“No,” they said.
“Your door was closed when I got here,” said Leuce.
Persephone felt dizzy and her mind raced. Her gaze fell again to the box, and the ashy limb peeking through the paper.
“I have to check on Sybil.”
“Persephone wait—”
She didn’t.
She teleported to Sybil’s apartment and found herself in the middle of the oracle’s living room. It was completely destroyed—the coffee table was in pieces, the television shattered. The doors of the console table upon which it had rested appeared to have been ripped from their hinges. The curtains had been torn from their rods. Shattered glass littered the floor. It was in this chaos she noticed something shivering, curled up on the couch—Opal, Harmonia’s dog. Persephone gathered her into her arms. “It’s okay,” she soothed, but even she did not believe the words. She started to explore the rest of the apartment.
“Sybil!” Persephone called, her shoes crunching on the debris as she moved down the hallway, gathering her magic into her palms, a hectic energy that matched how she felt. She checked the bathroom and found the mirror shattered; the vanity spattered with blood. Her eyes shifted to the bathtub, concealed behind a shower curtain. Time seemed to slow as she approached, her magic hot in her hand.
She jerked the curtain back but found the tub empty—spotless.
Still, she felt on edge as she moved out of the bathroom further down the hallway where Sybil's bedroom was. The door was ajar, and as she kicked it open a little more, she found it demolished, but there was no Sybil.
No Sybil.
Then she recalled the words of the false oracle.
The loss of one friend will lead you to lose many—and you, you will cease to shine, an ember taken by the night.
Ben.
***
Persephone summoned Zofie, handing off Opal before teleporting to Four Olives, the restaurant where Ben worked, and where he’d met Sybil. There were gasps as she manifested and scanned the crowd, mortals withdrew their phones to snap pictures or film her.
“No,” she commanded, and sent a rush of power throughout the entire room. Suddenly, tiny saplings grew from inside their devices. Some mortals dropped their phones in shock, while others called out.
“She’s a goddess!”
“The stories are true!”
She ignored them, searching for Ben, who had just exited the kitchen, carrying a serving platter full of food. When he saw her, he halted, his blue eyes widened. He dropped the tray and swiveled on his feet in an attempt to reenter the kitchen, but instead he collapsed to the ground, his ankles held in place by thin roots that had grown from the floor beneath him.
Persephone stalked toward him. With each step, she felt her anger—and her power—growing.
“Where is she?” Persephone asked as she approached. By the time she was in front of him, he was struggling to free himself, his fingers bleeding from the splintered wood. “Where is Sybil?”
“I-I don’t know!”
“She is missing. Her house is in disarray and you might as well have been stalking her. What did you do?”
“Nothing, I swear!”
Her magic swelled, and the vines that trapped his ankles, now trapped his wrists, growing rapidly until they circled his neck.
“Tell me the truth! Did you capture her to prove your prophecy?”
“Never! I gave you the words I heard. I swear it upon my life.”
“Then it is good I hold it in my hands,” she said, and the vines squeezed his neck harder. Ben’s eyes grew wide and bulging, the veins in his forehead popped.
“Who gave you the words? Who is your god?”
“D-Demeter,” he rasped, barely able to utter words as he turned purple in front of her.
“Demeter?” Persephone repeated, and she released the mortal’s throat. Ben gasped and fell to his side. Tears streamed down his face as he groveled, hands and feet still bound.
“You knew who I was,” Persephone said.
Ben had a reason to attach himself to Sybil. It was because Sybil was close to her.
It is only a matter of time before someone with a vendetta against me tries to harm you.
They were words Hades had spoken—a fear he’d had as their relationship became more public. Persephone had never considered that those words would ring true for her.
“Tell me everything!” Persephone demanded.
Ben attempted to scurry away, but he was held in place by her vines.
“There is nothing to tell! I gave you the prophecy!”
“You did not give me a prophecy, you gave me a threat from my mother,” she raged.
“I was only given words to speak,” he cried. “Your mother threatened Sybil, not me!”
As she stared down at the man, she noted a wetness pooling beneath him. The mortal had pissed himself, but it wasn’t his fear that convinced her he was telling the truth, it was that she knew he believed he was a true oracle—he did not recognize that he, himself, was a tool of her mother’s.
“Trust, mortal, if anything happens to Sybil, I will personally greet you at the Gates of the Underworld and escort you to Tartarus.”
His punishment would be brutal, and it would involve severed limbs.
She rose then, her anger subsiding into something that felt a lot like grief—what if she couldn’t find Sybil? Ben had been her only lead. Then her gaze shifted to the other mortals in the café, and she found that while some glared at her, others were riveted on the television where breaking news streamed.
Deadly Avalanche Strikes, Thousands Presumed Dead
No.
No, no, no.
Heavy snowfall is believed to be the cause of the deadly Avalanche which has buried the cities of Sparta and Thebes under several hundred feet of snow. Rescue workers have been dispatched.
Persephone’s whole body felt warm, primed with anger and magic.
And then something struck her in the head. She looked in time to see an orange hit the ground and roll away.
Her head snapped in the direction it had come and a man yelled, “God-fucker!”
“This is your fault!” A woman yelled, picking up her plate and throwing it at Persephone. It hit her arm, and fell to the floor, shattering.
More food, objects, and words followed.
“Lemming!” Another yelled, throwing their coffee at her.
The ground began to shake, and Persephone knew if she didn’t leave, she would bring the whole building down and, despite their assault, they did not deserve death. With a final look at the television, she teleported.
CHAPTER XXXIV – A BATTLE BETWEEN GODS
She arrived at the site of the avalanche which stretched for miles—every direction was a blanket of bright white. There were signs of a city—toppled buildings, broken trees, wood and twisted metal jutted out from the snow, but the worst part of it all was the silence. It was the sound of death—of an end.
As she stood there amid the devastation, pieces of food that had stuck to her hair and clothing fell to the ground and it spurred something inside her—a desire to end her mother’s reign once and for all. She reached for her magic—for what life remained around her, drawing upon its energy, upon her anger, upon the darkness inside her that wished for revenge, and as she released it, she thought of every beautiful thing she had ever wanted to create—the nymphs she had wanted to protect from her mother, the flowers she had wanted to grow, the lives she had wanted to save.