Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“You ate the seeds,” my father snaps. “He owns your soul.”
My heart flips over. It’s not fear or terror that I feel. Perhaps a little, but it is only from the weight of those words. My mind accepts them as true for a few seconds before it argues back. It’s as if I’ve just asked the question and now I’ve been given an answer I never wanted.
“Owns?” I question, directing the word to Hecate. My heart rises to my throat as thoughts race through me. Has he deceived me? I know he has held back truths from me. But to own my soul?
My father scoffs at my question.
Hecate does not look at him. “Any life who consumes the seeds is condemned to remain in the Underworld for all time.”
I blink at her. My chest rising with my quickening breath. That does not exist between me and Hades. I rule beside him, not under him.
But it is Hecate’s eyes that send dread trickling through me. All time? All eternity?
What of my home here? My altar? My powers. How else will the world see beauty in color and delicate petals if I cannot provide them? And the prayers, they haven’t come again since I’ve left. But the prayers for children and birth. I can do that. Surely, I am capable now.
When I have felt the warmth of life blooming from my fingertips. When I have felt what it means to be a goddess who is strong enough to answer prayers and worthy of hearing them in the first place. I do not wish to be forced back.
My mother lets out a furious cry and rounds on my father. “You did this!” She stalks toward him, brandishing a finger at him, blaming him. “If you take her from me, it will be the last of—”
He practically growls at her. “I shall turn on you, Demeter. Do not forget, I am the god of gods! Or, worse, I’ll send you to Hades.”
She smiles. It is a sharp, vicious smile that matches the deep color in her cheeks. “And you will see the end of the world.”
My father dismisses her with a wave. “Your threats will not save you.”
“No, but they will end you. Mark my words, Zeus. They will end you and everything you have ever built. You will sit on a throne among piles of rubble. Is that what you wanted?”
Although they quarrel, my mind spins and my breath comes up short.
Any life who consumes the seeds is condemned to remain in the Underworld for all time.
All time. That means all eternity. That means the thing I feared when I was first there, and missing my mother. Having to stay in the Underworld would mean not seeing her again, unless it was through a mirror.
It would mean not having access to my powers, and that is entirely different from losing them because of a mysterious illness or curse. It would mean knowing, for all eternity, that my powers were returned to me in full, and that they are there on Olympus and in the mortal realm, but I cannot touch them.
I did not know that when I ate the seeds.
But there had been some deal between Hades and Hecate. There had been… I look to her, but her gaze offers nothing but sympathy.
There have been so many plans made without consulting me, and now I feel I have chosen to give up half of myself without being warned that it could happen.
My mother and father circle each other, arguing, but I cannot hear a word they sneer at each other. Does it matter if my father has done this? Does it matter where the blame is placed, in the end?
I do not think it does. I think it’s already too late and it's my fault.
Is it already too late?
Hecate ignores them both, silently making her way to me, stopping close enough that I have to pull myself out of my thoughts and look into her dark eyes.
“They will call you the queen of the dead,” she says, her expression solemn. “Because never have so many died for a god.”
“I am not the queen of the dead,” I argue, my voice going faint at the last word. “I cannot be. I am a goddess of life.”
“Those who love you torture souls in your absence.”
“Hades?”
“Those who love you,” she repeats meaningfully. “Your mother has sent thousands of souls from the mortal realm to the Underworld, and Hades has destroyed nearly as many. He will not stop this carnage until you are returned.”
“But my mother—”
“Your mother is Zeus’s responsibility. You made your choice, giving your soul to Hades by consuming those seeds and being consumed in return.”
Calmly, as my mother weeps in desperation, I ask Hecate, “How can I be returned?” For I will have words with Hades. I will not be sentenced to a life where I am without and cannot do as I wish.