Page 231 of The Games Gods Play
He slows our kisses, sipping at my lips in softer and softer caresses until he reluctantly lifts his head, smiling down into my dazed eyes. “We can fix it all now,” he whispers.
No convincing the other gods. No negotiating. No subterfuge or deals.
I blink. “Boone?” Then frown. “You’d have to give up a crown to make him a god, and you don’t hold both crowns anymore.”
His eyes twinkle at me. “But as winner of the Crucible, you get a boon. And you can ask for him to be made a god.”
My heart swells, then ebbs a little. “Persephone?”
He shakes his head. “Even your prize can’t reach her in Tartarus. But now that I’ll be king, I have a way.”
Sheer happiness bubbles in my veins.
Everything fixed. Boone. Persephone. And, if I have my way, which I know he’ll let me, we’re going to do away with the fucking Crucible forever.
A new ruler is just what Olympus needs.
He rights me and, as if none of that just happened with all of the immortal world watching with bated breath, takes me by the arm and leads me to stand before the empty throne, where Zeles waits.
Who might as well be tapping a foot in impatience.
I look stonily past the mostly dour-faced Olympian gods and goddesses seated around the throne in their own chairs in a semicircle, dressed to the nines. Their champions, my friends, are at their sides.
They cheer for me.
Not the gods, though, who are both furious and, though they hide it, scared shitless by this turn of events. I think the only thing keeping them from losing their shit and descending into another war here and now is the fact that I am Queen of the Underworld, so at least Hades won’t hold both titles.
What happens next is full of pomp and circumstance and bullshit that I will myself to get through.
I hold Hades’ hand through the golden laurel leaf crown of the winning champion being placed on my head by Zeles. Not Zeus. He’s not here, thank the gods.
Which I guess now means I’m thanking myself.
That’ll take some getting used to.
Hades has to let me go when the power to rule Olympus is granted to him. All that is required is that he sit on the throne. One by one, the Olympian gods and goddesses drop to a knee, bowing their heads. And when they do, a rainbow arcs from them to Hades.
“You too, young goddess,” Zeles murmurs beside me. “Acknowledge him as your king in your heart. Your magic will do the rest.”
And I, too, bow.
When the rainbow of light pours from me, it feels like the purest warmth wrapping around me even as it also feels like a part of me is drawn out of my body and floats across the colors to Hades.
It feels…right.
The Daemones are next. And then all the crowds of immortals stand, kneel, and bow, and the entire sky is filled with rainbows.
Our lights strike Hades in the chest, flowing into him until he glows with unearthly brightness.
When the rainbows dissipate and everyone rises, the glow around Hades fades and a crown manifests on his head.
Not golden laurel leaves.
Not golden at all.
He wears a dark crown made of black gold, obsidian chips, and smoke. He catches the way I’m buttoning my lips around a laugh and winks. Then smoke swirls around my own head, and I reach up, touching the pointed spikes of a matching crown.
I think the entire world might hold its breath as power crackles across Hades’ body, absorbing into eyes gone dark, swirling gray.
