fists in the air and jostling against each other. The dim blue light, emitting from some source she couldn’t see through the fog, glinted on the coins in their hands.
The Styx bubbled, boiling with anger and hatred. A single touch would incinerate any of the souls, but they didn’t appear afraid in the slightest. Instead, they still fought and shoved at each other for the attention of a single ferryman.
Kore turned her face away from the madness. She tried not to look at the horrors below her. But focusing on her own predicament was somehow worse.
No distractions meant all she could feel was his thick biceps pressed against the sides of her arms. The heat of his breath on the back of her neck. She could feel the muscles of his thighs rippling as he guided the horse away from the river and toward... something. She didn’t know what to expect from this nightmare of a man.
Kore had thought he was kind.
She’d thought him giving and quiet with his dark eyes full of secrets.
But he was just like any other god. Like any other man. He had taken what he wanted and in doing so, kidnapped her from all she held dear.
Kore caught herself spiraling down that path of thought and then paused. It didn’t sound like her voice in her head, but her mother’s. It sounded like a woman who was afraid of change and who wanted to remain hidden in a world that she’d created.
That wasn’t the voice whispering of adventure in her mind. It wasn’t the voice that bid her to be something more than just a child. More than just Kore, the maiden, the one who no one ever expected much from.
And she refused to be that little girl any longer.
Shifting forward, she grasped the charger’s mane and leaned over his thick neck. She ignored the fear that sparked in her chest when his red eye whirled to look at her. Instead, she stared down at the Underworld and forced her mind to take it all in.
The spirits watched them pass with wide eyes. She could see them clearly now and the fear Hades inspired within them. The souls that floated in the air, all heading to the river Styx where they would pay their dues, opened their eyes to watch her.
They knew nothing about a goddess in the Underworld. No one had told them when they died that someone would stand beside Hades in judgment. Perhaps this knowledge would eventually go back to the other humans. Perhaps they would know the Underworld would now have a queen.
And if that was the way of things, then she needed to make a better impression.
Kore pointed to the river Styx. “I know very little about it. Tell me.”
She hadn’t realized how stiffly Hades had been holding himself. In one moment, he was the warlord and in the next, he relaxed. The pauldrons dipped in his relief and his hands loosened their tense grip on the reins. “What would you like to know?”
The waters seemed to give off shivering waves of heat. The bubbling mire didn’t look hot, though. It looked frozen as an icy river.
Ripples spread out from the ferryman’s boat. He held a stick in his hands that guided his craft across the water to a simple dock where the souls waited. They brawled, holding up their coins for his eyes to see.
But it wasn’t these people that she was most interested in. Kore pointed at a group who waited on the sides. Their toes were so close to the water a simple breeze would have pushed them in. “Why aren’t they jostling for their place?”
He glanced in their direction. “They don’t have coins.”
She frowned. “I know the mortals have to pay to get across the river, but I’ve never understood why.”
“Their loved ones need to uphold some responsibility in their death. If they do not pay, then I will not allow them into the next stage of their life.” Hades gripped the reins as they hit the ground. The charger stamped the black soil of the Underworld and puffs of smoke billowed from his feet.
Hades swung off the beast’s back and stepped lightly onto the ground. He held up his hands for her and waited.
For a man who had just completed a kidnapping, she couldn’t imagine why he was waiting now. But she’d told herself she would be stronger than the fainting goddess he expected. So she didn’t take his hands.