Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 18893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Athena narrows her eyes but a twinkle remains on the surface. “Since when are mortal lives so precious to you? Sparta did not know such grace from you.”
I hold her gaze for a few more long moments, then turn back to the basin.
The water is cold against my fingertips as I dip them back in and allow my consciousness to sink into it once again. It allows me to feel the woman’s pain.
It’s sharp and unrelenting, a sorrow that goes so deep it’s almost as if she herself grew out of it. Almost as if she’s always had this lump in her throat and this ache in her chest and an all-consuming sense of doom without him there. As if her soul knew he was missing.
My mind wanders with a reflection in the water once again. Persephone. A connection lies between them, and I cannot place it.
I do not know what it is, exactly, that pains her, because it is hidden in her mind, but it does not matter.
I’m not the only one who notices when things aren’t balanced the way they should be.
“What plagues you now?” Athena asks, concern etched into her question.
“Persephone,” I answer easily.
“You know she is changeable,” Athena tries again. “The Fates cannot be sure of anything.” My sister refers to the foretelling of Persephone losing her powers and living alone as a garden nymph…but that is not what lingers here.
“There is something else.” I try to see it in the flames, but once again I am disturbed.
Athena lets out as sigh, shifting her weight from foot to foot to show me how unnecessary she thinks this is.
“She could’ve fallen for a mortal,” Athena points out, bringing the conversation back to the deal I made with the demon. Her words cut through my thoughts, placed directly into my mind without her having to speak aloud. There are no vibrations in the air to disturb the water in the basin.
Athena sounds sure of herself. She always does. It’s always right and wrong, black and white with my sister. “She should have fallen for a mortal. How were the gates opened between the realms?”
It’s always rules with her.
The gates between realms are not to be opened. I merely allowed it for a moment.
I do not admit that to Athena, of course.
I choose to respond to the heart of what Athena has said, not the words themselves.
“You act as if demons are not worthy of love, sister,” I say into her mind, not letting my voice carry into the water, either. “All are worthy. All should be loved. Even you.”
I truly believe this. It is the guiding light that takes the most room in my heart. All should be loved. I may disagree about how this mortal or that goddess should be loved, but I know they must have it.
Athena’s voice is cold. “I have love in what I do, who I am, and what I will be, and that is enough.” Her choice not to take a lover is for her own.
“And I love you for that,” I tell her, and the harshness softens in her expression.
“And I love you,” she replies, begrudging sincerity in her tone. I haven’t lied to her, and she knows this. “But you haven’t answered my question. How did the portals to the underworld open?”
“Take it up with Hecate,” I reply rather than admitting I signed the deal with Hades for his demon warrior. It was temporary and I can’t imagine whatever shift Athena feels warrants any energy at all. “She should know and besides, the deal is done and it is over.”
“The keeper of the keys and protector of the crossroads? As if Hecate would allow such things for a single love. She, of all gods, knows the comfort in grief.”
The message underlying Athena’s words is that she has no intention of asking Hecate about the gates and considers it a waste of her time to do so.
Good. Athena does not need to concern herself in matters that have passed.
I take several deep breaths and withdraw my fingers from the water. When I turn to face my sister again, I am holding nothing but love for her in my thoughts. I remind myself that all her contradictions serve a purpose in the parts we must play, and if Athena is to learn patience, it will have to be at her own pace, in her own time.
“Perhaps the old crone has love in her heart after all,” I suggest. Stranger things have happened.
Athena faces me, her expression flat, until I go back to the basin.
As I sink into the water, I cannot help but think of the deal I made with Hades and the darkness in the water returns.
“I cannot help feeling something is off since the realm portals have opened—when they should have been sealed,” Athena warns, and a chill goes down my spine.