God of My Dreams (Greek Heroes #1) ✅ Completed

Chapter Thirty: The Edge of Misery

 The Edge of Misery

In Aphrodite’s opinion, the Vale of Mourning was the absolute worst part of the entire Underworld. It was a tragic place where the souls of mortals who died unhappily in love dwelt after death. Souls craved love and peace the way flowers craved sun and water. Mortals who only experienced pain and heartache in their life took their tragedy into the Underworld, where it became a chain wrapped around the eternal souls of the deceased, keeping them bound in a horrible prison of misery and suffering. For the love goddess, there was nothing more awful than seeing the twisted corruption of the one thing she held so dear to her own heart.

And there was absolutely nothing she could do for any of them.

It was held in popular belief that Zeus was the most powerful of their kind, and to a large extent he was, but Aphrodite did not agree. The love goddess was of the opinion only Hades was truly the mightiest among them. The Thunder God who reigned on Olympus could persuade, inspire, or bend men to his will in a variety of ways but in death Hades trumped all. Zeus was formidable, but even he could not govern the souls of men once their time on the earthly plain was over.

Only Hades held such a unique gift.

The Lord of the Underworld alone held sway over every single soul in his domain, and though he did not abuse his incredible authority (as far as Aphrodite could tell), there wasn’t a god or goddess on Olympus who could thwart his command. Like the rest of them, Zeus had to ask if he needed something from his brother. 

Perhaps it was this supreme power that caused much of the friction between the Lord of the Underworld and some of the other gods. There were several who viewed Hades in a less than favorable light, but chief amongst them was their queen. It was a bit of an understatement to say Hera was not a Hades fan. The goddess of Marriage (which was too ironic for words given her husband's history), constantly spoke ill of the Underworld ruler. As far as she could remember, Aphrodite had never once heard their queen say one kind word about her own brother-in-law. She was pretty sure it all boiled down to the fact that no one could make the morbidly dark god do anything he didn’t want to, including Hera.

And that drove the Queen of the Olympians absolutely batshit.    

Aphrodite could tell where the dirt road changed to one of large, nearly smooth cobblestone, which cut through a deep valley. A thick mist covered the path and reached nearly a foot off the ground but the love goddess knew the stone path was still there. The formal path marked the beginning of the Vale and would continue until the very end, whereupon it changed to a path of pure obsidian as one rose out of the valley once more.

At the end of the vale stood the Plains of Judgment, and just beyond the Palace of Hades. From where the goddess stood, both the path and the valley looked desolate and barren but it was nothing but a trick of the eye. Once a body crossed into the vale, he or she would find they were far from alone – grief, heartache, misery, and pain were all waiting to attack.

Literally.

Each burden of man was made into a tangent, sentient being that pulled at even the heartiest soul, until there was nothing but an empty, broken shell of what had once been. Tartarus was torture of the soul's body but the Vale was the heart of all earthly darkness - it was where the soul lost itself.  

Only a fool would purposefully walk into such a place.

Morpheus stood between Hermes and Aphrodite, peering out at the valley. He knew this would be the hardest part of the journey but there was no way around it. There wasn’t a single god or goddess who had ever passed through the Vale of Mourning on foot without Hades' aid. Normally, the  god's chariot was sent to retrieve his guests, then traveled beneath the valley, opening a hole to come back out in front of the palace or the main gate on the other side. To Morpheus’ knowledge, no one had ever attempted to cross through the Vale on foot. The gods were not immune from the suffering of men – there were even some that believed they were more susceptible than most to the suffering lying in wait inside the Vale. Lifetimes of failures, mistakes, bad decisions, and the loss of loved ones could be multiplied a thousand fold for one of their kind.