QUEEN OF DEATH ✔

TWENTY NINE

TARTARUS, THE UNDERWORLD.

PERSEPHONE

"NO!"

Moment by moment, I broke.

There was moisture down my cheeks, and there were tears dripping down from them onto her face. It was white - so, so white - and there was static humming in my ears, an absence of sound, of feeling, of emotion - only numb, raw grief that threatened to break me apart.

And then his hands were around me, holding me back, pinning me to his chest as people gathered around us. Thanatos on his knee beside me, his face heavy with grief as Hypnos lingered at his shoulder. Minos was barking orders as they pulled out the sword, and the river nymphs were sobbing as Hecate's acolytes fell to their feet, their voices soft with prayer-

"NOOOOOO!"

"Perse - please," Hades whispered, and his voice was broken, and full of tenderness as I pulled his hands off me, falling onto her chest, sobbing.

"This - this is my fault. I should be dead. I should be gone - she tried to protect me. Hades," I wept. "She saved me."

And so heavy was my grief that I could feel it crushing me again, choking me again, like water was being shoved into my lungs. There were sounds pouring out of my mouth that I failed to understand, broken like shards of glass that made me bleed again and again. The pain came in waves, coming and going and coming back again, each new wave hitting me harder than the last. I was aware of Hades, how he begged me to let her go, to come back to him - the panic in each word sharper than the last. But my arms refused to let her go.

Her body twitched.

And then an unknown force slammed me into Hades' iron chest.

Hecate coughed.

And her eyes fluttered open as I broke into a ragged sob.

"I - how... how am I-"

Tiredness leached into me like a disease.

Around me, everyone went white. Hades' eyes were wide with disbelief. Rhadamanthys stood shocked. And Thanatos - he was in tears, hugging his friend as she coughed up some more blood, trying to sit up.

And I - I almost crumpled to the ground, before a set of white hands broke my fall.

I had never felt so exhausted - so drained. So... so... tired...

"Persephone," Hades whispered, his voice ragged. "How... how did you?"

"You brought me back," Hecate croaked.

I shook my head once, twice. I could not move. My limbs seemed to be frozen. They were aching, so stiff that I could barely move them.

Someone shook my shoulders. My husband, probably.