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)
For a moment, I think my father will refuse. I imagine he will demand that we stay with him in the main hall or one of the more private rooms nearby. I don’t know what there is for him to say about the pomegranate seeds, but I can’t imagine there is any way he can change it.
Gods have many powers, but I have never known my father to be able to make someone un-eat pomegranate seeds. I’m aware it must’ve bound me to Hades in some way. Or protected me.
Power and magic do not work the same way in every realm. Things that may be undone with magic or powers in one realm are permanent in others. At that moment when Hades handed me the seeds, I had to accept them. It was all I knew of comfort to do as he wished.
The moment passes. My father huffs, giving up, and my mother takes my hand, squeezing tightly. He concedes, granting her wish.
Voices rise all around us as she guides me out of the main hall with haste. The crowd parts for us and I dare not look any of them in the eye. I know not which gods came to watch. With everything that has happened, I am more lost than anything, and one place that is always home is in my mother’s arms.
Before I went to the Underworld, I would have fretted about what the crowd in the courts saw and what they thought. I would have wondered for hours whether anyone had noticed that I had changed. I thought it would be my life’s greatest failure and disaster if anyone but Beatrice was to learn that my powers were slipping away.
And now it is clear that they know so very little that I cannot expend a thought on what they may think of me and of what happened. They cannot possibly know the love that binds Hades and me.
My mother walks quickly down one hall, then another, then stops and hugs me again. She takes several deep breaths although her hand still trembles. I know she is trying to calm herself. Remind herself that I am still here. Then she pulls away, and we keep walking hand in hand until we reach my rooms.
The torches light our way down the carved marble steps and all the while I avoid the eyes of servants in the same manner that I avoid staring at the withered plants along the way.
They’ve all died.
A quick glance around as we enter tells me that it has been tidied. The stone is in its place on my altar. There is no sign of someone stealing in to take me away.
As my eyes land on the ground where I last sat, a chill comes over me. The fear in the memory has not left me.
“It’s alright,” my mother whispers and holds me tightly as if she knows the terror I felt. “No one will ever take you away again.”
I do not know what I expected. Torn bedding, perhaps? Scratches on the floor? There wouldn’t be any. I did not fight. I did not know anyone had come to retrieve me. It became very dark and very cold, and I sank into it like a person might sink into a frigid lake.
My mother closes the doors behind us and comes to me, taking my face in her small hands. They’re cold to the touch at first, but quickly warm. Her eyes are filled with worry.
I’m filled with worry, too. I put my hands over hers and gaze into her beautiful green eyes. The things Hades said and the things I have witnessed come together.
“Mother,” I say softly. “Did you go to the mortal realm?” It’s almost a whisper. I don’t want it to be true.
Her eyes narrow, and tears glisten in the corners. Again her bottom lip wavers. They are angry tears. Her anger does not look like my father’s.
“You were gone.” Her voice nearly cracks under the emotion. “You had been taken from me, and I could not find you.” She swallows thickly. “Worst of all, they knew where you were and didn’t tell me. I know it in my heart.” Her words hit with a vengeance.
“Who—” I try to start but she hushes me. Who could have known where I was? I don’t understand what she’s thinking.
“I will not let that go unpunished,” my mother continues. “The way I have suffered must be repaid, and it has not been. The realms owe me. They owe you. They will feel it all. Every bit of agony I felt.”
“Mother.” I breathe, pressing my hands more firmly into hers. I will not pull away from her. I will not. She is my mother, and I love her, and I feel her pain. I feel the tears in her eyes as if they are my own. But the things she has done—that Hades told me she did but I refused to believe—these things are unfathomable. “This is not you.”