“Over two thousand years.”
She blinked, and for a moment, there was nothing behind her eyes. “Two thousand,” she repeated, as if saying it would help her comprehend just how much might have changed over all those years. Then her eyes focused on him, and he thought she was recalling what he had looked like the moment he had turned her into a tree.
Perhaps he’d been wrong to think he could question her. She was clearly in shock.
“Why?”
Hades was not prepared for the way her voice broke. Guilt twisted his stomach, and because he had no explanation, he remained quiet.
“Why?” she said again, more demanding. Her watery eyes, rimmed with red, made her anger all the more apparent.
He gritted his teeth. “At first, because of your infidelity.”
She shook her head a little, as if she didn’t understand. “It took you two thousand years to get over my treachery?”
Hades’s jaw tightened. He wanted to deny her statement, did not want her to think he had pined after her all these years, but he also did not want to admit the truth—he had forgotten.
“And Apollo? What was his punishment?”
Once again, Hades did not reply because the truth was shameful. He had not punished Apollo as he had Leuce. Indeed, he had done nothing to the God of Music, and at the time, that had seemed more than fitting, given that Apollo had seduced Leuce in retaliation for Hades’s refusal to allow him to reunite with his lover Hyacinth. So he’d left the god alone with his misery.
She scoffed and looked away, more tears sliding down her cheeks.
“You’re all the same,” she whispered.
Hades frowned, brows knitting together. He wanted to say something about how he had changed like the new world she found herself in, but what good did that serve? She was a victim of his wrath, and no matter how he had moved forward, nothing changed that.
He rose to his feet. He had been wrong to think he could question her now, but that only meant he would have to keep a close eye on her longer.
“You have much to learn if you are going to return to this world,” Hades said.
“That’s all you have to say?”
He stared back at her, uncertain of what she wanted from him and feeling like there really were no words great enough for this moment.
When he said nothing more, she spoke, her words bitter. “I see you haven’t changed.”
“If that were true, I’d have told you I owe you nothing beyond the life I have granted you and turned you away.” He recognized the irony of his words. As much as he had granted her life, he’d also taken the majority of it away.
“I don’t need your charity.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “Or is the one who returned you to your human form offering a hand?”
Her brow creased at his comment. “Was it not you?”
He was concerned by the genuine confusion in her expression and asked,
“Exactly how did you come to be here tonight?”
“I woke up,” she said. “I screamed your name until someone brought me here.”
He stared at her for a long moment. He did not sense a lie, and though she may have omitted parts of the truth, he supposed it wasn’t impossible that she had not seen the person who had restored her to her natural form.
Still, Hades did not trust her. Ilias would have to keep an eye on her activity once she was settled.
He turned to the door.
“I will have my people help you make the transition into this world,” he said. “But beyond that, never contact me again.”
With that, he left.
*
Someone was fucking with him, and he did not like it.
First Kal, then Hera, now Leuce.
He had wanted his confrontation with her to be short, concise, and final, but he knew he’d have to talk to her again. He needed more information on her sudden transformation. He had a hard time believing she didn’t know who was responsible, and her connection to him was too great for someone not to use it against him.
Hades instructed Ilias to find Leuce a place to stay and assign surveillance before returning to the Underworld, and while he’d have liked to return to Persephone, he had one other unpleasant task ahead—visiting the Fates.
Dread pooled low in his stomach, a weight as heavy as the guilt he carried for Leuce. Hades never enjoyed visiting the Fates, but he liked it less when it was personal. They were deities who understood their power and used it to mock, tease, tantalize, and provoke, and he knew that he would not escape their ridicule tonight, which would make the horror of his labor worse.
He manifested outside the Fates’ mirrored palace, the size of which was impossible to detect given that the structure was almost consumed by evergreens and ivy. When Hades had created their isolated realm, the sisters had insisted on many things. Among them, the palace was to be made of mirror and glass.
“To reflect the truth,” Clotho had said.
“To show what is,” Lachesis explained.
“To illustrate reality,” Atropos added.
Hades had no doubt the Fates used the mirrors for more than just truth.
They represented possibility, and while possibility could be grand, it could also be devastating. The Fates were supposed to be neutral deities, but truthfully, they had a tendency to favor tragedy.
“The King of the Underworld is troubled.” Lachesis’s voice was the first to reach him, yet the Fate had not yet materialized.
“The Rich One is in despair,” Atropos said.
“The Receiver of Many is bothered.” Clotho materialized as she spoke.
All the Fates looked the same, even in age, though Clotho was the youngest. They had long, dark hair and wore white. They did not have horns but wore crowns that resembled a nest of gold twigs.
“What is it, King?” Atropos inquired, appearing next.
“Tell us why you have come, Your Majesty,” said Lachesis, incarnating last. They stood in an arc before Hades, and he gritted his teeth. They knew why he had come. He needed to know if they had woven Briareus’s fate and if he could fight it.
“I need the thread of Briareus,” Hades said.
“Demanding, aren’t we?” Atropos said.
“Gruff,” Clotho replied.
“Brutish,” Lachesis agreed.
“Ask nicely,” they said in unison.
His jaw hurt as he glared back at the three so hard, his eyes burned.
“Please,” he gritted out.
The three broke into wicked smiles.
“Well, since you asked so politely,” Lachesis sniffed.
“Pleasantly,” Clotho added.
“Kindly,” Atropos said. “What do you wish to know?”
“I must know Briareus’s fate,” Hades said, hating the way the Fates’ eyes gleamed.
“Briareus, you say,” said Lachesis.
“One of the Hecatoncheires,” observed Clotho.
“The storm giants,” Atropos affirmed.
“Why?” they asked in unison.
“As if you do not already know,” he gritted out.
They were all quiet, and Hades recognized his own behavior in them.
They would not continue until he gave them the answer they wanted.
“What will it cost me when I kill Briareus?”
He hated asking the question before he’d even tried seeking a loophole, but he knew how this worked. He had seen the cycle repeat over centuries.
There would likely be no other way to appease Hera, and the one thing he was not willing to sacrifice was Persephone and their future together.
“You wish to end a life I have spun?” Clotho said.
“A life I have measured?” Lachesis continued.
“A life I haven’t cut?” Atropos asked, affronted.
As they spoke, a gold thread shimmered in the dark, twisting and looping around each of the Fates. He watched it, a thin line of energy that made up the fabric of the world.
“I do not wish to,” Hades said, but the alternative was a price he would not pay, so he had to know this one. “As you are aware, this is Hera’s vendetta.”
“And you she has chosen for the deed,” said Clotho.
The thread morphed into a silhouette of Hera, Persephone, and himself.