“They say thank you,” he said with a laugh. “Would you like to ride?”
“Yes!” she said with more enthusiasm than he expected, but it made him happy. Then she hesitated. “But…I’ve never…”
“I’ll teach you,” he said quickly and once again took her hands, guiding her forward.
“This is Alastor.”
“Alastor,” she said and stroked his nose. Alastor lowered even more, urging her to scratch his head. Persephone giggled and obeyed. “You are magnificent.”
Aethon gave an envious bray.
“Careful,” Hades warned. “Aethon will be jealous.”
Persephone smirked and reached to pet Aethon too. “Oh, you are both magnificent.”
“Careful, I might get jealous,” Hades said, then took up Alastor’s reins.
“Put your foot in the stirrup,” he instructed Persephone. “Lift yourself up and swing your leg over, then sit down gently.”
She followed as he advised, and once she was seated, he continued.
“If you become afraid, sink your weight, lean back, and firm up your legs, but my steeds will listen if you speak. Tell them to stop, they will stop. Tell them to slow down, they will slow down.”
“You taught them?” she asked, holding the reins in one hand while petting Alastor’s mane.
He mounted Aethon and answered “Yes,” though it was not difficult. The four steeds were Divine, and they had been together for a long time. They knew Hades’s moods just as well as he knew theirs. He did not even need to speak. “Don’t worry. Alastor knows what he carries. He will take care of you.”
They started slow, wandering into the fields and gardens beyond the palace. Alastor and Aethon ambled side by side. Hades could not help watching Persephone as she rode, her hands wrapped gracefully around the reins, her hair catching beneath the light of his realm. She was beautiful and happy and beaming. It made his heart beat almost erratically.
“This is a wonderful surprise,” she said.
An excitement shivered through him as he answered, “This isn’t the end.”
They wandered through Hecate’s green meadow, where Alastor and Aethon only briefly became distracted by the goddess’s wild mushrooms before they were redirected, heading around the ominous mountains of Tartarus.
“How was your day?” It wasn’t a question Hades asked often, mostly because he didn’t want the same asked of him. He never had a good answer anyway, but it always presented more ways for him to omit the truth, and that only made him feel more guilty for the things he felt he had to hide— the truth of him and his life. Asking now was progress—a way to start anew and be more transparent.
“Good,” Persephone said and paused before adding, “Lexa’s been making coffee in the mornings. It isn’t how she used to do it, but I think it’s a sign she’s going to be okay.”
Hades said nothing, knowing there was still so much uncertainty around Lexa’s livelihood. Just getting her out of the hospital had been a feat. Now that she was home, she’d have to face the reality of routine, and sometimes that was harder than the confinement of a hospital.
Persephone did not ask him about his day, and he wondered if she saw the point, if she assumed he would not be honest.
They continued along, winding through landscapes that changed from mountainous to forested to fields of purple and pink flowers. Against the backdrop of the darkened mountains, which mostly housed prisoners of Tartarus, they looked aflame.
“How often do you…change the Underworld?” she asked.
“I wondered when you’d ask me that question.”
She raised a brow. “Well?”
“Whenever I feel like it,” he answered. Sometimes he changed it when a deity left just in case they thought they could find their way back. Mostly, though, he expanded his realm. He created new spaces within Asphodel for the souls, because as the world changed above, so did their needs below.
Elysium was another challenge and often evolved because each soul was there to heal. Outside of that, his world changed as he wished—and it would soon change as Persephone wished.
“Perhaps when my magic isn’t so terrifying, I will try.”
“Darling, there is nothing I’d like more.”
The field they had crossed narrowed to a path that cut between more forested mountains. They were just on the other side of Tartarus, close to Elysium. The same solitude that blanketed the air there also reached here, and Hades could feel it settle on his heart, a pleasing calm that he had not felt in a long while. They were near their destination, and when he heard the waterfall, Hades stopped to dismount, then came to Persephone’s side. As she threw her leg over, Hades gripped her waist and helped her slide off the horse. He kept his hands on her even after her feet were on the ground.