Page 39 of The Ash Bride

She shook the Underworld from her thoughts, reminding herself that down there the sun did not shine and it was always dark for a reason. That her husband resided there, and she did not want to think of him now. Not him, or her new life and role as wife to Hades and Queen of the Dead.

Nor did she want to dwell on why he had embraced her so tightly, or at all, and why the spot he’d kissed still burned with the memory of his scratchy kiss and soft lips. Her entire body burned from the night before, the feeling of his hands and mouth still whispering against her skin. The memory of his body pressing down on hers, the intensity of her release still rocking through her body when she thought of it.

Then nothing. Turning away from her as if nothing significant had happened, just a regular evening for the Lord of the Dead.

Clenching her teeth, Persephone trekked through the trees, grateful for the storm as it distracted her thoughts from Hades.

Three hours later, clothes and hair soaked and plastered to her skin, she was walking through the gate to the garden behind the house. She yanked berries from the bushes harder than intended, smashing them in the process and colouring her hands red and sticky with juice. The branches flung back and whipped at her extended arms, but she welcomed the sting of their slaps and the cuts they left in their wake along her bare skin. It was a better distraction from her heartache and annoyance with her husband than she could have asked for.

Persephone faced the field of wheat, slanting harshly in the wind, and reeled her arm back, throwing the berries as far as she could. Rather than watch them fly through the air, she folded in on herself, crying into her knees as they gave out and she fell to the ground. With back pressed firmly against the cold stone, Persephone let herself break down, howling into her knees as she wept.

The walk from the clearing to the garden had been a fine distraction, but now she had the opportunity to think without any at all. To finally allow her feelings to bubble up and out through her throat, gargled sobs pouring out of her as they shook through her, making her throat ache almost as much as her heart did.

Pelops may be alive again, but he was still dead in the ways that mattered.

He would live and love another, while Persephone would not. She mourned his death as she sat in the garden, shaking more as she wailed than from the chill of the storm, despite his heart beating again.

She mourned the end of her own life longer, and she would grieve long after the sobs dried up, long after Pelops’ fulfilled mortal life came to end in several decades.

Married to a god she did not love, a god she barely knew, meant living a life without real love. The only chance she had at love again would be her husband, and Persephone could only laugh at the thought of loving him.

As if she could ever love the King of the Dead. The god who had not only spent his eternal life torturing the souls of the dead, innocent mortal souls beyond help, but condemned her to the same fate.

She would rather be tortured herself than learn to love someone who reveled in torturing others. Torturing the meek, the unwilling and the undeserving.

Obviously not all souls were undeserving. Persephone realized many were worthy of whatever Hades decided to put them through. But the Underworld was the sole place for their dead. Meaning every soul, wicked or otherwise, spent their afterlife in the depth and darkness of his realm.

Her realm, too, now.

She could only imagine what being queen of such a horrible place would do to her, who she would become during her stints there. Surely she would be a benevolent queen in the land of death and torment until Hades molded her into something corrupt and ugly. Someone she would not recognize.

Staring up at the crying sky, Persephone let the rain mix with her own tears and wash them away. The droplets were icy on her hot face; she could feel the heat dissipating, her cheeks paling again. Her eyes still stung, dry from crying so hard for so long, and despite the red surely lining them, she rose to go inside.

Readying herself to face her mother in this state, Persephone stretched her hands high above her head, dragging them gently across the bottom of the lowest branch above her head. The bark was rough, but her fingers easily glided across it thanks to the rain. She breathed in deeply, breathing the earthy, wet bark smell deep into her lungs before dropping her arms, letting them swing at her sides with the momentum.

A small river trailed her from the door to the sunken tub in her bathing room. She didn’t bother wiping it up. Her mother could scold her when she returned, it would be another welcome distraction from the dread pooling in her stomach when she thought about where she would be in a months time.

She filled the tub and lit the flames beneath it with a long look, feeling the strain on her body as she used her power. She was exhausted from her wedding – had it really only been yesterday? – and the hopeless misery she found herself drowning in was not helping.

Slowly, she peeled the wet cloth from her body. It made a wet slapping sound when she dropped it to the stone floor, and she watched the water pool around it, widening until it reached her freezing purple toes.

Then she stomped on it.

Again and again and again.

Until all she could see was Hades’ face in its place. Her vision blurred with angry tears and as she brought her foot down on it for a final time, she missed and slipped on the slick floor, stumbling backward into the tub behind her. Splashing half the water onto the floor and down her throat as her mouth opened in surprise.

“I deserve that,” she said, choking as she dragged her head from under the water. She laid back to rest on the cushioned edge, attempting to relax and dispel the thoughts crowding her head.

Relaxation came and went. Whenever her thoughts drifted to Hades or the Underworld or the previous evening’s activities, she had to dunk her head until her lungs burned and her head throbbed. Only then was she able to forget for a few minutes while she caught her breath and pressed the bottom of her palms to her eyes, shoving them into the pain behind them.

She remained in the water until it got cold, not bothering to relight the fire that had burned down to ashes. The sadness and heartache that clung to her, digging itself deeper with every breath, was too much to fight against.

So she crawled into her bed, much smaller than the one she had slept in the night before, and shut the world out by pulling the bright woven blanket over her still dripping wet hair without a care.

18

PELOPS