talking about, she finally smiled.
“Hades is not your father, Zagreus. Zeus is your father.”
For a second, her words floated around him like clouds, then their meaning hit like a bullet straight to his chest, sending him stumbling back several steps.
No, that couldn’t be. He was Hades’s son. He’d felt the darkness calling out to him his whole life.
“You were conceived on Olympus, during my time at home. The Fates blessed you with light, not darkness. When you were born, you were adored and celebrated. But…” She sighed. “Even on Olympus, nothing is perfect. Hera found out about you and convinced the Titans that you were destined to rule all the gods. They tore you to pieces before I even knew they’d attacked. By the time I got to you, all that was left was your beating heart.”
She stepped toward him, and he instinctively moved back, bumping into a boulder that hadn’t been there before, thankful it could hold him up because his legs felt like gelatin.
“Zeus placed your beating heart back in my womb, where you grew again. But we both knew you wouldn’t be safe on Olympus, so I hid in the human world until you were born. And then, to make sure Hera and the Titans never found out about you, I brought you to the Underworld where I told Hades you were his son.”
Holy shit… His brain was pea soup. “Are you saying…? Are you hinting that I’m—”
“Yes. Your name is not Zagreus. That was the name I gave you here. Your given name is Dionysus.”
Dionysus. Double holy shit. She’d just said the name.
She sighed again, looking sad and the tiniest bit contrite. “I thought you would be safe here. I thought Hades would never be the wiser—he’d always talked of having a son. I did not expect him to grow suspicious and to curse you with his darkness. And I never expected that Zeus would turn as dark and jealous as my husband. Much of the feud that exists today between Zeus and Hades is because of you, yios.”
There was no word to explain what he was feeling except for dumfounded. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I couldn’t. Hades’s curse was too powerful. The darkness inside you, too strong. If you had known, Hades would have found out, and then he would have been justified in killing you. And if that happened, it would have started a war between Zeus and Hades. I couldn’t let that happen. The Fates and I agreed you had to find your own way through the darkness and back to the light.”
“The Fates…” Things suddenly made sense.
The Fates had tried to draw him out the darkness several times. They’d used Talisa to do so. And each time they’d failed, and Talisa had died, her death had pushed him even deeper into that darkness, creating one unending hellish spiral for them both.
“Yes,” Persephone whispered as if reading his mind. “They did send her. I have my own reasons for wanting you to steer clear of the darkness, but the Fates… Well, their reasons were more self-serving. They seemed to think you were the only god strong enough to fix the problems they’d created with their meddling. They used your female, reincarnating her time and again. Until the last time. When her death was so violent, it caused you to sink fully into the darkness where they realized nothing could save you.”
He remembered that darkness. The unrelenting pull. The misery and pain. The years of emptiness. Just as he remembered the moment he’d seen Talisa across that crowded club and realized…
He wasn’t alone. Not completely. Not yet.
“They were wrong,” he said in a quiet voice.
“Yes, they were. Everyone was wrong about you. Even me.” She slid her hand over his and pulled him to his feet. “We don’t have much time before Hades realizes you’re gone, so we have to hurry.”
He had no idea where she was taking him. All he knew was that it was away from here. Away from hell. He pulled back on her hand, stopping her.
When she turned to look at him, he said, “How can you be sure I won’t turn back to that darkness once I’m free from here? That I won’t end up like him? You said he cursed me.”
“Will you?”
He glanced over the waving wheat. “I don’t want to.”
“Then don’t. Choice has always been with you, yios. It does not matter whether you come from the light or the dark. Your destiny is what you