The God & The Shadow

Chapter 59

PERSEPHONE

They sparred for three consecutive days after.
Well, sparring didn't exactly fit their activity as much as the word humiliation did.

After an embarrassingly weak show of skill Persephone had displayed that day, Hades proposed the idea of teaching her the basics of using the sword. She found herself agreeing after a few moments of consideration.

There was no point denying him anyway when her ego had already been knocked down by the waste of a bargain she didn't even come close to fulfilling.

He taught her everything she needed to know: from the proper stance right down to how to keep the sword well-maintained. The sword of Hades' still unknown mystery woman served her well during her training, the absence of it wrapped around her fingers sometimes bothering her.

Hermes had dropped by and watched them at some point the other day. The god was clear on how much he hated sparring his friend and explained that his legs hurt upon Hades' invitation. She would've called his bluff, but she guessed she'd seen enough of Azura's hangovers to realize that maybe the sudden glow of Hermes was correlated to his aching body.

Azura. Gods, five days in the Underworld and she'd already forgotten about her and Brie. How Hades had just waltzed into the Cathedral and flung them both across the room without effort. How Persephone tried breaking free from the hold Nixon had on her to try and help them.

How he'd called her a foreign name amidst his panic.

"You know, most people would kill to be in the position you're in right now."

Persephone blinked, and everything came rushing back to her. Her arm was straight as a ramrod as her fingers held the golden hilt of the sword, its sharp metal glinting under the bright summer sun in the middle of the field they stood on.

And just at the tip of her blade was Hades' chin, a drop of blood marring the silver shine of it.

She quickly retracted her hand and scrambled to make sure he was alright, but he simply waved her off and wiped the blood away as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience.

"I– I didn't mean to do that." Persephone insisted.

"You need to stop lying, Persephone." Hades started. He made a quick motion of sheathing his own sword on his back and moved closer to her. "You wanted to do that from the moment you touched that sword, and you did it beautifully, if I may add."

She ignored the sorry of a compliment and wiped the sweat off her forehead with the sleeve of her blouse. Persephone claimed that it was the dress and those damned slippers that restrained her that first day of sparring, but Hades had simply commented that the owner of her sword once fought barefoot in a gown.

It elicited an ugly feeling inside the goddess, a mix between annoyance and jealousy. Who was this woman anyway?

She also blamed those cuts on her feet, to which the god did not dare counter. But when she remarked about it, the pain oddly subsided even though they were still as red as rubies. Persephone tried thanking the god for the action, but he ignored her entirely when she did.

"I get a question answered now, right?" Her lips tilted upwards slightly at the victory. No one was more surprised than her over her quick learning in the course of just three days, not even Hades. She wondered if she would've been better at it if Nixon had agreed to her numerous requests of training.