Page 61 of The Ash Bride

Her vision swam as she stood, black dots floating in her eyes. She was shaky on her feet, swirling the dusty cloud her body had swept up with the light radiating from the gate far ahead where she stood.

Wobbling as she stepped toward the light, Persephone stuck a hand out to steady herself, colliding with the large boulder at her side. Her hand barely grazed it, and she fell toward it, bringing her hand back up to catch herself, much too slow. The other side of her battered face smacked into the rock, a sharp ache radiating through her temple.

Leaning against it a moment longer, Persephone whimpered as she pushed back to her feet. She silently thanked her parents for being gods, expecting the wobble in her legs and pain radiating down her face to subside as quickly as they had appeared with her immortal healing.

“Hades,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, but she knew he would hear. “When I,” a ragged breath, “get out of,” another, “this place,” another struggling breath, “I am going,” another, “to kill you,” she finished through her teeth, tears falling down her face.

She wobbled again, stomping her feet wider to balance herself, but still she fell into the rock again. She was not healing quickly; she was hardly healing at all. The pain was less intense, but still pulsating through her body, making her throb all over. It had never taken more than a few minutes to heal.

Until now.

Until she had crossed Hades so immensely, that he threw her down a gods-damned shaft.

Slowly, Persephone dragged herself down the rock to rest of the ground, the cold stone biting into her bare legs and lightly covered butt. Bending her knees toward her, she crossed her arms and rested them over them, throwing her head into the crook of her elbows. Her shallow breathing echoing dully against her chest, her injuries made it difficult to breath as she tried to think of anything but the pain shooting from her head, down her back.

The phantom wind returned before she caught her breath, pushing her toward the shining gates.

Unable to stand, she crawled. The pressure on her injured knees and hands forcing her to bite her lower lip to hold her cries of pain inside, fat tears stripping through the grime coating her cheeks as she whimpered her way to the gates.

26

TARTAROS

She must have passed out from the pain, because when she reached the bronze gates she had no recollection of the journey to them. They had been a speck of bright light, bright enough to cast minimal light all the way to her from where she had landed so inelegantly. Now they loomed before her, as bright as Helios’ chariot at mid-day.

Persephone squinted at the bright light they emitted, staring up at the point they disappeared into the darkness above, presumably still rising higher and higher. They were taller than any mountain she had ever seen. She imagined that the top must have sharp spikes stabbing straight into the rock above them, locking the bronze fence into place. The guards on the ground would be so tiny from up there, like minuscule, insignificant blemishes on a stone floor.

From where she stood, however, they were gigantic.

The Hekatonkeires stood as motionless as the gates behind them, staring at her with hard expressions, and unblinking eyes. Either because she was first soul to tumble down to Tartaros in centuries, or because the linen cloth that had once draped around her in a concealing fashion was ripped into pieces, hanging off her body in strips.

She hoped it was the former.

She could never fend off one of these hundred-handed giants, and if all three advanced on her… The thought of three hundred hands roaming her body sent a chill down her spine, and her shiver set gruesomely hungry smiles onto their faces.

“Welcome,” one of them said in a grating voice that clamped Persephone’s teeth together.

It took all of her concentration to keep her cringe from her face as he smiled wider, showing off a mouth full of dark teeth, the brown honeyed in the light. Persephone almost gagged, the pressure on her throat from holding back was almost painful. She wished Hades’ wind had ushered elsewhere.

“I thought you had fifty heads,” she said in lieu of a greeting.

“We did,” the one furthest from her said quietly, his yellow eyes still on her. She nodded and looked away from him, failing to maintain eye contact.

She was their queen, and yet she could not bring herself to look them in the eye.

I am Queen, she chanted to herself, coaxing herself to act the part. Straightening her back and staring them down, she steeled her expression into one she had witnessed Hera bear a handful of times – mostly to her children, but it would be enough – raising her chin high and striding closer to the giants.

“I am Queen Persephone,” she said, her voice wobbling ever so slightly, “and I wish to enter the gates.”

The Hekatonkeires balked at her.

“I wish to enter the gates,” she repeated impatiently. Then scolded herself for doing so; a queen does not repeat herself. Hades never repeated himself, always speaking with immense confidence and an air of command that could not be ignored. She had to emulate him.

The one who had welcomed her said, “They do not open,” before all three bent at the knees and bowed their heads to the ground, hundreds of arms coming to rest in front of them. Their fingers stretched toward her, the nails cracked and brown with black crescents caked with dirt. The pale-green of their skin was dull and dusty, and Persephone found herself wanting to take a step backward, putting space between herself and them.

“They do not open?” Persephone said, startled by their etiquette.

“No, Queen Persephone, they have been closed since the war, and will remain that way as long as we are here to guard them,” one of them said. She could not tell which had spoken while their faces were pressed into the ground.