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The lake flashed emerald.
If I had any doubts about who I was looking at, they disappeared when the lake was filled with projections of greenery.
The former Queen of Hell.
Cole’s love.
And… my previous incarnation.
“You have passed the first trial,”the lake intoned. But it wasn’t talking to me. This was an echo of the past.
The figure didn’t speak.
“The second begins,”the lake warned.
Another flicker in the projection, and Cole appeared in front of her. This must’ve been years and years ago, yet he looked exactly the same.
He cupped her face with his palms.
For a moment, jealousy flared. I bit down on a growl, instinct warring with reason. Not only was this before Cole and I had ever met, but this was supposedly my previous life.
But he didn’t lean in to kiss her. Instead, the vines that had lingered around her crumpled as his death magic took control. He’d done it once to me, when we’d sparred and I’d trapped him. That had been Cole playing.
Yet even as a tender expression washed over Cole’s face, his magic turned aggressive. It spiraled over the woman’s body, cocooning her from the neck down in a black haze. Beneath the smoke, her body withered. Supple skin turned gaunt, then decayed.
It reminded me of the dragon before I’d healed it.
Yet she made no move to fight him.
Her gaze slipped from Cole as if she directed the mantle of Hellitself. “He is who he is, and our fate must be balanced by as much death as it is life. I am not afraid.”
Her voice… it was bizarre to hear it.
It sounded exactly like mine. Or at least, what mine sounded like on recordings because it was always a little eerie to hear recordings of your voice.
That feeling was made a thousand times worse when it came out of some woman you had never met.
“You have passed. Tell me, Persephone, why do you wish to be queen? Do you simply want to stay at the side of the king? Or do you lust for power?”
Okay, so she’d been given a multiple-choice question. Slightly unfair.
But Persephone—my past self—shook her head. “I have no need for power for the sake of power, and he will be mine forever whether I take the throne beside him or not. I want the mantle to ease your burden. I will care for the people of your realm as I do my own. I would sacrifice myself for them if needed, even if it cost me Hades. That is what he has agreed to offer his people, and I would not dishonor them by offering any less.”
The scene froze as if someone had hit pause on the television. The woman was frozen, still as one of Medusa’s victims, but then her body split. One version of her stayed exactly as she did. Then, a phantom version of her stepped out and turned to face me.
She could have been my twin. Every freckle of my face was mirrored on Persephone’s skin. The way she carried herself, however, was different. Her posture was regal, serene. More like Hecate’s than my own.
“Hello, Avery.”
It was an effort not to stumble back when she addressed me. “What? How?”
She cast a smile my way, like she could imagine the hundreds of questions flashing through my mind. “I am not alive if that is what you’re wondering. When I took the trials, some of my magic was left here. It allowed my essence to gather, to be here for you, to show you my own struggles.”
“Struggles? You passed with flying colors!”
She shook her head. “I nearly failed the second one. Power, it’s not hard for you or me. But I faced few trials in my life before I met Hades. Even if I had faced titans, none could have compared to the sheer terror loving the Lord of the Dead would bring. I feared, when I took these, that it would destroy me. I decided I didn’t care.” She narrowed her gaze. “And yet, that is not even a fear you have. You love him with your whole heart, and you trust him.”
“How do you know all this? Are we the same person, like everyone says?” I wasn’t sure that I could refute it, when faced with… well, her face.
