A Touch of Malice (Hades x Persephone #3)(91)

“There are monsters here,” said Hades, as if to explain.

“What…kind of monsters?” she asked.

“Many,” he said, looking slightly amused. “Some are here because they were slain, some are here because they were captured. Come.”

He took her hand and lead her past many darkened cells. As they went, she heard hissing and growls and a horrible wailing. Persephone looked to Hades for an explanation.

“The harpies,” Hades said. “Aello, Ocypete, and Celaeno—they get restless, especially when the world is chaos.”

“Why?”

“Because they sense evil and wish to punish,” he said.

They passed many more, including a creature who was half woman, half snake. Graceful fingers wrapped tight around the bars of her cell as her head came into view. She was beautiful, her hair was long and fell over her shoulders in red waves, curtaining her bare breasts.

“Hades,” she hissed, her slitted eyes gleaming.

“Lamia,” he said in acknowledgement.

“Lamia?” Persephone asked. “The child-killer?”

The monster hissed at her words, but Hades answered. “The very one.”

Lamia was the daughter of Poseidon and a queen. Her affair with Zeus lead to Hera cursing her to lose any child she birthed, eventually, she went mad, stealing babies from their mothers only to feast upon their flesh. Her story was horrifying, especially given that Lamia had gone from desiring a child above all else to consuming them.

They continued further until they came to the end of the passage where a gate kept a massive dragon-like creature imprisoned. It had seven snake-like heads, scales, and webbed fins along its neck. They hissed, barring fangs that dripped a black liquid into a pool that came up to their large, bulbous belly. In that water were several souls, whose faces were burned beyond recognition.

“What is this?” she asked.

“That is a hydra,” Hades said. “Its blood, venom, and breath are poisonous.”

Persephone stared.

“And the mortals in the pool? What did they do?”

“They are the terrorists who attacked the stadium,” he said.

“Is this their punishment?”

“No,” Hades said. “Think of this as their holding cell.”

Persephone let Hades’ words settle between them. That meant there was no reprieve when the judges assigned a soul’s fate to Tartarus. Their punishment began immediately—and these burns, the venom eating through their skin straight to bone—was only the beginning.

“And how will you punish them?” she asked, tilting her head to meet his gaze. Hades stared down at her.

“Perhaps…you would like to decide?”

Again, she found herself smirking despite the horror of their conversation. Hades was asking her to determine the eternal punishment of a soul—and she liked it. It made her feel powerful, trusted. For the briefest moment, she wondered what that made her—but she already knew. It made her his queen.

Her gaze returned to the souls in the poisonous lake.

“I wish for them exist in a constant state of fear and panic. To experience what they inflicted upon others. They will exist, for eternity, in the Forest of Despair.”

“So you shall have it,” Hades said, and lifted his hand for her to take. As her fingers settled into his, the souls beneath the hydra vanished.

“Let me show you something.”

He took her to the library, to the basin she’d stumbled upon early in her visits to the palace. When she’d first found it, she’d assumed it was a table—but at her approach, she discovered a partial map of the Underworld reflected in the dark surface Then, she’d only been able to see the palace, Asphodel and the Rivers Styx and Lethe. When she’d asked Hades why it was not complete, he’d told her the rest would be revealed when she’d earned the right.

At that point, only Hecate and Hermes were able to view the whole of the Underworld.

Now when she looked, she saw every river and meadow and mountain. She knew the chances of the map remaining the same were small as Hades often manipulated his world—adding, moving, or erasing locations.

“Show the Forest Despair,” Hades said, and the water rippled until a harsh scene played out before her eyes. When Persephone had wandered between those trees, she’d been alone, the forest quiet around her, but now she saw it for what it was—full of thousands of souls all living some form of their personal hell. There were souls who sat at the bases of trees, knees pulled to their chest, shaking. Others hunted one another, lashing out and murdering—only to be revived and hunted again.

“Those who hunt,” she said. “What is their fear?”

“Loss of control,” Hades said.

“And the ones being killed?” she asked quietly.

“They were murderers in life,” he responded.

There were others, too—souls who drank from streams and died slow and painful deaths, souls who were caught in a part of the forest that remained perpetually on fire, souls who were tied and stretched between trees as they were poked and prodded until exposure lead to their eventual death.

As each cycle ended, it began again—and endless loop of torture and death.

After a moment, Persephone turned away from the basin. “I have seen enough.”