Either way, his tall, brooding form
appeared in my palace uninvited.
This was a tacit insult. You do not
enter the threshold of another God’s domain
without permission. To add further
insult, he had walked into my sanctuary,
the apothecary Thanatos had built me,
while I was working on my poisons.
It was in my examining the brittleness
of old Hydra eggshell that I saw the shadow
in the doorway. I looked up and cold grey eyes
met mine. I asked, ‘And what brings the ruler
of this entire realm to my home?’
Hades did not speak. His face looked
chiselled out of old stone by a slightly
careless craftsman, all angles and oddities,
like his too-high eyebrows and too-soft lips.
Then he spoke slowly. ‘I am here with a warning.’
The Warning
‘When your mother left you here,
you were a child and it was my duty,
as we are all cousins, to see you protected.’
He moved into the room like a snake.
‘However, things have taken a turn.’
His grey eyes glinted with a sword’s edge.
‘Your mother did not tell us the extent of your powers.
If she had, I would have never kept you here.’
I put down the Hydra eggshell on the table.
‘How did you know?’ I asked him softly.
Despite our schisms, Styx and Pallas
