A New Beginning

The world was ending, and there might be a war starting soon, and none of it mattered because Kore lay asleep in Hades’s arms. Her breath whistled softly over the skin of his shoulder, her lashes long against her cheeks. Hades traced the line of her nose and jaw and the dip of her chin, memorizing her in case it all shattered around him.

Eventually, Cerberus protested the fact that it was forty minutes past breakfast with a bark loud enough to wake Kore. She stirred, turning into his chest.

“Good morning,” he said.

She grunted in response.

“I have to feed Cerberus, before he jumps on the bed and demands tribute.”

“Hurry back.” Her voice spilled across him, thick with sleep, and Hades smiled.

He slipped from the covers with no small degree of effort, fighting the urge to tell Cerberus that he was more than capable of hunting through the wilds of the Underworld for breakfast. That, however, seemed like a last resort kind of idea, and Hades didn’t think that not wanting to leave Kore alone in his bed was enough to set Cerberus loose on the poor, unsuspecting creatures of the realm.

Well, his chest said it was enough of a reason, but luckily Hades’s head retained enough control to tell it to shut up.

Cerberus danced around the kitchen while Hades poured ambrosia into three bowls. He set one down in front of each slobbering mouth, then gave the dog’s back a stroke for good measure. The sounds of wet lapping followed him back to the bedroom.

Kore had risen by the time he got there, even if she hadn’t moved except to prop her head on a hand. She rubbed one eye as she watched him slide under the covers again. “Has the world ended yet?”

“Don’t know. Haven’t checked my phone.”

“Good. Don’t.”

She welcomed him back with open arms. Hades pulled her close, kissing her hair.

One of her fingers stroked a line along his chest, following a twisting path of scar tissue. Hades fought the urge to reach for a shirt.

Her finger stilled. “Does it feel weird when I do that?”

“No. Most of the feeling has come back over the years. Only a few spots still react if I hit them right.”

“It’s beautiful, in its own way.”

Hades leaned back to look at her.

Kore’s face told him she’d heard the words at the same time he did. “That’s not—I didn’t mean to imply that what happened was beautiful, only that—I like the way it looks.” She dropped her eyes, wincing.

“You’d be the first.”

Her finger continued its course. “I doubt that. Have you seen yourself?”

He tended to avoid mirrors while shirtless, and had no doubt he’d continue to do so in the future. But he’d be lying if he said the sincerity in her voice didn’t loosen something inside him.

The phone rattled on the nightstand.

Hades groaned. For once, he seriously considered not answering.

Kore looked up at him with big eyes. “It might be Leuce. Or Theo. You don’t think something could have happened to them, do you?”

“Where Demeter is concerned? It’s unfortunately a possibility.” Hades twisted to grab the phone. His chest sank when he saw Minthe’s name cross the screen.

Beside him, Kore stiffened. “What could she want?”

“Nothing good.”

“You should take it. I can get dressed.”

He heard the panic in her voice, and he stopped her with a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”

“But you and she…”

“Have been over since before you left.”

“You’re sure?”

Hades had never been more sure of anything.

Kore relaxed a little when she saw his expression, even if she still pulled the covers around herself. “Answer it. I should get dressed anyway, since apparently people can teleport into your house.”

Hades winced. He was going to have to fix that, if Kore planned on staying.

He swiped his finger across the screen. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me,” Minthe answered, like she’d forgotten her name would show up on his screen. “Can we talk?”

Hades glanced at Kore, reaching for his shirt that had ended up on the floor. “Now’s not a great time.”

“It’s important.”

“Okay, what do we need to talk about?”

“I should tell you in person. Can you meet me somewhere? Kore should come, too.”

Unease prickled under his skin. “I don’t know if that’s the greatest idea.”

“It can be somewhere private. Your office, maybe, or your house. You don’t even have to leave. I only wanted to call before I showed up, since, you know, I’m not invited anymore.”

“Office,” Hades said slowly. “We can meet you there. What time?”

“As soon as you can.”

Hades pulled the phone away from his ear to check the time. “Ten o’clock?”

“Fine.” She didn’t like it, he could tell by the edge in her voice. “See you at ten.”

Before he could ask what she’d done now, the line went dead, replaced with a monotone beeping.

Kore, now wearing his long-sleeve, chewed on her lip. “That didn’t sound good.”

“No,” Hades agreed. “I’ve never heard her talk like that before.”

“Only one way to find out what she wants, right?”

He sighed, dropping his head back onto the pillow. “That’s what worries me.”

#

They discussed leaving Kore at the house, but she rightfully pointed out that Minthe could be drawing him away, intending to get Kore alone. While Hades knew from experience Kore could handle herself if it came to that, he didn’t want her to have to. So they rode together up the elevator to the office.

At the top, Kore slipped the hat off her head and stuffed it into the pocket of her borrowed jeans. He may or may not have had Leuce find some in her size, and had kept them in the back of his closet just in case.

A strange silence hung in the foyer when they got there. No typing sounds, no people shuffling in their seats, waiting for him. Wherever Leuce had gone, Hades hoped she’d taken the morning to herself, too, and was in no danger of anything other than waking up sore and wonderfully exhausted.

Hades shared a glance with Kore. They walked across the foyer, towards where his office door hung ajar. Hades pushed it the rest of the way open, and readied himself for whatever revenge Minthe had cooked up this time.

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She sat on one of the couches, her shoes on the carpet and her feet tucked neatly beside her. Her eyes lifted when she saw Hades, and the open fear on her face made his heart stutter. Her gaze moved, to the figure sitting with his back to them. Acheron’s skin glowed red even beneath the fabric of a t-shirt, the nape of his neck carved with one of the many sigils dug into his flesh. His oil-black hair had been pulled into its usual tail, and when the Titan turned, it slid across his shoulders.

Of all the things Hades had been worried Minthe would pull, it had never, ever been this.

“Hades,” Minthe greeted, though her tone left no room for warmth. “I’m glad you came.”

Hades couldn’t shove Kore out of the way before Acheron saw her. The Titan’s eyes, black as the river Styx, widened in shock. He hadn’t believed Hades stupid enough to break the treaty, apparently.

To be fair, Hades hadn’t known he was that stupid before Kore, either.

His eyes found Minthe, the resolution in her expression he didn’t know if she actually felt. “What did you do?”

“I told you you’d regret choosing her over me.”

Acheron muscled himself to his feet. He radiated an old kind of power, one Hades had always been glad to have on his side. He didn’t know what he would do now that it was directed at him. “The little one must be dealt with, and quickly, Lord Hades. I’m happy to handle this if you don’t think you can do it yourself.”

Hades moved to put Kore behind him. “There’s nothing to handle.”

“Are you defending her presence?” Acheron’s shirt glowed where his sigils lit up beneath it. “Out of all of them, you alone seemed to understand. I never took you as one to spit at our feet.”

“I’m not,” Hades said, but what words would make Acheron understand? That he liked Kore? Something stronger than that? His feelings were not enough to soothe the Titan’s anger. “It’s an extenuating circumstance, one that is being dealt with in as discreet a manner as possible.”

Acheron’s skin seemed to get redder. He drew himself up, his head nearly reaching to the ceiling, and stalked around the couch so that nothing stood between him and Hades.

“I give you one more chance, Lord Hades,” he said, each word looking like it pained him. “Hand over the girl, or carry out the punishment yourself.”

Hades turned to Kore. “Run.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She ripped the hat from her pocket and slid it over her head, disappearing as she did. Her footsteps sighed across the carpet, in the direction of the elevators. Hades only had to give her enough time to make it there.

Acheron lunged, sideways like he meant to skirt around Hades. Perhaps he only wanted to stop her, to sit them all down where they could discuss the issue civilly, but Hades couldn’t take that chance. He blocked the Titan with his own body, the blow sending them both to the ground. Acheron landed on top, his fists raining on Hades’s head and neck. Pain erupted in his nose. A blow to his temple, and light flashed across his eyes. The ground shook beneath him. Hades heard a pop, a crack, and a scream.

The office twisted, spinning into another battlefield, one of grass and ash, where the sky roiled and the ground rumbled. Lighting sparked and thunder boomed, and Hades stood face-to-face with his father.

Cronus loomed half again as tall as Hades, his sickle in one hand and the other open to the sky. When his lips pulled back over his teeth, the labors of his fight stained them gold, and though Hades stood with his spear at the ready and his helm upon his head, he couldn’t move.

Cronus swung his scythe, the weapon sweeping wide and long. Hades ducked and responded with the spear, bashing the side of it into his head. Cronus roared, but the sound registered more as challenge than pain. Hades still couldn’t bring himself to draw the blood of the man who should have loved him, and he was going to die because of it.

Cronus’s next strike swung true. Hades toppled, and Cronus pinned him with a foot, his sickle raised. His father, certainly, would do what he couldn’t.

A rumble spread beneath him, the sound wrong against the memory. Vines burst through the ground, thick and green and barbed. They wrapped around Cronus, constricted him and dug thorns into his flesh. Gold streamed from his skin, the pitch of his cry raising the hair on Hades’s arms.

The office building returned in a rush. The vines had lifted Acheron clean off his feet, pinned his arms to his sides and constricted so tightly he could no longer scream. Ichor ran from him in thick rivulets, dripping from his skin and sliding down the vines onto the carpet.

Hades managed to find unsteady feet. A pop sounded to his right, plaster dust drifting from a foot-long crack in the wall of his office. The building groaned, shifting to one side, and Hades realized with cold shock what he’d done.

“Come on!” he shouted to the air, hoping Kore hovered near enough to hear him. Minthe did, crawling from the spot she’d cowered by the couch and running towards him.

They ran from the room. The door to the stairwell opened as if by magic, and Hades could have cried with the relief of it. A familiar hand found his, and even if he couldn’t see her, Hades pulled Kore to him. He lifted her off her feet so he could take the stairs three at a time.

The building shuddered. Hades fell, his shoulder smashing into the wall. Minthe screamed. They were twenty stories up, and Hades fought the black spots that swam in front of his vision as he thought of all the space between him and the ground. He held Kore closer and told himself he’d get her out. He promised it to her, even if no sound escaped him.

Fifteenth floor. Tenth. Other immortals swarmed the stairwells with panicked cries. They streamed towards the exits, holding onto guardrails, stumbling every time the concrete rumbled. Hades saw nymphs, lesser gods, those whose immortality did not run strongly enough to protect them if the building fell. If they couldn’t get out, he would be responsible for the bodies.

Fifth floor. A tremor shuddered all the way to the top of the building, and Hades fell between one stair and the next. He twisted so Kore fell onto his chest and not the ground. She appeared with a squeak, the hat falling from her head. Pain screamed up his shoulder.

“You saved her?”

Minthe’s scream cut through the red fog clouding Hades’s vision. She steadied herself on hands and knees a few feet away, her hair a mess and ichor leaking from a cut on her head. Hades didn’t remember her getting hurt—had something fallen on her?

Kore rolled herself to her feet. She held a hand out to Minthe. “We’re almost there. We can make it.”

Minthe pushed the hand away and used the wall to stand.

The shriek of metal on metal sounded above them, then the deafening shatter of glass. Hades met Kore’s wide-eyed stare. The building was going to come down.

The dust turned to pebbles, then to whole chunks, crashing into the walls. Hades pushed himself up, grabbed Kore’s hand, and scrambled down the stairwell. Third floor. Second. Out the lobby and onto the street.

A crowd had gathered, too close. Hades screamed for them to move back, to clear the island at least, but too few people moved. They pointed at something behind him.

Hades didn’t stop to look. He ran, pulling Kore behind him, towards the nearest river. Together they scrambled across the bridge connecting the walking paths, made for the safety of the other side. Only once they’d left the island did Hades turn.

Through the gap between the buildings, he saw the sky. It had been ripped open, a jagged wound pouring bodies onto the bank. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Exactly as Hecate had shown him.

A bone-deep groan sounded, then Hades watched as the building gave up. It happened so slowly—or maybe that was his mind, struggling to make sense of the sight before him. The screams, the twisted hunks of metal, the shards of glass raining down on all the people gathered below, innocent people who’d had nothing to do with his stupidity.

The dust wave that followed blasted Hades off his feet, leaving him choking on grit. Rescue crews arrived, boatloads of them, demigods and nymphs and harpies beginning the process of ushering people off the island, sorting the ones who needed help from the ones miraculously unharmed, shifting through the rubble for anyone too late to save.

Hades should have crossed back over the river. He should have comforted those who needed him, or made a statement to stem the tide of questions he knew would come. But he couldn’t do any of that, because when he turned to check on Kore, she no longer stood beside him.

Hades spun. She’d been with him when they crossed the bridge. He’d gotten her clear.

Hadn’t he?

Hades looked towards the rubble.

No. No.

He ran across the bridge and claimed a spot between two of the rescue workers. His shoulder protested, his head screamed, but he paid his injuries no mind. He crumbled boulders to dust beneath his fingers, bent metal rods out of his way, and if anyone spoke to him, he couldn’t hear a word they said.

He didn’t know how long he’d been looking when he found Minthe’s body.

Hades stumbled back like been burned. His eyes roved, searching for injuries, found a trickle of gold from her head, maybe a broken leg if he guessed right. A little ambrosia and she’d wake, mock him in that sarcastic tone that cut under his skin like a knife.

One of the rescue workers saw him and hurried over with a vial of golden liquid. He knelt beside Hades and lifted Minthe’s head to pour the drink down her throat, and they waited. Waited. Waited. But she didn’t move.

Hades sat down hard, a lance of pain zinging into his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” the young man said, maybe a demigod or a minor deity ruling over some unknown thing. The space between the stars, or the feeling of time slipping through his fingers, with no way to stop it. “We’re too late.”

Hades said nothing. He didn’t know how.

He crawled towards the rubble again.

Time had passed when hands settled on his back, but Hades didn’t know how much. He ignored the intrusion at first, keeping to the mindless drone of sifting rocks. The newcomer shook him, yelling something into his ear. The hands dug into his skin, the shock of immortal power finally rising him from his stupor.

Hades looked up. He squinted to focus his eyes and found Hecate standing over him.

“You were right,” he croaked. “All of it. It all came true.”

“We need to go.”

“If this is about the dead, I don’t care. I’ll get to them when I find Kore.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Hecate crouched so she could look him in the eye. “We need to go.”

The pain in her expression said something had gone terribly, excruciatingly wrong. His eyes cut to the rubble.

“It’s worse,” she said. “Come on.”

They took a boat to the house. He considered swimming, as if that would go any faster, but his shoulder had started to stiffen, and Hades knew he was more likely to drown himself than anything else. When they pulled up to the dock, Hades leapt from the vessel, sending it rocking behind him, and ran up the hill to his house. Through the front door, around to the living room, the couch that still held the gold stain.

Clicking nails preceded Cerberus’s arrival. The dog came from the direction of the backyard, his three heads drooping and all six ears tucked flat against their skulls.

Fear turned Hades’s mouth sour.

He followed the dog out to the backyard. There, on the stones he and Kore had sat upon when he’d told her the story of his childhood, lay her limp, unmoving body.

Hades skidded to her side, rocks flying beneath him. As gently as he could, he rolled her over, looking for wounds or the glimmer of magic. A red stain covered her mouth, and he feared, at first, that it had to be blood. His frazzled mind reminded him she leaked the same gold he did, that the color had to come from somewhere else.

Hades lifted her into his lap, cradling her head. A pomegranate rolled from her lifeless fingers. It had been cracked in half, the seeds missing from the skin.