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)
Hecate is no fool. She will understand what must be done. She will not need to be convinced as Zeus needs to be convinced.
“The army of the dead will seek vengeance for violation of the laws,” I tell Hecate before she can speak. Before she can try to dissuade me. “I will bring them to his doorstep if he does not honor the law. She has had enough time. Four days and three nights. I must have her back.”
Persephone
With a simper on my lips, I stare at my upturned hand. There is no mistaking it. My powers have returned.
I am not sure exactly when I think to reach for them, but when I do, they are there at my fingertips. The spells and prayers come easily, with power flowing through me like water. I run to the nearest garden beds and press my fingertips into the earth, and there is life. Beautiful and vibrant. Whatever I imagine to grow.
Life!
I sit back on my heels on the flagstones next to the garden beds with fistfuls of dirt in my palms. I know I must look just as crazed as I did in those first days in the Underworld, but I cannot control my surprise. My delight? It is a bittersweet joy to be here on Olympus with all my powers restored.
Long are the days that I feared they’d leave me or that I did not deserve them. I earned this. This beautiful gift.
But then—they were never gone, were they? Because the powers were not what mattered. What mattered was how I practiced. How I believed in myself. How I learned.
The process is just the same on Olympus as it was in the Underworld, only here, I am not starting at the beginning. I was born with my powers. My mother taught me the ways of them when she taught me to speak.
I open my hands and look down at the dirt there, then put it back in the garden bed.
Then I spool a plant up from it, bringing life in the form of a blooming rose, straight from the earth. And with a snap, I can deliver it to the mortal realm and let them multiply. I give beauty. I give hope in the despair that still lingers. My mother’s grasp has slipped. Her pain subsiding.
I might not’ve trusted my own abilities if I had not gone to the Underworld. I might not’ve built that sure, strong feeling within me. How could I have? If I had stayed here—
I do not know what might have happened. I might have lost my powers entirely. I might never have learned how to wield my own confidence no matter the realm I am standing in.
I grow flowers in the garden bed in a wild frenzy. If there are seeds, then they spring up at my call like they were waiting for me to summon them. If there are no seeds, I can create one by imagining what it might be like as a bloom. I practice this until I have to lie down at the edge of the garden bed, my body weak with how good it feels to be myself again.
The sky above me, and above Olympus, is a pale blue dotted with clouds. It has cleared, for the moment, but gray clouds in the distance make me wonder if something else is coming. A storm is brewing.
Something else is always coming. That is what it means to be a god, or a living mortal, and even a soul destined for new life in the Underworld. There will always be change. There will always be growth. There will always be death.
There will always be something to face.
I frown at that blue, the tingling enjoyment of bringing so much life to the garden bed fading from my hands.
Would I give it up, I wonder?
Would I give it up to be with Hades? I cannot stop thinking of my love. He’s in all my dreams, appearing there the moment I fall asleep.
I need to get back to him. My palm itches for his touch and I must admit, I miss the weight of my crown upon my head.
Slowly, I rise from the flagstones and return to my rooms. The night is quiet and the people are scarce. I wash the dirt from my hands and change my gown, then settle before my altar.
My heart races. The last time I came to this altar, I was taken to the Underworld. I’m no longer afraid to be taken there, or to go there of my own will.
If I am afraid at all, it’s because of the uncertainty of what may come. I’m unsettled by my mother’s answers or non-answers to my questions. And my father…
I left, my emotions running high once Hecate was content with me and asked for my leave so she could speak to Zeus. The unease spreads through me once again.