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)
“Are you thinking the same of the mortal realm?” I question, straightening my shoulders and shading my eyes.
My mother doesn’t look at me. She merely whispers, “The mortal realm can be replanted again. It is resilient.”
“Is it?”
“Oh, of course.” She’s still careful not to meet my eyes. Her pain is evident. The loss echoing in her gaze. As if I can feel what she suffered. The loss is immense. “Much of it is a garden, Persephone. It is only a matter of waiting for new growth.”
“When will that come?” I question.
“When my heart is healed,” she answers quickly. It’s so very evident that she placed a spell. The damage will only stop when she no longer feels the agony. But every spell can be broken, though not every pain can be healed. And my mother’s pain I fear will only worsen when I tell her the truth. When I return to him, her bitterness may turn to death for the innocent.
“He will pay for what he did to you,” she murmurs.
“Mother,” I start, my eyes growing wide. “I don’t wish for—”
“It is not my wish, my sweet girl. It is what I need to heal.”
“What about the mortals themselves?” Quickly, to keep myself busy, I take up another pot and tip some seeds into my palm. They’re small, but will burst with life. They’ll become so much more than they appear to be right now. “Will they be able to start again?”
“In time.”
I stare at her for a moment, not recognizing her but acknowledging she now knows pain she’s never known before. She will see reason. My father will put an end to this soon. He must.
“In how much time?” Perhaps she will be more willing to speak when we are not looking at each other, so I keep my focus on the seeds. “I saw things in the Underworld that made me wonder about the mortal realm.”
With concern, she stills and asks me quietly, “What kinds of things, my daughter?” It’s then I know her fear of what I had to go through. Her hand trembles and I cannot offer her comfort entirely, but I offer her the truth.
“Souls,” I say simply. “There was worry over an imbalance between the realms. If there are too many souls entering the Underworld at once—”
“The Underworld is a vast realm,” my mother says, interrupting me gently. “If there is any kind of imbalance, it will certainly sort itself out within the Underworld.”
“What if it does not?”
She is silent.
“I wonder,” I press on, though my heart is beginning to beat hard, as if there is some danger approaching. “Because many mortals look to me as well, and if there was some comfort I could offer them, some reassurance…”
“You can offer them your presence,” my mother says, meeting my eyes at last. “Have you thought of that? It may be more useful than any words you may offer them.”
“My presence?” I question.
“Your gift. Your power,” she answers.
“Of course,” I answer in a whisper.
“We can speak more of it later, for now, please keep me company. I have missed you so,” she tells me with tears in her eyes as my own gaze blurs.
“I’ve missed you as well,” I answer.
She smiles at me, a quick, relieved expression, then turns back to the garden bed. “What do you think of this section here, Persephone? I would like something that will be bright when it blooms.”
Later that evening, I pace in my room, trying on my pale blush flowing robe and looking at myself in the mirror. I need my father to make a decision on the mess we’re in. To offer peace to my mother while honoring the bond Hades and I have made. I do not wish to be in his position or to provoke him, but the warning from Hades makes me question everything. Almost as if I’ve gone mad.
“Provoke him?” I ask my reflection. “Do you fear his anger?”
Yes, a voice in the back of my mind answers.
I fear my father’s anger because I fear that the imbalance between the realms will last longer as a result. I fear my father’s anger because my return to the Underworld may be delayed or worse, it may never happen if the war continues to brew.
I’m not afraid of a difficult discussion. I’m not afraid of my own weaknesses. I’m not weak. I’m a queen and goddess. I am simply aware that much of my fate rests in his hands.
I slip on a gown in deep green in favor of my dressing robes. It’s a simple silk piece but elegant. It is not the color of the Underworld, nor is it the color of Olympus. It’s the shade of evergreens in the forest, standing firm throughout the seasons. It’s the greenery at twilight in the summer. It’s the color of growth and renewal.