“I wish—” My voice broke, and I swallowed thickly. “I wish I were like Aphrodite. I wish I had the strength to do what she did.”
“Maybe someday you will,” he said. “You just need to find the right person is all. If Hades isn’t it, then there’s nothing wrong with that. This doesn’t have to be forever if you don’t want it to be.”
I snorted despite myself. “Everything in our family is forever.”
“Only the good things,” he said. “We usually find a way to fix the bad ones.”
“Don’t see how anyone would agree to let me off the hook if I don’t even try.”
“Then try. Do whatever you have to do to prove to yourself and the rest of the council that it isn’t a good fit.”
“Hades will never let me go,” I mumbled. “Not now, not in a hundred years, not ever. He loves me.”
“If he really loves you, then once he understands how miserable you are, he will let you go,” said Hermes. “Just because he’s a good guy doesn’t mean he’s a good guy for you.”
I shook my head. “You can say all the pretty things you want, but that won’t change anything.”
“You’re right,” he said. “The only one who can change any of this is you. You just have to try.”
“But I already did.”
“I know. They should’ve listened.” He pulled me into a hug. The weight of his arms around my shoulders was a comfort, and I managed to relax against him. At least I had someone on my side.
A moment later, the breeze picked up again, and I sensed a second presence in the meadow. The sun dipped beneath the horizon, and Hermes stiffened. I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.
“Please,” I whispered one last desperate time. “I’ll do anything.”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.” Hermes’s voice was low and his words rushed. “Listen—I’ll visit you all the time, I promise. You won’t be alone. Just do me a favor and give yourself a chance, all right? Do whatever you have to do to be happy, even if that means upsetting the council. They’ve already had their say. Now it’s your turn.”
I pressed my lips together. Being that kind of selfish went against everything Mother had taught me. Be there for others; place their happiness above my own; be content with my life; don’t be greedy or envious or unkind; appreciate the warmth and love around me, and don’t covet what I don’t have.
But how could I appreciate what wasn’t there? Hades may have loved me, but what did that mean if I couldn’t feel it? He could love me more than anyone loved anyone else in the entire world, and it still wouldn’t help if I didn’t love him back. Maybe in time I would adjust and grow to love him, but right now, all I could think about was the rock weighing down on me and the feeling of Hades’s body over mine. And I didn’t have the patience to wait.
“Promise me, Persephone,” whispered Hermes, and at last I nodded.
“I promise.”
Behind me, something—rather, someone—cast a shadow over me with what little daylight remained, and I shivered. “Hades.”
“I am sorry to interrupt,” he said quietly, and there was something about the way he said it that made me think he really was. “If I could speak with you alone, Persephone?”
Hermes nodded, and before I could protest, he untangled himself from me and stood. “I’ll see you around,” he said to me, and at least I knew he wasn’t just saying that. At sixteen, he was training for his role on the council, as I was, and part of that included guiding the dead down to the Underworld. Chances were good I’d see him often, and that one reminder was enough for me to breathe easier. It wouldn’t be just me and Hades down there. I had to remember that.
Once Hermes walked off into the woods, Hades knelt beside me. His long, dark hair, usually so impeccable, was mussed, and his fingers dug into his thighs. “I owe you an apology.”
Not this again. “You don’t owe me anything,” I mumbled, staring down at a lopsided blossom. “I’m sorry I ran up here.”
“Do not be,” he said. Neither of us could look at the other. “What happened last night…I promise you it will not happen again, not unless we are both willing and prepared.”
His words twisted something in my gut. I’d been willing last night. Nervous, but willing, and determined to get it over with. Had he not been? Had I taken that from him? Was that part of the reason why things were so terrible between us?
“I don’t…” The words stuck in my throat, and I struggled to swallow them.
Just tell him.
Hermes’s voice echoed through my mind, gentle but unyielding, and finally I opened my mouth and blurted, “I want a separate bedroom.”
Hades blinked, clearly startled. “Is there something wrong with—”
“Yes,” I said before I lost my nerve. “I’m scared of you. I’m scared of this. And if I can’t stay up here, then I don’t want to stay with you down there.”
He stared at me, speechless. For the better part of a minute, his eyes searched mine, and I refused to look away. I couldn’t back down no matter how much it hurt him. Maybe this was a step in the wrong direction, maybe this was exactly what we didn’t need, but I needed a space of my own. If I stayed with him, I would crumble. And I rather thought he would, too.
“All right,” he said, his voice cracking. “If that is what you want…”
“It is,” I said. “I’m your queen, and I’ll rule at your side as much as you need me to. But if you want me at my best, then I can’t be your wife. Not yet. Not until things are better.”
For the briefest of moments, his expression shifted into pain and self-loathing, and guilt rushed through me as I nearly took it back. I could try. I had it in me. But even as I opened my mouth, that wall reared up inside me again, forming a barrier between us so strong that no amount of guilt could break it. I couldn’t be his wife. Not now. Not if I wanted to have any chance of surviving this.
“Someday they will be,” I said. “We can work toward it. Just—give me a chance to adjust, okay? And in the meantime, we’ll be friends.”
His expression relaxed enough to let me know I’d said something right. “Very well. We are friends.”
Hades stood, offering me his hand, and I reluctantly accepted. Not because I needed his help, but because he needed some small amount of hope. I couldn’t crush him completely.