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March 7 - April 23, 2025
They must have sensed her doubt because Apollo added, “You’ve got this, Seph. You are Queen of the Underworld.” “The one and only,” said Hermes. “That we know of.”
“You are everything that makes me good,” he said. “And I am everything that makes you terrible.”
now she understood the power in being feared. And she wanted to be dreaded.
“Waiting to carry you through the dark if you will bring me to the light.” Her heart felt so heavy, a weight in her chest. “I need you,” she whispered. “You have me,” he said. “There is no part where you end or I begin. Use me, darling, as you have for your pleasure. There is power in this pain.”
Strange that life granted power in the face of loss, stranger yet that the person who would be most proud was not here to witness it.
“You would burn this world for me? I will destroy it for you,” she had said right before she had torn his realm apart in the name of a love she thought she had lost. Theseus considered their love a weakness, but he would soon discover how wrong he was.
“What’s done is done.” She knew he was right. Their only option was to move forward.
“It’s hard to know what evil exists in the world until it finds you.”
“It is curious that death would choose life as a bride,” Hippolyta said. “It is like the sun falling in love with the moon.” “One cannot exist without the other,” Persephone said. “Just as honor cannot exist without shame.”
Mourning was not just about the person. It was about the world one created around them, and when they ceased to exist, so did that world.
“I suppose what you said is true. Death gives birth to life.” Then she narrowed her eyes. “What will you birth, Persephone?” “Rage,” she answered without a second thought.
“You can. You will. You have no choice.”
“It is this. It is to have you look at me with these eyes. You worship me with these eyes.”
“I will love you through this,” he whispered. “I will love you beyond this.”
“Why don’t you date, Hermes?” “I date,” he said. “Just not…exclusively. I like a…a smattering of flavors.” Persephone scrunched her nose at his choice of words. “Flavors?” “Yeah,” he said. “Sometimes I like dick. Sometimes I just want tacos.” “Hermes,” she said, a little confused. “Do you mean actual tacos or…” “Of course I mean actual tacos. What other kinds of tacos are there?” Persephone opened her mouth to answer, but then closed it and shook her head. “Never mind. I’m glad you like tacos.”
His gaze shifted to the souls and gods gathered to welcome Apollo, and he wondered how he had come to care for so many people, but one look at Persephone and he knew—it was her. She was the thread that bound them, the one who had brought them all together, and now he would do anything to protect them.
“If I cannot face what I have done, do I really deserve to heal?” Hades tilted her head back. “Everyone deserves to heal, if not in life, then in death. It is the only way the world evolves when souls are reborn.” He paused. “If it is too much, you will tell me?” She nodded, and then he cradled her in his magic and took her to the Underworld.
“I am only trying to decide who I am now that the war is over,” she said. “You are Persephone,” he said. “You are my wife and my queen. You are everything to me.”
“Do you think those thoughts will ever go away?” she asked. “Eventually,” he said. “What do we do? Until then?” she asked. “Whatever it takes,” he said. “But we should make a promise that if either of us has those thoughts, we will tell the other.” She raised a brow at his suggestion. It was ironic, given that he had not wanted to tell her his thoughts earlier. “You realize if you make a promise, it is binding?” He smiled. “I do,” he said, brushing her hair behind her ear. “But I will do anything to keep you from suffering alone with your thoughts.”
She’d thought she would see a stranger, a shell of the person she had been in her previous life. Instead, she saw strength. She saw pride. She saw a woman who was queen. She let her gaze rise to Hecate, who watched her in the reflection. “Now you see yourself clearly,” the goddess said.
