by Eris Adderly
The roll of Hades’s eyes drifted sideways into irritation. “You couldn’t have sent the Guardian to handle this? Or could he not spare a moment from his eternal complaining?”
“That is the very trouble, my lord.” Kharon looked as though he wanted to wring his weathered hands, and Persephone suspected any sort of trepidation like this in front of his ruler was rare. “There was not merely the one.”
“Oh?” Hades took a step forward, and she saw his eyes take a darting survey of the area.
“There were three more, and Kerberos gave chase.” A knobby hand gestured down the shore in the direction of the pier. “I believe they were to serve as a distraction. The other has escaped to the inner realm.”
“Fools.” The god spat the word with a heat that threatened to fuse the sand at their feet into glass. “They waste everyone’s time, including their own.” He was already discarding his chlamys.
“I don’t understand,” said Persephone.
“Oh, every now and again some idiot mortal believes he can sneak into my realm and spirit his deceased loved one back to the planes of the living.” The Lord of the Dead drew his bident out to its full, intimidating length.
“I have docked the ferry until the matter is resolved, my lord. No one in or out while the hunt is on.” Kharon inclined his head and Hades grunted approval.
“I will return with our ‘guest’ once I track him down.”
His decisive momentum had Persephone stammering, lost for what to do on the banks of the Styx.
“My—my lord,” she said, stepping in his direction with a hand lifting to slow his departure, “will you go alone? May I—may I not continue to accompany—”
“You will not be able to match my pace, Green One.” He strode to her side, hauling her to him with an arm around her waist. The breath flew out of her as he crushed them together with no little force. “You are not of this realm. Your abilities are suppressed, and you would need them to keep up. I will need you to wait here with Kharon.”
And how long would that be?
The disappointment must have shown on her face, because the entire set of his pale features melted from brusque into something else. Those black eyes went deep, devouring.
Ravenous.
“Would you like to see me hunt, little flower?”
That voice of his had dropped to a stony grind and his arm clutched her with a fierce possession. The offer, like so many before it, held some dark potential that had her humming with want. Her lips had parted as she looked up at him. She gave a tiny nod, and his smile was a thing of deadly promise.
“Very well.”
He held her eyes with a knee-weakening intensity but, on her periphery, she saw him press the pad of his thumb down onto one of the tines of his bident. When he brought it between them, a bead of golden ichor swelled from charcoal flesh where he’d pierced the skin. Without pause, he drew the thumb along her lower lip, and then descended upon her with a savage kiss.
The honeyed tang of immortal blood filled her mouth as Hades’s tongue painted her confusion with the purpling colors of need.
Persephone reeled as he pulled away, but the god had already whirled to face the ferryman. The Lord of the Dead wielded his bident with a flourish and it tore the æther once more.
“See that Enodia finds Hypnos and has him here by the time I return,” he said.
Kharon gave another nod. “My lord.”
When Hades disappeared into the space between, Persephone’s vision swam. She crashed to her knees in the damp, black sand, and fought the dizziness and whirling light.
Again, she tasted blood and her world went black.
Then … she felt everything.
*
There was no time to regret allowing her to experience him in this state. Hades had a mere heartbeat before the majority of his rational thought left him. It was just long enough to marvel at the beginnings of his arousal when she’d admitted to wanting to watch.
When the æther bore him forth some distance from the Styx, The Lord of the Dead was one with his realm.
He did not think, nor reason, so much as he felt and knew the Underworld around him. He had shed the need to exist in such complex states.
Dim landscapes flashed and leapt by on all sides. The chaos of his search defied any sort of method or plan. Only the burgeoning throb demanding he seek—find!—mortal life where there should be none filled his base senses to their limits.
The only difference today was a delicate new presence, hovering, it felt, just at the perimeter of his awareness. It clung, terrified but determined as he streaked along, and some essential part of him knew the goddess shared in the sensations. Pure and raw, the Unseen Realm distilled; she would feel it all.
There.
Approaching the Lethe. Mortal blood pulsing. Breathing lungs that didn’t belong.
Hades could feel the impermanence of a living man.
He surged forward. Descended.
The man had just enough time to scream.
*
Persephone sat back on the heels of her palms in the sand, panting when Hades returned.
He stepped into being again, the reality of the Underworld rippling around him in a way that made her queasy, even after she regained complete control of her senses.
This time he bore a mortal before him, dark hand fisted in the back of the man’s filthy chiton, scruffing him like a cat. He propelled the man forward and the trespasser stumbled, falling to hands and knees on the shore of the Styx.
She blinked, trying to expand her awareness again after …
After what? What—where had he taken her?
You said you wanted to watch. Well?
The banks of the river were more crowded than when her mind had left with their lord.
Enodia churned her own dark space nearby, hands—how many?—folded at her waist, twin orbs bobbing above her shoulders with reddish light.
Kharon leaned on his staff looking as bored as an immortal could, weathered fingers drumming through the wait.
The mortal man cowered and Hades stood, arms folded over his chest, his disapproval plain.
Grey mist swirled further down the shore, and the head of a beast appeared. Then another. And another.
Kerberos.
So this was the infamous Guardian.
Each of the towering dog’s three heads held a terrified man in its mouth. When the beast closed the distance to the gathering of immortals, he dumped his three charges without ceremony to the sand.
“The rest, Polydegmon.”
Persephone swallowed at the new sensation of hearing the Guardian’s words in her head. The dog sat on his great haunches like a sentinel, tail lashing and red eyes judging, she suspected, everyone in his sight.
The mortals ran to each other to huddle for comfort, tripping and flailing along the way. They had a mess of bruises and scrapes to share among them, and Persephone didn’t envy the ride between the Guardian’s jaws one bit.
“Where is Hypnos?” Hades said. His black eyes went to Hekate. “I thought I told you to—”
The æther wavered in a dizzying way at Enodia’s side. Another god stepped forth, sweeping a fluid gesture with a hand as he came.
“Hello, naughty children.”
The God of Sleep sauntered toward them, smiling in a way that said he made his own rules. He looked almost as out of place as she did in the Underworld, with tanned skin and a chiton floating about him in a subdued purple-grey. Long silver hair fell in a mane around his shoulders and pale eyes glinted with some unspoken jest.
“They’re to remember nothing,” said Hades.
The men stood in a rough line, facing the god with fear-wide eyes. Hypnos strolled along behind them, brushing idle fingertips over one set of shoulders after another.
“Wicked little boys,” he said as though the words tasted like wine in his mouth. “The Underworld is no place for you. At least not yet.”
As he passed, each mortal’s eyes r
olled back at his touch, their bodies slumping to the sand as their knees gave way.
“Not that one.” Hades indicated the man he’d brought himself.
Hypnos stepped around the last one and his eyes lit on Persephone instead. “And I see the rumors are true.” Her face flamed from the appreciative once-over as the god circled her before coming to stand aside again with a languid hand on a hip. “You may have waited around for an age or two, Clymenus, but I can certainly see why.”
“Enough.” The Lord of the Dead uncrossed his arms. Hypnos cut her a lascivious wink, but stayed silent. Soft snores came from at least one of the mortal men now deep in the grip of sleep on the beach.
“Tell us the story, hero, but do not waste our time.”
The trembling man, though fit and likely in the prime of his limited life, blanched at the sight of so many immortals facing him down in a realm where he didn’t belong.
I’m surprised he hasn’t voided his bowels already, right here on the shores of the Styx.
A rumbling noise welled in the Guardian’s chest.
“You delay the ferry, human. Speak.”
The man let out an abrupt, high-pitched noise at Kerberos’s words in his head, but—possibly to avoid anything more terrifying still—began to sputter out his tale.
Again, Hades met her with the unexpected.
After the violent urgency she’d experienced sharing a mind during his hunt, it seemed only natural now for him to deliver some swift and brutal justice to an interloper in his realm. The muscles in her limbs were tense, ready to have her turn away the moment the horrific punishment came.
But, no. He stood there, cool and impassive, as the man spun words of woe about a sister swallowed up by death on the eve of her betrothal. There had been an accident. A fall. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right.
“And so you thought to make your way into my domain and retrieve her?” The god’s features remained neutral.
“My-my lord …” The man tripped over his own words, at a loss.
“Hekate.”
The tri-form goddess stepped forward at her lord’s command. There was no point in Hades avoiding her true name, Persephone supposed, if she already stood in their midst.
“Fetch this one’s sister.” He laid each word down, quiet and distinct, the bonds of his gaze never leaving the mortal quailing in their grip.
Enodia and her torches vanished. They all waited on the beach in uncomfortable silence, the gentle waves of the Styx lapping the shore the only sound.
Well. Almost all of them.
Hypnos leaned in and spoke to her under his breath. “Has he spoken to you of making the vows?”
She blinked at him, mouth gaping like a fish. “Wh-what?” Persephone cleared her throat as quietly as she could, but Hades appeared to be paying little mind. “I do not believe vows are a part of his plans.”
And what was that twinge in her chest when she admitted as much?
The god hummed discreet amusement. “I wouldn’t go saying that in front of Enodia.”
“She called me his Consort,” Persephone said, more to herself as she tried to take the measure of things, than to the smirking immortal at her side.
“Our lord is impossible to please,” he said, “and yet here you stand. I don’t believe he’s made a blood union with anyone ever.”
The blood union. Yes. The savagery she’d experienced as he tore through the Underworld. She had known such a thing was possible, but until today, none of her kind had trusted her enough to share in it. And if she were to believe the God of Sleep, Hades might have offered her another of his firsts.
Feeling every sensation of his, knowing his every thought … His words on the bridge over the River of Fire had shown her a truth: fear did excite her. But trust? There was something altogether more potent.
The æther parted in a smoky dance, and Enodia was with them again. This time a young mortal woman walked in her stead, ever so slightly insubstantial in the way of human shades.
“Iokaste!” the man cried, and ran to embrace his sister.
“Alexios?” Her wonder didn’t cease at the clasp of her brother’s arms. “You are here? And not … not …?”
Persephone could see the man fighting the urge to recoil. He mustered the control to draw away at a measured rate, but contact between souls on opposite sides of the cycle of life could not have been anything the poor mortal was ready to experience.
“No,” Hades said, “your brother has not yet breathed his last. He imagined he would enter this realm and ‘save’ you from the horrors of death.”
“Oh, Alexi …” A familial sympathy melted the woman’s graceful features.
“Tell him,” said Hades. “He does not understand.”
Iokaste brought a hand to her brother’s shoulder and drew him near. She began speaking in a low hush meant for his ears alone.
The knot between his brows loosened. The tension went out of his stance. His eyes shone wet and within moments he was dropping to his knees. His sister went with him, arms around his shoulders, and the mortal man shook with grief. Iokaste remained serene and patient.
When their arms untangled at last, Alexios red and sniffling, the Lord of the Dead spoke again.
“Do you see now?”
The man gave a limp nod, climbing to his feet. His sister stood at his side.
“What do you see?” Hades said.
“I see”—he swallowed, wiping at his eyes with the back of a hand—“my sister dwells in the house apportioned to her by the Fates. She is at peace.”
“And so must you be,” said Iokaste, smoothing fingertips down his arm.
He continued his nodding. It would be a weary acceptance, but the misdirected fire for ‘justice’ had burnt out.
“You will return to your lives,” Hades pronounced, gesturing with his bident at Alexios and his men. “You will forget the means by which you entered my domain. You will mourn your kin and be at peace.” He took a step forward, looming tall and fearsome.
“And you will never attempt such a misguided feat again. My mercy has limits, and I assure you, mortal, you do not wish to see them. Do you understand?”
The man, who had shrunk down to a knee again during the god’s admonition, nodded his head. “My Lord Hades, I do.”
“Hypnos?”
A grey and purple swirl flourished away from Persephone’s side.
Iokaste stepped near her brother again and ran ephemeral fingers through his hair. The siblings smiled at one another just before the God of Sleep had the man wilting to the sand, his memories dissipating like a cloud.
Hades nodded his approval at this and began to issue commands.
“Hekate, if you would see these mortals returned to their proper plane.
“Indeed, Polydegmon.” The glow from Enodia’s torches expanded, bigger and brighter to encompass the unconscious men. When the red lights winked out, the goddess and her charges were gone.
“Kharon, we will delay you no longer.”
“My lord.” The ferryman dipped his ancient chin before heading back to his craft.
Kerberos made some low noise Persephone could only feel in her chest, and Hades turned to acknowledge the beast. “Well done, as always, Guardian.” The sound turned to something like appeasement and the massive dog turned and padded off into the mist. She tried not to start at his voice in her head, which came in time with the vanishing of his tail.
“We all serve the Unseen Realm, Mate of my Lord. If you wish to dwell among us, you must choose a way to do so.”
Hades had a tongue for seduction, but Kerberos was blunt as a millstone, and twice as heavy.
“If you require nothing else, Rich One?” Hypnos raised silver brows, waiting for his lord’s dismissal.
“You have done what is needed, Bringer of Dreams. Take your leave as you will.”
“Don’t I always?” White teeth flashed and pale eyes turned to Persephone. “Try not to dismantle him too completely, will you? We
’ve grown rather fond of our Lord of the Dead.”
In an eddy of purple linen, the God of Sleep passed into the æther. His knowing grin was the last thing Persephone saw.
The shore was empty save she and Hades, but the god spared them no time for reflection.
“I have business in the Hall of Judgments,” he said. “Do you still wish to accompany me, or have you seen enough for one day?”
It was no question at all, really. She moved to his side, her sandals making prints in the sand. Rather than wait for his offered hand, as had been their pattern for the day thus far, Persephone slipped her arms around his waist and tilted her head back to meet his eyes.
“I will come.”
The hand not holding his bident slipped up along her neck and into her hair. When he bent to sample a kiss, the new normalcy of such a thing rendered her mute. Simple affection from the ruler of the Underworld had become a matter of course. Not that it was any less potent, if the hum between her thighs was any measure.
“Hypnos is wrong, you know.” He brushed the words against her lips. “I’m not impossible to please.”
The æther swallowed them once more.
*
The Hall of Judgments was no more a hall than Enodia’s ‘torches’ were truly torches. Like an iceberg the size of a small island in deep grey basalt, the top surface leveled to provide an arena for the proceedings, the ‘hall’ hovered far above the River Lethe. What unseen force held it suspended there, Persephone didn’t know.
There were neither stairs nor ramps nor any other physical means of ascending to its plateau, but mortal shades continued to materialize and vanish atop its polished expanse as their summons or business there required. The majority kept to the perimeter of the space, where Persephone had elected to remain. Here, in this place of ultimate truth, they saw her for the immortal she was, and most left her a wide berth.
At one extreme edge of the circular ‘hall’, a trio of granite benches stood raised on a set of three steps. Here sat the judges: Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos. Hades’s sigil all but shone from the center of the floor, inlaid in white onyx, at least four times the height of the deceased mortal man standing at its center.
