A Touch of Chaos

Scarlett St. Clair's A Touch of Chaos picks up amid an escalating war between gods and mortals. Theseus, a son of Poseidon and leader of Triad, an anti-god organization, has abducted Persephone's friends, killed her Amazon bodyguard Zofie, stolen the Helm of Darkness, and captured Hades, King of the Underworld. Persephone's mother, Demeter, the Goddess of Harvest, is dead, killed by Persephone during a confrontation she did not intend to turn lethal. Most catastrophically, Theseus has breached Tartarus, the Underworld's prison for the Titans, and released Cronos, the God of Time and father of the Olympians, whom the gods imprisoned after overthrowing him.

Persephone, the Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld, stands in her shattered realm as Titans escape and the sky above Tartarus splits. Hecate, the Goddess of Witchcraft, urges her to seal the breach. Drawing on grief, rage, and dark power granted through her marriage to Hades, Persephone channels a devastating burst of shadow magic that impales the escaped Hydra, encases the Titan Iapetus in obsidian, and seals the sky. Hermes, God of Mischief, and Apollo, God of Music, fight alongside her. The effort leaves Persephone trembling and bleeding. When she searches for Hades, she finds only severed vines in the office where she last left him bound with her magic.

Hades wakes in a dark cell, suspended by manacles and draped in a net that suppresses his divine power. Theseus intends to offer him as a sacrifice to Cronos and stabs him with Cronos's scythe, a blade that prevents divine healing. Hades is forced to labor inside the labyrinth at Knossos, a maze built from adamant, a metal that nullifies godly abilities. In the Underworld, Persephone tends to her wounded allies. Harmonia, the Goddess of Harmony, lies unconscious from a wound poisoned by Hydra venom, and Demeter's soul in Elysium, the Underworld's paradise, has no memory of her daughter, its trauma too deep to carry even in death.

Zeus, King of the Gods, punishes Apollo, Hermes, and Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, for opposing him by stripping their powers for a year. Theseus visits his secret ally Hera, Queen of the Gods, and eats a golden apple from her enchanted orchard, trading his future immortality for present invincibility. Persephone rallies her forces: The souls of Asphodel, the Underworld's common realm for the dead, forge weapons, she appoints her friend Sybil as her oracle, and she reveals her divine identity in a public address. At Zofie's funeral, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, gives Persephone the Girdle of Hippolyta, a belt that grants immortal strength to mortals.

In the labyrinth, Hades attempts escape by scaling walls and killing the Nemean lion, an ancient beast with impenetrable hide. He takes a claw that can cut through Theseus's nets, but Theseus recaptures him. Persephone learns Hades is imprisoned at Knossos and enlists Ariadne Alexiou, a detective and Theseus's ex-girlfriend, to guide her through the maze. Ariadne agrees on the condition that Dionysus, the God of Wine, simultaneously rescues her sister Phaedra, whom Theseus holds hostage. She warns that the labyrinth's deadliest trap is psychological: The maze offers visions of each person's deepest desire, tempting them to stay forever.

Dionysus, disguised as a doctor, delivers Phaedra's baby at a hospital. Persephone and Ariadne descend into the labyrinth carrying Galanthis, Hecate's cat, who is actually a eudaimon, a guiding spirit. Thorn poison from a trap knocks them unconscious, and the labyrinth seizes their minds: Persephone experiences an alternate life where her dead friends live and the world is at peace but recognizes the illusion and forces herself to leave. At the center, they defeat a fire-breathing bull, and Persephone finds Hades suspended from the ceiling. She frees him by cutting his net with the lion's claw. Five Minotaurs then attack. The group fights through them and rides the wounded Galanthis back through collapsing corridors, pursued by Stymphalian birds that shoot metal feathers. Galanthis is killed. A chasm separates Persephone from the others, but she claws to the surface and lifts the rubble with her restored magic to free Hades and Ariadne.

Hades's wound from Cronos's scythe continues to worsen. Hecate confirms that only the Golden Fleece, a legendary healing relic guarded by a dragon in Ares's sacred grove, can save him and Harmonia. When Ares refuses to help, Persephone impales the God of War with a branch from his own tree, and Hermes secures the fleece. Both Hades and Harmonia are healed.

Theseus forces the captured God of Sleep, Hypnos, to create a sleeping potion. Hera seduces Zeus into the trap, and Theseus kills Hypnos, seizes the lightning bolt, and hangs Zeus's body in the sky. At funeral games organized by Aphrodite, Theseus kills Apollo with the bolt, declaring, "Now look upon your gods and know they are mortal" (443). Poseidon triggers earthquakes that sever New Athens from the mainland, creating an island under Theseus's control. Theseus sacrifices Hera to Cronos, securing the Titan's alliance. The earthquakes flood Dionysus's underground tunnels, drowning most of his maenads, his female followers. Theseus's men recapture Ariadne, Phaedra, and the baby. Theseus sexually assaults Ariadne, and Phaedra takes her own life. Hades suffers a private blow: He finds his mother, the Titaness Rhea, dying at the Edge of the World, killed by Cronos.

The gods transform Hades's nightclub, Nevernight, into a refugee shelter. In a battle outside Athena's temple, Cronos traps the gods in illusions of their greatest fears, but Persephone recognizes the deception, and Prometheus, the Titan God of Fire, breaks the illusion by attacking Cronos. During the same battle, Hecate kills Zeus by removing his heart, restoring the stripped powers of Hermes and Aphrodite. Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, joins Persephone after her priestesses are slaughtered, and Ares pledges support, persuaded by Aphrodite, though Hades demands a future favor.

Hecate guides Hades toward a crucial insight: An unfulfilled prophecy states that slaying the ophiotaurus, a mythical creature, guarantees "victory against the gods," but "victory" could mean winning a game rather than a war. Hades arrives at Theseus's gates offering surrender. They play a game of dominos, which Hades deliberately loses. When Theseus realizes the ruse, Hades reveals the true trap: During the game, Theseus drank from Hades's glass, which contained the essence of a golden apple. Eating from the enchanted tree twice is fatal. Theseus collapses, and Hades drives the demigod's own Hydra-venom knife into his heart.

Persephone leads the final assault alongside the allied gods, summoning Cerberus, Hades's three-headed dog, from the Underworld. Prometheus kills the serpentine monster Typhon, but Cronos materializes and tears off Prometheus's head. Persephone, watching Hecate falter against Cronos, absorbs the Titan's power over reality and turns it against him, trapping the God of Time in a living tree that blooms with pink blossoms. Dionysus, wearing the Helm of Darkness, reaches Ariadne inside the fortress, and together they kill Perseus, Theseus's closest ally. Ariadne carries baby Acamas and tells Dionysus that Phaedra did not survive.

In the aftermath, Persephone reckons with who she has become, changed by grief, guilt, and violence but still recognizable to herself. She and Hades promise to share their darkest thoughts rather than face them alone. In a ceremony organized by Hecate, the souls of the Underworld line the palace halls as Hades places a crown of black spires on Persephone's head. She accepts responsibility for the realm and its people. Hecate declares, "All hail our King and Queen. May they reign forever" (573). Persephone and Hades sit on their thrones together, looking toward a future they fought to earn.