Page 168 of The Games Gods Play
Cerberus grumbles as they walk away.
But I’m too busy studying Hades to care. “Where were you?” I ask.
83
Too Late
“The Stygian Marsh.”
The crossroads of the Underworld. Where souls are judged and sent to different destinations depending on how they lived their lives in the Overworld. It’s said Hades has to judge the best and worst cases and render blessings or punishment. Given how he looks, it doesn’t take a genius to guess which he was just deciding.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask.
Knee-jerk denial ripples over his features, but then he pauses and leans in the doorway. “The judgment wasn’t the hard part. This soul was a sociopath and tortured and killed many people without mercy or remorse.” He shrugs, but I can see the weight of whatever they must’ve been like in the action.
I wait quietly for the hard part.
“But his mother is a soul in Asphodel, and…” He drops his head back against the doorjamb. “She begged for his punishment to be lessened, told me about his abusive father. I saw it all, of course.”
“Was it bad?”
Hades comes off the door and drops into the seat where Charon just was, pulling it closer. Then he takes my hand in both of his, tracing the lines of my palm. “No soul is born evil. There are proclivities, leanings, but like carbon is compressed and fired into a diamond, pressure and pain can transform a soul into something terrible.”
The empathy Hades hides from the world is showing. He felt for this person and what made him into a monster. For his mother, too.
“I can see alternate futures when they come to me, sometimes—what could have been if things had been different.”
“And this could have been different?”
He nods. “So many lives ruined.”
This is what the King of the Underworld must endure. “I wish I could help.”
He searches my eyes, a small smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “You do?”
Warmth blooms in my face, but I leave my hand right where it is. “Yeah.”
His dimples peek at me for a quick second. “Yeah.” He takes a long, slow breath, then releases it in a rush. “Let’s change the topic.”
I get needing emotional space, so I try not to be hurt by the distance threading his voice. But I pull my hand back and scratch an itch on my arm. “Were the other gods mad about having to wait for me?”
Hades groans. “How about something else?”
That’s not a good sign. “What happened?”
“They sent Asclepius and the Daemones down,” he says. “They understood after they saw the shape you were in.”
His voice isn’t right.
“Tell me the bad news. Go ahead. Rip it off like a Band-Aid.”
He leans back in his chair. “I’ve never understood that expression.”
The casual pose doesn’t fool me at all. “Then you’ve never worn a Band-Aid that got stuck to hair or part of the scab.” I pin him with a hard look. “You’re stalling, Phi.”
“Uh-uh.” He shakes his head. “You don’t get to call me that.”
I frown. “Charon does.”
