24. Grief

The day after, the world fell into chaos. Hurricanes. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. Utter, senseless destruction of untold magnitude. The sea warred against the sky, against the earth, against the stars, against anything that dared question or stand in its path.

The month after, the ocean was silent. Motionless. Desolate.

Hades wasn't sure what was worse, the destructive directionless rage or the listless immobility of paralyzing despair.

"The rage will return." Athena was unconcerned.

"The sea is volatile, who knows how long his violent moods will swing," Hestia warned.

("Tell him it's okay, it didn't even hurt," the newest ghost that sat on the shores of Elysium placated with a sad smile that didn't quite reach once vibrant green eyes. It had hurt, Hades knew, and the silvery remains of scars across the ghost's form proved it.)

"The humans are terrified, think he will be pleased with or ignorant of your wanton destruction?"

It would not bring him back either way, therefore Poseidon cared not.

(He was neither pleased nor ignorant. The sadness that darkened his eyes as the leagues of dead condemned to a watery doom crowded Charon's boats made his shoulder grow heavy but it was the helplessness that hung about his downturned lips that made Hades look away.)

"Do not let him in," Zeus warned. "We shall never be rid of that particular chapter in our lives if you grant him even the slightest glimpse of the boy. You know he will always want more. We shall truly never know peace if you bow to any such demand."

("Give a mouse a cookie."

"Come again?"

"It's a mortal story . . . give a mouse a cookie, he'll ask for some milk."

The connection was ridiculous and nonsensical. But it must have some significance Hades was missing for the ghost hadn't been surprised at the news. Nor had he questioned the logic. He simply stared at Persephone's empty seat with translucent, unseeing eyes and argued not against his fate. Hades did not understand why he even amused the lord of the dead with their little tête-à-têtes. He owed the gods nothing, least of all Hades.

Not anymore.

Perhaps not ever.)

"Give a godly parent a glimpse of their dead child, and they'll try to break every natural law to get them back."

"I didn't know you read mortal literature, Dionysus."

"I don't have to. And neither do you."

("Death is cruel even to its master," Hades tried to explain to the ghost as they walked among the silent halls of the fallen. "My children return to me but not wholly. They are but echoes of their living selves. When a demigod dies, all parts of them die. That includes the part that links them to their parents. That is why the death of a demigod is felt more keenly by a godly parent than their mortal counterparts—not just a child dies but part of the god themselves. My children lose the part of themselves that binds them to me when they die. So they are in my domain, but forever lost to me. They never truly feel like my children and the Underworld no longer offers them comfort. Rather it becomes a cruel reminder of what they can never regain.")

Bianca visited her father sometimes. But the sight of him was painful to her. She could sense his aura, feel it all around her, omnipresent and powerful . . . but no longer a part of her. The hanging fruit of temptation, always beyond reach. A part of her very being torn from her person and flouted before her. It was a cruelty worse than all of Tartarus.

(Hades had little love for his brothers and less for the cruel unfairness that followed from his submission to their laws whilst they remained steadfastly disobedient. But . . . but the shadow of the demigod that waited patiently on the shores of Elysium and entertained the musing of the lord of the dead, who drew his children into the light when he walked upon Gaia's shores. Him, Hades did not hate. In him, Hades saw what he had thought long lost to children of darkness: hope.)

Hazel never knew how her father watched over her. She had only just been returned to him. Pluto dared not threatened her life with his selfish desires. He loved his children too much for that. Instead, he closed his eyes and reached out for her, reassured himself by basking in the rightness of that thread of existence that bound her to him—alive and flourishing in the land of the living as it never could in death. He had his daughter back.

("I can be reborn."

"It's never the same."

The part that binds a demigod to their parent will never be reborn.)

Poseidon, unable to gain entry to the domain that belonged to his brother, stood defiant and angry and wild on the brink of the Underworld. "He does not belong to you. Give him back to me."

("Don't." Percy Jackson stood defiant and angry and wild in the heart of the Underworld. "You of all people know better than to defy the Fates. You know that crossing the Fates always has consequences."

"I would have given Eurydice to Orpheus."

"Because you knew he would look back.")

He had known. He had known that Eurydice would look back. He had always known better than to challenge the sacred Fates. There were some things even the lord of the dead dared not meddle in. The Fates had a way of correcting themselves.

(Poseidon knew better than to look back.)

A/n Here's to everyone asking for one of the other big three. It is my personal belief that Hades has a massive soft spot for Percy. Thank you to everyone for your patience and support! You're the best!

Up next: Kidnapped