were loose around his hips, his muscled chest bare and tanned despite the lack of sunshine in the Underworld.
There was no kindness in his eyes. He did not bow to Persephone, did not acknowledge her presence, only nodding once to Hades and raising his brows in silent question.
“Queen Persephone will be judging a few souls today,” Hades said, apparently not bothered that one of his subjects ignored their Queen. Minos glared at her, then looked back to Hades. “As every soul’s final judgment falls on your shoulders I thought she could replace you for a few hours, rather than one of your brothers. This way she can witness the types of torture we do down here before making any,” he looked over at her quickly, “hasty decisions,” he finished, smirking. “I know how seriously you take your position, Minos, but I do believe our Queen should get a taste for the best parts of our realm, don’t you?”
Minos bobbed his chin down in agreement and slowly walked away, banging the ground with every step with the golden scepter suddenly in his hand. Once he disappeared from sight, melding into the darkness beyond the fires’ light, Hades gestured to the ladder, winking at her.
“Ladies, first.”
She shoved him by the shoulder, but he grabbed her wrist before her hand could connect with him, bringing her hand to his mouth and dropping a light kiss on it. Grabbing onto a rung of the ladder was the only thing keeping her legs beneath her as her knees went weak.
“After you,” he said, putting her hand on the next rung for her.
The cold metal bit into her hands with every new rung she clutched as she pulled herself up. By the time she reached the small landing at the top her teeth were chattering and her fingers were so cold she could not uncurl them entirely.
The golden throne Minos judged from was small, just large enough for Hades to squish in beside her if she let him.
