He chose his words carefully because even though she was his mother, her allegiance was to his biggest enemy. “I don’t understand what I’m doing here.”
“Of course you don’t,” she said in that silky voice. “So I’ll tell you. I’m freeing you.”
Disbelief whipped through him like a tornado. “I don’t… Why?”
“Because I can.”
That disbelief turned to shock. She’d always been able to free him? “You never did before. Why now?”
“Because you never proved you weren’t like him before.”
He stared at her, knowing she was talking about Hades, yet feeling as if he was in the middle of another hallucination. “But I am like him. I’m just like him. His blood flows in my veins.”
“His familial blood does, yes. But not his blood.”
When he only continued to stare at her, wondering what the fuck she was 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 choose it to be, not what any of us want or need you to become. Your destiny is what you make it.”
His heart picked up speed. No, she was wrong. Talisa was his destiny. Not because she had any special power over him, but because she didn’t.
Because she was the only person in the world who’d ever truly believed in him. Regardless of where he’d come from, who he’d been, and even what he’d done.
He didn’t know if he was strong enough to stay in the light on his own. But he knew he could for her.
He just wasn’t sure what would happen when she died. Because someday she would. Maybe not anytime soon—like all the Argonauts, she was blessed with long life—but she would never be immortal, like him.
“Don’t worry about that, yios.” Persephone’s fingers grazed his cheek. He looked down into her knowing eyes as she whispered, “You are not the Prince of Darkness. You are a prince of the light.”
His chest warmed at her words. Before he could respond, Lachesis appeared at Persephone’s side.
He jolted and stepped back, shocked by the Fate’s arrival.
She looked just as he remembered—petite and wrinkly and frail, wearing a diaphanous white robe and floating inches above the ground. But her aura radiated more power than he and Persephone combined.
“Your mother is right, Zagreus.” The Fate leveled her glowing blue eyes on his. “Choice is with you. It is true, when you turned to the darkness, when we lost hope in you, the options granted to all the gods faded from your gasp. But when you were in our realm, serving us during those twenty-five years, we sensed there was still light in you. We sent you back with a task. You completed that task when you gave Talisa the Orb and released her from your hold. You fulfilled your destiny so she could fulfill hers. And in doing so, the choice to dwell in the human world or move to the afterlife returned to you that day. You simply chose to stay with her.”
Holy shit… If Talisa hadn’t pulled him back after he’d been injured in that satyr battle, he’d have gone to the afterlife. He wouldn’t have ceased to exist as he’d thought. And he’d never have known the power of her love.