From Darkness (Hearts & Arrows Book 3)(93)

She was just as broken as Josie though worse. Because for Artemis, there was no escape.

The only way out was through herself.

She was ill equipped to handle it on her own, but there was no one to help her. She wouldn’t let them; she had pushed them all away. It was a prison she’d built without knowing, comprised of bitterness and anger, designed and imposed by herself alone—not Gaia, not Aphrodite. It was Artemis’s own doing.

She could not change the past any easier than she could fathom how to shape her future. And, as she watched Orion twinkle against the black sky, she could not comprehend how to find herself again after being lost for so very long.





Day 11





“HEY, FRIEND,” PERRY SAID as she crawled under Dita’s fluffy covers that morning. “How ya feeling?”

Dita stretched out and sighed, content. “Like fifty million bucks, Fireball and all. I slept. Again.”

“This makes me very, very happy.” Perry smiled across her pillow at Dita.

“Me too.” Dita gasped, fear shooting through her. “Wait, are Jon and Josie okay?”

“They’re fine. Have a look.”

They looked in on the players. Jon looked haggard as he drove in the early morning sun, and Josie slept against the window, her brow creased even in sleep.

“They look terrible.” Dita felt like rotten garbage as she watched them.

“I know.”

“I need to come up with a plan,” Dita answered with her eyes on Jon, who was wound tight enough to shatter from the tension.

“Okay. Well, while you’re thinking about it, let’s talk about Ares,” Perry said, all chipper and merry.

“Ugh. You’re fucking evil.” Dita pulled a pillow over her face. “It is way too early for that.”

Perry giggled and propped her head on her hand. “When are you going to talk to him?”

Dita moved the pillow, hugging it against her chest. “I don’t know that either. Not until I figure out what to say. It’s so strange. I don’t know how I can just pick myself up and talk to him. I’ve only seen him once, and I flipped out. Who knows if I can maintain whatever facade of decorum I have going on when I’m face-to-face with him?” Her chest was heavy at the thought. “Maybe I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can. I promise.”

“How can you promise that?”

“Dita, remember where I came from. Remember who I’m married to. If I could overcome that, you can overcome this.” Perry laid her head back down and buried herself in the pillow, tucking in the end so she could see Dita. “You know this story well, but maybe it will have a new meaning for you now. If you want to hear it.”

Dita bit her lip and nodded as she reached for Perry’s hand.

Persephone’s eyes were distant, her mind turning back thousands of years to the time she was innocent.

“I can still remember the way I felt that day, the warmth of the sun, the green of the grass. It was so long before I would see it again.” She took a breath. “We were picking flowers—the Oceanids, Artemis, Athena, and I—like it was any day. I wandered away from the group, chasing a trail of orange calendulas over the hill when the earth began to quake, knocking us all to the ground. A chasm shaped like a lightning bolt split the earth, separating me from everyone.

“I saw the horses first. They rose from the dark, black as pitch, their eyes glowing coals, nostrils flaring, and teeth bared. They were the living dead. Shreds of skin hung from their ribs, fire burning in the cage of their bones. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even scream.

“The sunlight caught the obsidian inlaid in the golden chariot, nearly blinding me, the dead horses thundering by, and then I was weightless, floating, his hand on the back of my robes. It was only once I’d been deposited at his feet that I saw him, saw the hardness of his body, the coldness of his eyes, the shadows of his face, coloring him in menace and determination. And then the chariot turned, the sky disappearing as the ground closed above us, shrinking away until there was only darkness. Only then did I scream.

“When we reached the palace, I wouldn’t leave the chariot. I was terrified, crying and cursing him, vowing that I would never lie with him, never be his. And he laughed. Dita, he laughed at me. I can still hear the sound, echoing off the walls, mocking me.”

Dita squeezed her hand as she continued“He picked me up off the floor of the chariot, threw me over his shoulder like a doll and carried me in. I fought him every step of the way, thrashing and scratching and screaming. I was so wild, he dropped me once. I was triumphant, like I had beaten him. As if I could.

“But he wasn’t even angry, just looked down at me with eyes like stones and said, ‘One day, you will come to love me as I love you.’

“Love. That was the first time he told me he loved me. At the time, I couldn’t fathom his ability to feel, never mind love. I was a thing, a toy that Zeus had given him, and he treated me like I was nothing. I had no choice.”

Perry sighed from deep in her chest.

“I thought the underworld would be only fire and darkness, but it was beautiful. The palace was full of trees and plants I’d never seen before, bright and luminescent, some with jagged petals and sharp leaves, dangerous and lovely. The rooms were brilliant and bright, rivaling Olympus, if I’m being honest. Hades had created all of it for me, built it in the hopes that I would find beauty in my home.” She shook her head. “He knew me even then. It took me so long to see.