Chapter 7: Whispers From the Deep

Years after the world was divided, Zeus had married Hera but ran rampant with lust. His children popped everywhere. Hades almost felt pity for Hera, but she chose this chaos. To marry that king because she wanted to be a princess again. A queen. A fine cage of her own forging.

Hades remained silent. The underworld, his archipelago of gentle sun and quiet spirits, was a haven of order. The dead wandered the emerald groves, their rest undisturbed by the dramas above. Yet the profound silence there often led to worry. Poseidon hadn’t been seen since that last conversation on the banks of the Styx, since the confession that had lingered in the subterranean air like a peculiar incense. The memory of it—I am many—had become a stone in Hades’ own pocket, smooth from constant worrying.

He was walking the obsidian path that spiraled around the highest of his floating islands, the one from which he could watch the slow, celestial drift of all the others, when the air changed.

It was a scent first. Not the salt-spray of ocean, but the clean, cold smell of deep water, of caverns where underground rivers first taste the open air. Then, a sound: the soft, rhythmic tap of sandals on stone, unhurried, approaching from behind.

He turned. She stood there, where the path widened into a viewing platform. Hades remained quiet. The underworld was peaceful. Gentle.