The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(16)

But as I stood before the iron-dipped bone gates that led into the palace, I wondered whether I’d made the wrong choice.

These gates would never have been closed to me before.

I knew Hades was aware of my presence. The breeze itself whispered of it.

Clenching my jaw, I said, “Please, Hades. Open to me. Do not do this again.”

For the past week, I’d come each and every day to this gate. And each and every day he’d kept them sealed to me. Me, and everyone else.

Once Hades had moved freely among his dead.

Loving them as a father, and they loving him right back. But I witnessed none of that warmth anymore. The dead were no more welcome here than I was.

I’d hoped that by showing him I would not force myself into his home, he’d see that I wasn’t what the rest of the pantheon was. Hoped that maybe he’d become curious, that his anger or coldness or whatever this was would abate just enough for him to try to figure out why I continued to come day after day, night after night.

“Please, Hades. If you would only hear me out. If you would only—”

A loud groaning split the night, and then the gate began to slowly rise before me.

I yelped, shocked that my plan had finally worked. That he was finally letting me in.

The palace was dark. No flames were lit within. But every square inch was permanently etched into my brain. I knew the walkways, the halls, the rooms.

Moving toward his throne room was simple enough. But studying the décor, I found the differences startlingly obvious too.

Calypso had had a hand in nearly every room, transforming Hades’s dark domain into something tropical and cheerful, a beautiful mix of vivid shades the color of a coral reef teeming with life.

Even the walls themselves had been transformed into thick glass that’d revealed the beautiful undulations of colorful fish swimming to and fro within. Sea kelp and massively giant pearls had adorned the exposed timber beams above my head.

The palace had been fit for the queen of the sea.

Now... there were skull chandeliers and sconces, creamy white and macabre as they stared back at me with hollow, empty sockets that burned with the buttery glow of candlelight.

Chain mail armor hung upon skeletal remains. The heads of beasts too were mounted upon the walls, their visage twisted and snarling. A Minotaur stared at me with its sightless eyes, its black fur looking matted with an age-darkened stain of blood and gore.

Goblins. Satyrs with long curving horns. Even the heads of lovely but deadly water sirens had their heads fixed on pikes.

I remembered the alternate world because Galeta had shared those memories with me, helping me unlock the visions of who Hades had once been.

And what I remembered of the man before Calypso had found him nude and bound before the pantheon of his peers wasn’t this at all. He’d been aloof, but not frightening. Not cold or terrifying. He’d simply kept to himself because he’d always been so very different from the rest of us.

I hated to admit that once upon a time I’d been anything less than I am now. But I had been. I’d been petty. Interested only in what benefitted me. Calypso had changed me for the better too.

Though she had the temper of an angry shrew at the best of times and the mercurial moods of the seas she called home, Calypso had brought out the very best in those she’d decided to love.

I missed her dearly, and seeing Hades’s palace now—though he had likely forgotten her—I knew that he, too, suffered from the loss of her.

Clenching my fingers, I tried to focus on something other than my dark thoughts, allowing muscle memory to guide me straight to his throne room.

And there he was, just as I’d known he would be.

Big.

Brawny.

Beautiful.

Hades wore no shirt, his dark skin covered in gooseflesh from the constant howling winds batting against him. On his lap rested the gleaming sword of Damocles.

The symbolism did not escape me, and my heart shook at the tortures he must be enduring, the emptiness he no doubt felt but had no way to understand.

Long black hair that badly needed a trim covered his eyes. Heavily hooded, dark eyes gazed down upon me.

He was an awe-inspiring figure sitting upon his throne of thorns and blood-dipped bones. Dead and dying flowers crawled up the black walls behind him. It’d been some time now since Persephone had visited last.

In this life, just as in the other, Hades and she weren’t even remotely friendly. But without the loving hand of a female goddess beside Hades, the underworld truly suffered. As did the man himself.

“What do you want, Love?” He demanded, voice booming richly to the rafters.

From the corner of my eye, I caught the slithering movement of coils crawling between withering vines of ivy. Wetting my lips, I smothered my revulsion at all the death surrounding me.

“Five days you come. Now you’re here, and you say nothing.” He snarled, then lifted his hand and pointed a finger at the door behind me. “Go then! I’ve no time for—”

Gnashing my front teeth, I plastered on a tight smile. I’d not let him intimidate me. I was a god too.

Squaring my shoulders, I looked directly at him. “I have a request for you, my old fr—” Old habits die hard, and I gave myself a slight shake, clearing my throat as a reminder that this man was not my old friend. “Hades. My Hades.”

He frowned, thick brows furrowing deeply as he stared at me like I’d lost my mind.