Page 63 of The Ash Bride
“Anymore.”
“What do you mean?” Persephone asked, failing to hide to excitement in her voice. She had not heard a single tale of Hades taking a lover, let alone actually loving someone.
“Free me, and I will tell you!” He smirked, clasping his hands in front of him and letting them hang in a show of nonchalance. Persephone noticed his shoulders remained tensed with excitement though, his arms rod-straight and locked into position. Not the stance of a relaxed, uncaring individual.
It was her turn to narrow her eyes at him as she remembered who she was speaking to: a monster; a primordial, imprisoned monster of Tartaros.
Shaking her head at him, Persephone walked away, continuing her journey along the prison. She scolded herself for sinking low enough to almost trust Typhoeus, of all the imprisoned giants, beasts, and Titans below the Underworld. Even Kronos would be more trustworthy – and he would probably eat her.
Dirt crunched beside her and she stopped, staring back at Typhoeus. He had slithered on his serpent trunks in the same direction, staring at her with those unnerving blazing eyes.
“I will not free you, Typhoeus.”
“I know,” he growled, “but I will be free again. One day. And when I am,” he slithered forward, his eyes fixed on hers, “I will be sure to pay you and your beloved husband a visit, Queen Persephone.” Her name dripped out of his mouth like molten bronze, and she shuddered at the feeling it gave her, a burning fire licking at her heels.
When she looked at her feet there was no fire. Loosing a relieved breath, she looked back to the prison, but Typhoeus was gone. Not even a mark in the dust on the ground to show he had ever stood before her.
“Good riddance,” she said before filling her cheeks with air and slowing exhaling through pursed lips, trying to decide if she should keep walking or rest a little longer.
She walked the few steps back to the rock Typhoeus had woken her from, deciding resting was more imperative than walking at the moment. Especially since she was still healing, starving, and desperately thirsty.
Finding her way out would have to wait.
Leaning against the rock, Persephone fell into a deep sleep before her body was fully touching the ground again.
27
THE TITANS
Persephone walked for an eternity, sleeping on countless different rock formations, all jutting up from the ground like miniature mountains. She had passed several chained titans already, but only three truly held her attention.
Kronos, chained to a crumbling stone throne set on an island of black rock barely large enough to hold it. A storm raged around him, massive waves smashing into each other around the island, cresting and crashing onto the imprisoned Titan King. They kept him constantly drenched, the short time between waves just enough for him to sputter and breathe, choking water onto his lap each time.
Large, crescent shaped knives stabbed into each limb held him in place on the lone island. His legs were spread as wide as the throne, with a sickle stabbing from the inside of his thighs, through the stone, and protruding out the other side. Similar punctures were made to his arms, the blades going into the top of his forearms, and into the stone, the sharp points glinting in the dim light.
His bellows of pain could be heard off and on for hours as Persephone slowly approached his personal torture. The waves silenced him sporadically, raging high enough to fill his mouth, throat, and nose. The gurgling sounds of him choking on water stood Persephone’s hair on end, forcing her to cover her ears at first, but then she grew to enjoy it.
She watched as he cried out and half-drowned for a long time, unable – and unwilling – to tear her gaze from the torment her husband had created with the Titan King in mind. It was the first true torture device she had seen that came from Hades’ mind, and she thought she may have to start calling him the King of Terror along with his countless other titles.
While his pain-filled screams made her uncomfortable when she had not known who they belonged to, Persephone could not help but appreciate what Hades had crafted for Kronos. Her head was swimming with elation watching him suffer, and if she had had the time, she could have watched him drown and choke again and again for days on end.
This wasn’t some innocent man being tortured for Hades’ fun and games; this was the deity who had swallowed his children, her mother and husband included, and ruled as a tyrant until her father and the Olympians rose to defeat him.
He deserved everything Hades threw at him.
When she finally did tear herself away from Kronos, she was met facing one of his many imprisoned brothers, Hyperion. Who she barely saw as she walked by, and would not have noticed had he not been sobbing quietly near the wall of bronze. The wall had been glowing as she walked, lighting her way and allowing her to see inside the prison, but where Hyperion was, it was extinguished.
Crouched against the fence, Hyperion’s body shook with every sob. When he fell over, anguish taking his balance, the darkness moved with him. The light dousing where he moved, and lighting back up with every inch of movement.
She almost felt bad for the Titan of Heavenly Light, for the darkness enshrouding him. Once a god of lightness, a god of the sky, now plunged deep beneath his old world, forever cast into the shadows.
Persephone did not linger long enough to be noticed by the fallen titan. His wailing gnawing at her heart, forcing her feet to continue.
Iapetos was the last titan she crossed, days ago it felt like. He had been standing at the fence staring blankly into the darkness surrounding the prison, seemingly frozen in place.
The rock formations and boulders hid her well enough as she crept past the titan that she could watch him without being noticed. Uneventful as watching him was, Persephone did not look away, studying him from his blank, cloudy eyes, to his chained, yellowed feet. Waiting to see what special torment Hades had concocted for the Titan of Mortality.
Sometimes he seemed to be dreaming, humming and mumbling under his breath, eyes wide open as he slowly turned in a circle in place. Other times, he would stand facing into the prison, giving Persephone time to move from one hiding spot to another quicker, but still slow enough to be silent on her feet.