Crown of Darkness

Persephone was tired of being a pawn in the games of the gods.

She was tired of the men pushing around the women, and wished she had been there when Poseidon did what he did to Medusa, when her father did what he did to all those women.

She had held Athena while she let one tear slip for the girl who had devoted herself to her, who she had tried to protect but still couldn't do enough to fix it. She had been there when the gods had forced themselves on Aphrodite, had seen the light leave her eyes and the fight drain out of her. She saw the way they sneered at Artemis for her vow of chastity, saw her mother cry over a man who did not belong to her, a man who didn't deserve her. She saw the hardness in Hera that was put there by her husband, saw her misplaced anger. She saw it all and she hated it all.

Determined to have her freedom from the gods and their selfish motives, she ran straight into hell, to the King of the Underworld. To the one place she was could be safe, to the one god she was supposed to stay away from. But Hades wasn't anything like what she had heard.

He wasn't supposed to be kind, but he was. And though she swore that love wasn't real, she found herself falling and wanting more than anything to stay with him in the land of the dead.

But the gods are not willing to let Persephone go, and she has a part to play in a destiny much bigger than her own. Can she hold on to the freedom she's fought for and the god she's come to love, or will she just become another pawn in the game of the gods?