Long banquet tables curved around the edges of the ballroom beneath arrangements of flowers and fruit while gods, spirits and successors alike drifted through the room in clusters of conversation and laughter.

Everywhere one looked, divinity existed in different forms, some terrifying, some beautiful, some both. Unlike the cold solemnity of the palace halls, tonight the Underworld glittered openly, celebrating itself. 

Near the western side of the ballroom, Jo moved easily through the crowd, the sapphire detailing embroidered subtly into his coat catching faintly beneath the chandeliers. He looked perfectly composed, though he was still recovering from your existence in that white dress—a deeply irritating condition to be in.

“Ah,” Yuma announced dramatically the moment Jo approached their corner of the ballroom. “The future king of the dead arrives looking emotionally constipated as usual.”

Nicholas snorted into his wine beside the towering marble pillar while Euijoo—Hestia’s successor—looked up from the small silver dessert he had been quietly eating. Euijoo possessed a softer sort of presence—warm eyes, calm smiles and the sort of gentleness that made people instinctively trust him, a fitting successor for the goddess of hearth and home.

“You’re late,” Euijoo said mildly.

“I was avoiding people.” Jo said simply. 

“And yet here you are,” Nicholas pointed out.

“A tragic development.”

Yuma narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Jo immediately. “Something happened.”

“Are you always on the hunt for gossip?” Jo accepted a glass from a passing servant with graceful indifference.

Across the ballroom, laughter erupted loudly near one of the banquet tables. Taki, obviously. The successor of Dionysus stood balanced atop a chair while several younger spirits cheered around him. Dark curls fell wildly across his forehead as he dramatically attempted pouring wine into someone’s goblet from an unreasonable distance. The wine missed entirely.

“Disaster.” Euijoo sighed fondly.

“He’s been here ten minutes,” Nicholas muttered. “And I’m already exhausted.”

“He challenged three satyrs to drinking contests earlier,” Yuma added proudly. “Lost all three.”

Near the grand staircase, another figure drifted elegantly through conversation circles with almost unnatural ease. Fuma, Aphrodite’s successor, beautiful in the way storms over oceans were beautiful. Every person he spoke to somehow ended up leaning closer unconsciously, hanging onto his words as though enchanted. Even from across the ballroom, his smile alone looked capable of starting wars.

“That one frightens me.” Nicholas visibly shuddered. 

“That’s because you think with your fists,” Jo replied.

Across the room near one of the balconies stood Harua, Artemis’ successor, dressed in dark silver robes with a bow slung lazily across his back despite repeated warnings not to bring weapons into the ballroom. He looked profoundly uninterested in civilization though several nymphs attempted speaking with him. Harua vanished into another part of the ballroom mid-conversation without explanation.

Yuma burst into laughter. “He’s getting worse.”

“He spent six months in forests before arriving here,” Euijoo reminded them gently. “Social interaction physically pains him.”

“And yet Artemis somehow remains graceful,” Nicholas mused.

“Gods have their advantages.” Euijoo shrugged, remembering his own advantages. 

Near the musicians stood Yudai, Apollo’s successor. Radiant, there truly was no better word for him. Golden robes caught the ballroom light effortlessly while people seemed naturally drawn toward him without realizing why. Yudai already looked perfectly suited to godhood.

“Still irritatingly perfect, that one.” Yuma sighed, “I envy him.”

Further along the ballroom, Maki stood near one of the magical chandelier mechanisms speaking animatedly with several servants while holding what appeared to be pieces of dismantled gold machinery in his hands. Hephaestus’ successor, brilliant and entirely incapable of remaining still.

“He’s not supposed to take apart palace property during events,” Euijoo said weakly. Maki immediately unscrewed something from the chandelier overhead. The entire structure flickered ominously.

“…Too late,” Nicholas sighed. Yuma looked delighted by the possibility of catastrophe. 

Euijoo glanced toward Jo over the rim of his glass, warm eyes thoughtful. “So,” he said gently, “how is your Persephone adjusting?”

His Persephone, Jo tried not to think about the wording too much as he nearly rolled his eyes. “She’s fine.”

Nicholas snorted, “Oh is she now?”

Yuma looked deeply unconvinced. “You’ve been spending a suspicious amount of time in gardens lately.”

“I enjoy my silence.” Jo defended. 

“Oh yes and the scratching of her pen counts as silence does it?” Yuma cocked a brow. Euijoo laughed softly beneath his breath while Nicholas looked outright entertained.

“So the rumors are true then?” Nicholas asked. “The future Persephone and Hades are already circling each other like doomed poetry?”

“We are not circling.”

“Denial.” Yuma nodded solemnly. “A classic symptom.” Jo considered murder briefly before reminding himself it would be taboo to kill the messenger of the Gods. 

Across the ballroom, laughter rang out again as Taki nearly fell off another chair attempting something involving flaming alcohol and absolutely no common sense. Nobody intervened, not even the servants, apparently this happened often. Jo exhaled slowly and glanced away from his friends toward the far end of the ballroom instead.

Toward the throne alcove shadowed beneath black marble arches, Hades sat there already. The God of the Dead looked almost carved from darkness itself beneath the dim blue firelight surrounding his throne. Beside him, Persephone’s seat remained empty still. Even from across the ballroom, Hades’ attention appeared fixed calmly upon the entrance doors. Waiting, always waiting for her.

Jo looked away first as something uneasy shifted inside his chest. Unfortunately, Euijoo noticed. The successor of Hestia followed Jo’s gaze toward the divine thrones before smiling knowingly.

“You know,” Euijoo said lightly, “the myths don’t have to repeat themselves exactly.”

Jo frowned. “What?”

Euijoo tilted his head toward another corner of the ballroom where Aphrodite stood speaking animatedly with Hestia herself. The contrast between the goddesses looked almost absurd. Aphrodite glittered like a jewel beneath candlelight, every movement graceful and dramatic while Hestia laughed warmly beside her holding what appeared to be a plate of pastries she had stolen from the banquet tables. Complete opposites and yet somehow entirely comfortable together.

“They weren’t destined companions in the old stories.” Euijoo pointed out softly. “But gods change. People change.” His smile widened faintly. “We don’t have to become exact reflections of the myths we inherit.” Euijoo laughed again at Nicholas’s confused expression at his philosophy, “Follow your own heart.”

Heart, an unfortunate word.

Jo fell silent after that, finding himself wondering what exactly his heart wanted. And gods help him, he already knew.

At that exact moment, the grand ballroom doors opened. The entire hall quieted, silver bells echoing softly overhead. Then you stepped inside beside Persephone. And every coherent thought left Jo’s mind completely.

There his heart probably was. 

For one long moment, the ballroom forgot how to breathe. Persephone descended the staircase beside you like moonlight draped in silk and divinity, every eye drawn toward her radiant presence. Tonight, attention lingered on you too. Nicholas let out a low whistle beside Jo.

“Well,” he murmured. “Isn’t that quite the sight?”

“Beautiful.” Yuma looked openly delighted, “Oh, Jo is doomed.”

“Quiet.” Jo replied immediately but nobody listened.

Because you did look beautiful.

The white gown flowed behind you like liquid starlight as you descended the grand staircase beside Persephone, silver embroidery catching softly beneath the chandeliers overhead. The necklace resting against your throat glimmered against your skin while your hair framed your face in a way that made you appear unreal beneath the ballroom lights.

You looked divine enough to belong in that ballroom and human enough to ruin everybody standing there. 

Jo felt an ugly emotion (jealousy, though he would not name it) spark alive in his chest when several nearby successors turned openly to watch you descend. One of Apollo’s attendants nearly walked directly into a pillar. Pathetic, and yet somehow Jo understood completely.

Nicholas crossed his arms thoughtfully. “I understand the concern now.”

 “What concern?” Euijoo asked innocently.

“Jo’s of course.” Nicholas chuckled, “Everyone’s eyes are on his Persephone.”

Yuma looked toward Jo and burst into laughter immediately. Jo’s expression remained perfectly calm. Unfortunately, the faint redness climbing toward the tips of his ears betrayed him entirely.

“You’re blushing.” Nicholas teased.

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

“I will kill both of you.”

“See?” Yuma grinned. “True love.” Jo contemplated throwing him into the River Styx.

Across the ballroom, Persephone finally reached the marble floor below. Hades remained seated upon his throne-like chair beneath the dark arches at the far end of the hall, one arm resting lazily against the carved obsidian while his gaze remained fixed solely upon Persephone. The Queen of the Underworld smiled the moment she saw him waiting, ancient affection passing silently between them.

Then Persephone turned toward the ballroom at large, lifting a jeweled goblet gracefully into the air.

“My lovely guests,” she called warmly.

You stood beside her trying very hard not to look visibly terrified, which was becoming increasingly difficult considering nearly every eye in the ballroom remained fixed on you. You suddenly missed hiding behind temple hoods.

Persephone’s smile widened knowingly. “This evening,” she continued smoothly, “marks the arrival of new successors beneath our realm. Future gods, future guardians, future rulers.” Her gaze drifted briefly toward you then. “And among them, my own successor.” The attention intensified and you resisted the urge to flee into the nearest river. “She learns quickly, far quicker than I ever did.” Pride coated her voice. 

“That cannot possibly be true,” Hades drawled lazily from his seat.

Persephone laughed softly beneath her breath. “Darling,” she replied sweetly, “must you undermine me publicly?”

“Always.”

Several gods chuckled quietly. You stood awkwardly beside Persephone, unsure where to place your hands or your eyes or your entire existence. Every noble spirit and divine successor seemed to be staring directly at you. Your heartbeat thundered painfully beneath your ribs as your eyes darted around to fixate on something.

They found Jo. Naturally, as though some invisible thread had pulled your gaze toward him through the crowded ballroom. 

Everything else disappeared. The music faded, the conversations vanished, even the chandeliers seemed dimmer. All you could see was him, standing there beneath silver light, watching you with an expression so strangely soft it nearly unraveled you where you stood.

Sapphires and rubies.

Winter and spring.

For one suspended heartbeat, the entire world narrowed into that single look. You smiled, only faintly. But enough for Jo’s heart to melt like chocolate pudding. 

Persephone’s voice broke the moment apart again. “To new beginnings.” She declared brightly, raising her goblet once more.

The ballroom echoed the toast immediately. “To new beginnings!”

Crystal clinked softly throughout the hall while music swelled once more from the musicians overhead. Persephone leaned toward you afterward with suspicious amusement dancing in her eyes. “You’ll survive,” she whispered.

Then, before you could protest, she drifted gracefully away through the ballroom toward Hades waiting beneath the dark arches. The God of the Dead rose the second she approached him.

And just like that you were alone. In the middle of the grand ballroom. With most of the Underworld still staring directly at you.

Perfect. 

You stood frozen beneath the enormous chandeliers while music and conversation slowly returned around you, though now it all sounded strangely distant beneath the thunder of your heartbeat.

Why were they all still looking at you?

Across the ballroom, Jo noticed panic beginning to creep into your expression. Your fingers tightened slightly around the stem of your goblet, your shoulders stiffened.

Scared little lamb. 

Without even realizing it, he had already started moving toward you through the crowd. Unfortunately he was not the only one.

“So you’re the darling oracle, hmm?” 

A warm voice interrupted before Jo could reach you. You turned quickly and nearly forgot how to function again.

Yudai stood before you now, somehow even more radiant up close beneath the ballroom lights. Soft sunlight seemed to cling naturally to him despite standing in the Underworld. Beautiful in the way dawn was beautiful, gentle enough to look directly at.

Beside him stood Fuma. Where Yudai resembled sunlight, Fuma resembled temptation. Dark silk wrapped elegantly around his figure while silver jewelry glimmered softly against warm skin. His beauty carried sharpness to it like every smile had been crafted specifically to ruin someone.

“We finally meet,” Yudai said warmly, offering you an easy smile. “Apollo has spoken very highly of your training.”

You blinked faintly. You still weren’t emotionally prepared for that entire situation. “Oh,” you managed intelligently. “Hopefully nothing embarrassing.”

Yudai laughed softly. “Only that you learn too quickly.”

Fuma tilted his head slightly beside him, eyes sweeping curiously over you. “And Persephone has become insufferably proud of you.” 

You felt your face warm slightly beneath the attention. “Has she?”

“Hopelessly,” Fuma replied. “You should hear the way she speaks about you.”

Across the ballroom, Jo watched the interaction with growing displeasure. Nicholas toyed with his bracelet. 

“Oh no,” Nicholas breathed dramatically. “He’s jealous.”

“Could you please stop making your conclusions?” Jo huffed. 

“You look moments away from committing murder.”

“That’s just his face,” Euijoo offered helpfully.

Meanwhile, entirely unaware of Jo mentally planning violence, you tried desperately to maintain composure while speaking with two impossibly beautiful successors at once.

Extremely difficult, considering that Fuma possessed the terrifying ability to maintain eye contact like he was personally trying to read your soul.

“You seem nervous.” Yudai observed kindly.

“I wonder why.” you muttered weakly. That earned another laugh from him. Fuma smiled slightly at your sarcasm.

“You’ll get used to it eventually,” Yudai reassured gently. “The first ball is always overwhelming.”

“She looks like she’d rather fight Cerberus,” Fuma noted.

“I would,” you admitted immediately. Jo’s jaw tightened faintly watching you laugh softly at something Fuma said next.

Nicholas followed Jo’s gaze and grinned, “Oh, he’s suffering.”

“He’ll survive.” Euijoo said sympathetically.

“Will he?” Yuma mused. “Because he currently looks one compliment away from challenging Aphrodite’s successor to a duel.” 

Fuma seemed deeply entertained by your existence. Which, judging by the amused tilt of Yudai’s mouth beside him, was apparently unusual enough to be noticeable.

“You’re handling this better than most successors do.” Yudai said kindly.

“I’m one conversation away from fainting.”

“That’s still better than Taki,” Fuma remarked smoothly. “He actually did faint at his first ball.”

“Twice.” Yudai added helpfully.

From somewhere across the ballroom came the sound of shattering glass followed immediately by Taki yelling, “THAT WASN’T MY FAULT.”

You blinked. “.....Comforting.”

Fuma’s soft laugh curled warmly through the air. He really was Aphrodite’s successor, everything about him felt crafted to disarm people. Then his expression shifted, curious now.

“You are ready for the duel at least, yes?”

You stared blankly. “The what?”

Fuma paused. Then slowly glanced over your shoulder toward Jo standing across the ballroom.

“Oh,” Yudai murmured.

You frowned. “What does that mean?”

Fuma looked amused now. “You truly don’t know?”

Your confusion only deepened. “Know what?”

Yudai sighed softly beside him. “Persephone does adore keeping secrets.”

Now you were officially alarmed. “What secrets?”

Neither of them answered immediately. Fuma merely lifted his wine glass lazily. “I suppose she intends explaining it herself eventually.”

“That is an absolutely terrible answer.” You said with a faint laugh, to hide the tremor behind it. 

Before you could interrogate them further, another voice burst loudly into the conversation. “Oh good, you’re real.”

You turned. Maki had appeared seemingly out of nowhere.

The successor of Hephaestus stood, disheveled beneath the ballroom lights, loose blond hair falling across his forehead while bits of gold dust still clung faintly to the sleeves of his clothes. Somewhere behind him, one of the chandeliers flickered ominously again.

“You’re Persephone’s successor,” he announced excitedly before you could speak. “I lost a bet over that.”

“…Should I ask?”

“No.”

“Maki.” Yudai sighed tiredly.

Maki ignored him. Unlike the elegant restraint most successors carried, Maki radiated energy in every direction at once, like his thoughts physically moved faster than everyone else’s. He took your hand dramatically and kissed your knuckles. You nearly dropped your goblet.

“A pleasure,” he declared brightly. Fuma burst into laughter. 

Yudai pinched the bridge of his nose. “You are making her panic.”

“I’m being polite.”

“You’re frightening her.”

“You are all frightening me,” you informed them honestly.

Maki grinned. “Oh, she’s fun.”

Jo had finally reached his limit. He watched Maki holding your hand, Fuma smiling at you, Yudai standing too close and suddenly understood why Hades spent centuries looking mildly murderous.

“Oh no.” Nicholas mused, “And there goes his dignity.” Euijoo looked amused into his wine. The crowd parted as Jo approached at last, a black rose against the silver lights.

And gods help you, relief hit you instantly the second you saw him. Something in your expression must have betrayed that realization because Jo’s gaze softened almost imperceptibly when it landed on you.

Then he looked toward the others. Specifically at Maki still holding your hand.

Silence.

A very dangerous silence.

Maki blinked once. “Why do you look like that?”

“Because,” Fuma said smoothly, “you’re touching his oracle.”

Jo’s ears went faintly red immediately. Your heart stopped functioning. Yudai laughed softly beside you, Apollo’s warmth seeming to fill the room. 

“Would you like to dance?” Maki said now, completely ignoring the possibility of death at Hades’ hands. Before you could answer, 

“No.”

The word left Jo far too quickly. Everyone turned toward him, including Jo himself, who looked mildly betrayed by his own mouth.

Fuma smiled slowly. “Oh,” he murmured. “This is getting interesting.” Jo recovered immediately afterward with suspicious calmness.

“What I meant,” he said smoothly, stepping forward at last, “is that Persephone’s successor should probably begin with someone familiar.” Jo extended one gloved hand toward you.

“Dance with me.”

The ballroom suddenly felt very warm. You hesitated only briefly before placing your hand carefully into his. It felt like nectar being poured onto your skin at the touch.

Across the room, Nicholas physically slapped a hand over Yuma’s mouth before he could start screaming. The music softened gradually as Jo guided you toward the center of the ballroom floor. There was nobody else dancing yet, which meant every single person in the Underworld was now watching the two of you.

Wonderful.

“I hate you.” You whispered under your breath as Jo placed one hand lightly against your waist.

“No you don’t.” He whispered back. The orchestra shifted smoothly into a slower melody as Jo guided you carefully into motion across the marble floor.

Despite your nerves, he danced effortlessly, like he had been born knowing exactly how to move through music. Which, considering who he would become, perhaps he had. You followed carefully beneath the chandeliers overhead, white silk and black fabric turning together beneath gold and sapphire light.

Around the ballroom, conversation softened, watching and waiting.  Near one of the balconies, Harua observed quietly beside Artemis, silver eyes following the dance floor with faint amusement.

“I’ve never seen a Persephone and Hades so in love this early,” he remarked softly. Artemis laughed beneath her breath. 

Across the ballroom floor, entirely aware of the commentary surrounding you both, you tried very hard not to focus on how close Jo stood.

One hand held yours, the other rested carefully against your waist. Too careful, as though he was deeply aware of his own strength. The music carried you both slowly through the ballroom while silver lights shimmered overhead like stars trapped beneath the earth.

“You realize,” you murmured quietly, “everyone is staring.”

“Let them.” Jo looked entirely unbothered. 

Easy for him to say, he looked utterly composed beneath the attention. You looked one step away from collapsing into the nearest fountain.

“You dance well.” You admitted softly.

“I know.”

“There he is.” You narrowed your eyes. “The unbearable ego returns.”

Jo’s mouth curved faintly. “I was worried you missed it.”

The music slowed further and you were so dangerously close. Your heart warred against your ribs while Jo guided you effortlessly through another turn beneath the chandeliers.

“Why did you ask Persephone if there was a future Hades?” He asked, spinning you around. 

“Why do you want to know?” You asked, looking away once from his heat filled gaze before murmuring, “I was merely curious.”

Jo watched you quietly for a moment. Then his gaze drifted briefly toward the necklace resting against your throat.

“You know what everyone expects, don’t you?” he asked softly. You swallowed.

The myths, the stories, Persephone and Hades, spring and death.

Love and ruin woven together endlessly through every version of the tale.

“Yes.” You said quietly.

“And?”

You lifted your chin then. “I think people rely too much on old stories.” The music swelled gently around you both.

“I agree,” he said at last.

You blinked faintly. “You do?”

Jo guided you smoothly into another turn. “I don’t intend to become some tragic god who falls helplessly in love because history expects it.”

Your pulse stumbled anyway. You tried very hard to sound unaffected when you replied, “Good.”

“Good?”

“Yes,” you said quickly. “Because I certainly won’t fall in love with you either.”

Jo laughed softly, a sound that did terrible things to your composure. “Of course not, little lamb.”

The music reached its climax just then and Jo dipped you gracefully backward with the movement of the dance. Your breath caught sharply. One of his hands steadied your back while the other still held yours, your face now only inches from his beneath the glow of the chandeliers overhead

You could feel the warmth of him and see every sharp line of his face. The ballroom disappeared again for one suspended moment.

“You’re staring.” Jo murmured softly.

“So are you.”

Even now, even with his face this close to yours beneath a hall full of watching gods, both of you still believed your own lie—that neither of you would ever fall. 

For Gods do not fall. 

And you were to be Gods. 

But for one tiny mortal second, as Jo’s hand remained steady against your back and the music curled around you both like silk beneath the chandeliers, you wondered quietly. 

Could you have been allowed to? 

Could you have been permitted something so terribly human as falling in love? 

The thought vanished as quickly as it came. You straightened as the dance continued, though your heartbeat never fully recovered afterward. Neither, unfortunately, did Jo.

The orchestra shifted into softer strings while you both continued moving across the ballroom floor with growing ease. Your earlier nervousness had faded into something quieter now, replaced by a strange warmth that settled in your chest whenever he looked at you too long.

Around you, the ballroom had relaxed. Gods mingled freely while successors laughed amongst themselves beneath gold-and-blue light. Nicholas was attempting to teach Taki how to balance wine glasses on one arm. Euijoo looked deeply concerned. Fuma had acquired an audience without even trying. Yudai stood near Apollo speaking softly beneath a halo of candlelight.

And through all of it, the center of the ballroom still remained the two of you.

Hades watched from his seat beside Persephone with unreadable calmness. The Queen of the Underworld, meanwhile, looked openly delighted.

“They’re beautiful together,” she sighed softly, resting her chin lazily against one hand.

Hades took a slow sip from his goblet. “You said that about us too.”

“Yes,” Persephone replied immediately. “And I was correct.” A faint smile touched his mouth.  

Across the ballroom floor, Jo spun you beneath the music once more, the contrasting fabric of your clothes blurring together like winter swallowing spring.

Persephone’s gaze softened. “Their fates were always intertwined,” she murmured quietly.

“The Fates told you?” Hades looked toward her then.

For a brief moment, silence passed between the King and Queen of the Underworld. Then Hades’ gaze drifted back toward the dance floor where Jo looked at you like he had already forgotten how not to.

“You should tell them soon.” He said calmly.

Persephone laughed softly beneath her breath. “And ruin all this?” Her eyes sparkled mischievously. “Absolutely not.”

“You enjoy meddling, darling.” Hades chuckled. 

“I learned from the best.” Persephone smiled victoriously anyway before finally rising gracefully from her seat.

Almost instantly, the ballroom quieted once more, music softening and conversations fading.

You and Jo slowed to a stop in the center of the dance floor, though his hand lingered at your waist one second longer than necessary before finally letting go. Not that either of you acknowledged it.

Persephone descended the small marble steps slowly, flowers woven into her gown catching softly beneath the chandeliers.

“My lovely guests,” she announced warmly. Something dangerous danced beneath her smile. “Since tonight celebrates new beginnings,” she continued smoothly, “I thought it appropriate that our successors begin learning one of the Underworld’s oldest traditions.”

Around the ballroom, several gods suddenly looked entertained. You had the distinct feeling your evening was about to become significantly worse.

“The ancient duel.” Persephone smiled brightly.

Immediately, murmurs swept through the ballroom. Nicholas groaned dramatically into his wine. “Oh, this is going to end horribly.” Yuma looked one second away from climbing onto a table out of excitement. You stared at your Goddess who laughed softly.

“Yes,” she said, clearly enjoying herself far too much. “I forgot our little oracle still knows absolutely nothing.” Persephone descended another step, “Long before the Underworld became what it is now,” she began, “there existed one truth the gods feared above all else.” The ballroom quieted fully.

“That love could weaken duty.”

Her gaze drifted briefly toward Hades. The God of the Dead watched her with the calm patience of someone who had heard this story a thousand times and still listened anyway.

“So,” Persephone continued, “to prove that even devotion could never outweigh responsibility, the rulers of the Underworld created a tradition.”

“A duel.” A faint smile curved her lips. “Hades and I dueled during our first season ruling together,” she explained. “Not out of hatred.” Her smile turned quieter then. “But to demonstrate our trust.” 

Hades finally spoke from his seat. “She stabbed me.”

The ballroom erupted into laughter. Persephone looked delighted. “You survived.”

“Barely, my dearest.”

You stared at them in genuine disbelief. “Gods above,” you whispered weakly. Persephone turned back toward the ballroom, silk whispering softly around her feet.

“And now,” she announced warmly, “our successors shall continue the tradition.”

Your stomach dropped instantly.

No.

Absolutely not!

Her eyes landed directly on you and Jo. “In two weeks’ time,” Persephone declared smoothly, “Persephone and Hades’ successors will duel before the court of the Underworld.”

The ballroom burst immediately into excited conversation. You turned toward Jo in horror.

And discovered—to your immense surprise—that he looked horrified too. Beautifully horrified. 

His composure had cracked just enough for you to notice the faint tension in his jaw, the slight widening of his eyes. 

Jo looked down at you at the exact same moment. And before either of you seemed to consciously realize it—his hand found yours, like he’d done it a thousand times now. Like his hand was the outer red skin of a pomegranate that held the delicate seeds of your hand within. 

Your breath caught softly and Jo seemed to realize what he’d done approximately two seconds later because his expression shifted faintly afterward. But he still didn’t let go.

“I knew about the tradition,” he admitted quietly over the noise of the ballroom.

You stared at him. “But?”

Jo exhaled softly through his nose. “I never knew I’d have to do it with you.”

Something about the way he said it made your heart twist painfully inside your chest. Around you, the ballroom continued buzzing excitedly. Nicholas was already taking bets with Yuma. Maki appeared to be sketching possible arena designs onto a napkin. Fuma looked deeply entertained by the entire situation.

But all of that noise felt very far away. 

Jo was still holding your hand and looking at you like the thought of hurting you had never once crossed his mind until now.

“You’re going to win, aren’t you?” you asked, with a sorry smile on your face.

Jo’s thumb brushed absentmindedly once against your knuckles before he seemed to catch himself. The movement was so small you almost thought you imagined it. 

“I won’t hurt you.”

The fates will not allow that, you wanted to say. Such deadly words he spoke—so contradictory that the speaker was someone who belonged to death itself. Before you could answer, Persephone’s voice drifted suddenly through the ballroom once more. 

“My darling successor,” she called sweetly. Persephone stood several steps away now beside Hades, “We should leave before the court decides to interrogate you all evening.”

“That is exactly what they were about to do.” Hades remarked calmly.

“See?” Persephone smiled brightly. “I’m protecting you.”

You were fairly certain she herself had caused this catastrophe. Reluctantly, you began stepping away from Jo. His hand slipped slowly from yours and you felt the loss of warmth straightaway. Neither of you acknowledged that either.

Hades looked into his wine. “It starts.”

You blinked between them in confusion. “What starts?”

“Nothing.” Persephone replied far too quickly. As she guided you away through the glittering ballroom, you glanced back once over your shoulder.

Jo still stood exactly where you’d left him beneath the chandeliers, watching you go.

How softly death’s gaze went after spring. 

_______________

Persephone’s chambers felt softer at night.

The fires burned low within their marble sconces while gauzy curtains drifted lazily around the open balconies overlooking endless dark terraces below. You sat curled at the end of Persephone’s velvet chaise, still overwhelmed from the ball hours later.

And still thinking about Jo’s hand holding yours.

Persephone reclined elegantly across the opposite side of the room while several handmaidens carefully removed gold flowers from her hair.

“You look distressed,” she observed lazily.

You groaned softly into your hands. “That duel is absurd.”

Persephone only laughed quietly before her gaze drifted toward your throat, toward the necklace resting against your skin. Her expression softened. “He gave you another one.”

Heat crawled embarrassingly up your neck. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Mhm.”

“It doesn’t.”

Thoughtfully, she lifted one elegant hand toward her own throat. Around her neck rested a necklace you had somehow never properly noticed before. Black diamonds intertwined with pale gold branches delicate as roots beneath winter soil.

“Hades made this for me,” Persephone said softly, “before our first duel.” She smiled, “It’s a mechanism for the transfer of pain. When you wear your necklace for training, you feel as if the voices have quietened right?” You nodded at her observation, “Well, truth be told nobody can handle those horrid screams all by themselves. This necklace—” Her eyes softened for a split second, "—facilitates the sharing of the pain.” “So you’re saying Jo could feel all those voices as well?” You said, a horrified timbre to your voice. Why on earth would he ever do that to himself? Something strange twisted gently in your chest.  The Queen of the Underworld touched the necklace absentmindedly as though it carried centuries beneath her fingertips.

“Fate follows its course in peculiar ways,” she murmured.

You crossed your arms defensively.  “I’m not falling in love with Jo.”

“Really?” Persephone tilted her head slightly. “And why not?” The answer came easier than expected. 

“Because he hates life too much.” You looked down toward your hands. “He talks about mortality like it’s meaningless.” You murmured softly. “Like human life is just something temporary and fragile and exhausting.” Your fingers tightened slightly together. “And maybe it is temporary. But that does not make it worthless.”

Persephone listened quietly. You swallowed softly before continuing.

“I love life.” The confession came almost embarrassed. “I loved sunlight and stupid temple flowers and listening to people complain and children running through the markets and even those ridiculous old generals asking for prophecies every week.” A faint smile touched your lips. “I liked all of it.”

Persephone’s gaze gentled. “And Jo?”

“He looks at the world like winter has already swallowed it whole.”

Silence settled softly between you both afterward. Then Persephone smiled.

“To love someone,” she said quietly, “is to change beside them. He may change your opinions,” she continued softly. “Or perhaps you’ll change his.”

You shook your head immediately. “But I don’t want to fall in love with him just because we’re supposed to.” Your voice dropped lower. “I don’t want fate deciding something that important for me.”

For the first time that evening, Persephone became very still. Then slowly she smiled again. There was something heartbreakingly human in it.

“My darling,” she murmured softly, “fate may place two souls in each other’s path.” Her fingers brushed lightly against the ancient necklace resting at her throat. “But it cannot force them to stay.”

You thought of Hades rising from his throne the moment Persephone approached him. Of gardens planted in hell because someone missed spring. Of sapphire necklaces and warm hands and music echoing beneath silver trees. Persephone stood gracefully, silk whispering around her ankles.

“Now,” she announced far too brightly afterward, “enough romance. In two weeks,” the Queen of the Underworld declared, “you are expected to survive a battle before an audience of gods.” Your stomach dropped again. “So,” Persephone finished smoothly, “tomorrow your real training begins.”

Persephone only smiled sweetly at your horror before dismissing you for the evening, promising—with deeply concerning enthusiasm—that tomorrow’s training would “build character.” Which, in your experience, usually meant suffering.

The palace halls were quieter by the time you left her chambers. Silver flames flickered softly along the marble walls while distant music from the ballroom still echoed faintly through the Underworld—the memory of something warm. Your footsteps slowed unconsciously as you walked alone through the sleeping palace.

Battle, duel, duty before love—the words tangled strangely inside your chest. And gods help you, so did his name.

You thought of him beneath the chandeliers, while his hand rested carefully at your waist. You thought of his laugh, of his music, of the softness hidden beneath all that winter. You imagined what he would look like kneeling before you with a dagger pressed gently against his handsome throat during the duel.

Beautiful.

You were losing your mind. Somewhere deep in your memory, his voice returned softly, 

Human life is ephemeral.

And then another memory followed.A crushed flower falling from his fingers beneath the garden lights. Only for him to place a new blossom carefully into your hair moments later.

As though even death itself could not stop him from offering life back to you.

Winter and spring.

Sapphires and rubies.

Death and the girl who still believed flowers bloomed after frost.

Perhaps that was the cruelest thing fate had ever done. Not binding Persephone and Hades together. But creating two souls so terribly opposite that they could not stop orbiting each other anyway.

And somewhere beneath the earth, in a kingdom built from endings, spring quietly reached for death, while death, against all reason, reached back.

__________________

The first week after the ball passed strangely, like the entire Underworld had inhaled and forgotten how to breathe properly afterward. You and Jo had started avoiding each other, not intentionally at first (the lie you both told yourselves). 

Training schedules became inconveniently different and meals no longer aligned. The garden Hades had planted for Persephone somehow always seemed empty whenever you wandered into it now, silver flowers swaying softly beneath the eternal twilight with no music echoing through the trees.

And when Jo played the piano, you listened hidden from somewhere far enough away that he would not notice you. Though you suspected he always did. But it was easier this way, safer, because every interaction between you lately seemed to leave something raw behind afterward. The dance, your hand in his, the necklace, the duel—you hated how aware you had become of him. You hated even more that he seemed equally aware of you.

The only time you had truly been close to him all week happened by accident.

You had fallen asleep in the library sometime after midnight, surrounded by open texts Persephone had assigned you about Underworld law and divine combat rituals. One moment you had been reading by candlelight beneath the enormous painted ceiling and the next?

You woke slowly to warmth brushing against your face, gentle fingers moving strands of hair away from your eyes. For one hazy, sleepy second, you leaned unconsciously toward the familiar warmth of the touch. Then your eyes opened.

Jo—always unfairly beautiful—stood beside the velvet chair where you had fallen asleep, framed by dim candlelight and endless shelves of books. His expression had gone still when he realized you were awake. Neither of you spoke. Then Jo cleared his throat once, sharp and quiet, as though suddenly remembering himself.

“Your neck will hurt if you sleep like that,” he muttered.

And before you could answer, before you could even properly sit up, he turned and walked away through the library shadows, leaving you staring after him with your pulse stumbling painfully against your ribs.

Unfortunately, Persephone allowed you absolutely no time to dwell on any of it. Because your training had become hellish, quite literally.

“You’re hesitating again.” Persephone sighed dramatically from across the arena. “Your standards are far too low for royalty.”

The Queen of the Underworld had stopped treating your lessons gently after the ball. Apparently surviving divine politics and hearing the voices of the dead had only been preparation. Now came combat and the Queen of The Dead was relentless in that matter.

Morning until night, she drilled you through sword forms, dagger techniques, defensive magic and endurance training brutal enough to leave your entire body aching before sunrise even properly arrived beneath the earth.

The voices no longer overwhelmed you, which somewhat terrified you.  What had once nearly shattered your mind now moved through you like distant rivers beneath ice. You could hear grief, death and truth and answer it as calmly as a child answers yes for a piece of candy. 

You no longer wore the necklace. It felt like tearing away an integral part of you (warm hands at the back of your neck, sapphires and rubies, someone thinking of you gently enough to create beauty for you), but you told yourself you couldn’t. 

Three nights earlier, after a particularly vicious training session left your ribs bruised and your hands trembling violently from overexertion, you had wandered half-asleep into one of the palace corridors still wearing the necklace beneath your robes.

And there, at the far end of the hall, you had seen Jo. Collapsed against the wall, one hand pressed sharply against his side, trying to steady himself and your heart dropped to the bottom of your stomach. The ache blooming across your own ribs at that exact moment matched the tension in his face perfectly.

You stopped wearing the necklace after that. No matter how much your fingers still reached instinctively for your throat every morning, no matter how empty your skin suddenly felt without it there.

The consequences arrived quickly. Training became harder without the jewels dulling the voices and pain for you. Your body began wearing exhaustion openly now—dark shadows beneath your eyes, a slight slowing in your movements, your laughter growing rarer. Even Yunah had begun watching you with worried eyes.

“You should rest more,” she urged softly one evening while helping rebind your bruised wrist.

“I’m fine.” The oracle’s lie as always slipped from your mouth. 

But Persephone’s training never softened. If anything, it grew harsher the weaker you became. Because the Queen of the Underworld understood something you did not yet fully grasp: Godhood was survival. And survival rarely cared for gentleness.

Jo noticed everything—every tired smile, every wince you tried hiding, every time your hands trembled after training. He noticed how the brightness in you had dimmed slightly these past days, like spring sunlight trapped behind clouds. It terrified him. 

Because you were still beautiful, achingly so. But now there was exhaustion threaded through your softness and Jo hated that he understood exactly why.

Nicholas found him in the training arena one night long after everyone else had gone. Jo stood alone beneath silver torchlight driving his sword through practice forms viciously enough to splinter marble beneath his feet.

“You’re brooding again,” Nicholas observed.

“I’m training.” Jo said, not taking his eyes off of his movements.  Nicholas watched him carefully for a moment before speaking again.

“She stopped wearing it, didn’t she?” The silence answered for him and Nicholas sighed softly. “Well.” He leaned lazily against a pillar. “At least now we know she’s not selfish.”

Jo’s jaw tightened. “That was never a concern.” The concern was far worse actually—you had chosen pain the moment you realized it hurt him too.

And Jo did not know what to do with that. He had spent years convincing himself that attachment weakened people, that love ruined judgment, that mortality was too fragile to trust. And now every time he wore the blindfold meant to clear his mind after training, he saw only you.

Sleeping beneath library candlelight, laughing in the ballroom, standing beneath silver trees with flowers tucked into your hair.

Beautiful oracle.

Sweet little lamb.

Spring reaching carefully toward death without realizing death had already begun reaching back.

But he reached his limit today. 

Training had ended early for him for once. Nicholas had been dragged away by Ares for some combat exercise, leaving Jo free hours before sunset beneath the earth. He should have returned to his chambers. Instead, without consciously deciding to, his feet carried him toward your side of the palace.  The Underworld halls stretched long and dark around him as he walked, silver flames flickering softly against black marble. 

“Again!”

He heard Persephone scream in a commander’s voice. The sound echoed sharply through the corridor ahead, followed immediately by your voice—strained and breathless.

“I’m trying—”

“Trying is not enough!”

Something cold twisted violently in his chest. Before he fully thought it through, Jo moved toward the training arena. And the second he stepped near the doorway, his stomach dropped. 

The chamber pulsed with death. Voices—thousands of them. The entire arena swirled with silver-black mist while whispers clawed violently through the air, overlapping grief and sorrow and agony pouring from every direction at once.

You stood at the center of it all, barely standing. Your knees trembled visibly beneath you while blood trickled slowly from your nose down across your lips. One hand pressed hard against your temple as though trying to physically hold your mind together.

Persephone circled you calmly from across the arena floor. “Control them,” she commanded sharply.

You gasped softly as another wave of voices crashed through the chamber. The dead were screaming, crying, begging, for a chance at salvation, a second life (Human life is ephemeral) and you stood, powerless in the eye of the storm. Jo could physically feel the pressure of it from the doorway alone. You were drowning inside it.

“I can’t—”

“Yes you can.” Persephone’s voice cracked like a whip through the arena. “Take the pain.” Another pulse hit and you staggered violently. “Control it!” Jo moved before thinking.

“Stop.”

The word cut cleanly through the chamber. Persephone glanced toward the doorway briefly but did not halt.

“Again,” she ordered. The voices surged harder. You made a broken sound somewhere between a gasp and a cry, your body folding slightly forward beneath the sheer weight of it. Something inside Jo snapped.

“Stop.” Sharper this time, Persephone still ignored him.

“Do not run from it,” she told you coldly. “The Underworld will not soften itself for you merely because you’re frightened.”

Your breathing turned ragged. Jo could see your hands shaking violently now, your vision blurring, the exhaustion already breaking your body apart after weeks of relentless training.

Enough was enough. The shadows around the chamber darkened sharply.

“Persephone.”

Her name echoed differently coming from him this time, not a request but a warning this time. The Queen of the Underworld finally turned fully toward him then.

“You are interrupting training.” Persephone said evenly.

“And you are breaking her.”

Silence cracked through the arena. You looked up weakly at him from the center of the chamber, dazed and trembling. Jo’s chest tightened painfully at the sight.

Persephone’s gaze sharpened. “She is hesitating.”

“She’s exhausted.”

“And she’ll die if she cannot control this power!”

That silenced him for exactly one heartbeat. Because she was right, cruelly so. But still, Jo looked back toward you again. At the blood, at the trembling, at the sheer overwhelming pain hollowing your expression apart. If Persephone pushed you any further right now—you would break.

So quietly, without taking his eyes off you, Jo summoned him. Cold flooded the room and a moment later, another presence entered behind him. Death wearing a crown, Hades stepped silently into the training arena. 

Persephone sighed. “You summoned him?”

Hades’ dark gaze swept slowly across the arena, across the death magic flooding the room and you barely standing in the center. Then finally toward Persephone.

“Enough.” He said calmly, “Enough, dearest.” The entire arena obeyed and the voices vanished like a storm cut cleanly from the sky. The crushing pressure disappeared from the chamber so suddenly it left a ringing silence behind. 

And the second it did, your body gave out. You collapsed hard onto the marble floor, gasping violently for breath.

Your hands shook uncontrollably against the stone while air struggled back into your lungs in ragged, uneven pulls. Blood still streaked faintly beneath your nose and your vision swam so badly the world dissolved into silver blurs.

“Darling.”

His hands were always so warm. How funny, death could be as warm as a mother’s embrace. 

Jo dropped to his knees beside you, one arm sliding carefully around your shoulders before lifting you against his chest.

“There you are.” He murmured quietly. Your entire body trembled violently against him and Jo’s heart twisted painfully at the feeling. You were freezing.

“It hurts.” You whispered weakly before you could stop yourself. Something inside him nearly shattered hearing it.

“I know.” He said softly.

Carefully, impossibly gently for someone born to become death, Jo gathered you fully into his arms and pulled you closer against his chest.

“It’s alright,” he murmured near your hair. “Just breathe for me.”

Your fingers weakly curled into the fabric of his training robes and the contact nearly undid him. Across the arena, Persephone watched silently now while Hades stood beside her like a shadow given form.

“You pushed her too far.” Jo said without looking up.

“I know.” Persephone’s expression barely flickered. “She has to survive this,”

Jo tightened his hold around you protectively. “She won’t survive if you destroy her first!”

You made another soft sound against his chest then, weaker this time. Jo immediately looked back down at you.

“Stay awake.” He said quickly. Your eyes struggled to focus on him—beautiful eyes, exhausted eyes, still searching for him even through the haze of pain.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He whispered softly, brushing hair back from your face with trembling hands. “Stay with me.”

Your lips parted faintly and then your body suddenly went limp in his arms. Jo froze and he felt pure terror rushing through his body for one horrible second. And then he felt your breathing.

You’d fainted, only fainted. 

Relief hit him so hard it felt painful. Without another word, Jo slid one arm beneath your knees and lifted you into his arms, handling you like you were a soft petal. 

Hades watched him quietly and his successor, before turning toward the arena doors, met his gaze only briefly, a silent gratitude passing between them. The King of the Dead gave the smallest nod.

Then Jo carried you out. Your head rested softly against his shoulder while silver torchlight flickered across the corridors beyond the arena. He could still feel the lingering tremors running weakly through your body even unconscious. It made something violent curl inside his chest. 

Behind him, silence settled heavily across the training chamber after he disappeared from sight. Persephone looked toward the doorway long after Jo had gone.

“He loves her already,” she murmured quietly.

“Yes” Hades folded his arms calmly. “As I loved you.” 

Persephone’s gaze lowered toward the lingering traces of death magic still curled across the marble. “He’ll hate me for this.”

“He already does, dearest.” That earned the faintest laugh from her.

Then slowly, her expression dimmed again. “If only he knew,” she whispered softly. Hades looked toward her. Persephone’s eyes remained fixed on the doorway where Jo had carried you away.

“If only he knew what she did.”

___________

Consciousness returned slowly.

Your body felt unbearably heavy, every limb weighed down by exhaustion so deep it settled somewhere inside your bones. For a long moment you remained still beneath unfamiliar blankets, listening to the faint crackling of firelight somewhere nearby.

Firelight? No, not fire.

Silver candles.

You forced your eyes open carefully. Black marble veined faintly with silver stretched overhead while dark curtains drifted lazily around enormous windows that overlooked the twilight of the Underworld. The room itself was dimly lit with low flames flickering softly in ornate candle stands.

This was not your chambers. Panic flickered weakly through you and you tried sitting up too quickly which was a grave mistake. Pain shot violently through your ribs and head at once, drawing a soft gasp from your throat before dizziness slammed back into you.

“Easy.”

You turned weakly toward the source of the voice, to see Jo sitting beside the bed. He leaned forward immediately the second he saw you trying to move, one hand carefully steadying your shoulder before gently helping prop you against the carved headboard instead.

“You’re alright,” he murmured.

He looked exhausted—dark hair slightly disheveled, sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms, glasses discarded somewhere nearby. There were faint shadows beneath his eyes too, as though he had not slept.

You looked down and realized your training robes were gone, replaced instead by a soft sleeping gown far more comfortable against your aching skin with bandages wrapped carefully around your wrists and ribs beneath the fabric.

Immediately horrified, you looked back up at him. “Did you change my clothes?”

Jo blinked once, then immediately looked offended. “Gods, no, Yunah did,” he clarified dryly. “I enjoy living.”

You relaxed slightly against the pillows, though your body still ached terribly. For a moment neither of you spoke. The room felt strangely comfortable around him.

Jo reached toward the small table beside the bed and lifted a steaming cup filled with amber liquid. “Drink this.”

You eyed it suspiciously. “Will it kill me?”

“Not immediately.” A faint smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth. “It’s a tonic.” He handed the cup to you, though his fingers lingered briefly against yours to steady the trembling in your hands when he noticed it. At least that was what he told himself. 

You took a cautious sip and the taste surprised you—bittersweet roots softened with honey and something floral underneath. “This is good.” Jo looked amused by your surprise. “You made this?” You blinked at him over the rim of the cup as he nodded, “You know herbal medicine?”

“A little.” The mixture was far too balanced for amateur work. You took another slow sip before looking at him again.

“I like herbs too,” you said. “Back at the temple I used to help prepare remedies for the priestesses sometimes.”

Jo listened without interrupting. The soft silver candlelight caught against the sharp line of his jaw while he sat beside the bed, one arm resting loosely against the sheets near you. Despite the cold elegance of his chambers, the room felt warm.

You took another sip of the tonic. “It tastes familiar,” you murmured thoughtfully. “Did you use a flower?”

“Asphodel.”

Your eyes lifted. “The flower of the dead?”

Jo nodded. “It dulls pain when prepared correctly.”

You looked down at the cup again with softer understanding. For a moment silence settled comfortably between you both again before curiosity stirred quietly inside you. “Where did you learn all this?”

Jo stilled faintly, not enough for anyone else to notice. But you noticed him now. Always.

“My mother,” he answered after a moment. The words came softer than usual. “When I was a child she used to grow herbs herself.” His gaze drifted absently toward the silver flames nearby. “She taught me how to identify poisonous roots before I learned how to properly read.”

Something tightened gently in your chest hearing that. “My mother taught me too.” Jo looked back toward you then. “She used to dry lavender above our chambers,” you murmured quietly, the memory washing over you softly. “The entire temple smelled like herbs half the time because of her.” A tiny laugh escaped you. “The priestesses hated it.”

Jo’s mouth curved. “I would’ve liked her.” 

Before you could answer, pain tore through you, sudden, sharp and violent. Your breath caught immediately as agony crashed hard through your ribs and skull all at once, stealing the air from your lungs. The cup nearly slipped from your trembling hands.

Jo moved instantly. “Hey—”

A broken gasp escaped you as your vision blurred violently again. Your body folded forward instinctively beneath the sudden wave of pain.  Your forehead fell against his shoulder, panting and shaking. Jo’s entire body went rigid for one startled heartbeat. 

“I know,” he murmured quickly.

One arm wrapped carefully around your back to steady you while the other reached toward the bedside table drawer. You barely registered him pulling something out before you felt cool jewels brush against your skin.

Jo fastened the necklace around your throat quickly, fingers moving with practiced urgency at the clasp behind your neck. Almost instantly, the agony eased. You exhaled shakily against his shoulder. And then realization hit you; your hand weakly caught around his wrist.

“No,” you whispered breathlessly. “Jo—”

“It’s fine.”

“It hurts you.”

His expression barely shifted. “I can handle it.”

You tried pulling back enough to look at him properly. “That isn’t fair.” A strange look crossed his face then, something almost sad.

“Oracle,” he murmured quietly, brushing damp hair away from your forehead carefully, “do you really think I care about fairness right now?”

Your chest tightened painfully. Jo leaned back slightly against the headboard afterward, still keeping one arm securely around you when another weaker tremor passed through your body.

“It won’t affect me as much,” he said more gently this time. “Not like it affects you.”

You hated how calm he sounded about hurting himself for your sake. But god, you were so tired. Your head still rested weakly against his shoulder while his heartbeat moved slow and steady beneath your cheek.

“You shouldn’t do this,” you whispered faintly.

Jo looked down at you quietly for a long moment. Then softly, “And yet I will.”

The room fell quiet after that, akin to the somber of winter nights, soft and heavy and intimate. You remained curled weakly against Jo’s shoulder beneath the blankets, the necklace cool against your throat now that the pain had dulled enough for you to think clearly again. He never once moved away. One arm still rested securely around you, steady and grounding and far too easy to lean into.

You listened quietly to the slow rhythm of his breathing. To his heartbeat beneath your cheek. To the comfort of him.

“May I ask you something?”

Jo glanced down at you. “You already are.”

Despite yourself, your mouth twitched faintly. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He didn’t tell you no. You hesitated briefly before asking. 

“What were you like…..before?” You felt him go still beneath your cheek, “When you were human,” you clarified. Silence and you immediately regretted asking. “You don’t have to answer if—”

“I was a prince.”

The words startled you enough that you looked up immediately. Jo’s gaze remained fixed somewhere distant across the room now.

“A prince?” you repeated softly.

A faint smile touched his mouth. “Shocking, I know.”

You tried imagining it. Jo dressed in royal silks beneath sunlight instead of shadows. Jo smiling easily. Jo human. Your chest hurt at the thought.

“My kingdom was…” He paused slightly, searching for the word. “Lively.” Something gentler entered his voice then. “We had musicians in the palace gardens every evening. Festivals constantly. My mother hated silence, so the palace was always full of noise.” A quieter breath escaped him. “Flowers everywhere.”

Spring.

You listened carefully without interrupting. Jo rarely spoke about himself.

“When I was younger,” he continued, “I used to sneak out of lessons to sit with the servants in the kitchens.” An amused breath left him. “They made better company than nobles.”

You smiled faintly against his shoulder. “I can believe that.”

“So could my tutors unfortunately.” For one second, you glimpsed him. Not Hades’ successor, not death. Just a boy once loved by sunlight.

“One winter another kingdom invaded us.”

The softness vanished from his voice entirely. Jo continued staring ahead as your breathing stilled.

“They came at night.” Something terrible moved beneath the calmness in his tone now, the kind of calm only grief could create. “I watched my father die first.” His jaw tightened. “Then my brothers.” A pause. “My mother lasted longer than the rest.”

Jo spoke like someone reciting history, too practiced and detached as though feeling it properly would destroy him.

“The palace burned by morning,” he finished quietly.

You didn’t know what to say. There were no words large enough for grief like that. You suddenly understood why he looked at life like something fragile and temporary. Why he spoke about mortality like a curse. Why spring frightened death so much.

“Hades found me afterward.” Jo finally glanced down toward you then, dark eyes unreadable. “And apparently,” he said with quiet bitterness, “an oracle had told them to attack us.”

The world stopped and your blood ran cold instantly.

Oracle.

The word echoed through your chest like a scream. Your fingers tightened weakly against Jo’s robes before you could stop yourself, heartbeat suddenly loud and frantic beneath the terrible silence now stretching between you both.

You had advised generals in the past, kings and councils; warriors kneeling before Apollo’s altar with blood already staining their hands before battle had even begun. You had watched maps spread open across temple floors while men whispered of invasion routes and weak borders and kingdoms vulnerable after winter famine.

And you had answered them with your false visions, your patterns and your logic and your probability.  You had studied politics your entire life. Observed noble houses, trade routes, rivalries, military weaknesses. Sometimes it had felt less like prophecy and more like strategy dressed in divine gold.

Most of the time you never learned what happened afterward.The wars became distant stories eventually. Cities fell, kings died and life continued. Your stomach twisted violently at the next thought. 

Not many true oracles existed. not many temples possessed enough political influence for kingdoms to consult before war. A horrible thought crawled slowly through your mind.

“What kingdom?” you asked softly.

Jo frowned faintly at your expression. “What?”

“Your kingdom,” you repeated weakly. “What was its name?”

Something in your face must have frightened him then. You saw it immediately—the subtle shift in his eyes. Still he answered.

“Lunaris.”

The world shattered. 

No.

No no no.

You knew that name.

Gods, you knew it.

A kingdom swallowed by invasion after a winter famine weakened their borders. You remembered the generals kneeling before Apollo’s altar years ago asking whether conquest would succeed before spring arrived.

You had told them yes. You had advised speed. Nightfall, winter, strike before reinforcements arrived from the southern provinces. You remembered it perfectly, because it had been one of your cleverest political readings. Your blood turned ice cold.

Jo’s entire body went still beside you.

“…No,” he said quietly at first.

You looked at him with wide, terrified eyes. And Jo suddenly understood.

“No,” he repeated again, sharper now. “No.”

Your lips parted soundlessly. You couldn’t breathe.

“It was you.” He said.

A realization. The fates had to intervene somewhere. You shook your head, tears already burning painfully behind your eyes.

“I didn’t know—”

“That was your temple.” The words landed like knives.

“I didn’t know,” you whispered again, voice breaking this time. “Jo, I swear to you I didn’t know—”

“You told them how to invade us.” Anger entered his voice now, blood cold anger. You flinched visibly.

“I thought—” Your breathing turned uneven. “I thought it was just another kingdom, I didn’t know there were people—”

“There are always people.”

The sharpness of his tone cut straight through you. Silence crashed heavily through the room afterward. Jo stared at you like he didn’t recognize you anymore. And that hurt you more than the voices ever had. 

“I was a child,” he said quietly. The fury had become something worse now—grief. “My brothers were children.”

You covered your mouth shakily as tears finally spilled down your face. “I know.”

“No,” Jo snapped suddenly, pulling away from you enough that the loss of warmth felt immediate and awful. “You don’t.”

The movement made pain shoot through your body again but you barely noticed it. Jo looked devastated, as though something precious had cracked apart inside him.

“And to think I could have loved you.” He said before he could stop himself, “Someone like you.”

The room went dead silent. 

Jo looked almost horrified by his own confession, breathing uneven now as though the admission itself had physically wounded him. His dark eyes searched your face only briefly before something cold slammed shut behind them again.

Walls, death rebuilding himself. You reached toward him despite the tears burning down your face.

“Jo—”

“Don’t.”

His voice broke which hurt more than if he had shouted. You had never seen him look truly shaken before. He looked ruined.

Beautifully ruined.

Like death had finally discovered the grief it imparted.

Jo dragged a hand harshly through his dark hair before stepping further away from the bed entirely now, as though distance itself might save him from this. From you. The silver candlelight flickered violently across his expression. Anger, grief, love twisted into something ugly and bleeding.

You had done that.

“I didn’t know,” you whispered again helplessly. “If I had known—”

“But you didn’t care enough to know.” Jo laughed a broken laugh. “An oracle speaks,” he murmured bitterly, “and kingdoms burn.” 

Each word landed as cruel as a bandit’s knife. You could barely breathe around the guilt crushing your ribs apart.

Jo stared at you for one final terrible moment then. At your tear stained cheeks, at the necklace round your throat. At the girl he had once started to love before learning she had unknowingly helped destroy his life. Something inside him seemed to fracture quietly. And when he finally spoke again, his voice sounded like winter.

“I will not hold back during the duel.”

Your head snapped upward instantly. Jo’s expression remained terrifyingly calm now.

“I mean it,” he said softly. “Do not expect mercy from me because I once cared about you.”

“Jo—”

“I am not above killing a goddess.”

Jo turned sharply toward the doors, the shadows in the chamber darkening around him as though even the Underworld itself felt his fury.

You watched helplessly as he walked away, not looking back even once. The doors slammed shut behind him with a sound like a coffin sealing. The room felt unbearably empty. The silver candles still flickered softly. The blankets still smelled faintly of herbs and winter and him. Your pulse still echoed painfully in your throat.

But Jo was gone.

You stared at the closed doors for a long time without moving. As though if you looked hard enough, he might come back. As though the last hour had not happened at all. As though kingdoms had not burned because of your words.

Your hands trembled weakly against the blankets as tears slid silently down your face again. Somewhere beneath the grief and horror and heartbreak, one terrible thought kept circling endlessly inside your mind.

I could have loved you.

Whatever fragile thing had bloomed beneath silver trees and star-covered ceilings had finally withered tonight. You lowered your gaze slowly toward the necklace still resting against your throat.

Hades’ colour.

Jo’s colour.

The necklace glimmered faintly beneath the candlelight like frozen tears. And suddenly you remembered him standing beneath spring flowers in the garden, soft music spilling from elegant fingers while he called you little lamb with amusement curling quietly beneath the words.

Beautiful oracle.

Sweet little lamb.

How gently death had once spoken your name.

How easily spring had wandered toward him anyway. And perhaps that had always been the tragedy of it all.

Because lambs were born only to be led toward slaughter. And beautiful things?

Beautiful things rarely survived the winter.

_______________

The day of the duel arrived cold.

The Underworld never truly changed temperature beneath its eternal twilight skies. But the palace itself felt colder and quieter as though the dead lingering beneath its foundations had paused to wait for what would happen tonight.

You sat alone at the edge of your bed staring at your sword. The polished silver blade rested across the dark blankets before you, gleaming faintly beneath the dim candlelight of your chambers. Persephone had commissioned it herself only days ago. Elegant and deadly, vines carved carefully into the hilt like spring wrapping itself around violence.

A goddess’ weapon.

Your weapon.

You hated it. Your fingers curled weakly against your lap as your eyes traced the blade again. You were healed now, physically at least. The bruises had faded, the tremors had stopped and the voices obeyed you now when summoned instead of ripping you apart from the inside. Persephone had looked almost proud during your final training session yesterday. But none of that mattered. Because every time you closed your eyes, you saw his face.

I could have loved you.

You swallowed hard and looked away from the sword entirely. The necklace still rested around your throat; you should have taken it off and yet you hadn’t been able to. Pathetic for a goddess. A sharp knock suddenly echoed through the room before the doors opened without waiting for permission.

“Good morning, future queen of the dead.”

You blinked in surprise. Yuma strolled into your chambers carrying an entire tray of food balanced effortlessly in one hand. He looked wildly out of place against the quiet heaviness filling the room.

“You look awful.” He announced immediately.

You stared at him flatly. “How comforting.”

“I try my best.” Yuma kicked the doors shut behind him before crossing the room and setting the tray down atop the nearby table. Fruits, warm bread and honey filled the platters, though your stomach twisted too hard to feel hungry.

“You haven’t eaten, have you?” he accused instantly.

“I’m dueling death in front of an audience of gods in an hour.”

“Yes, tragic.” Yuma sighed dramatically. “Still not an excuse to starve yourself.” You smiled at his words and Yuma chuckled. He glanced briefly toward the sword still laying across your bed and whatever amusement had lingered in his expression dimmed slightly.

“You’re scared,” he observed quietly.

You laughed weakly beneath your breath. “Brilliant observation.”

“No,” Yuma said more gently now. “Not of the duel.” Yuma leaned one shoulder casually against the table nearby, studying you carefully for a moment before speaking again. “He’s miserable too, you know.” Death is always miserable. Unlike spring, who chose her sadness very rarely. 

“He should be.”

“That doesn’t mean he enjoys it.”

You looked away sharply. “Does he really hate me?”

“He’s trying to.”

You stared down at your hands quietly while distant music from the palace halls drifted faintly through the silence outside your chambers. Preparations for tonight had already begun. The Underworld waited for blood.

“He hasn’t slept properly in days,” Yuma admitted. “Nicholas nearly killed him during training yesterday because he kept spacing out.”

A weak laugh escaped you despite everything. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It was hilarious actually.” Another tiny smile tugged at your mouth. Yuma looked relieved after seeing it. “He didn’t mean whatever it is he said.”

You thought immediately of Jo’s voice.

I am not above killing a goddess.

Your chest tightened painfully.

I could have loved you.

“Yes he did.”

There are very few things in this world that are always true. Death was one of them—arriving for the young and old, the kings and the peasants, mortals and divine beings.

And for spring of course.

Death always ran after spring. 

________________

The arena glittered like a wound beneath the earth.

Gold and silver fire blazed from towering braziers lining the enormous circular colosseum while thousands of dark marble seats curved upward into endless shadows above. Olympus had gathered tonight, gods and their successors.  

Music drifted softly through the arena at first, low strings echoing across black marble floors while silver goblets gleamed in divine hands. Above the arena an artificial night sky stretched, stars burning cold and endless overhead exactly the way Persephone liked them.

You stood at the entrance tunnel trying not to shake. Black armor wrapped carefully around your body, fitted far lighter than mortal battle armor but no less deadly. Silver vines curled across the dark metal like winter flowers while your sword rested against your hip. Persephone had chosen black for you.

“Spring grows best in darkness,” she had said simply. You wondered if she regretted that choice now. A herald’s voice echoed across the arena.

“Persephone’s successor.”

Your pulse thundered; you stepped forward and the arena exploded into noise. Gods leaned forward from their seats while silver applause echoed softly through the massive colosseum. You caught glimpses immediately as you walked toward the center platform.

Nicholas sitting beside Ares, blonde hair bright beneath firelight. Yuma perched carelessly against Hermes’ throne, watching you with visible concern. Euijoo beside Hestia, hands clasped tightly. Fuma calm and unreadable. Yudai radiant as sunlight itself beneath Apollo’s side. And high above all of them Hades and Persephone seated together upon the black throne overlooking the arena. 

Then another voice rang out.

“Hades’ successor.”

The atmosphere changed instantly. Cold swept through the arena. The shadows along the walls deepened as Jo emerged from the opposite entrance tunnel. And your breath caught in your throat.

He wore white armor.

Beautiful white armor edged with silver and black, gleaming beneath the flames like moonlight carved into human form. His dark hair fell carelessly across his forehead while the arena lights caught sharply against the elegant line of his jaw.

Death dressed like heaven.

The contrast between you both struck the arena immediately.

Black and white.

Spring and death.

Jo’s expression remained unreadable as he crossed the arena toward you, sword already resting loosely at his side. He looked beautiful. You stopped several feet across from each other at the center of the arena floor. Silence, heavy and expectant, spread slowly outward afterward. 

You searched his face desperately for something, anything. Anger, hatred, mercy, love. Jo finally looked fully at you then. And for one suspended heartbeat, his eyes softened when his gaze went to your throat. 

The necklace was gone. There was nothing standing between you and him now. Something unreadable flickered across his face before the softness disappeared entirely again. His expression sharpened, beautifully cruel. 

Winter returned.

Across the arena Persephone rose gracefully from her throne while Hades stood beside her, shadows pooling heavily around the marble beneath his feet. Persephone’s voice echoed clear across the colosseum.

“Let the duel begin.” 

Hades raised one hand calmly. The arena bells rang. And both of you moved into a fighting position at the exact same moment.

Spring and Death—who would fall to their knees first?The first clash of your swords rang through the arena like a bell, sharp, violent and melodic. A collective murmur swept through the watching crowd as steel met steel. The force of the impact jolted through your arms instantly but you held firm, staring directly into Jo’s eyes from barely inches away.

His white armor gleamed brilliantly against your black. Then he twisted suddenly and you barely managed to parry the next strike. The duel began moving almost immediately afterward—not like a battle at first but like something stranger.

A dance.

Jo circled you slowly across the marble arena floor, sword glinting lazily in one elegant hand while you matched every movement instinctively, boots scraping softly against stone. The watching gods had gone almost entirely silent now.

Steel flashed again. You ducked low this time, turning sharply before striking upward toward his side. Jo blocked effortlessly, the clash sending silver sparks scattering between you both. Gods, he was fast.

“Your footing improved,” he observed coolly while deflecting another strike.

You glared breathlessly. “Thank you.”

“You’re still hesitating.”

“So are you.”

For the briefest second, something flickered in his expression. Then Jo attacked again. The next sequence happened so quickly it barely felt real.

Steel rang violently through the arena as you both moved faster now, swords colliding again and again in a dizzying blur beneath the roaring silver flames overhead. Your bodies moved around each other instinctively, dangerously close before separating again.

Step. Turn. Strike. Parry.

The duel truly did resemble dancing now. And you couldn't help but think back to the ball. How gentle death’s hands were at your waist. How calming it felt to be almost loved by death. 

Jo spun suddenly to your left and your sword caught his with a violent crack before both of you twisted apart again, breaths uneven now. Your pulse thundered painfully in your ears. The voices beneath the arena stirred. You shoved them down hard. Jo seemed to notice. 

“You’re controlling them better.” He murmured.

You swallowed hard before lunging again. This time Jo grabbed your wrist mid-motion. He pulled you sharply toward him instead of away.

The arena blurred around you both. Your chest nearly collided against his armor while your swords locked between your bodies, faces barely inches apart now beneath thousands of watching eyes. You could hear his breathing; feel the warmth of him despite everything.

“Jo—” 

“Watch out, little lamb.”

And suddenly he moved. You barely reacted in time before Jo twisted sharply, breaking your balance entirely. Your sword slipped for one horrifying second and he took advantage immediately, forcing you backward across the arena floor at frightening speed.

The crowd erupted. You blocked one strike, then another and then another. Jo advanced relentlessly now, armor flashing beneath silver light while his sword drove you steadily backward through the center of the arena. No softness remained in him anymore. 

Death finally remembering itself.

Your back hit stone, a pillar at the edge of the arena. Jo’s sword slammed against the marble beside your head before sliding instantly to your throat. You froze completely beneath him. Jo stood terrifyingly close now, the blade rested lightly against the skin of your neck.

One movement—that was all it would take for his revenge.

The sword remained pressed lightly against your throat, cold enough to steal the breath from your lungs. Around you, the arena had gone completely silent beneath the weight of the moment. Even the gods were still. Jo’s chest rose unevenly beneath the armor as he stared down at you. You looked terrified.

Not of dying, but of him. Death’s heart stuttered. 

The shadows around the arena curled restlessly at his feet, eager, whispering like hungry things beneath the floor. Death stood victorious now. One final strike and the duel would end. His grip tightened slightly around the sword hilt.

A memory surfaced violently through the rage.

Warm sunlight.

A garden from another lifetime.

His mother kneeling beside him when he had still been small enough to fit beneath her arm. Flowers scattered across her lap while she gently guided his tiny hands around a crushed blossom.

“Strength without mercy,” she had told him softly, “becomes cruelty.” He remembered laughing then, young and careless, while she tucked the flower behind his ear despite his complaints.

“You must never let grief turn you monstrous, Jo.”

The memory vanished, only for another to strike immediately afterward. 

Silver lights drifting through the Underworld garden. You sitting beside him beneath flowering branches while weaving together a crown from pale blooms with furrowed concentration. Jo remembered scoffing quietly.

“Flowers suit spring, not death.”

You had looked up at him then, smiling softly.

“No,” you murmured while carefully placing the finished flower crown atop his dark hair, “I think death looks much prettier adorned in flowers.”

Your fingers brushing his temple gently, your laughter afterward.

Beautiful oracle.

Sweet little lamb.

My spring.

Jo hesitated, only half a second, but half a second was enough. Your eyes sharpened instantly and you kicked him hard backward.

Jo stumbled away as you twisted sharply out from beneath the sword. The arena erupted immediately into noise again while you lunged forward before he could properly recover. Steel clashed violently. Jo blocked your first strike but the second nearly caught his shoulder before he spun aside. The momentum shifted instantly now, both of you moving quickly across the arena floor again beneath roaring voices from the crowd.

Your breathing came hard and so did his. And you saw little drops of something in his angelic eyes. 

Mercy? Forgiveness?

Love?

And Jo realized with a horrifying clarity, he still could not bring himself to kill you.

At some point the elegant rhythm of the duel disappeared beneath sheer exhaustion, both of you moving now on instinct alone beneath the blazing silver fires of the arena. Steel kept crashing violently through the colosseum while gods leaned forward from their thrones watching spring and death tear themselves apart.

Jo blocked another strike barely in time before stumbling backward again across the marble floor. White armor now bore deep scratches across the chest and shoulders while strands of dark hair clung damply against his forehead.

You probably looked no better—black armor cracked at one shoulder, breathing ragged, hands shaking around your sword. Still neither of you stopped.

The voices beneath the arena screamed around you now, swelling louder with every drop of blood and fury soaking into the marble. Death magic curled wildly through the air while flowers had begun blooming strangely from fractures in the arena floor beneath your feet.

Spring answering violence.

Steel rang again. Jo’s sword nearly slipped from his grasp this time. You froze for half a heartbeat noticing it. You realised how truly exhausted he was. Jo saw the realization cross your face and laughed softly beneath his breath.

Broken.

Beautiful.

Death lowered his sword.

The arena went still immediately. Your pulse thundered painfully as Jo took one unsteady step backward before finally dropping heavily to one knee before you. Gasps echoed throughout the crowd.

“Jo—”

He ignored you. His breathing came uneven now while silver firelight flickered sharply across his pale face. Jo tilted his head upward toward you. Exposing his throat to your blade.

Offering it.

Death kneeling before spring.

Jo’s dark eyes found yours again. No hatred remained there anymore. Only grief.

Love.

“You win.” He said softly. Your sword trembled violently in your hand, “You win, beloved spring.” 

“No.”

Jo’s gaze sharpened faintly. “Do it.”

“Jo no I—”

“Darling, please.”

“I said no!”

The words cracked out of you harder this time. You stared at him kneeling there before you beneath thousands of watching eyes and suddenly all you could see was the boy beneath the crown of flowers. The man who brewed medicine for you when you were hurting. The angel in hell who played music beneath silver trees.

Death.

Your death.

Your sword clattered loudly against the marble floor. A collective gasp swept through the arena. Then you moved.

Before Jo could react properly, you dropped to your knees in front of him and grabbed him hard against you instead. Jo inhaled sharply in genuine shock as you collapsed forward, exhausted beyond reason now, your forehead pressing desperately against his shoulder.

“I can’t,” you whispered brokenly.

His arms wrapped around you, the force of it nearly destroying him. And then the last of Jo’s strength gave out too. He collapsed backward heavily onto the arena floor with you still clinging to him, both of you breathing hard beneath the endless silver lights overhead. The crowd watched in complete silence.

Black armor tangled with white.

Spring curled against death.

Jo’s trembling hand slowly rose toward the back of your head, cradling you there against his chest as though shielding you from the entire world. And somewhere above the arena Persephone smiled, then gracefully she rose from her throne.

“The duel,” the Queen of the Underworld declared warmly into the stunned silence, “is a tie.”

The arena roared around you. Gods speaking over one another, silver goblets lifting, music beginning again somewhere far above the colosseum. But it all sounded distant and muted.

The entire world had drifted far away from where you lay tangled together upon the marble floor. 

Jo’s hand remained at the back of your head, fingers threaded weakly through your hair while both of you struggled simply to breathe again. His chest rose unevenly beneath your cheek. You tilted your head upward slowly then. Jo looked down at you at the exact same moment. You smiled—small, exhausted and terribly soft. 

“What do we do now?” you whispered.

For the first time in what felt like centuries, Jo laughed, an achingly human sound. 

“I have no idea.”

He leaned forward until his forehead rested against yours. The silver firelight danced softly across his lashes. Around you, the Underworld celebrated. Above you, stars burned quietly against the endless dark. And there in the center of the arena, Spring and Death rested together at last.

Perhaps Persephone had been right all along.

Fate could place two souls upon the same path.

But love?

Love was the choice to remain when the story became difficult.

To stay after grief.

To stay after the truth.

To stay even after the winter.

And as Jo closed his eyes beside yours beneath the roaring heavens of the Underworld, you realized something beautiful.

Spring had never feared death.

It had only wanted something gentle enough to bloom beside.

___________

A great many things had happened after the duel. For one, the entire Underworld apparently lost its mind.

Yuma had burst dramatically into your chambers the very next morning and declared, “I knew it. I knew you idiots were in love.” Nicholas had demanded to know who technically won the duel while Euijoo calmly informed him that love itself had probably won instead, which earned him a thrown goblet from Nicholas. Fuma merely looked unbearably smug every time either you or Jo entered a room together.

The Queen of the Underworld had smiled at you over breakfast three days ago and said, “You know, Hades also threatened to kill me once.” Apparently that was supposed to be comforting.

Jo had become quieter afterward, softer in ways that surprised both of you. You had talked eventually, really talked. About the kingdom, about the war and about grief.

One night beneath silver lanterns in the garden, you had confessed everything you could remember about the prophecy given to the invaders years ago. How young you had been. How manipulated information often reached oracles incomplete. How guilt had eaten through you your entire life even before knowing what it had cost him. Jo had listened silently through all of it. Then finally he had admitted something too.

“I hated you for exactly one night,” he confessed quietly beneath the willow branches. “And then I hated myself more because I still loved you anyway.”

That had nearly broken your heart. And somewhere between music drifting through silver trees and conversations stretching long past midnight, the anger had slowly stopped feeling larger than the love. Eventually, hesitantly, sitting shoulder to shoulder beneath the stars, you had looked at him and whispered.

“Maybe I want to try loving you properly.”

Jo had stared at you for a very long time after that. Then laughed softly beneath his breath like someone overwhelmed by relief.

“I think,” he murmured carefully, “I want to try too.”

And now—almost three weeks after the duel—you lay beside him beneath Hades’ willow tree.

The garden glowed softly around you beneath drifting silver lights while music from some distant palace hall floated faintly through the air. Spring flowers curled lazily through the grass near your hands and the long willow branches swayed overhead like silk brushing against the stars. Neither of you had spoken in several minutes.

Jo lay beside you with his eyes closed, one arm folded behind his head while the other rested close enough that your fingers brushed occasionally against his.

Comfortable silence—the kind that only existed between people who had finally stopped running from one another. You turned your head slightly toward him.

He looked beautiful like this—neither Hades’ successor nor Death. Just Jo.

Your Jo.

“I love you.”

The words slipped out so naturally it startled you. Silence followed for one second. Then Jo’s fingers found yours completely, threading carefully through them. When he answered, his voice sounded softer than spring rain.

“I love you too.”

A soft, helpless smile curved your lips. You kept your eyes closed, savoring the warmth of his hand in yours, the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. 

Then, a playful impulse stirred. You focused on the quiet, living magic Persephone’s gift had woven into your soul—the connection to growing things.

On the grass between you, a single, tiny blossom pushed through the soil. It was no grand flower, just a simple, star-shaped bloom of pale blue, the color of a twilight sky remembered. You plucked it gently.

Turning your head, you saw Jo’s eyes were still closed, a look of profound peace on his sharp, beautiful features. With a touch as light as a thought, you tucked the tiny blossom behind his ear, its stem nestling against the dark silk of his hair. His lips twitched. He didn’t open his eyes, but his free hand—the one not holding yours—came up. 

A matching blossom, this one a soft, luminous white, sprouted instantly from the grass by his fingertips. He plucked it and reached over to tuck it behind your own ear. His fingers lingered for a moment, tracing the line of your jaw. How sweet it was, for Death to have learnt the beauty of life.

“Show-off,” you murmured, your smile widening. His eyes gleamed behind his glasses with a warm, tender light that was yours alone.

“You started it,” he said, his voice a low rumble.

You laughed, the sound bright and clear in the quiet garden. Seized by a sudden, joyful mischief, you wriggled your fingers against the side of his ribcage where you knew he was ticklish. He jolted, a surprised gasp escaping him. 

“Hey—!” he protested, but it was already too late. The dignified successor to Hades, the feared and elegant presence of the Underworld, dissolved into a squirming, laughing mess as you attacked his most vulnerable spots with gleeful determination.

“Truce! Truce!” he managed between breaths, trying to catch your wrists.

“Never!” you declared, rolling onto your knees to gain better leverage, “Is my Hades such a coward?” 

What followed was a playful, graceless tangle of limbs and laughter. The willow branches swayed above you, bearing witness to the undignified scuffle. You pushed against his shoulder; he hooked a foot around your ankle. You both tumbled sideways into the soft, flower-strewn grass in a heap of dark fabric and whispered curses and giggles.

Through sheer persistence and a slightly underhanded tickle to your side, Jo managed to flip you onto your back.

He braced his hands on either side of your head, looming over you, his hair disheveled and the little blue blossom still clinging gamely behind his ear. He was breathing heavily, but his eyes were sparkling with pure, unguarded delight.

“Yield?” he asked, his voice husky with laughter.

You looked up at him—your beautiful, sharp, complicated Jo, here in this garden, with flowers in his hair and love in his eyes. You reached up and gently straightened his glasses, which had slipped down his nose.

“Never,” you whispered again. He lowered his head, his forehead resting against yours. 

“Good,” he murmured, and his lips found yours, beneath the weeping willow where death and spring had learned to dance.

The kiss began as a soft, lingering promise, a gentle seal upon the word “never.” 

His lips were warm, tasting of night air and the faint sweetness of the blossom behind his ear. You sighed into it, your hands coming up to cradle his face, your thumbs brushing the sharp line of his jaw.

Jo’s hands slid from the grass to frame your face, his fingers tangling in your hair. The laughter still echoed in the way he breathed, in the slight shake of his shoulders as he leaned into you, but it transformed into something else—a low, hungry sound that vibrated against your mouth.

You opened for him, and he took the invitation without hesitation. The kiss turned deep, searching, a conversation without words. The playful energy of the tickle-fight still coursed through you, translating now into the press of your body against his, the arch of your back as you sought more of him, the bite of your nails into the fabric of his shirt.

Jo groaned, a rough, beautiful sound that was all yours, and his glasses began to fog from the heat of your shared breath. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he kissed you harder, his tongue sweeping against yours, claiming the gasp you let out.

Finally, with a frustrated, tender grunt, he broke the kiss for just a second. He pulled the glasses off with one hand, tossing them carelessly aside into the soft grass where they glinted like fallen stars. His eyes, now unobstructed, were dark pools of pure want, the silver light of the garden catching in the depths.

“You’re beautiful.” He breathed, “My spring.”Jo kissed you like he was trying to drink the very soul from you, one hand moving to the back of your head to hold you steady, the other roaming down your side, over the curve of your hip.

You met him with equal fervor, pulling him down onto you fully, the weight of him a delicious anchor in this floating garden.

The world narrowed to the scent of him—clean linen and dark earth—and the feel of his lips, his teeth, his tongue. To the sound of your ragged breaths mingling and the distant, forgotten music that seemed to beat in time with your hearts.

Jo’s mouth never left yours as his fingers found the thin straps of your dress, sliding them down your shoulders with a reverence that made your skin prickle with goosebumps. The fabric pooled at your waist, and he broke the kiss only to look at you—to trace the path of moonlight over your collarbones, the swell of your breasts half-exposed in the garden's silver glow.

"You're trembling, darling," Jo murmured, his voice a low vibration that seemed to come from the earth itself. 

His thumb traced your lower lip, then followed the line of your jaw, down the column of your throat, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

You could only shake your head, reaching for the buttons of his shirt with fingers that weren't quite steady. The first button gave way, then the second, revealing his chest, the dip of his collarbones you wanted to taste. But when your hands moved to the third, he caught your wrists—gently, but with that implacable strength that reminded you exactly who he was.

"Not yet, my heart," Jo breathed, and the endearment wrapped around you like silk. "I want to feel you first."

He eased you back onto the grass, the blades soft and cool against your bare shoulders. The atmosphere’s perfume enveloped you both as he followed you down, his body a warm shield between you and the vast dark sky. His hand traveled down your side, over the curve of your waist, gripping your hip with a possessiveness that made you gasp.

Your beloved’s mouth found your neck, kissing, sucking, tasting the salt-sweet skin where your pulse hammered. You arched into him, your fingers burying themselves in his dark hair, holding him there as he worked his way lower. 

Jo pushed the white fabric down further, exposing your breasts to the night air, and his mouth closed over one nipple with a groan that seemed to resonate through the very ground beneath you.

"Sweet girl.” He said against your skin, the words a hot whisper. "You taste like flowers, darling.” 

Your hands clenched in his hair as he lavished attention on your breasts, alternating between gentle nips and soothing laps of his tongue, driving you to the edge of coherence. But his hand was already moving lower, pushing the bunched-up dress further down your thighs, past your hips, until you were left in nothing but your panties. He lifted his head, and the look in his dark eyes made you forget to breathe.

"Let me see you, darling."

His words left his mouth like a prayer. Who were you to deny him? 

You lifted your hips, and Jo pulled the dress away completely, tossing it aside to join his glasses in the grass. Then his fingers hooked into the waistband of your panties, sliding them down your legs with excruciating slowness, his eyes never leaving your body. 

When you were bare beneath him, exposed to the night and to his gaze, he made a sound—low and reverent, as if he were witnessing something sacred.

“Beautiful," he breathed. "My spring, lying open for me like this."

His hand settled on your inner thigh, warm and heavy, and he spread you gently. The grass tickled your skin, the cool air kissed your heat, and Jo—incarnation of death, lord of endings—looked at you like you were the only beginning that mattered.

His fingers traced your folds with exquisite lightness, barely there, teasing, learning. You whimpered, your hips canting toward him instinctively, and his lips curved into a smile that held both tenderness and dark promise.

"So eager, my love. But I want to take my time with you."

Jo pressed a single finger into you, slow and deliberate, and your breath caught in your throat. He watched your face, his eyes never leaving yours, as he worked his finger deeper, curling it just so, finding the spot that made your vision blur. A second finger joined the first, stretching you gently, and the sound you made was half-moan, half-sob.

"That's it, sweet girl," he murmured, his thumb finding your clit in lazy circles. "Let me feel you. Let me hear you."

The garden seemed to hold its breath around you. The flowers leaned in, the stars watched, and the distant music faded to nothing as Jo's fingers moved inside you with a rhythm that spoke of centuries of existence had taught him. 

Jo knew your body as if he had always known it—as if in every life, in every season, he had been waiting to touch you just like this. When he withdrew his fingers, you gasped at the emptiness. But he was already shifting, lowering himself, his breath warm against your inner thigh.

"I need to taste you," he said, and it sounded like a confession. "I need to drink you down, darling. Let me."

Death’s mouth found you, and Spring shattered.

Blossomed. 

Jo ate you like a starving man—like someone who had walked through eternity without sustenance and had finally found the only thing that could fill him. 

His tongue was deft, knowing, sliding through your slick folds with purpose. He circled your clit, then flattened his tongue against it, then sucked gently, and your hips bucked against his mouth.

"Jo—" His name broke from your lips, a desperate, prayerful sound. He hummed against you in answer, the vibration sending shockwaves through your core.

His hands gripped your thighs, holding you open, holding you steady as he devoured you. He alternated between long, languid strokes of his tongue and quick, focused flicks that made you see stars behind your closed eyelids.

The grass beneath you was soft and cool, the air thick with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and sex, overwhelmed by the pleasure of his mouth, the weight of his devotion.

"Please…” you gasped, not knowing what you were asking for more or for release or for him to never stop.

Jo responded by pressing two fingers back into you, curling them in a come-hither motion as his tongue lashed your clit, and the double assault pushed you over the edge. You came with a cry that echoed through the garden, your body arching off the ground, your fingers twisted in his hair so tightly it must have hurt.

But Jo didn’t pull away. He rode you through it, gentling his tongue to soft, soothing laps as you trembled and shuddered beneath him, drinking every last drop of your release like it was the nectar that kept the world turning.

When you finally collapsed, boneless and breathless, he lifted his head. His lips were slick, his chin glistening, and his dark eyes held a satisfaction that was ancient and primal and utterly, devastatingly tender.

"You taste like forever, darling," he said, crawling up your body to hover over you. "Like the first morning of spring."

He kissed you then, slow and deep, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. And when he pulled back, there was a question in his eyes—patience, wanting, all the time in the world. Death stopped all time for his beloved anyway.

"Now, my love.” Jo whispered against your lips. "Now I'm ready for you."

Jo settled over you, the weight of him pressing you deeper into the grass, and you felt the hard length of him against your thigh—evidence of how much he had wanted this, wanted you. Death had all the time in the world, and he chose to spend every second of it on you.

Jo’s lips found yours again, soft and languid, tasting of you and of the night. One hand came up to cradle your face, his thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone with devastating tenderness.

When your beloved finally broke the kiss, he looked down at you and the emotion in his dark eyes made your chest ache.

"Are you ready for me, my heart?" he asked, his voice rough with want but gentle as a prayer.

You nodded, unable to speak, and your legs parted for him in silent invitation. He guided himself to your entrance, the tip pressing against you with a pressure that made you gasp. 

Then he pushed inside—slow, so slow—filling you inch by inch until you were completely full of him, until there was no space between your bodies, no distance between your souls.

For a moment, he stilled, letting you adjust. His forehead dropped to yours, his breath warm and uneven against your lips.

Fuck you felt him home to Jo, the place he’d been searching for across every damn lifetime. The place where pomegranates grew wild and unchecked, every seed a potent poison of love that felt like nectar to you. For what is death by intoxication when it was your lover you’d meet at the end anyways? 

You wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer, and your legs locked around his hips. It was as if your bodies were made to fit together like this, two halves of a whole finally reunited.

Jo began to move, each thrust a slow, rolling wave, a push and pull that seemed to echo the turning of the seasons. He slid out until only the tip remained, then pressed back in with exquisite care, filling you completely, touching places inside you that felt like they had been waiting for him since the beginning of time.

His hand found yours in the grass, his fingers intertwining with yours, squeezing gently. You turned your head to look at your joined hands—his fingers long and elegant, holding yours like you were something precious.

"I love you," he said, the words falling from his lips like petals. "I love you, my darling.”Jo loved you in ways he didn’t know he could love. He loved you like the dead loved the warmth of the sun.

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes, and you squeezed his hand back, your voice breaking as you answered, "I love you too, Jo. I love you. I love you."

He kissed you then as he continued to move inside you. Slow, deep, each thrust a declaration, each withdrawal a promise to return. The rhythm built gradually, like a tide coming in, and you rose to meet him, your hips lifting, your body singing in harmony with his.

"God, you feel—" He couldn't finish the sentence, burying his face in your neck instead, his breath hot against your skin as he groaned your name.

Your free hand slid into his hair, cradling the back of his head, holding him close. The grass beneath you was soft, the sky above was infinite, and between them was this—was Jo, was you, was the impossible, beautiful truth of a god of endings and a goddess of beginnings, making something new together.

His pace quickened, just slightly, and you felt the tension coiling in your belly, the heat building with each slow stroke. He was watching you again—those dark eyes fixed on your face, drinking in every expression, every gasp, every flutter of your lashes.

"Cum for me, darling," Jo whispered, his voice a command wrapped in a caress. "Let me feel you come undone around me."

His hand tightened on yours, his thumb stroking the back of your hand, and his hips pressed deeper, grinding against you in a way that sent sparks cascading through your veins. You shattered—slowly this time, like dawn breaking over a quiet horizon, your release washing through you in waves that made your entire body tremble.

Jo followed moments later, his own release pulsing inside you, his body shuddering above you as he buried his face in your hair and moaned your name like it was sacred. He collapsed against you, not crushing you, but covering you, protecting you, his heart hammering against your chest in a rhythm that matched your own. 

For a long moment, there was only breathing. Only the scent of crushed grass and asphodel. Only the warmth of his body and the steady thrum of his pulse. He lifted his head, and his eyes—soft now, tired and sated and full of wonder—met yours. He brought your joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to your knuckles.

"My heart," he murmured against your skin. "My sweet, beautiful heart."

You smiled, tugging him down for another kiss—soft and lazy and full of promise.

"Yours," you whispered. "Always yours."

____________

The coronation of gods began beneath a sky that did not belong to earth.

The grand hall of the Underworld had been transformed entirely for the ceremony. Endless black marble pillars stretched toward a ceiling painted with constellations that shifted slowly like living stars while silver fire burned from enormous braziers lining the throne room. Flowers climbed through cracks in dark stone—white lilies, narcissus, asphodel, roses blooming beside obsidian.

The entire divine court had gathered. Old gods seated high upon ancient thrones. Successors standing below them dressed in ceremonial silks and armor, waiting for the moment mortal names would finally become divine ones.

You stood near the end of the line beside Jo. His hand brushed yours once, enough to steady your heartbeat. Across the throne room, Persephone smiled knowingly at the sight.

The ceremony began with Apollo.

Golden light flooded the hall as Yudai stepped forward gracefully beneath the gaze of the radiant god himself. Apollo removed the laurel crown from his own head before placing it carefully upon Yudai’s dark hair. The entire hall brightened instantly as sunlight bloomed through the ceiling stars.

And when Yudai opened his eyes again, they shimmered gold. Apollo smiled proudly.

“My light,” the god declared softly. The court erupted into applause.

Then came Aphrodite.

Fuma walked forward clothed in pale rose silks while beauty itself seemed to ripple through the air around him. Aphrodite kissed both his cheeks lovingly before draping jeweled chains across his shoulders like strands of starlight. The room sighed collectively.

Even Nicholas looked briefly enchanted. “Disgusting,” he muttered afterward. Ares laughed loudly from his throne.

“Come here, boy.”

Nicholas strode forward next dressed in crimson armor polished bright as blood. Ares placed a heavy war-forged crown atop his blonde head before gripping his shoulder proudly.

“Try not to start wars immediately,” Ares advised.

Nicholas grinned. “No promises.”

Hestia crowned Euijoo gently afterward beside a great sacred fire burning in the center of the hall. Warmth spread instantly throughout the throne room the moment the crown touched his head. Home, that was what Euijoo felt like.

Hermes nearly tackled Yuma into his embrace before crowning him.

“Finally,” Hermes sighed dramatically. “Someone interesting around here.”

Yuma looked delighted. “You’re lucky I’m your favorite.”

“You’re my only successor.”

“Still counts.” Laughter echoed warmly throughout the hall.

Artemis crowned Harua beneath silver moonlight spilling suddenly through the celestial ceiling. Quiet and elegant, he bowed deeply before her while moonflowers bloomed silently across the marble floor beneath his feet.

Dionysus practically danced while crowning Taki. Wine spilled. Someone screamed. Music grew louder somehow. Taki looked thrilled.

And Maki arrived at Hephaestus’ side already carrying tools.

“You brought those to your coronation?” Yuma whispered in disbelief.

“They help me think.” Hephaestus looked genuinely emotional, placing the forged iron crown upon Maki’s head.

“Don’t dismantle Olympus,” the god warned.

Maki considered it seriously. “No guarantees.”

Then the throne room darkened. Cold swept softly through the hall. And Hades finally rose. Every voice quieted instantly. 

Jo stepped forward beside you. Dressed entirely in black and silver once more, though softer tonight somehow beneath the silver firelight. He looked toward Hades calmly while the King of the Dead descended the throne steps slowly to meet him.

The hall itself seemed to bow as Hades removed the obsidian crown from his own head, then placed it carefully atop Jo’s dark hair. The shadows beneath the throne room stirred instantly.

Death answered its king.

But when Jo lifted his eyes, they found yours. Only yours. 

Your pulse stumbled violently as Persephone extended one graceful hand toward you from across the throne room.

“Come here, my darling.”

You walked forward slowly. The hall disappeared around you. Only Persephone remained, beautiful, ancient and kind. She reached up carefully and removed the flowered crown from her own head before placing it gently upon yours.

The second it touched you, the world bloomed.

Flowers exploded across the throne room floor in wild impossible color. Vines curled up marble pillars instantly while white roses burst from black stone and golden narcissus scattered across the air like rain. The scent of spring flooded the Underworld so suddenly that even the dead seemed to sigh. Gasps echoed throughout the hall.

And somewhere beside the throne,  Jo smiled, looking at you like you were the most beautiful thing ever created beneath heaven or hell.

Persephone touched your cheek softly. “Spring has arrived.” She said warmly.  

Crowned beneath flowers and stars and the endless watching heavens of the Underworld, you finally became a goddess.

There had once been a story told across Greece about a girl and a god.

About spring stolen beneath the earth, about death falling hopelessly in love with something living.

Mortals simplified the tale over centuries into something easier to understand. A kidnapping, a bargain, a kingdom divided between light and dark.

But they always lingered most upon the pomegranate.

Six jeweled seeds.

A choice mistaken for a curse, an act that bound spring forever to death. The old poets often forgot one important thing though.

Persephone had stayed.

And now—centuries later beneath silver fires and star-lit marble—history stood before the Underworld once again.

You and Jo remained side by side near the center of the throne hall while music drifted softly through the celebration around you. Gods laughed. Goblets clinked together. Flowers curled wildly across the dark marble floors beneath your feet.

But all you noticed was him.

Jo turned slightly toward you then, obsidian crown gleaming darkly against his hair while silver shadows curled lazily around his shoulders. His gaze softened immediately upon meeting yours.

Still an angel.

Still yours. 

You glanced down absentmindedly toward the silver table nearest the throne and smiled faintly when you noticed it. Pomegranates, bright crimson against black marble.

You looked back at him then.

At the boy who once believed grief had hollowed him beyond love. At the future god who carried death in one hand and gentleness in the other. At Jo.

Your Jo.

And suddenly you understood the old story differently.

Perhaps spring had never softened death, perhaps death had simply learned how to hold something delicate without destroying it.

The music swelled softly around the throne hall while flowers climbed endlessly through stone and silver stars burned above the gathered gods.

Spring beside death.

Black tangled lovingly with white.

And somewhere beyond mortal kingdoms and wars and prophecies, beyond grief and crowns and fate itself, love endured quietly anyway.

Because in the end, kingdoms fell, mortals vanished and even gods changed names over centuries.

But still the flowers returned after winter.

Still the dead waited patiently beneath the earth.

And still, somewhere between spring and death,

Love remained.

fin.

A/N: Congratulations reader, you've finally reached the end of my chocolate milk fueled bullshitery. 37k words, are you dead yet? I hope you guys enjoyed my poetry i genuinely think i ate with this (wow mona appreciating herself for once we clapped). Please don't encourage me to make this into a series for the rest of the teamies i already have way too many serieses for them yay

divider by @strangergraphics

@eu1joo @kwnnies @nichozzystuffs @blueuijoo @pglpblm @ikigaijo @antonh0lic @dearvampyr @riri4andy @tokunodoll @sunsoomi @makizdoll +Shoot me an ask or comment to be added!

the mission briefing had already been tense. a rogue faction was holding hostages in a warehouse, and the extraction was complicated. you and jo were assigned as partners — unusual, since he usually works alone. as you step into the shadows of the abandoned building, boots crunching on broken glass, you feel the familiar tension in your shoulders. but there’s something heavier now, something simmering beneath his usual calm.

“we move fast,” jo murmurs, voice flat, eyes scanning the dim interior. “no mistakes.” you nod, trying not to betray the nervous flutter in your chest. his calm is usually reassuring. tonight, it feels sharp, almost dangerous.

as you round the corner, a flash of movement catches your eye — a gun barrel swinging toward a hostage. instinct kicks in. you shove the civilian aside, and a shot cracks the air. chaos erupts. jo’s voice cuts through, low but commanding.

“cover me.”

it’s not his usual monotone. there’s an edge to it that makes your pulse spike. you duck behind a crumbling wall, watching him move with lethal precision. each step is calculated, each gesture exact, but his jaw is tight, his eyes lit with a fury you’ve never seen. he’s usually untouchable, almost unshakable. now, he’s fire. and the heat terrifies you in a way that thrills.

“stay close,” he orders, voice snapping through the chaos — not quite a shout, not quite gentle. his hands are steady on his weapon, but you can feel the tension in his frame. it isn’t just anger at the enemy; it’s something else. concern, maybe. the way his gaze flicks to you twists your stomach.

you move in sync, hearts pounding. the hostages are trembling, and so are you, but the way he takes control grounds you even in the storm. he covers every angle, every threat, but his eyes keep darting to yours. when a guard tries to flank you, jo doesn’t hesitate. he’s there instantly, shoulder colliding with yours as he shoves you out of the line of fire.

“i told you to stay close,” he hisses, voice tight. your chest swells with a reckless rush of emotion. he’s protective, raw, unfiltered — and for a moment, the mask slips completely.

after what feels like hours, though it’s only minutes, the last assailant drops. the hostages are safe. danger recedes. both of you are breathing hard. jo finally lowers his weapon, but his eyes stay sharp, scanning. then he exhales, and there’s a flicker — a crack in the frost of his demeanor.

“we’re alive,” he mutters, more to himself than to you. his voice is rough, unpracticed. when his gaze meets yours, you see it: relief, yes, but anger too.

outside, the night air is sharp and cold, but it doesn’t cool the heat in your chest. jo walks ahead, steps heavy, jaw tight, hands clenching and unclenching. his fury hasn’t cooled.

“you’re insane,” he says at last, voice low and dangerous, eyes fixed forward. “do you realize what could’ve happened back there? one wrong move and it’s over. do you have any idea how fast…” he breaks off, swallowing hard, jaw flexing. “how fast it could’ve been over?”

you step closer, hesitant, not because you fear him but because you recognize what burns beneath the anger — worry. care. “i know,” you whisper, trying to soften the edges. “i… i wasn’t thinking. i just—”

“you weren’t thinking?!” he snaps, spinning on you, eyes flashing under the streetlight. “you think i’m not thinking every second we’re in there? you think i don’t see every risk? i don’t know if i could’ve—” his voice cracks, and he stops, jaw clenching. “i don’t know if i could’ve saved you if something happened.”

your chest tightens. you brush your hand against his arm, feeling the rigid strength in his shoulders. “jo…” your voice is soft, lips grazing his ear. “i’m fine. we made it out.”

he stiffens, breathing sharp. “fine? do you have any idea how reckless that was? you’re my responsibility. my job is to make sure you don’t get hurt, and you go charging in like—like it’s nothing.”

you bite your lip, heart hammering at the fierceness in his eyes. the knit of his brows, the fire in his gaze — it’s maddening, pulling something dark and needy out of you. and he feels it too. the air between you is electric, unsteady.

“i know,” you whisper again, daring, sliding your hand up his chest. “but i trust you. i knew you’d be there.”

his head snaps toward you at that, eyes softening for a fraction of a second before hardening again. “trust me? do you know how hard it was hearing gunfire and knowing you could’ve—” his voice catches, teeth clenched.

you press closer, body brushing his. “i know, jo. that’s why i’ll always be careful. but…”

he exhales sharply, a growl rising from his chest, and his control falters. his hand closes around your wrist — not harsh, but firm — guiding it down before pulling you into a hard, desperate kiss. it’s not gentle. it’s urgent, angry, hungry. your heart stutters as your hands claw at his shirt, feeling the rigid strength beneath.

he breaks the kiss only to press his forehead against yours, breathing ragged. “you can’t keep doing this,” he mutters, voice low and raw. “putting yourself in danger, making me—” he swallows hard. “making me lose it like this.”

a laugh slips from you, breathless, trembling. “you liked it,” you tease softly. “you’re mad, but you liked it. you like a little risk.”

his glare burns, but it’s not pure anger anymore — it’s heat, possessive and consuming. “don’t,” he growls, though his hands are already sliding over your back, gripping tight. he kisses you again, slower this time, deliberate, still heavy with frustration and heat.

“you’re impossible,” he whispers against your lips. “i’m supposed to keep my head empty, keep control, and you—” his voice breaks, rough with something close to pain. “you make me want everything i shouldn’t.”

you giggle softly, pressing your forehead to his. “i want everything too,” you murmur. “i want you.”

he exhales, hands sliding down your sides, pulling you flush against him. “then you’ll have me,” he mutters, voice rough and dark but full of heat. “all of me. just… don’t scare me like that again. please.”

you kiss along his jaw, whispering, “never.”

and for a moment, the chaos of the night — the adrenaline, the anger, the fear — melts away.

You sigh, leaning slightly against him, exhausted. He doesn’t complain when your forehead rests against his shoulder, just shifts enough to make sure you’re comfortable.

Later, when he guides you back to the couch, you curl up against his side, wrapped in a blanket. Before your eyes can close completely, he grabs a book from the coffee table and settles beside you.

You instinctively shift closer, resting your head against his shoulder. His sweater is warm, soft against your cheek, and his scent, a familiar and comforting scent, makes you relax.

His voice is soft and calm as he begins reading a page of the book. 

You listen to the gentle rise and fall of his words, letting them wash over you like waves. Your eyes slip shut, comforted by the steady warmth of Jo.

Every so often, his fingers brush over your arm, absentminded, like a reassurance that he’s still there

You don’t even notice when your breathing evens out, slipping into sleep against him.

“Is she out?” A voice cuts into the quiet. You recognise the voice as his friend Harua. You nuzzle closer to Jo, pulling the blanket slightly more over your head.

Jo barely glances up from his book, his free arm instinctively tightening around you. “Don’t wake her,” he says in a soft voice. “She’s sick.”

There’s a small pause before he mutters, “Got it,” and quietly retreats.

Jo exhales, glancing down at you. His gaze lingers for a moment, his expression soft. Then, just barely, he leans down, pressing a featherlight kiss against your temple before returning to his book.

The smiling young boy in front of you stood up with a muffled groan, and patted away the soft green earth stuck to the fabric of his trousers—a reason many stood with reluctant faces before kneeling down in front of the altar. But that is an insignificant reason. The real reason for the shuffling of feet and the fiddling of fingers before tall marble pillars of stone and marble, was something more detailed than muddy grass and loose threads.

“Uhh…were you not here last week too, sir?” you raised a brow at the elderly man clad in a royal general’s tunic in front of you, who, even at such an age, shocked you by kneeling with the agility of a modern soldier, “Something about your daughter and a prince?” The man’s crooked teeth as he smiled with all his mouth made you stifle your wince,

By the heavens, let the Gods not punish me for flinching away at this lone wolf of a man.

“I assumed you would have seen that,” the man said in barely a whisper, “would you have not, dearest oracle?” 

“You mistake me for a common soothsayer, my good general.” you laughed, looking up at the statue of Apollo standing tall behind you, “I serve only the Gods.”

“My apologies, great oracle.” The old wolf grinned once more, this time bowing his head. He extended his arm behind him, presumably to signal some servants. Your eyes followed his arms, scarred skin full of constellations and stories he would tell his grandchildren one day when he would be far too old to find another war. That would be the beauty of war then, you decided. It provided stories, and stories were always perfectly ordinary were they not? The grandchildren would sleep well. 

With stories of dried blood? a voice in your brain echoed, with stories of Ares and angels of death? Not a chance.

“.....And so we present to you, great oracle, our grandest offerings.” The wolf man laughed like a king, “We hope the Gods will be delighted.” You snapped back to reality to see all the grandiose plates set before you, filled with food, jewellery set with stones mined from the darkest corners of the earth, perfumes of foreign lands and weaponry, for the temple’s guards, you assumed. 

“All this for a vision, my lord?” 

“Your vision catapulted my daughter’s hope, and the wedding is to be set next week.” he huffed and puffed with his chin held high, “May you be allowed to attend?” You looked down meekly and placed your hand on the statue of Apollo, feeling a sense of warmth radiate off from it. You turned back, smiling, towards the general, your eyes hidden by the hood of your dress.

“Alas, Apollo forbids me.” You sigh, “He says I would be dishonouring Him if I ever leave his side.”

 Behind you, your fellow priestesses, draped in fine cloth tread carefully, signalling for the gentleman to leave. He took heed of their gestures, and with one last bow, he swept off of his knee and strode off, his grand robe dancing behind him as he went. You heard one of your priestesses giggle.

“Now, what ghastly curse has befallen upon you, Wonyoung?” You said calmly, turning your head, with your hood off  to the tall, fair girl, “That you are laughing without any reason?”

“Pardon me, oh great oracle.” She giggled again, “But don’t you think all of this–” She looked at the lines of jewellery, “—is too great of a gift for your matchmaking skills?” She impressed you, staring intently into your revered eyes, something not even the head priestess could do without much speculation.

“You question the oracle’s words, Wonyoung?” Another priestess, Yeji raised a brow, sweeping her long black hair behind her shoulder, “My my, priesthood is getting to your head, don’t you think?”

“I think you’d be a fool not to accept all of this.” You smiled at Wonyoung, running your hand over a silver platter filled to the brim with rubies, “This is your livelihood now, Wonyoung.” You got up from your position on the floor, stretching your stiff legs as you did, “You have to learn to appreciate it.” Wonyoung, with her young, curious face nodded fervently, bending down to pick up the silver platter along with Yeji.

“Are we to close for the day then?” A girl with blonde hair questioned sharply from behind you, “If the Gods are not troubling you anymore that is.” You turned to Karina and put your finger to your temple, pretending to think hard. Then you grinned like a cat, finally being able to see in full vision, with your hood off.

“They’re letting me go early today.” You laughed, looking up at the faint outline of the crescent moon from the open roofed temple. Rosy dusk cascaded like a waterfall in the far west and the sky was almost black now. 

“Seal up the temple gates and hand the keys off to Jihyo in her chambers.” You pressed your hands to Karina’s tightly, “ Tell her I’ll be visiting Persephone’s shrine today.” 

“That’s the fifth time this month you’ve been there.” Karina shook her head, “Has the Goddess enchanted you so much?” 

You shrugged your shoulders. “She’s enveloped me in her flowers.” You tossed your hood back onto your head once more, effectively hiding your eyes, to anyone that might see. Taking one final look at the main chamber of the temple, you bid goodbye to Karina and sauntered off towards the south-eastern doors, a secret path which you took regularly to escape Apollo’s temple. You carried a lit torch in your hands.

Being the revered oracle of Greece meant that no one was to see your eyes, out of the ancient fear that fire itself brimmed from them. You didn't know much, but you were certain of the fact that your eyes weren't burning from dusk to dawn. 

Perhaps they would have, you thought about your mother, if you had been a real oracle.

Not wanting to think much about the next day’s proceedings, you resorted to inspecting the marble floor of the path you were taking, checking for any irregularities that you’d have to report to Jihyo. To your utter disappointment, you didn't find any; the spotless floor has been cleaned with river sand as usual by the servants.

You then turned your eyes to the sky—it was properly night by now and judging by your faint shadow, the moon was right behind you. You ought to have paid your respects to the Goddess Selene, as you admired the sliver of the moon hanging proudly in the sky.

But you were an oracle dedicated to Apollo. How could you ever betray the mighty God who had created you? You and your entire family of your oracles, the gift being passed down from generation to generation, actual power surging through your blood.

Except that it did not.

“Oh Jihyo!” You cried with surprise, at the figure that had approached you from the dark. There stood Jihyo, the wide head priestess of the temple and your mentor.

“My dearest oracle.” She smiled gently, her face illuminated by the oil lamp she was holding, “Are you scrambling off to the Goddess Persephone again today?” You gave her a shy smile as you nodded, feeling like a child who had been caught in the middle of a mischievous act.

“Well, I’ve just offered my prayers to her.” Jihyo chuckled, “I daresay you would prefer to disturb her once more?”

“Only if she’ll allow me to.” You laughed, “Would you like me to lock the shrine up once I’m done?” You gestured towards the keys she held in her hand.

“Oh no, my dear.” Jihyo said, “I’ve been leaving the shrine open nowadays. Hardly any thief dares to enter the Goddess’ vicinity.” She laughed dryly, “But then again, our men are not as brave as they think they are.”

You stifled your raucous laugh at Jihyo’s jest, knowing well enough that it would disrupt the silent peace of the night. You said your goodbyes to Jihyo and went back on your path, promising her that you’d come back to your chambers early today.

An empty promise, you thought, your conversations with the Goddess could last on for centuries. She was the only one, in your opinion, who could listen to your rant about the absolute guilt you felt at giving your false prophecies everyday. Though she was only a marble figure, with beautifully carved curves, a face that could lure anyone and hair that slid like a waterfall, she felt more human to you than anybody else. 

Goddess, you reminded yourself, as you knelt down on the altar, Goddess not human.

And with that, you began your prayer.

____________________

Ever since you started comprehending the world around you properly, your only duty as a child was to observe. 

Observe your mother as she went on with her daily work as an oracle, who would relay messages from the mighty Gods above to the people of Greece. 

You distinctly remember asking her once about the Gods. You could see her right now, in fact, smiling down sweetly at you and picking you up to her bosom. She smelled like wheatgrass and fresh marble and her voice was pure honey.

“The great Gods above–” She would begin after the day had ended and the temple was sealed up, “—are far too busy in their own important matters to lay their feet upon earthly mud and meddle in the quarrels of men.” She’d pick up an oil lamp with one hand, holding your tiny one in the other. She’d shine the light on the carvings of the temple walls, illuminating the faces of each and every God.

“Their voices are the most divine thing you could ever hear, my dearest.” She’d tell you, softly stroking your hair when you fell asleep next to her, “And one day—you’ll hear them too.”

As a mere child, you didn't understand the responsibility that an oracle had. You did understand the violence that came with it, having witnessed violent ribbons of red cloud your eyes by the most noblest of men, when your mother spoke something unsatisfactory. 

War was the most common topic and you distinctly remember a time when the temple was sealed for three days straight after your mother said that Athena was far too disgusted by the Greek men to promise them victory at the latest war against some obscure island. 

You remembered your mother too. You had seen her scars that day.

They were scars she promised never to let touch your skin. And as a naive child, raised by soft dressed priestesses and cold marble statues, you believed her. Perhaps the prayers she had chanted for you when she was still alive, did reach some merciful God. Not a single scar draped your body, except for the harmless ones you had acquired from scraping your body on a jagged piece of floor.

“That idiotic boy from that family of Stratigos keeps chanting useless prayers at the temple every morning again.” You chuckled, leaning back against the wall, hands playing with your dress in your lap, “I do not know how to break it to him that priestesses like Karina do not marry.” The delicate and subtle scent of asphodel floated to your nostrils, someone must have placed fresh ones at the altar early in the evening. 

The familiar, cool silence of Persephone’s shrine settled around you like a second cloak. It was here, in this pocket of night scented with asphodel and damp earth, that you could finally let the sacred lie fall from your shoulders. You shifted on the stone step before the dais, your gaze tracing the serene, carved smile of the Goddess. 

“Another day of grand performances,” you murmured, your voice barely stirring the still air. “Another general’s destiny secured with my lies.” You let out a soft, weary breath. “I wonder if you ever grow tired of the theatre, my Lady. Up there on Olympus, I mean. We certainly do down here.”

You leaned forward, elbows on your knees. This was the truth no marble pillar in Apollo’s temple would ever hear: the great, humbling secret that sat in your chest where divine fire was supposed to burn.

“I cannot see,” you confessed to the statue, the words a familiar, aching relief. “There are no swirling mists parting to show me Fate’s tapestry, no divine whispers threading through my mind as I sleep. No visions, never any visions.”

You had realized it young, a dawning horror amidst the incense and awe. While your mother’s eyes would grow distant, fixed on some unseen horizon as she spoke in a voice not quite her own, yours remained stubbornly present. 

You saw only what was there: the tremor in a supplicant’s hand, the too-quick blink of a liar and the proud set of a general’s jaw. You listened to the worries they spilled before even asking their question, read the political currents of the city in the gifts they offered and the names they emphasized.

You were not a conduit for the gods, you were a student of the people. A collector of patterns, you liked to call yourself, a shrewd observer who had learned, from a lifetime at the altar’s foot, how to weave cold readings and carefully couched platitudes into something that sounded like prophecy. Truly a great performance. 

“Sometimes,” you whispered, “I think my only true divine gift is the memory my mother drilled into me. Every past prophecy, every outcome, every trivial bit of gossip about every noble house—it’s all up here.” You tapped your temple. “The same thing happens each time, ambition will lead here, love will falter there. It’s all so….terribly ordinary.”

You stood, brushing the dust from your dress, a strange, empty fondness in your heart for the unmoving Goddess. “Forgive my complaints,” you said, offering a final, small bow. “And thank you, for listening.” You laughed a soft laugh, “You are the only one who knows the charade does not include you.”

You turned, the hem of your cloak whispering against the clean floor, and reached for your torch where it rested in a sconce. As you lifted it, the new angle of light threw your own dancing shadow against the far wall. And then you heard it.

Clear as your own voice in the quiet chamber, but layered with an echo that seemed to come from the very earth and stone.

“So terribly ordinary…”

Your blood turned to ice water, the torch nearly slipping from your grasp. You whirled around, heart hammering against your ribs, your wide eyes scanning the shrine. The light leapt and flared, painting frantic shapes on the columns. 

But there was nothing. Only the statue of Persephone, her marble gaze holding its eternal silence. The asphodels nodded gently in a breeze you could not feel.

No one was there.

A long, suspended moment passed, filled only with the crackle of your torch and the deafening rush of your own pulse in your ears. A trick of the mind, you insisted, the product of guilt and fatigue and too many hours in the company of silent gods. It had to be.

With a hand that trembled only slightly, you pulled your hood up once more, shrouding your all-too-human eyes. You gave the statue one last, searching look, but the carved face revealed nothing. Swallowing hard, you turned and walked quickly into the dark mouth of the passageway, the echo of your own words—or something’s perfect mimicry of them—lingering in the sacred air behind you.

____________

Another day, another hundred hours of sitting in the sun and preaching your prayers.

The first hours of the morning always belonged to the desperate. By the time Helios had barely begun dragging his golden chariot over the horizon, there were already sandals scraping against the temple’s marble stairs and hushed prayers curling through Apollo’s sacred halls like smoke. Priestesses moved like pale ghosts between the columns, lighting incense, arranging bowls of figs and wine and honeyed bread before the altars while the first petitioners waited with clasped hands and restless eyes. You sat upon the sacred stone, your hood drawn low, and the day unfolded as a predictable scroll.

First came the merchant, fingers stained with ochre and speech laced with worry about ships—you spoke of Poseidon's favor, but cautioned against the greed of rushing the seasons. Next, a young athlete, his body taut with ambition and fear; you told him of honoring the body as a temple, and he bowed so deeply his forehead touched the marble.

Then a trembling young man who wished to know if the girl he loved would ever return his affections. That one was easy. “They already do,” you had answered after noticing the embroidered ribbon tied around his wrist—the same color worn by the baker’s daughter who delivered temple offerings every morning while glancing shyly toward the training grounds. He left the temple grinning like a fool.

By midday, the heat became unbearable, sunlight pouring mercilessly through the open roof of Apollo’s sanctuary, turning the marble floor warm beneath your knees. Sweat gathered at the back of your neck beneath your hood while incense smoke clung heavily to the air. The line of visitors never seemed to shorten.

You dealt with arrogance before noon. Fear after noon. And grief by evening.

A wealthy noblewoman arrived draped in enough gold to ransom a kingdom, demanding to know whether the gods approved of her son’s political ambitions, speaking as though Olympus itself ought to bend at her convenience. You told her carefully that “unchecked pride invites Athena’s displeasure.” The woman left deeply offended.

Yeji had nearly choked trying not to laugh after she departed. “You enjoy provoking them, don’t you?” She whispered later while replacing burnt incense at your side.

“I enjoy humility,” you replied mildly.

“That is not the same thing.”

“No,” you admitted, watching another petitioner ascend the stairs, “it rarely is.”

Hours blurred together after that. Names became faces and faces became voices and voices became prayers. Some were genuine, some selfish, some merely wished for the gods to confirm what they had already decided. You gave them all something—hope, warning, comfort, an illusion.

By the time dusk finally began bleeding across the horizon, painting the sky in hues of ochre and lavender, the temple had emptied into exhausted quiet. The marble pillars glowed beneath the dying sunlight while priestesses carried away offerings in silver trays, their soft chatter echoing faintly through the hall.

Karina had already retired to the lower chambers. Yeji disappeared with Wonyoung after complaining dramatically about her feet hurting. Even the guards stationed near the outer gates had relaxed now that the rush of visitors had ended.

You remained seated alone before Apollo’s altar, shoulders aching from maintaining the same poised posture for hours. The temple smelled of extinguished incense and warm stone.

At last, silence. The weight of the day's performance was lifting, and your thoughts were already drifting towards the quiet solace of Persephone's shrine, where you could shed the oracle's mantle and just be a tired young woman with a guilty conscience.  You exhaled slowly and reached up to loosen the edge of your hood.

“One more minute,” you murmured to yourself. Apollo, in all his magnificent marble indifference, offered no objection. 

Then, a figure approached from the shadow of a column. Neither a general nor a merchant nor a lovesick fool. A young woman, cloaked in a simple cream-colored robe that brushed against the floor as she walked. She moved with a gentle grace, her face open and kind, yet etched with a profound, quiet sorrow that seemed to deepen the dusk around her. She knelt with a genuine, weary humility that touched the stone as if seeking rest.

Strange, even stranger was the fact that she had come alone.

Most people feared visiting the temple at dusk. Shadows stretched too long then, and Apollo’s sanctuary felt less like a place of worship and more like the throat of some ancient sleeping beast.

Yet the woman did not seem frightened. Only tired.

As she stepped closer, the lamplight illuminated her face. Young—perhaps close to your age. Beautiful in the quiet way moonlight was beautiful, all softness and stillness. Dark hair slipped from beneath her hood in loose waves and her expression held something peculiarly gentle, though exhaustion lingered beneath her eyes like bruises. You straightened automatically into the practiced posture of the oracle.

“The temple closes soon,” you said softly.

The woman stopped several feet from the altar and lowered her head respectfully. “My apologies, great oracle,” she replied. Her voice was warm and……familiar. “I did not mean to disturb your rest.”

Something strange curled faintly in your chest. You had never seen her before. You were certain of it. And yet—

“No disturbance,” you answered carefully. “What guidance do you seek from Apollo?”

The woman lifted her gaze then. And smiled, a comforting smile. A knowing smile. A smile that had your insides churning, as if she knew something you didn’t. It sent a cold shiver crawling softly down your spine.

“I did not come for Apollo,” she said. The dying sunlight flickered across the temple columns. Behind you, somewhere high above the sanctuary, a raven cried sharply into the darkening sky. The woman’s eyes never left yours beneath the hood.

“I came for you.”

The woman’s words hung in the sacred air, a statement so direct it pierced through the usual veil of ritual and supplication Your fingers tightened instinctively around the folds of your robe beneath the altar. The woman’s gaze did not waver. Somewhere beyond the towering columns of the temple, the evening wind stirred through the olive trees with a hollow sigh. The raven cried once more, sharp and cutting, before silence swallowed the sound whole. 

You found your voice only after a long moment. “What do you mean…you came for me?”

The woman tilted her head slightly at the question, almost with fondness. Then she laughed softly with the quiet amusement of someone hearing a child ask why the stars hung in the sky.

A cold, precise shock settled in your chest. Your voice maintained the measured, hollow timbre, “The oracle serves Apollo. One does not come for the vessel, but for the message it carries.”

She smiled again, that same gentle, knowing curve of her lips. “And what if the vessel is tired of carrying messages for a god who does not speak to it?”

The chill deepened, spreading to your fingers. Her words were an arrow aimed at the core of your secret. You forced your voice to remain steady. “Who are you?”

“You spend your entire life speaking of gods,” she murmured, “and yet you never once wondered whether one of them might answer back?”

Your breath caught, the torchlight beside Apollo’s altar flickering violently. You stared at her, at the strange stillness surrounding her, at the peculiar heaviness in the air, like the world itself had paused to listen. At the scent drifting faintly around her—not incense, not perfume.

Flowers, asphodel, cold earth after rain. Your stomach twisted sharply.

“No,” you whispered before you could stop yourself. The woman merely smiled wider. And suddenly you understood why her voice had sounded familiar.

It was the same voice that had echoed through Persephone’s shrine the night before.

“So terribly ordinary…”

The memory crashed into you like icy water and you took an unconscious step backward.

“Who are you?” you demanded, though your voice had already begun to tremble around the edges. “What are you?”

The woman rose slowly from her kneeling position, gracefully, effortlessly. Like moonlight unfolding across dark water.

Her smile softened, becoming almost pitying. “You talk to me every evening. You confess your fears, your loneliness, your beautiful, terrible fraud.”  Then, with calm fingers, she reached for the edge of her hood and lowered it.

The world stopped. No mortal woman could have looked like that. Beauty was too small a word, too human, too earthly.

Her face carried the contradiction of spring and death together—soft warmth woven beside something ancient and endless. Dark waves of hair spilled over her shoulders like rivers through midnight, threaded faintly with glimmers of gold that moved though no light touched them. Her skin seemed carved from ivory kissed by dusk itself.

But it was her eyes that destroyed you. Eyes that held eternity—the first flower blooming from frozen soil, the silence beneath the earth, the grief of winter, the promise of spring. Your knees nearly gave out beneath you.

“You know who I am,” she said, her voice now layered with the richness of deep soil and spring rain. “You have always known. You just never let yourself believe I listened.”

Persephone.

The Goddess stood before you, merely smiling at your horror.The Queen of the Underworld, the Bringer of Spring, in your temple at dusk.

“I…” you began, but no sound came out. Your oracle’s mask, your human composure, disintegrated.

The Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld stepped closer, robes whispering against the marble floor, closing the distance between the divine and the deceitful. The shadows around the temple seemed to bend toward her lovingly, the dying dusk gathering at her feet like loyal hounds.

You could not move, could not think. Your heart pounded so violently you thought Apollo himself might hear it echoing through the temple halls.

“This is not possible,” you whispered weakly.

“Oh, little oracle.” Her voice held unbearable tenderness now. “You of all people should know how fragile the word impossible truly is.”

She stopped directly before you, the scent of asphodel surrounded you completely. You could feel fire radiating from her skin despite the coolness of the evening.

Your mind screamed at you to kneel, to flee, to pray. Instead you stood frozen beneath her gaze, every carefully constructed certainty in your life collapsing like brittle parchment set aflame.

Persephone lifted one elegant hand slowly toward your face. You flinched instinctively, not from fear of pain but from the terrible certainty that no mortal should ever be touched by a god. The Goddess only smiled sadly at the reaction.

“You have carried your burden with more grace than any true oracle would have needed to,” she whispered. “You observed a world that thinks it wants visions, and you gave it what it needed. And it has left you empty.”

“I have something very special for you,” she whispered, “A gift, little oracle.” 

Then her fingers brushed your cheek. Soft, cool, gentle enough to rival flower petals. The warmth of her touch spread, but it was not soothing. It was overwhelming, the sun on frozen ground, cracking the ice.

And suddenly, everything vanished. 

The temple disappeared first. Then the torchlight. Then Apollo’s towering statue. The world split open beneath your feet in a rush of blinding white and violent darkness all at once. Your breath caught sharply in your throat as something ancient and immense poured through your body like molten gold forced into mortal flesh.

Voices—thousands of them—screaming, praying, crying, laughing. You saw flashes—a battlefield drowned in bronze and blood, a crown sinking beneath black water, olive branches burning beneath a crimson sky. A young boy weeping before Apollo’s altar, a woman in chains smiling through broken teeth. A pair of familiar eyes staring at you from beneath spring flowers. Your mother.

Then came the agony. As though invisible hands had torn open the center of your soul and forced the heavens themselves inside. You tried to scream but no sound came. The last of your strength, the last thread holding you upright, snapped.

Only darkness swallowed you whole as your body crumpled soundlessly onto Apollo’s sacred marble floor beneath the gaze of a forgotten sun god and the gentle eyes of the Queen of the Dead.

____________

Consciousness returned slowly, in drifting fragments.

A strange softness was felt beneath your body that you did not recognize, far too luxurious to be the narrow bedding of your chambers beside Apollo’s temple. Then came scent—lavender, lilac wax and something faintly metallic beneath it all, rain against stone.

Your lashes fluttered weakly. Pain throbbed behind your eyes the moment you tried to think. You inhaled sharply and forced your eyes open.

At once, unfamiliarity swallowed you whole. The room surrounding you looked nothing like any chamber you had ever seen in Greece.

Heavy crimson curtains cascaded from the towering ceiling in folds of dark velvet, rich as spilled wine, enclosing the room like the inside of a royal heart. Yet despite the grandeur, neither sunlight nor moonlight entered. There were no windows, at least none you could immediately see. Instead, the chamber breathed in dim lilac candlelight. Dozens of slender candles flickered from silver stands along the walls, their pale purple flames casting ghostly shadows over polished black marble floors. The air felt cool and far too still. 

You pushed yourself upright slowly, immediately wincing as dizziness rolled through your skull. The blankets pooled around your waist in waves of dark silk, absurdly soft against your skin.

Your skin.

Your breath caught softly. The ceremonial robes from Apollo’s temple were gone; in their place, a flowing white dress made from fabric so delicate it felt like clouds brushing your body. The sleeves slipped loose around your arms and silver thread shimmered faintly through the cloth whenever candlelight touched it.

You stared down at yourself in mute alarm. Who had changed you? Where in Hell were you?

The thought struck harder than intended. Hell. Persephone. The Gods. Your eyes darted across the chamber again.

The room was beautiful, yes, but everything here carried the eerie perfection of a burial offering laid carefully beside a king’s corpse. You swung your legs over the edge of the bed too quickly and the room lurched. A sharp gasp escaped you as your knees nearly buckled beneath your weight.

“Easy there.”

The unfamiliar voice startled you so badly you almost fell. You whipped your head toward the doorway. A young woman stood there carrying a silver tray balanced expertly in her hands.

She looked perhaps a few years older than you, dressed in dark robes embroidered with faint silver flowers curling along the hems. Long black hair flowed down her back in sleek waves, framing a face that was strikingly beautiful in a sharp, fox-like way. Her eyes, however, softened immediately upon seeing your expression.

“Oh good,” she sighed with relief. “You’re finally awake.”

You stared at her wordlessly. The woman stepped fully into the chamber, shutting the heavy door behind her with one foot before approaching. The silver tray in her hands held a small glass filled with amber liquid that caught strangely in the candlelight.

“You collapsed rather dramatically,” she continued conversationally. “Lady Persephone worried you’d cracked your skull on the marble.”

Your heartbeat stumbled. Lady Persephone, not a dream then. Gods above. The woman noticed the horror returning to your face and quickly grimaced. She set the tray carefully on a nearby table before turning back toward you. 

“I’m Yunah,” she said gently. “And before you panic further—no, you are not dead.” A pause. “Well,” she amended thoughtfully, “not technically.” Your face drained of what little color remained. Yunah blinked. “…That sounded much better in my head.”

For a long moment, neither of you spoke. You simply sat there on the edge of the unfamiliar bed, staring at the lilac flames dancing along the walls while your thoughts tangled themselves into impossible knots.

Persephone. A goddess. A real goddess. Not marble or myth or carefully crafted stories whispered to frightened mortals beneath temple roofs.

Your breathing felt strangely uneven. You thought of every prayer you had ever spoken with empty certainty, every false prophecy delivered and every night spent kneeling before Persephone’s shrine believing no one listened.

Shame twisted viciously in your stomach and beneath it, a tinge of fear.  You swallowed hard and finally forced yourself to speak.

“Where…” Your voice cracked painfully. You winced immediately as a sharp ache speared through your skull. “Where am I?”

The pain exploded behind your eyes before the sentence fully left your mouth. You sucked in a breath sharply, pressing trembling fingers to your temple. It felt as though your mind itself had been split open. Yunah’s expression softened into concern.

“Oh, don’t try thinking too hard yet,” she said, moving toward the tray again. “That headache will only worsen if you keep fighting it.”

You barely heard her. Fragments still flashed violently through your head whenever you closed your eyes. Blood soaking bronze armor, spring flowers blooming from graves, your mother’s face, the screaming voices. You bent forward slightly, breathing unevenly as another pulse of pain struck through your skull.

“Here.” Yunah carefully picked up the small glass of amber liquid and crouched beside you. “Drink this.” You eyed the liquid suspiciously through blurred vision.

“What is it?” you asked weakly.

“Something to stop your head from feeling like it’s being devoured by angry spirits,” Yunah replied dryly. “Trust me, you need it.” Despite her teasing tone, there was genuine sympathy in her eyes. 

Reluctantly, you accepted the glass. The cup felt cool against your fingers. The liquid inside smelled faintly sweet—honey perhaps, mixed with herbs you did not recognize. You hesitated only a second before drinking.

Warmth spread down your throat immediately, settling deep into your chest like liquid sunlight and sweet relief came almost instantly afterward. The pounding in your head dulled and you exhaled shakily. You handed the empty glass back weakly.

Questions crowded your mouth by the hundreds, but none of them seemed capable of forming properly. Yunah must have noticed the panic building behind your silence because her expression gentled once more.

“She’ll explain everything,” she promised quietly. 

Your eyes lifted toward her immediately. “Persephone?”

Yunah nodded. “She’s been waiting for you to wake.” Something almost amused flickered briefly across her face then. “Very impatiently, actually.” A strange chill ran down your spine at that.

The Queen of the Underworld was waiting for you. As though you were important enough for a goddess to wait upon. Your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of the dress.

“I…” Your throat suddenly felt dry again. “Why did she bring me here?”

Yunah’s gaze lingered on you for a long moment. And for the first time since entering the room, something unreadable crossed her expression. Something like recognition.

“You really don’t know,” she murmured softly. Before you could ask what she meant, Yunah stood and carefully straightened the folds of her dark robes. “Come,” she said gently. “It’s better if she tells you herself.” She extended her hand toward you beneath the flickering lilac candlelight. You found her words to be humorous.

What knowledge could a false prophet have anyways? 

___________________

The journey from that soft, crimson-walled room to the Goddess’s threshold was a silent, surreal procession through a realm you could never have imagined.

The moment the heavy doors of your room opened, cold air swept over you. It wasn't like winter cold, it was something older, the kind of cold buried beneath untouched earth and ancient stone. You nearly stopped walking then. 

Yunah guided you through corridors of polished black stone, lit by glowing veins of amethyst and quartz that pulsed with a soft, inner light. The air grew cooler, carrying the scent of damp earth and distant, blooming flowers—a contradiction that felt both unsettling and serene. 

You passed archways leading to gardens of impossible beauty: roses that glittered like gemstones, trees with silver bark and leaves that whispered as they moved without wind. Shadows flitted in the corners of your vision, shapes that might have been servants or spirits, moving with silent purpose.

Yunah walked beside you, her dark robes blending with the gloom. She spoke little, only offering brief, gentle explanations. “The Hall of Echoes,” she murmured as you passed a long gallery where whispers seemed to linger in the air like mist. 

“The Garden of Remembered Sunlight,” she said, pointing to a courtyard where a single, captured beam of golden light hung suspended beneath a dome of crystal, illuminating a patch of vibrant, living grass.

You saw no windows to the outside world. No sky. This was a kingdom carved from memory and stone, a world beneath the world. Your dress—so soft, so white—felt like a flag of surrender in this place of profound darkness and beauty.

You could not tell whether minutes or hours passed. Time felt wrong here, bent strangely around itself. Finally, Yunah slowed before a pair of enormous doors. You stopped breathing for a moment. It was made of ancient, dark wood, inlaid with silver that traced the patterns of vines and pomegranates. It stood at the end of a quiet, empty hallway, emanating a stillness that felt sacred and intimidating. Divine cold radiated in waves.

Yunah turned toward you then, “She’s inside,” she said quietly.

Your throat tightened immediately. The Queen of the Underworld, waiting behind those doors. Yunah noticed the fear flashing across your face and offered you a sympathetic smile.

“She won’t hurt you,” she assured softly. That did not comfort you nearly as much as she probably intended. Yunah stepped backward after a moment. “You’ll go in when she allows it,” she explained. “Until then wait here.”

And just like that, she left, the sound of her footsteps disappearing into the endless halls, leaving you alone. You stood before the grand doors. The cool air seeped through the delicate fabric of your dress and you shivered. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic, mortal rhythm in this silent, immortal place. You stared at the silver pomegranates, wondering what awaited you beyond that threshold—judgment, forgiveness, or something else entirely.

Wherever this place was, it certainly did not belong among the living. You tried not to think about that too hard. 

Then, a voice cut through the silence behind you, cold and teasing, like a winter breeze through a sunless garden.

“How terrifying she must seem to you.”

Low, smooth and teasing. You spun around so quickly your pulse nearly stopped. A man stood several feet away, leaning lazily against one of the black marble pillars with a grace that seemed to mock the solemnity of the hallway. 

No mortal man should have been allowed to look like that.

For one dizzy moment, the only thought that crossed your mind was that he resembled an angel cast down into hell itself. Beautiful in a way that bordered on cruel.

Tall and lean, dressed entirely in black robes embroidered subtly with silver thread, he carried himself with effortless elegance. Dark hair framed a small, sharply sculpted face and his jawline looked precise enough to cut marble. Frameless square glasses rested neatly across the bridge of his nose, softening absolutely nothing about the sharpness of his features. His voice was deep, smooth, and carried an undertone of mockery.

But it was his angelic eyes that unsettled you most. Dark, knowing and amused. Like someone perpetually standing one step ahead of every conversation. You immediately took a cautious step backward. The man noticed. A slow smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Oh?” His deep voice echoed softly through the corridor. “That frightened already?”

You stared at him speechlessly. The stranger straightened from the pillar and approached leisurely, hands folded behind his back.

“Mortals are always so dramatic around gods,” he sighed almost fondly. “Though, admittedly, Persephone can be rather intimidating when she wishes.”

“You know the Goddess?” you asked before thinking.

“Know? Darling,” he said, tilting his head slightly, “everyone here knows the Goddess.”

Here.

The word struck strangely. You opened your mouth to question him further, but he continued before you could speak.

“She’s taken quite an interest in you, hasn’t she?” His eyes flicked knowingly toward the grand doors behind you. “That alone is enough to make this place restless.”

You frowned faintly. “What does that mean?”

Another amused look crossed his face. “You truly have no idea what you are.”

The same words, Yunah had practically said the same thing earlier. A chill crept slowly down your spine.

Before you could demand answers, the massive doors behind you suddenly groaned open. The sound echoed like thunder through the dark halls. Warm golden light spilled from within the chamber beyond, cutting through the cold violet shadows surrounding you.

When you looked back, the man was already stepping away—retreating into darkness as effortlessly as smoke disappearing into night.

“Wait—” you called instinctively. “Who are you?”

He paused only briefly. Then smiled. A strangely pitying smile this time.

“Good luck, little oracle,” he said softly, “if we can call you that.”

And before you could blink he was gone, the shadows where he had stood moments ago now lay completely empty.

Your pulse thundered violently in your ears. Then, from beyond the open doors, came Persephone’s voice. Gentle, ancient, waiting.

“Come inside.”

_____________

When you were little, your mother used to braid flowers into your hair after evening prayers.

You remembered sitting between her knees in the quiet chambers behind Apollo’s temple while priestesses extinguished torches one by one outside. The smell of olive oil and incense always lingered faintly in the air, and your mother’s fingers were forever warm as they carefully separated strands of your hair.

“You think too much,” she had once laughed softly when you asked her why the gods chose oracles at all.

You remembered pouting at that. “I do not.”

“You do.” She smiled knowingly and tucked a white narcissus flower behind your ear. “Your eyes are always searching for answers before the questions have even finished.”

Then her expression had softened strangely. Almost sad.

“The gods rarely choose the people who understand why they were chosen.”

At the time, you had not understood the weight behind those words.

Now, standing before Persephone herself beneath ceilings painted with constellations no mortal sky had ever held, the memory returned with enough force to ache.

The chamber beyond the doors was beautiful. Warm golden light flooded the vast room from chandeliers suspended high above, their crystals glowing like captured stars. The floor beneath your feet was pale marble streaked faintly with gold, softer than the black stone outside. Massive bookshelves climbed endlessly toward the ceiling, crowded with ancient scrolls and bound tomes whose titles shimmered faintly whenever your eyes lingered on them too long.

And at the center of it all Persephone sat watching you, reclined gracefully upon a long velvet divan near the fireplace, dressed now in robes the color of deep pomegranate wine. Gold adorned her wrists and throat in delicate vines, and flowers bloomed lazily around her bare feet despite the polished marble beneath them.

Beautiful, terrifying, divine. You stopped several feet away, uncertain whether to kneel or speak or simply collapse from sheer disbelief. Persephone solved the dilemma for you.

“Sit,” she said gently, gesturing toward the chair opposite her.

You obeyed immediately. The warmth from the fireplace should have soothed you. Instead your hands only trembled harder in your lap. For a while, neither of you spoke. Persephone merely watched you quietly, her gaze unbearably patient. Finally, you found your voice.

“That man outside…” you began weakly before stopping yourself. No, there were more important things. Your head lifted sharply toward her. “What is happening to me?”

Persephone tilted her head slightly. “You already know the answer.”

“No,” you said immediately, almost desperately. “No, I do not, Goddess.” The Goddess studied you for a long moment. Then she spoke softly.

“You are to become the next Persephone.”

The words hit you harder than the visions had. Your breath caught violently in your throat.

“What?”

“The names of gods,” Persephone did not look away, “are not immortal beings,” she explained calmly. “Not entirely. They are titles. Mantles passed from soul to soul across centuries.” Her fingers traced absent patterns against the arm of the divan. “One Persephone ends. Another rises. One Hades falls. Another inherits.”

You stared at her in mute horror. “That’s impossible.”

“It is truth.”

“No,” you whispered again, shaking your head now. “No, gods are eternal.”

“We are,” Persephone replied softly. “And we are not.” 

The room suddenly felt far too small. Your thoughts crashed together chaotically.

“You are saying…” Your voice faltered. “You are saying all this time—”

“That your lineage could see visions because they carried Apollo’s blessing,” Persephone finished gently. 

And suddenly everything made horrible sense. The silence, the emptiness, the reason no visions had ever come to you no matter how desperately you prayed for them as a child. You had thought yourself broken, a flaw in a sacred bloodline.

“You couldn’t see because you were never meant for Apollo,” the Goddess said softly, as though hearing the thought form inside your mind. “Your soul belonged elsewhere long before you were born.” You stood abruptly from the chair.

“No.” You backed away a step. “No, that cannot be true. I’m not—I cannot be a goddess.” Fear curled viciously in your stomach. “I’m a fake,” you whispered harshly. “I lie to people. I pretend to hear gods I cannot see. I am not worthy of—of any of this.”

Persephone’s expression did not harden. If anything, it saddened.

“The Fates do not choose based on worthiness,” she said quietly. “If they did, Olympus would have collapsed long ago.” 

You stared at her. Then laughed once—a broken, disbelieving sound. “Why me?”

For the first time since meeting her, Persephone looked truly ancient, a weariness stretching beyond centuries. “The Fates are mysterious even to us,” she admitted softly. “There are threads not even gods may touch.”

Silence settled heavily afterward. The fire crackled quietly nearby. You sank slowly back into the chair, feeling hollowed out from the inside. Persephone rose then. She crossed the distance between you gracefully before kneeling beside your chair despite your immediate panic.

“No,” you blurted, horrified. “Please do not kneel to me—”

A faint smile touched her lips. “I am not kneeling to you, little oracle.” She murmured. “I am comforting someone frightened.” Her cool fingers gently brushed stray hair from your face. “You will not be abandoned here,” she promised softly. “Your training begins tomorrow. Nothing will be forced upon you before you are ready.”

You swallowed hard. “I don’t know how to do this.”

“You will.”

“I am afraid.”

“I know.” The simple honesty in those words nearly undid you. Persephone’s gaze softened further. “You are not the first successor to fear becoming divine,” she said quietly. “Nor will you be the last.”

Something inside your chest loosened slightly then, just enough to breathe.  Eventually, Persephone rose smoothly to her feet once more.

“You should rest,” she said gently. “Your mortal body is still adjusting.”

You nodded weakly and slowly stood. Your legs still felt unsteady beneath you. As you reached the doors, however, another thought suddenly surfaced in your mind. You hesitated.

Persephone noticed immediately. “Yes?”

You turned back carefully. “If…if there is a next Persephone,” you said slowly, “then is there already a next Hades?”

A strange expression crossed her face then. Amusement.

“You’ve already met him.” She said with a smile, “My apologies if he scared you.” 

Your stomach dropped instantly. That angel in hell standing in the hallway.  Persephone watched realization dawn across your face and laughed softly beneath her breath.

“You will be alright, oracle.” She crossed the room and lay back down, throwing a graceful arm over her head, a painting in motion. As you turned to take your leave, you heard her call out again. “Try not to dislike Jo, little oracle.” She chuckled, “Who knows how he’ll steal your heart as Hades stole mine?” 

Who knew that hearts existed at all in hell? 

_______________

Jo’s chambers looked nothing like the rest of the Underworld.

Well—not entirely. The same black marble walls towered high around the room, and the same pale lilac flames burned lazily from silver candle stands. Beyond the enormous arched windows stretched the eternal dusk of the Underworld, rivers of silver mist winding through distant valleys beneath a starless sky.

But unlike Persephone’s warm elegance, Jo’s quarters felt inhabited, lived in.

Books lay scattered carelessly across tables and sofas alike, some opened face-down as though abandoned halfway through reading. Dark coats had been thrown over chairs with little regard for order and stacks of parchment crowded every available surface. One corner of the room held an enormous gramophone softly crackling with music from somewhere aboveground.

And directly in the center of the chaos Yuma lounged upside down across one of the velvet couches like an overfed cat.

“You’re lying,” he declared dramatically.

Jo barely looked up from the crystal glass in his hand. “I gain nothing from lying to you.”

“You gain peace.”

“That alone should convince you I’m telling the truth.”

Yuma scoffed loudly and tossed a grape directly at Jo’s head. Jo caught it without effort, annoyingly.

“You met the next Persephone,” Yuma said, sitting upright now with obvious interest brightening his sharp features. “And you neglected to summon me immediately afterward? Cruel. Truly cruel.”

“You snuck into the Underworld uninvited again,” Jo replied flatly. “I think we both know who the criminal is here.”

Yuma grinned. Unlike Jo’s cold elegance, he carried warmth so naturally it seemed stitched into his existence. Everything about him moved quickly—his smiles, his hands, his thoughts. Dark curls fell messily into his eyes and there was something perpetually mischievous about the way he carried himself, like Hermes himself stood one poorly thought-out decision away at all times.

“Well?” Yuma pressed eagerly. “Is she pretty?”

Jo finally looked up from his drink then. The silence that followed lasted exactly long enough for Yuma’s grin to widen dangerously.

“Oh my gods,” he gasped. “That pause told me everything.”

“It told you nothing.”

“It tells me that she is beautiful.” Yuma hummed, “As Persephone is.” 

Jo leaned back against the armchair slowly. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t deny it either.”

A look of mild irritation crossed Jo’s face. Yuma burst into delighted laughter immediately.

“This is unbelievable,” he wheezed. “The future Hades himself rendered speechless by some little oracle from Apollo’s temple—”

“She fainted.”

Yuma blinked. “What?”

“Twice, actually.”

That only made Yuma laugh harder. Jo watched him with visible disappointment. “She stared at Persephone like a lamb realizing the wolf could speak,” he continued dryly. “I thought she might collapse permanently, the second Lady Persephone revealed herself.”

“And yet,” Yuma hummed smugly, “you noticed she was pretty.”

Jo sighed heavily. “She’s…” He paused as though irritated even by the necessity of describing you. “Good-looking enough, I suppose.”

Yuma nearly fell off the couch. “Good-looking enough?” he repeated incredulously. “Jo.”

“She looked terrified of me.”

“Well, you do resemble a villain standing in dramatic lighting half the time.”

“That sounds like a personal failing on your part.”

Yuma pointed accusingly at him. “You’re avoiding the question.”

Jo raised a brow. “What question?”

“The important one.” Yuma leaned forward excitedly. “Did you feel the divine pull of destiny? The stars aligning? The tragic inevitability of romance?”

Jo stared at him blankly. Then took another sip of his drink.

“No.”

“Oh come on.”

“She’s frightened, overwhelmed and painfully mortal.” Jo’s tone flattened further. “I have no intention of becoming some tragic love story because the previous Hades and Persephone happened to adore each other.”

“We were mortal too once, my friend.”  Yuma hummed thoughtfully. “You know, your words sound suspiciously like denial.”

“They sound like common sense.”

Yuma ignored him entirely. “So Lady Persephone truly believes the cycle repeats itself?” he asked more quietly now. “The marriage and the pomegranates and everything?”

At that, Jo’s expression shifted faintly. “She believes the bond between Hades and Persephone transcends succession,” he admitted after a pause. “That some things survive even when names change.”

“And you?”

Jo snorted softly. “I think immortality has made her sentimental.”

Yuma grinned knowingly. “That’s a very poetic way of saying you’re scared.”

Jo’s eyes narrowed slightly behind his glasses. “I am not scared of love.”

“No,” Yuma corrected lazily, “you’re terrified of it.”

Silence stretched briefly between them. Then Jo laughed once under his breath, low, sharp and humourless. 

“Hermes may spend eternity chasing pretty mortals through cities and wars,” he said calmly, “but Hades does not have that luxury.” Yuma tilted his head. Jo’s gaze drifted toward the dark windows overlooking the Underworld. “When you rule death long enough,” he murmured, “you stop believing in things as fragile as love.”

For once, Yuma did not immediately joke. The room quieted around them, filled only by the faint crackle of the gramophone.

“…Still,” Yuma said carefully, “is she really that pretty?”

Jo closed his eyes briefly. “You are unbearable.”

“That means she is.” Yuma’s grin widened triumphantly as Jo pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.

Jo swirled the dark amber liquid in his glass absentmindedly.

And perhaps you were.

Pretty.

Divine beauty often felt too perfect, too sharpened by eternity to resemble anything truly alive. Persephone herself looked like spring carved by grief into human form. Aphrodite was said to blind men by simply smiling at them too long.

But you? You had looked painfully mortal. Warm and fragile, scared little lamb. 

Your fear had sat openly in your eyes no matter how hard you tried concealing it beneath dignity and priestly composure. Even standing before Persephone herself, trembling like a leaf caught in winter wind, there had been something stubbornly human about the way you lifted your chin, Jo could only peek from his hiding place. 

Yuma watched the silence stretch across Jo’s face and immediately narrowed his eyes. “Oh no.”

Jo blinked once. “Oh no what?”

“You’re thinking about her.”

“I’m not.”

“You absolutely are.”

Jo sighed heavily and stood from the armchair in one smooth motion, clearly deciding he had tolerated enough of Hermes’ future successor for one evening. Yuma pointed at him accusingly from the couch.

“That expression right there,” he gasped dramatically. “That is the face of a man already doomed by destiny.”

“I would rather descend into Tartarus willingly.”

“Hades says that every cycle apparently.”

Jo stopped walking. Slowly, he turned his head toward Yuma.

“…What?” 

Yuma immediately looked delighted with himself. “Oh, did Lady Persephone never tell you?” he asked innocently. “Hermes remembers fragments between successors. Not everything, but enough.” He leaned comfortably against the couch cushions. “Every Hades insists they’ll never fall in love. Every single one.”

Jo stared at him flatly, “You lie.” 

“I’m Hermes.” Yuma said carefully, “I cannot lie.”

Silence followed, then Jo scoffed quietly and reached for a black coat draped over a nearby chair. “I met her for less than five minutes.”

“And?”

“And she nearly fainted because I spoke to her.”

“That’s adorable actually.” Yuma burst into laughter again.

Jo ignored him entirely, sliding the coat over his shoulders with effortless elegance. Still—against his better judgment—his thoughts drifted back toward you once more. The way your fingers had tightened nervously into the fabric of your white dress, the way your eyes had widened when you looked at him, uncertain whether to fear him or question him.

And strangely enough the way you had turned back to ask Persephone about the next Hades before leaving. Jo frowned faintly to himself. Dangerous. Curiosity was always dangerous in this place. Especially when directed toward him.

He wondered absentmindedly about what you would have liked.

_____________

The first three days passed in a haze so surreal you occasionally wondered whether you had truly died on Apollo’s temple floor after all. Nothing felt real anymore. Not the Underworld, not Persephone and certainly not yourself. 

You spent most of those days wandering through the palace beside Yunah, trying desperately to absorb information vast enough to split your mind apart. The Underworld itself was far larger than you had imagined.

Not merely a kingdom for the dead, but an entire world existing beneath reality like roots beneath a tree. Vast silver rivers cut through valleys of black stone while ancient forests glimmered beneath eternal twilight. Souls wandered peacefully through distant fields of asphodel, watched over by silent attendants draped in dark robes.

It was not hell. At least not the monstrous place frightened mortals imagined. It was quieter than that, sad in older ways. And Persephone ruled it with startling gentleness.

You learned quickly that very little of the mortal understanding of gods was entirely correct. Some myths were exaggerated and others softened on purpose. Some truths were hidden because human minds simply could not survive knowing them.

Yunah answered every question you asked with surprising patience. Even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones.

“What happened after I disappeared?” you had asked quietly one evening while standing beside one of the palace balconies overlooking silver rivers below, “From Earth?”

Yunah had not hesitated. “You were replaced.”

The answer had struck harder than expected. You turned sharply toward her. “Replaced?”

“The world cannot function with gaps,” Yunah explained softly. “Especially not around divine succession.” She leaned against the marble railing beside you. “Another oracle appeared in Apollo’s temple the morning after your disappearance. Your priestesses remember her as though she has always been there.”

Your stomach twisted. “Karina?” you asked weakly. “Jihyo? Wonyoung?”

“They remember loving you,” Yunah said gently. “But they also remember mourning you long ago.”

The ache that followed settled somewhere deep beneath your ribs. It felt wrong, cruel. Your entire existence erased from mortal memory as easily as wiping dust from stone.

“No one noticed?” you whispered.

Yunah’s silence answered before her words did. “The Fates are thorough.” 

After that conversation, you stopped asking about Earth quite so often.

Instead, you focused on surviving what came next. Training.

Though Persephone had promised to begin slowly, the mere concept overwhelmed you. Apparently becoming a goddess involved far more than divine powers and beautiful robes. There were laws, ancient duties, balance between realms, control over powers capable of altering life itself.

You learned how divine succession worked, how gods slowly passed fragments of themselves into successors over years rather than moments. Too much power too quickly could destroy mortal minds entirely. Which explained the visions. Or rather your sudden ability to have them now.

Ever since Persephone touched you, strange flashes had begun haunting the edges of your thoughts. Small things mostly. A servant dropping a tray moments before it happened. Yunah arriving at your chambers seconds before she knocked. Tiny fractures in time, each one terrifying you more than the last.

And now on the fourth day your true training was finally meant to begin. Which was precisely why you were currently pacing nervously across one of the palace’s grand receiving chambers trying not to feel sick.

The room itself was breathtaking. Tall arched ceilings stretched high overhead painted with constellations that shimmered faintly in motion. Massive windows framed the endless twilight of the Underworld while black marble pillars wrapped in flowering silver vines lined the chamber walls. At the center stood a long table carved from dark stone, covered in scrolls, candles and strange golden instruments you did not recognize.

Persephone had instructed you to wait there for her. You had been waiting for nearly fifteen minutes already. Which meant you were currently alone with your thoughts. A terrible situation. You clasped your hands tightly behind your back and tried not to imagine every possible way this training could end in humiliation.

“So restless aren’t we, darling?”

The familiar voice nearly made you jump out of your skin. You spun around immediately.

And there he was.

Jo lounged carelessly in the far corner of the chamber upon an elegant divan you somehow had not noticed before. One long leg hung lazily over the edge while the other remained bent comfortably beneath him. Dressed entirely in black once again, he looked irritatingly composed beneath the dim golden light.

A pomegranate rested loosely in one hand. He turned it idly between elegant fingers as though it alone occupied his full attention. Your pulse stumbled traitorously for reasons you refused to examine.

“You.” You blurted intelligently.

Jo glanced up at you over the rim of his glasses. “Me.”

You frowned immediately. “I didn’t see you there.”

“I noticed.” His mouth curved slightly at the corners, not quite a smile, but he looked angelic all the same.

You straightened instinctively beneath his gaze. “What are you doing here?”

Jo lifted the pomegranate lightly. “Eating breakfast.”

“That is not breakfast.”

“It is in the Underworld.”

You stared at him. He stared back with maddening calm. Now that you were not actively fainting from terror, you realized something deeply unfortunate.

He was even prettier up close.

It was genuinely irritating—the way the dim golden light softened the sharp edges of his features just enough to make him look almost unreal, like some ancient sculptor had spent centuries carving a face designed specifically to ruin people’s peace. His dark hair fell neatly across his forehead and the glint of his glasses only made his gaze more distracting somehow.

Worst of all, he knew it. You could tell by the way he watched you noticing. A flicker of amusement crossed his expression as he lazily turned the pomegranate between his fingers.

“You’ve circled this room seven times.” He chuckled, “Ever so restless.” 

You blinked. “…You counted?”

“I was bored.” Your mouth opened indignantly before immediately closing again. Jo looked pleased by that.

“Do you find your entertainment in irritating people?” You asked. 

“No,” he corrected smoothly. “Only people who react entertainingly.” 

“I still don’t understand why you’re here.” You crossed your arms instinctively.

Jo hummed thoughtfully at that. Then, with unhurried elegance, he rose from the divan. You immediately regretted standing so close.

Gods above, he was tall.

Not absurdly so, but enough that as he approached, you had to tilt your head upward to properly meet his eyes. Black robes draped effortlessly over his lean frame as he stopped directly before you, close enough now for you to catch the faint scent surrounding him.

Smoke, winter, something darkly sweet beneath it all. Your pulse betrayed you again. Jo noticed. Of course he noticed.

He lifted the pomegranate between you both, letting it spin lightly across his fingers.

“Do you know the story?” he asked softly.

You eyed the fruit suspiciously. “The story of Persephone and Hades?”

“Mhm.”

“Everyone knows it.”

“And yet,” Jo murmured, circling slowly around you, “mortals always tell it incorrectly.”

Your spine straightened as he moved behind you. It should not have made you nervous. And yet every step he took felt chilling somehow, predatory in the calmest possible way. Like a wolf strolling lazily around a trembling lamb just to observe whether it would run.

You refused to run. 

“The pomegranate,” Jo continued, his deep voice echoing softly through the chamber, “was not merely a trick.”

You turned carefully to keep him within sight. He looked amused by the effort.

“They teach mortals that Persephone was trapped,” he said lightly. “That Hades stole her away beneath the earth and bound her to the Underworld with six seeds.” Jo stopped beside you again. His gaze lowered briefly toward your face.

“Humans do adore simplifying things into villains and victims.” Something unreadable flickered across his expression then.

“But the truth,” he murmured, “is that the Underworld asked Persephone to stay.”

The room suddenly felt quieter. Jo twirled the pomegranate once more.

“And she chose to answer.”

Before your eyes, the fruit dissolved, unravelling into ribbons of crimson light that curled elegantly around Jo’s fingers before reforming themselves into a delicate ruby necklace resting in his palm.

You stared openly. Jo glanced down at the necklace as though transforming ancient magical artifacts into jewelry happened regularly before breakfast.

Then he stepped closer again. Too close.

Before you could react properly, he slipped the necklace carefully into the pocket sewn into the folds of your dress. The rubies glimmered faintly like captured drops of wine.

“A gift from Hades,” he said smoothly.

Your breath caught, the words settling strangely in your chest. You narrowed your eyes.

“From Hades,” you repeated slowly. “Or from you?”

For the first time since meeting him, Jo actually looked momentarily caught off guard. Only for a second. But you saw it. And apparently so did Persephone.

“Well,” her warm voice echoed suddenly from the chamber entrance, “that is certainly an interesting question.”

You jumped violently. Jo stepped back immediately, expression smoothing into elegant indifference so quickly you almost wondered whether you had imagined the previous moment entirely.

Almost.

Persephone stood near the doorway draped in flowing ivory robes embroidered with gold flowers, amusement dancing openly across her divine features. Her gaze flicked briefly toward the pocket where the ruby necklace now rested. Then toward Jo. Then back to you.

“My,” she sighed dramatically. “And here I thought training had not yet begun.”

Warm gold seemed to follow her wherever she walked. Flowers bloomed faintly beneath the hem of her robes as she crossed the marble floor, the entire room softening somehow in response to her presence. Compared to the cold elegance surrounding Jo, Persephone felt like the first breath of spring after surviving winter too long.

Jo, meanwhile, looked utterly unbothered. Infuriating man.

He turned toward Persephone smoothly and bowed deeply before her, one hand resting neatly behind his back. The movement carried effortless grace, practiced so perfectly it resembled choreography more than etiquette.

“My Lady,” he greeted. Then, taking Persephone’s offered hand gently, he pressed a respectful kiss against her knuckles.

You blinked once, twice. The future Hades could do that? Persephone laughed softly at your expression.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” she teased. “He was raised properly despite his personality.”

Jo sighed quietly against her hand. “That is a deeply offensive thing to say before sunrise.”

Persephone ignored him entirely. Instead, her gaze drifted knowingly towards the pocket where the ruby necklace still rested hidden within your dress. Then back toward Jo, a smile curving across her lips.

“You know,” she mused, “if you wished to impress her, you might try greeting her properly instead of merely sneaking jewelry into her pockets like some lovesick phantom.” You nearly choked on air.

Jo straightened immediately. “My Lady,” he said flatly.

“What?” Persephone looked entirely too pleased with herself. “I’m only saying if you’re going to continue behaving suspiciously around the poor girl, you might at least commit to the performance.”

“I was being polite, My Lady.”

“Oh yes.” Persephone said, “Hades, polite.” She laughed then and it was bright and warm enough to momentarily erase the heaviness lingering perpetually within the palace walls.  

You glanced awkwardly between them, suddenly feeling as though you had stumbled into a conversation carrying far more history than you understood. Jo’s sharp gaze flicked toward you briefly before he exhaled softly through his nose.

“You’re frightening her again,” Persephone informed him cheerfully.

“I haven’t even spoken for nearly thirty seconds.”

“And yet somehow you still manage it.”

Jo looked deeply unimpressed by this accusation. Then his eyes drifted toward you one final time. For a fleeting moment, something quieter crossed his expression.

“You should pay attention during training today,” he said calmly. “My Lady enjoys pretending her lessons are gentle before they become horrifying.”

Persephone gasped dramatically. She narrowed her eyes at him while he calmly adjusted the sleeves of his black robes.

Then, with a final shallow bow toward Persephone—and a smaller nod in your direction—Jo turned and headed toward the chamber doors.

The golden light caught briefly against his glasses as he walked. Even leaving a room, he looked unfairly elegant. Just before disappearing into the hallway beyond, Persephone called after him sweetly.

“Do try stealing her heart a little less obviously next time, son of Hades.”

Jo did not break stride. But you swore the tips of his ears turned faintly red before the doors shut behind him.  Silence followed.

Then Persephone sighed contentedly. “Oh, this cycle might actually be entertaining.” You stared at her in disbelief. Persephone laughed beneath her breath. “Relax,” she said warmly, moving further into the chamber. “You needn’t worry so much about Jo.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” you muttered before thinking.

One elegant brow lifted. You immediately regretted speaking. But instead of offense, Persephone only looked amused.

“He appears frightening at first,” she admitted. “Most future Hades do.” Her smile softened faintly. “But despite all his sharp edges, Jo has always been strangely gentle with things he cares about.”

Your eyes dropped instinctively toward the hidden necklace in your pocket. Persephone followed your gaze and looked even more entertained. Then, mercifully, she changed the subject.

“Now,” she said, clasping her hands lightly together, “shall we begin?”

Your stomach immediately tightened again. Right, training. You looked around nervously at the scrolls and strange instruments scattered across the long marble table. Then back toward Persephone.

“Do I have a choice?”

Persephone smiled beautifully.

“Not even slightly.”

_______________

That night, you could not sleep.

So you lay awake atop the soft bed in your chambers, staring blankly upward at the ceiling Yunah had transformed for you earlier that evening.

A sky.

Not the strange silver twilight hanging eternally above the Underworld, but a real mortal sky scattered with stars. Tiny constellations shimmered overhead in soft gold and silver, shifting slowly across the darkened ceiling exactly the way they would above Greece. You had nearly cried when Yunah created it.

“You looked homesick,” she had said simply. Now the false stars reflected dimly in your exhausted eyes while you tried very hard not to think about what had happened earlier.

Training.

Your stomach twisted violently at the memory.

Persephone had begun gently enough. Or what qualified as gentle by divine standards apparently. She had seated you within a circle of silver candles and instructed you to simply breathe. To listen, to open yourself to the Underworld instead of resisting it.

And then the voices returned.

Thousands, this time. 

An endless flood of grief and rage and sorrow crashing violently into your mind all at once. Souls mourning unfinished lives. Mothers crying for lost children. Warriors screaming beneath battlefields. Lovers begging the Fates for more time.

The weight of death itself.

You had collapsed almost immediately.

You remembered clawing desperately at the marble floor, unable to breathe properly as the voices tore through your skull like knives. Your own thoughts had vanished beneath them entirely until you genuinely believed your mind would split apart.

And worst of all you remembered your mother’s voice. Soft, gentle, calling your childhood name the way she used to after nightmares.Persephone had used it to pull you back, to calm the chaos enough for you to breathe again.

You rolled onto your side now with a miserable groan, burying your face halfway into the silk pillows. You had nearly thrown up afterward. Persephone, thankfully, had seemed entirely unsurprised.

“This will be the first and last time I shield you from them,” she had warned quietly while helping you sit upright afterward. “The Queen of the Underworld cannot fear the voices of the dead.”

Easy for her to say. She had centuries. You had approximately one catastrophic afternoon. You exhaled slowly and stared back up at the stars. Your room sat cloaked in comfortable darkness save for a few dim lilac candles flickering near the windows. You wore only a soft nightgown now, the fabric loose and cool against your skin.

The ruby necklace still rested untouched upon your bedside table. You had not worn it. Something about it unsettled you. Or perhaps something about who had given it to you unsettled you more.

Angelic bastard.

As though summoned by the thought itself, the chamber door suddenly creaked open. You bolted upright immediately.

“Yunah?” you called instinctively. No answer.

Instead, a tall figure stepped quietly into the room. Your heart nearly stopped. You grabbed the nearest blanket and clutched it sharply against yourself before realizing. 

The man entering wore a black blindfold tied neatly over his eyes.

Jo.

You blinked in confusion. Jo paused near the doorway. “…You do realize I cannot see you, correct?”

Your grip on the blanket loosened slightly. “Oh.” A beat of silence passed. Then, somehow, Jo still looked amused despite being literally blindfolded.

“You mortals are remarkably dramatic at night.”

“I thought someone was breaking into my room.”

“I was, actually.” Jo hummed thoughtfully and shut the door behind him before wandering further inside with suspicious ease for someone who supposedly could not see.

“How are you walking properly?” you asked immediately.

“I live here.”

“That does not answer my question.”

“It answers enough.” You watched him carefully as he stopped near one of the chairs by your bedside. 

Even blindfolded, he looked unfairly composed. Dark robes hung loose over his lean frame now, slightly less formal than usual, and without his sharp gaze fixed directly on you he seemed strangely quieter somehow. More human. 

You eyed the blindfold again suspiciously. “Why are you wearing that?”

Jo leaned back against the chair lazily. “To relax after training.”

“That makes absolutely no sense.”

“It would if you’d spent six hours staring directly into Tartarus.”

You decided perhaps you did not want elaboration on that. Silence settled briefly afterward. Then Jo tilted his head slightly toward you. “You survived your first lesson.”

“Barely.” A soft breath of amusement escaped him. “She made me hear them again,” you muttered toward the ceiling. “All the voices.”

Jo went still for a moment. You continued before he could respond. “I thought my mind was breaking.” Your fingers tightened weakly into the blankets. “There were so many people. So much grief and pain and—and—” Your throat tightened unexpectedly. “I couldn’t stop hearing them.” 

The room quieted and Jo did not tease you immediately. Instead, he spoke softly. “You eventually learn where to place them.”

You turned your head slightly toward him. “What does that mean?”

“It means the dead never stop speaking.” His voice remained calm. “You simply learn not to drown in them.” He said the words so terrifyingly easy, as though he’d accepted that truth long ago. Persephone had said something similar earlier.

Jo shifted in the chair. “Did she give you anything to help stabilize the connection?”

You blinked. “No?”

“Of course she didn’t.”

You frowned faintly. “What is that supposed to mean?” Jo reached up and loosened the blindfold slightly though he still did not remove it entirely. Then his head tilted vaguely toward your bedside table.

“You should perhaps wear it next time,” he said lightly.

You stared at him. Your eyes flicked toward the rubies again. Warm crimson glimmered faintly beneath candlelight. And suddenly the memory of him placing it into your dress pocket earlier returned far too vividly for your comfort.  You cleared your throat awkwardly.

“Try not to collapse tomorrow either.” His mouth curved. “You’re becoming embarrassingly predictable.”

You scowled. “You are unbelievably irritating.”

“And yet,” he mused softly while standing once more, “you continue speaking to me.”

Before you could think of a proper response, he had already turned toward the door. He paused only briefly before leaving. Then, without looking back, he added quietly, 

“Goodnight, little oracle.”

And for some deeply unfortunate reason, you smiled after he was gone.

Angelic bastard.

_________

White was your entire life. 

White marble pillars stretching endlessly toward painted ceilings in Apollo’s temple. White robes flowing around silent priestesses drifting through sacred halls like ghosts. White incense smoke curling lazily through sunlit sanctuaries.

Even your childhood memories seemed washed pale with gold and ivory, touched only occasionally by the soft colors of fresh flowers placed upon altars.

Apollo’s temple had never belonged to warmth. It belonged to radiance. Blinding, holy, untouched radiance. Gold adorned everything, of course. Golden statues, golden goblets, golden embroidery threaded into ceremonial cloth. But gold in the temple never felt alive. It reflected light rather than creating it. Even the flowers offered to the gods had always been delicate things—white narcissus, pale lilies, soft olive branches resting quietly beneath marble hands. Nothing excessive or indulgent.

Nothing like this place.

The Underworld dripped with color. Deep violets and silver shadows. Black stone glimmering like wet ink. Dark crimson fruits split open upon banquet tables.

And red.

Red existed everywhere here.

Not the violent red of bloodshed Apollo’s soldiers dragged home from wars. This was richer, lush, dangerous pomegranate red. Ruby red.

The color now resting against your throat.

The mirror before you stretched nearly from floor to ceiling, framed in twisting silver vines blooming with tiny jeweled flowers. Soft morning light—or whatever passed for morning beneath the earth—spilled dimly through the tall windows of your chamber. And there you stood. Wearing his necklace. You exhaled sharply through your nose. “This is idiotic.”

The rubies glimmered innocently against your skin in response. You had spent nearly ten entire minutes arguing with yourself before finally putting it on. Ten humiliating minutes of picking the necklace up, setting it back down, walking away dramatically, then returning like a cursed moth drawn toward fire.

Your fingers brushed lightly against the necklace, adjusting the delicate chain where it rested at the base of your throat. The rubies were colder than ordinary jewels should have been. You immediately pulled your hand away.

Why had you actually listened to him?

Certainly not because his stupidly deep voice had softened slightly when he told you to wear it.

You frowned harder at your own reflection. “This is precisely how women in tragedies begin making terrible decisions.” The mirror, unfortunately, offered no wisdom. Only your own increasingly flustered expression staring back at you.

With growing irritation, you reached for one of the high-necked dresses laid neatly across your bed. If you were going to wear the necklace, then absolutely nobody needed to see it. Especially not him.

You pulled the soft dark fabric carefully over your shoulders before fastening the silver clasps along the throat. The dress concealed the necklace entirely beneath elegant layers of fabric. You relaxed slightly. Then immediately ruined everything by imagining, entirely against your will, the feeling of Jo’s hands brushing against your neck yesterday while placing the necklace into your pocket.

Long fingers. Cool skin. The faint scent of smoke and winter surrounding him—

“No,” you hissed aloud to yourself. You pointed accusingly at your own reflection. “Snap out of it.” The woman in the mirror looked deeply unconvinced. You groaned softly and grabbed the nearest cloak before your thoughts could betray you further. This was ridiculous.

You were training to become a goddess. The future Queen of the Underworld. Not some lovesick priestess daydreaming over a pretty man with sharp eyes and unbearable habits.

Angelic bastard.

Squaring your shoulders firmly, you turned away from the mirror and headed toward the chamber doors before your own mind could embarrass you any further. Training awaited.

And hopefully—preferably—Jo would not be there today.

_____________

Disappointment is a stupid human emotion.  Truly humiliating in every possible way. Especially when directed toward yourself.

The necklace had been a miracle.

It had not silenced the voices entirely—nothing could do that apparently—but during training earlier that day, the overwhelming flood of whispers had softened enough for you to actually remain standing. The dead still lingered at the edges of your mind, distant murmurs threading beneath your thoughts, but they no longer crashed through your skull like waves trying to drown you. You could breathe through them now. 

You stabbed absentmindedly at the food on your plate with considerably more aggression than the roasted figs deserved.

Across from you, Yunah watched with mild concern. “Are you fighting the dinner?”

You sighed dramatically and dropped the fork. The dining chamber was smaller than the grand halls used for divine gatherings, though still lavish by mortal standards. Warm candlelight flickered softly across dark wooden walls lined with silver detailing while enormous windows overlooked the eternal twilight outside.

Tonight, it was only you and Yunah eating together. Persephone had apparently been occupied elsewhere within the palace and you had nearly cried with relief at the thought of one peaceful meal. Unfortunately, peace required your thoughts to cooperate. Which they refused to do.

“I’m annoyed,” you finally admitted.

Yunah took a delicate sip from her wine. “At?”

You hesitated. Then glared faintly at your plate, “His stupid necklace quietened the voices.”

A slow smile spread across Yunah’s face almost immediately. “That explains your expression.”

“What expression?”

“The one people usually have after realizing Jo was correct about something.”

You narrowed your eyes. “I dislike how entertained everyone becomes whenever he’s mentioned.”

Yunah laughed softly beneath her breath. Even hearing his name made your stomach do strange things now. Absolutely unacceptable.

You leaned back in your chair with a groan. “I don’t understand him.”

“That makes two of us.”

Your gaze lifted immediately. “You don’t know him well?”

Yunah shook her head lightly. “Not particularly. No one does, honestly.” She set her glass carefully down upon the table. “Jo arrived here only about a year ago.”

You blinked. Only a year? Something about him felt far older than that. “He just…appeared?”

“In a sense.” Yunah tilted her head thoughtfully. “Hades brought him here personally. After that, he began training almost immediately.” Your fingers paused lightly against the edge of your plate. Training to become Hades—the thought still unsettled you every time it surfaced.

“There are rumors,” Yunah added carefully after a moment. You immediately looked interested despite yourself. Yunah noticed and smiled knowingly. “Curious?”

“No,” you lied instantly.

“Mhm.” Yunah leaned slightly forward across the table, lowering her voice despite the emptiness surrounding you. “They say he lost his entire family before coming here.”

The words settled heavily between you. Your chest tightened unexpectedly. “What?”

Yunah nodded slowly. “No one knows the full truth,” she admitted. “But servants talk. Apparently something terrible happened in the mortal world before Hades found him.” Her expression softened faintly. “Some believe that’s why he adapted to the Underworld so quickly.”

You stared quietly at the candlelight dancing across the table. Suddenly, certain things about Jo made more sense. The sharpness, the distance in his eyes, the way he spoke about death like someone long familiar with it. Yunah twirled her fork absentmindedly before continuing.

“A few of the palace attendants are frightened of him because of it,” she said. “They think grief made him cold.”

Cold was not the word you would have chosen. Sharp, perhaps. Difficult. Infuriatingly smug. But not cold. Not entirely.

“He doesn’t seem cruel,” you admitted quietly before you could stop yourself.

Yunah’s smile turned softer then. “No,” she agreed. “He isn’t.” Your fingers drifted toward the necklace resting beneath the high collar of your dress. Warm now, not cold. How strange. 

“For what it’s worth,” she said, “I’ve always known him to be kind.” 

You blinked at that. Kind—the word echoed oddly beside the image you carried of him—sharp-eyed, teasing, looking at you like he already knew every thought crossing your face before you spoke it aloud.

And yet you remembered him wearing a blindfold because his own training exhausted him, the quietness in his voice when speaking about the dead. The necklace he’d twisted around his slender fingers so prettily. He made it from a pomegranate. Hades and Persephone’s pomegranate. 

Your stomach twisted again. This was becoming a problem. A very attractive problem. 

On the opposite side of the palace, far beneath vaulted ceilings carved with scenes of ancient wars, steel rang sharply against steel. Again and again and again.

Jo moved like violence wrapped in elegance.

The training hall stretched vast and dim around him, illuminated only by towering braziers burning with silver fire. Weapons lined the black stone walls—swords, spears, axes older than empires themselves—and the polished floor bore countless scars from centuries of combat.

At the center of it all, Jo drove his blade forward with brutal precision. Nicholas barely blocked in time. The clash of swords echoed violently through the chamber before Nicholas stumbled backward laughing breathlessly.

“Fuck, Jo.” He wheezed, sweeping blond hair from his face, “you train like you’re trying to kill someone.”

Jo lowered his sword lazily. “You train like you’re trying to impress someone.”

Nicholas grinned immediately. “Well, one of us has to maintain charm around here.”

Unlike Jo’s cold refinement, Nicholas carried himself with loud confidence that filled every room he entered. Golden hair clung damply to his forehead from training and his sleeveless black tunic exposed arms lined with old scars. The future Ares, entirely unsurprising.

Nicholas rolled his shoulder with a grimace before eyeing Jo suspiciously across the hall. “So.”

Jo sighed instantly. “No.”

“You knew what I was going to ask?”

“You’ve been making that expression for ten minutes.”

“Blame it on Yuma.” Nicholas planted the tip of his sword dramatically against the floor. “Your little oracle.”

Jo resumed adjusting the leather bindings around his wrist without looking up. “What about her?”

Nicholas looked deeply offended, “I can sense something happening.”

“Nothing is happening.” Jo said gruffly. Nicholas watched him carefully for another moment before a grin slowly spread across his face.

“You like her.”

Jo finally looked up then. “What are you Nicholas, twelve years old?”

“You answered too quickly.”

“I answered appropriately.”

Nicholas laughed under his breath and wandered toward one of the nearby weapon racks. “Yuma was right then.”

At that, Jo’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Why are you speaking to Yuma?”

“Because unlike you, he tells me interesting things.”

“That is because Hermes survives entirely through gossip.”

Nicholas shrugged. “And yet he’s rarely wrong.”

Jo exhaled quietly through his nose before retrieving another sword from the rack nearby. The silver blade gleamed sharply beneath the firelight. Nicholas watched him for a moment longer before speaking again, this time less teasingly.

“So?” he asked. “How is she handling it?”

Jo’s movements slowed slightly. For the first time that evening, his expression softened almost imperceptibly. “She’s trying.”

Nicholas blinked once. Then immediately burst into delighted laughter. “Oh, you’re doomed.”

Jo looked murderous. “You asked a question and I merely answered, Ares.”

“You answered softly.” Nicholas chuckled, “I’ve never known Hades to be soft for anybody.” He pointed his sword accusingly towards him, “Except his Persephone.”

His Persephone. 

Sweet little lamb, Jo thought, turning away before Nicholas could see the faint irritation flickering across his face.

“She nearly broke during training yesterday,” he said instead, quieter now.

Nicholas’ grin faded slightly.  “The voices?”

Jo nodded once. A silence stretched briefly between them. Even Nicholas, loud and reckless as war itself, understood the weight behind that.

“…Can you feel it?” Nicholas asked carefully.

Jo’s fingers tightened slightly around the hilt of his sword. “Yes.” The answer came low and immediate. 

Nicholas studied him thoughtfully. “And her?”

Jo looked toward the dark training hall doors, expression unreadable. “She’ll need it for the first few days,” he said calmly. “Until her body adjusts.”

Nicholas hummed softly as though filing the information away. Then, inevitably, “So the necklace was your idea.”

Jo said nothing.  Nicholas grinned knowingly anyway. “You’re unbelievable.”

Jo resumed training without another word. Steel flashed violently through silver firelight once more.

But despite the sharp precision of his strikes, his thoughts drifted elsewhere again.

Toward soft white nightgowns beneath false stars. Toward frightened eyes trying desperately not to trust him. Toward a little oracle who looked at the Underworld like she still believed beauty and terror could not exist within the same thing.

Jo drove his sword harder into the next strike. The metal cracked loudly against Nicholas’ blade. Nicholas winced.

“…Right,” he muttered. “You’re definitely doomed.”

______________

You had quickly discovered something unfortunate about the Underworld.

It became unbearably lonely when you had nothing to do.

No training had been scheduled for today. Persephone had apparently vanished somewhere beyond the palace with several attendants in tow and Yunah had disappeared since morning without explanation, leaving you abandoned entirely to your own thoughts.

A terrible fate.

You tried reading for a while. That lasted approximately twenty minutes before the ancient texts began giving you headaches. You attempted resting afterward. Impossible—the Underworld never truly slept and now neither did your mind. 

So eventually, with nothing better to do, you wrapped yourself in a dark cloak and wandered aimlessly through the palace halls instead. At first, you stayed close to familiar corridors. Then curiosity betrayed you.

You drifted further than usual, passing long galleries lined with enormous paintings whose figures seemed to shift subtly when you looked too long. Silent servants bowed politely as you passed and distant flames flickered softly against marble walls. The deeper you wandered, the quieter the palace became. Until finally—

Music.

You stopped walking immediately.

Soft, melancholic and beautiful enough to make your heart ache—a piano. The sound floated faintly through one of the open archways ahead and you found yourself following it almost without thinking.

The corridor gradually opened into a garden. You forgot entirely that you stood in the Underworld.

Moonflowers bloomed everywhere beneath silver twilight, their pale petals glowing softly against dark winding pathways. Massive willow trees swayed gently in a breeze you could not feel while rivers curved lazily between beds of luminous flowers.

Tiny lights drifted through the air like wandering stars. Nothing about it resembled death. It felt like a dream someone had desperately tried preserving forever. The music echoed softly through the garden, weaving itself between branches and flowers alike. You moved carefully along the stone paths, drawn further inward by the melody.

The song itself sounded lonely somehow. Yearning. The kind of music played by someone who had once loved silence until it became unbearable. Without realizing it, you slowed your steps to match the rhythm. Swaying faintly beneath silver trees while the piano wrapped around you like a spell.

Hidden within the heart of the garden stood an old black piano beneath drooping willow branches. And seated before it was the future King of this realm. 

Jo.

For one suspended moment, you simply stared. He wore no formal robes today. Only a loose black shirt with the sleeves rolled carelessly to his forearms, the dark fabric soft against his lean frame. His glasses rested abandoned atop the piano beside him and without them, he somehow looked younger.

Silver light filtered through the willow branches overhead, painting soft shadows across the sharp lines of his face while his long fingers moved effortlessly across the piano keys.

Beautiful was not a strong enough word for him. He looked like something carved from longing itself, entirely too ethereal for a place beneath the earth. 

You slipped quietly behind one of the nearby willow trees before he could notice you, heart behaving strangely in your chest. The music continued, soft and hypnotic, every note dancing around you. 

You stayed hidden there listening. Watching. You should have left. Instead you leaned slightly around the tree for a better view. And promptly stepped on a branch. The sharp crack echoed embarrassingly loudly through the garden. The music stopped instantly and your soul briefly left your body as Jo’s hands stilled against the piano keys.

Slowly, his head turned slightly toward the sound. You froze entirely behind the tree, one hand clasped stupidly over your mouth as though that somehow erased your existence. Silence stretched.

Then—to your utter confusion— Jo resumed playing. But differently this time.

The melody softened into something slower, each note curling carefully through the air as though searching for you specifically. It felt less like music now and more like a hand reaching quietly into your chest.  Drawing you forward, inviting. Your pulse slowed strangely beneath it.

The garden seemed to hush around the sound, silver lights drifting lazily through the trees while Jo continued playing without once acknowledging your hiding place. As though he already knew exactly where you stood. The final note faded softly into silence and Jo smiled softly. 

“Come out, little lamb.”

Little lamb?

Heat immediately rushed to your face. You stepped hesitantly from behind the willow tree, trying very hard to maintain some dignity despite the fact you had just been caught hiding and spying on him like an overly curious ghost. Jo looked up at you from the piano bench. That soft silver light beneath the trees truly did terrible things to him.

Without his glasses and sharp formal clothing, he looked untouchable sitting there amidst the flowers and drifting lights. Like something ancient and beautiful that had accidentally wandered into the mortal world and decided to stay only temporarily. His dark eyes swept briefly over you.

“You look good today.”

Your brain stopped functioning for approximately three seconds.

“…What?”

Jo blinked once. “I complimented you.”

“I heard that part.”

“Then why are you staring at me like I’ve threatened your bloodline?”

You narrowed your eyes immediately to recover some sense of composure. “You’re very strange.”

“And yet,” he mused lightly, “you’re still standing here.”

You stepped a little closer toward the piano instead, clasping your hands carefully behind your back. The instrument itself looked old beyond comprehension, its black surface etched with silver vines similar to those decorating the palace halls.

“You play beautifully,” you admitted softly. Jo’s fingers drifted absentmindedly across the piano keys again, producing a few quiet wandering notes.

“I used to enjoy music when I was younger,” he said quietly.

Younger—the word sounded odd coming from him. As though he had existed for centuries already instead of merely being another successor like yourself.

Without thinking, you asked softly, “What were you like when you were human?”

The question lingered gently between you both. Jo’s fingers stilled against the keys. Then he looked away. The silver lights drifting through the garden reflected faintly in his eyes now, making them seem darker.

“I don’t remember much worth keeping,” he answered calmly. 

“You don’t miss it at all?” you asked carefully. “Being mortal?”

Jo was quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he rose from the piano bench.

“No,” he said simply. “I never want to be mortal again.”

The certainty in his voice startled you. You watched as he wandered a few steps through the flowers nearby, his expression unreadable beneath the willow shadows.

“Why?” you asked softly.

Jo reached down absently and plucked one of the pale moonflowers growing beside the stone path. For a moment, he merely held it between elegant fingers. Beautiful, fragile.

Then slowly, he crushed it. The petals crumpled instantly within his hand, silver dust falling softly onto the dark ground beneath.

“Because human lives are this,” he murmured quietly, “So breakable, so…ephemeral.”

Your chest tightened painfully. The broken flower looked terribly small in his hand. Brief, gone almost immediately, something about the sight made sadness bloom unexpectedly inside you.

Jo’s gaze flicked toward your expression and genuine regret crossed his face. Without a word, he reached toward another nearby flower instead.

This one he handled gently. He stepped closer afterward, lifting the pale bloom toward you. You went very still as his fingers brushed softly through your hair, tucking the flower carefully behind your ear.

The movement lasted only seconds. And yet your pulse stumbled so hard you feared he might hear it.

“There,” Jo murmured quietly.

You forgot how to breathe properly for a moment. Then he stepped away before you could embarrass yourself further.

“You should learn music,” he said casually, as though he had not just shattered your composure entirely. “It helps quieten the mind.”

“You’d teach me?” You asked, with a soft smile

“If you stop hiding behind trees while listening first.” Jo looked unbearably amused. Then, before you could start arguing, he turned and began walking slowly along the garden path.

You hurried slightly after him. “Wait.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “What is this place anyway?” you asked, looking around once more at the glowing flowers and silver rivers winding beyond the trees. “This garden.”

Jo’s expression softened faintly then. For the first time that evening, something genuinely warm entered his gaze.

“This,” he said quietly, “is the garden Hades planted for Persephone.”

Your eyes widened slightly. You looked around again afterward.

The flowers. The music. The beauty blooming beneath eternal twilight. Suddenly the garden felt less like part of the Underworld and more like proof that love had once lived here long enough to change the landscape itself. Jo watched you take it in silently.

Sweet little lamb.

Beautiful oracle. 

“He built it because she missed the music of spring.” With that he walked away, closing the doors to the garden behind him, leaving you all alone in the grand hall of angelic honey. Your hand up to the flower in your hair, caressing it.

Hades and his love, hm?

___________

A month changed people in strange ways. Or perhaps The Underworld did. It was all the same to you anyways. 

At first, you had counted the days carefully. Each sunrise you could no longer see, each lesson and each night spent wondering whether your mortal life above had already forgotten you entirely.

But eventually the counting stopped. Because the voices stopped hurting—not completely as you suspected they never truly would.

The dead still whispered constantly beneath the edges of your thoughts, a thousand distant souls threading softly through your mind like rivers beneath ice. But now you could separate them. Organize them. Silence the loudest ones when necessary.

You were good at it. Persephone herself had looked genuinely startled during one lesson after you successfully calmed an entire chamber of wandering spirits without guidance.

“You learn frighteningly quickly,” she had murmured afterward. You had smiled proudly at the praise.

Meanwhile Jo, leaning lazily against one of the marble pillars nearby, had simply said, “Told you she’d survive.” 

The words had warmed you. 

The Underworld no longer felt foreign now. You knew the palace halls by memory. Knew which gardens bloomed silver at night and which rivers carried the voices of mourning souls most loudly. You knew Yunah’s favorite desserts, Nicholas’ terrible habit of provoking everyone during training and Yuma’s tendency to appear uninvited solely to spread gossip.

And Hades?

Jo had somehow become woven quietly into your every day.

He still teased you relentlessly, called you little lamb whenever you became flustered, looked unbearably pleased whenever he managed to catch you staring at him too long.

But you had learned other things too.

Like how he always slowed his walking pace slightly without acknowledging it whenever you accompanied him through the palace. How servants stopped fearing him after speaking with him more than once. How he secretly fed the palace ravens despite claiming to dislike animals.

And how, beneath all that sharpness, kindness existed quietly inside him like a hidden wound he refused to expose directly.

You had never accepted his offer to teach you music. Mostly because the idea of sitting that close to him for extended periods sounded catastrophic for your remaining dignity.

But you still visited the garden frequently. You would sit beneath the willow trees with parchment scattered across your lap while Jo played softly at the piano nearby. Sometimes neither of you spoke for hours.

You wrote poetry. He played music. And silence between you never felt uncomfortable, only full.

A few nights ago was no different. 

Above you, the false stars shimmered softly across the dark ceiling Yunah had once created for your chambers and later expanded magically across portions of the garden itself after hearing you missed the mortal sky.

You lay atop a blanket spread across the soft grass beside the silver river, one arm tucked beneath your head while pages of half-finished poetry rested nearby.

Beside you, Jo lay with his hands folded lazily across his stomach, blindfolded again. You had eventually learned he wore it after difficult training sessions because darkness helped quiet certain things within his mind.

You never asked what things. Some wounds did not enjoy being touched.

The night air smelled faintly of moonflowers and cold water.

“You still romanticize mortals too much,” Jo said suddenly.

You turned your head toward him immediately. “That’s because I was one.”

“A tragic condition.”

You rolled your eyes. “You’re impossible.”

‘You continue to spend time with me voluntarily, darling.” He hummed. 

You huffed softly and stared back upward at the stars. “Human life matters because it ends,” you argued after a moment. “That’s what makes everything beautiful.”

Jo tilted his head slightly against the blanket. “No,” he said calmly. “It makes humans desperate.”

You frowned faintly. The conversation had drifted into dangerous territory again. You should have expected it. Jo always spoke about mortality as though he stood outside it now, observing it from somewhere colder.

“Why do you speak about people like they’re temporary objects>” You murmured quietly.

“They are temporary.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re meaningless.” 

Jo fell silent briefly beside you. The silver river flowed softly nearby.

“You know what mortals do best?” he asked quietly.

You glanced toward him. “What?”

“They cling.” His voice remained calm but something heavier sat beneath it now. “They cling to people. To promises. To moments already disappearing while they’re still happening.” A faint bitter smile touched his mouth. “Humans spend their entire lives grieving things before they’ve even lost them.”

The words twisted painfully somewhere deep inside your chest. Because despite how cold they sounded, you understood them. You turned fully onto your side then, facing him properly.

“You say that like it’s a weakness.”

Jo remained still beneath the stars. “Isn’t it?”

“Of course not.” You watched the silver light dance softly across the black blindfold covering his eyes. “It’s love,” you said quietly.

Jo did not respond immediately. But you noticed his fingers loosen slightly where they rested against his stomach. As though some part of him had gone still listening to you. And suddenly you became painfully aware of how close you both were lying beneath the stars.

How familiar his presence had become. How naturally you now searched for him in every room.

Hades had built this garden for Persephone. 

Jo exhaled softly through his nose. “You really are Persephone’s successor,” he murmured at last.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You enquired. 

A small smile touched his lips beneath the blindfold. “You still believe things grow after winter.”

How the king of hell questioned his unloving queen. 

And before you could stop yourself, you asked softly, “Who convinced you they didn’t?”

Jo was quiet for a very long time after that, so quiet you almost regretted asking.

The silver river flowed softly nearby while the false stars shimmered overhead, casting pale light across the blindfold covering his eyes. Beside you, his breathing remained steady—but something in the air between you had shifted. Like you had accidentally touched a scar hidden beneath layers of silk and shadow.

Eventually, Jo smiled. “You ask dangerous questions, darling.” He murmured softly. That answer felt far heavier than anything else he could have said.

You wanted to ask more, wanted to understand what kind of grief could make someone stop believing in spring entirely.

But before you could speak again, Jo sat up smoothly from the grass beside you. The moment folded shut immediately, gone, just like that.

He stood and offered you a hand up from the grass. His fingers closed gently around yours. Then he released you before your heart could betray you further.

“Goodnight, little oracle.”

And again, your chest tightened stupidly after he walked away.

Tonight, the Underworld glittered. From the towering palace windows you could see silver fires blazing across distant terraces while music echoed faintly through endless halls below. Gods, spirits and successors alike had gathered beneath the earth tonight for the first grand ball of the season.

An introduction, a presentation, a declaration to the divine world itself. You would officially be revealed as Persephone’s successor. Which meant, unfortunately, everyone would be staring at you.

You stood motionless before the enormous mirror in your chambers trying very hard not to faint from nerves.

The gown Persephone had chosen for you spilled around your body in layers of soft white silk and silver embroidery, the fabric shimmering faintly whenever you moved. The sleeves draped elegantly from your shoulders and delicate silver threading curled across the bodice like flowering vines beneath moonlight.

You looked terrifyingly divine.

Which was the problem—you did not resemble yourself anymore. You resembled someone important. 

Your fingers drifted nervously toward the ruby necklace hidden beneath the fabric near your throat, the familiar coolness grounding you instantly. Somewhere over the last month, touching the necklace had become instinctive whenever your thoughts spiraled too far.

“Wonderful,” you muttered. “I look like someone about to be sacrificed.”

The mirror offered no reassurance. A knock echoed suddenly through your chambers.

“Come in,” you called carefully.

Jo had seen beauty before.

The Underworld was full of it—immortal beings sculpted perfectly, divine faces untouched by age, creatures born from starlight and death alike.

None of them had prepared him for this.

You stood bathed in candlelight like the physical embodiment of every foolish spring myth mortals had ever written songs about. White silk clung softly to your figure while your bare shoulders gleamed beneath the warm glow of the room. The rubies beneath your neckline burned against skin and your hair fell around you in waves that made you look unbearably delicate.

Beautiful oracle.

Sweet little lamb.

Spring standing calmly at the edge of winter.

Suddenly all he could think about was the fact you looked exactly like something Hades himself would have crossed worlds for.

Jo physically felt his thoughts collapse in on themselves. His gaze lingered one second too long before he recovered enough to shut the chamber doors behind him.

“Why are you staring at me like that?” You quipped. Jo leaned lazily against the doorframe with far more composure than he actually possessed.

“I’m trying to decide,” he said smoothly, “whether Persephone intends to introduce you at a ball or start a scandal.”

You narrowed your eyes despite the warmth rising to your face. “That is not reassuring.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.” His gaze drifted over you again before he could stop it. Terrible idea.

Your off-shoulder gown exposed the graceful line of your throat just enough for him to notice the faint outline of the necklace beneath the fabric. You were wearing it again. Every day now. Jo tried very hard not to think about how much he liked that.

“You look nervous,” he observed lightly instead.

“I am nervous.”

“You’ll survive.”

“That’s what everyone keeps saying right before horrifying experiences.”

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You’re adapting well to the Underworld then.”

You sighed dramatically and turned back toward the mirror. “I don’t know how Persephone does this so effortlessly.”

Jo watched your reflection quietly for a moment. “She doesn’t. You blinked and looked back at him. Jo shrugged one shoulder. “She’s simply had centuries to perfect pretending otherwise.”

Something about that answer softened your nerves. You looked down briefly at your hands smoothing anxiously over the silk of your gown. “What if they hate me?”

“They won’t.” The certainty in his voice startled you enough that you looked back up immediately.

Jo realized what he’d done a second too late. So naturally he ruined the moment on purpose.

“Besides,” he added lazily, “if anyone becomes unbearable, Nicholas will probably challenge them to a duel before dessert.”

You burst into helpless laughter despite yourself and Jo’s chest tightened annoyingly at hearing it. Trouble, trouble, trouble. 

The sound filled the room softly, bright enough to momentarily cut through all the nervous tension knotting around your shoulders. You pressed a hand to your mouth as the laughter faded, still smiling.

Jo watched you for a second too long again, then looked away before his thoughts embarrassed him further.

Dangerous little thing.

“You should take the necklace off tonight,” he said suddenly.

Your hand instinctively flew toward your throat. Beneath the silver fabric of your gown, the rubies rested cool against your skin.

You frowned immediately. “What?”

“The ruby necklace.”

“Why?”

Jo reached casually into the pocket of his dark coat instead of answering immediately. Something small rested in his palm when he withdrew his hand.

A blueberry.

You blinked once in confusion, “I think I need an explanation.”

Jo rolled the tiny fruit lazily between elegant fingers, the faintest trace of amusement flickering across his face now.

“You told me once,” he said lightly, “that Apollo’s temple received blueberry offerings during summer festivals.”

Your eyes widened and a memory surfaced almost immediately. You remembered sitting beneath the temple columns one afternoon weeks ago while Jo played at the piano nearby. You had been half-delirious from exhaustion after training and talking far too freely.

“The priestesses hated it,” you had laughed at the time. “Because I kept stealing them.”

Jo had glanced over the piano then. “You stole sacred offerings?”

“They were blueberries.”

“As opposed to?”

“As opposed to everything else.”

You stared at him now. “You remembered that?”

Jo looked offended, “Come now, darling, you do not have that much trust in me?”

Before you could respond, the blueberry dissolved. The deep blue unraveled into shimmering ribbons of light that curled carefully around Jo’s fingers before reforming themselves into a delicate sapphire necklace resting against his palm.

The sapphires glimmered like captured twilight. Smaller and more delicate than the ruby necklace, the silver chain carried tiny dark blue stones that caught the candlelight whenever they moved.

Jo stepped closer before you could gather your thoughts properly and your pulse immediately lost all sense of dignity.

“Turn around,” he said calmly.

You obeyed before realizing you had. Traitorous body. Facing the mirror again, you watched Jo approach behind you through the reflection.

This was a terrible idea.

His figure stopped directly at your back, close enough now for you to feel warmth radiating faintly from him. Slowly, he reached forward and brushed your hair aside over one shoulder.

Your breath caught. His fingers barely touched you. Barely. Yet somehow the small contact sent heat spiraling violently down your spine anyway.

Jo stilled for the briefest moment behind you and that realization made your heart stumble harder. The room suddenly felt much too warm.

Carefully, he unclasped the ruby necklace from around your throat first. The familiar weight disappeared.

Then, gentler than you’d have expected the God of the Dead to have been, Jo fastened the sapphire necklace into place instead. Cool stones settled lightly against your skin. His fingers brushed the back of your neck while securing the clasp and you forgot how breathing worked. Through the mirror, you saw Jo watching your reflection quietly.

As though he himself had not expected this moment to affect him so much.

The sapphire glimmered beautifully against the white silk of your gown. Blue instead of red. Moonlight instead of wine. Jo finally stepped back slowly.

“There,” he murmured softly.

You swallowed hard and stared at your reflection. “Why sapphires?”

Jo adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves with suspicious calmness. “Rubies belong to Persephone.”

You turned slightly toward him. “And sapphires?”

“To Hades of course.” 

Jo realized what he had just said approximately one second too late. His expression remained beautifully composed for approximately half a second before something dangerously close to panic flickered through his eyes.

Then your own thoughts caught up too.

Sapphires belonged to Hades. You were wearing white. He was dressed entirely in black. Your gaze drifted upward involuntarily toward the mirror again.

Together, reflected beneath silver candlelight, you looked almost—

No.

Absolutely not.

Your face immediately warmed. Jo cleared his throat lightly behind you with all the elegance of a man internally falling down several flights of stairs. The contrast between you suddenly felt impossible to ignore now.

White silk and moonlight.

Black fabric and shadow.

Spring and death standing side by side before a mirror like some ancient myth halfway through writing itself.

Neither of you spoke for one painfully long moment.

A knock mercifully sounded at the chamber doors. Both of you startled slightly as though caught committing some terrible crime.

“Come in,” you managed weakly. The doors opened and Yunah stepped gracefully into the room.

“The ballroom is prepared,” she informed you calmly, though her eyes still carried suspicious amusement. “Lady Persephone is waiting downstairs.” You nodded quickly, grateful for literally any interruption before your heart exploded.

Jo straightened beside you and smoothly regained control of his expression with infuriating speed. “You should go,” he said calmly, though something softer lingered beneath the words now.

You turned fully toward him at last. The silver light caught against his dark clothes beautifully, outlining the sharp lines of his face and the elegant fall of black fabric across his shoulders.

This man could ruin your peace permanently. For a brief second, neither of you moved. Then Jo stepped forward once more.

Slowly, he reached for your hand. His fingers closed gently around yours before he lowered himself just enough to press a soft kiss against your knuckles.

The gesture was perfectly respectful and perfectly elegant. And somehow infinitely worse because of it. Warmth spread violently across your face.

“Good luck tonight, darling.” Jo murmured quietly against your skin.

Then, before either of you could say something catastrophic, he released your hand and stepped away again.

Coward, you thought faintly. Because you were suddenly very aware that if he looked at you like that for one second longer, you might genuinely forget your own name.

Jo inclined his head once toward Yunah in greeting before turning toward the doors. Just before leaving, though, he glanced back once more. Only once, but it was enough to make your chest ache strangely beneath the necklace resting against your throat.

Then he disappeared into the corridor beyond, black fabric vanishing softly into darkness. 

Death, how could you ever figure him out?

A/N: GO READ PART TWO GO GET OUT OF HERE SHOO

divider by @strangergraphics

@eu1joo @kwnnies @nichozzystuffs @blueuijoo @pglpblm @ikigaijo @antonh0lic @dearvampyr @riri4andy @tokunodoll @sunsoomi @makizdoll + Shoot me an ask or comment to be added!