Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I stand, but no words leave my lips.
“Demeter.” Zeus clasps his hands in front of him. “Many Gods come. They bring many gifts.”
“They are not my Persephone,” she replies. “Bring her back to me!”
He lifts one hand. “Demeter—”
“How am I to know she’s well?” she rasps, her voice etched in raw pain. “How am I to live without her?”
I wish to scream to her, but my voice is silent.
“Demeter,” he says again, but she does not care to hear what he has to say. She does not care to see his face.
The feelings break loose like a plant bursting out from a seed and racing toward the sun. One with many thorns that cuts and tears at my insides.
This feeling—this horrible, bleeding feeling—wretches through me as my mother answers my father.
“If I must suffer, so must all. So will you.” With that the fire goes out and I’m left stunned wondering if what I witnessed, even the hissing of my mother was real.
Olympus
Demeter
I slam the door in Zeus’s face and pace away, the anger simmering within me. A full moon has passed and there is no word! How could they not have found my daughter? There is betrayal and I know it so. I have been still for many hours, and now I feel as if I will burn alive if I do not walk. Move. If I do not do something.
How dare he come to me without her. With gifts? As if anything could replace her? Come to me with the severed hands of those who stole her from me!
Is this what it feels like to go mad? I used to think that the great abundance that surrounded me would shield me from such madness. I gave so willingly, wanting those to have fortune I possess.
But there is no abundance without Persephone. There is nothing without Persephone. Nothing without my daughter.
Covering my eyes with my hands, I press my palms to my reddened eyes.
I am supposed to be the goddess of abundance. I am the goddess who gives of the harvest so that the earth can keep turning. So that mortals can continue in their cycles. So that the realms work as they should, in accordance with the Fates.
My gaze settles on a sliver of quartz that falls from the chiseled wall. It shook free as the door slammed. A thin sliver with rough edges.
“All will feel this pain,” I whisper, dropping my hands and throwing the words at my window. “It does not leave me, so it will not leave you.” I carve a sigil into the wooden floor. The ragged rock digs into my flash and blood drips to the tip of the crystal, filling in the etching.
The sigil; agony.
This pain will never leave me. Not until Persephone is with me once more. This pain consumes me like fire, but it does not bless me with light. It only scorches the loss.
“Agony,” I pronounce. I do not know who I’m praying to. All I know is that I will not pray only for the return of my daughter. “I want agony. All mortals shall suffer crippling agony, and may they blame it on you, Zeus. May they blame it on your incompetence. May they blame it on your lies. May they blame you for all their suffering. May you pay. May all feel the agony of loss. May it be felt as if it was their own.” I stare down at the carving and whisper, “Until she is returned, all will feel my pain. So mote it be.”
HADES
Agitation grows within me. From the message of the Fates to the God of Thunder’s demands. I cannot meet with Zeus through the mirror this time.
No— he will not accept a meeting through an intermediary that keeps such distance between us.
I would rather have much more distance between us. The desire to end him is strong. If only I remove him, no one would know. But the Fate’s tellings pull me back.
He must sense as much, because he is satisfied with meeting where the Fates dwell.
Between realms. Neutral ground. I follow the path to their dwelling-place with my teeth gritted and my eyes focused straight ahead. My hands do not move from their clenched position.
We will meet. We will discuss what has happened. And afterward, Zeus will attack the Underworld or he won’t.
Oh, there’s no need to pretend. He will move against me. The only thing left to be decided is the method.
Or perhaps he’s already made up his mind.
For the Fates to warn me not to fight… I fail to heed their warning in my mind but I close my eyes, having faith that they see another way. They see her with me. That is all that matters.
I follow the path to the dwelling, stride up to the door, and go in without knocking.