Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 472(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
The pitcher shatters and a darkness sweeps through me. With trembling hands, I allow them to fall to my side and take in what I’ve done.
Then, as if nothing had happened, it joins back together, the glittering pieces flickering in the dim light and the pitcher returns to its place on the table.
I repeat this process with every item that I can lift. The pillows return to the bed as soon as I let go. The thin soft rug of fur will not tear under my fingers. I pull tufts out of its weft, but it repairs itself.
Any effort to change the makings of the room prove worthless. And yet it only angers me more.
I try my magic.
It’s like the candle, refusing to light. My strength drains out of me, and I fall to my knees, dizzy and lightheaded. The rug is the only softness under me. I have spent my life dwelling in the bright, beautiful halls of Olympus, and this dark, cold room sinks into my soul. Frustrated tears burn in my eyes.
I feel as if I’ve gone mad. I can do nothing but exist with my thoughts in a room I cannot change with a fate that is not one I chose.
Nothing could be more shameful than my loneliness. Nothing could be more shameful than wanting Hades to come back.
Nothing could be more shameful than craving his attention if for no other reason than information and perhaps a deal.
Because as I kneel on the rug, trying not to cry, one thing becomes clear.
Hades is the one who did this to me.
Not only stealing me from my rooms on Olympus, but also draining my powers so he could do so. My powers began to weaken when he appeared in my dreams. He started stealing those long before he came for me.
He did this to me.
Anger lights like a flame in the hearth. It dances with other flames. How dare he! He will pay for his crimes.
I have been so curious about the man in the shadows. I have been so hungry to know more about him. I fear his power, and his presence, but I also fear my own desire. I desired him more than I desired anything else, a fact I could not admit even in my own mind.
Hades is a man I know of but never saw. His face did not appear to me. To know it is him who has done this. The God who came from a pit of bile in the Titan’s stomach. A ruthless, cruel and brutal fighter who speaks of just and righteousness but knows not of humanity….
All the things I have known and the stories I've been told swell into my head at once.
This lore was never hidden from me growing up, but it did not seem real—not the way Olympus seemed real. I’d never laid eyes on the realm. For I was not meant for this place and yet he dragged me here. Where my powers mean naught. Why take me as a queen when I am useless here? Why drain me of my light and then throw me into darkness and despair?
How was I to know that the stories would be so much more than stories?
Prophecies are not always made manifest. Fates do change. The Gods swirl their fingers into magic and shift the ways of the world.
But here, in the cold, dark heart of the Underworld, I feel like a child opening her eyes for the first time.
All of it was true. Everything my mother ever told me, every story ever whispered into my ear—it's all true.
And now I will never escape from it.
My sobs overwhelm me. I bury my face in my hands and cry on the rug. My head throbs.
I miss my mother with a palpable ache in my chest. I wish I could hear her voice. I wish I could seek her guidance.
At some point, at the sound of a tinker I raise my eyes and find that a new tray has appeared on the table.
Someone—or the Underworld itself—has provided food. A plate with bread. A bowl with steam rising from it. A red, shiny pomegranate, cracked open with the seeds offering a delightful image.
I do not go to the table and eat. I do not pour water from the pitcher and drink.
I do not even dare to venture back to the bed.
I fear that if I submit in any way, I have lost a game I do not even know the rules to yet.
I sit alone on the rug with my knees drawn up, holding them close to my body for warmth. My tears run down my cheeks and dry in cold streaks. My throat hurts. It's raw from the sobbing and screaming and fits. I sit perfectly still, unwilling to act until I’m provided with more information.