Page 52 of Love and Death
“Look at his hands, Hazel.”
I glare at him for a second longer before slowly turning to look, and my heart sinks at what I find. My father’s knuckles are raw, his fingernails jagged and stained with blood.
“Becoming a wraith is no easy task,” Cerberus says, absentmindedly running a thumb over a long, half-healed cut I hadn’t noticed before. “It took everything in me just to get him here in one piece.”
It suddenly dawns on me that the hellhound’s injuries must have been caused by my father and not the other way around, as hard as it is to imagine given the sheer frailty of his current state.
“And thank the gods your father wore himself out in the process, or I do not know that there would be anything left of him,” adds Persephone.
“Thegodshave little to be thanked for,” Cerberus mutters.
“Wait, my father wasn’t being kept here?”
He hesitates before answering, “No.”
“Where was he being held?”
“Perhaps some things are better left unknown,” the queen says.
“I need to know.”
“He, your father,” the hellhound starts before closing his mouth. He frowns, his jaw working for a moment before he finishes, “Persephone found your father in an unguarded pit outside the city.”
“I could not move him myself,” the goddess hurries to explain. “So, I-I sought Cerberus out to ask for his help.”
Emotions of every kind collide within my chest, before finally settling into sorrow.
Trembling, I drop to my knees with a soft thud, the lush greenery rising up to cushion the fall.
“Father—”
I can barely get the word out before I fold forward onto the moss, clutching tight fistfuls of it in my hands as grief racks me, body and soul.
As I continue to curl inward on myself, a heady wave of crushed vegetation washes over me, earthy and sweet. I take a deep breath in, saturating myself in it as I try to ground myself once again.
Gradually, my mind numbs, and despite the ache in my chest, I ease myself back up until I’m sitting on my heels.
Cerberus moves to kneel beside me, his presence somehow steadying as he speaks to me in a low, gentle voice. “I am sorry, Hazel. Truly.”
Still, I can do nothing but stare ahead, not yet trusting myself to speak.
“I did try to tend to his wounds,” Persephone says, once again breaking the silence, “but they would not take to my magic.”
I suppose that might explain the half-healed cuts on Cerberus, too.
“How long does he have?”
“I cannot presume to know—”
“How long?” I press.
“Hours.” The goddess looks away as she says this, her voice barely a whisper now. “At best.”
“And, that is without taking Deimos into account. I doubt it will be long now before he is informed of my whereabouts, if he has not been already,” Cerberus says.
“It is quite odd,” Persephone muses, something in her voice sending a chill across my skin.
“What is?” Cerberus and I ask in unison.
