Destroyer of Light (16 page)

He blanched. There must be some mistake. “Sweet one.”

She looked up at him, her eyes swollen and red.

“Sweet one,” he repeated, smiling reassuringly and slowly shaking his head. “They wouldn’t
do that
. No one can; not even Zeus. They swore an unbreakable oath. The balance of power was built around
our betrothal
, Persephone. None of the gods above would dare go against that.” He raised an eyebrow and looked around. “Why isn’t Hermes here now?”

“I told him to cross with Charon. To meet us here in the throne room. If he’s not here yet then Charon must have delayed him long enough for me to tell you first.”

“Wife, why didn’t you call for me? I would have set this—”

There was a loud knock at the door.

She looked back at him and brushed away the last of her tears. Persephone shut her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to appear calm.
It’s him, Aidon. We need to take our places. On our thrones.

Persephone broke away from him and strode toward the dais. Aidoneus followed her. Perplexed, he sat down at her side.
Why bother to give Hermes a formal audience?
Aidoneus looked over at her.
I’d just as well have met him on the far side of the Styx to sort out this nonsense.

No,
she said.
I want the Messenger to come to us. If he has something to say, he’ll say it here where it means something. I will not tolerate the notion that I can be spirited off like a little girl.

You needn’t worry, my love. He won’t take you anywhere. By Zeus’s very oath, he cannot do so
. He squeezed her hand reassuringly and faced forward again, his features becoming grim and dispassionate.
And we won’t allow it.

The door groaned open and Hermes walked cautiously into the great hall. He dropped to one knee before he dared to look up at them. How much had Persephone told Hades about their encounter at the river?

“Rise,” Aidoneus rumbled.

Hades and Persephone Chthonios, rulers of the Underworld, sat beside each other on their thrones. His was a solid mass of ebony, worn and polished by the aeons. Hers was of equal height to his, wrought from bright iron into a delicate pattern of twisting asphodel. There was no space between the thrones. Their fingers were intertwined and Hermes watched as Hades’s thumb slowly brushed over his wife’s. A silent wave of momentary distress crossed her face before she resumed a regal emotionless cold, echoing that of her dread husband.

A chill made its way up Hermes’s spine. His position before the rulers of the Underworld and what he had been commanded to do came into sharp relief. Even Zeus kept Hera’s throne on a lower dais than his own, and would never take an audience holding his wife’s hand. He was well aware that they had consummated their union; that much had been etched in his mind forever, to their collective and eternal chagrin. But Demeter was wrong; they were all wrong. Persephone truly loved him; Aidoneus loved her. And Hermes’s assignment was to part them forever.

Trying not to think about how these words might be his last before Hades threw him into Tartarus, he opened his satchel. The golden vellum scroll shook in his hands as he unrolled it. His mouth was bone dry.
Like Tantalus
, he thought darkly, cursing his own imagination.

What Aidoneus will do pales in comparison to what Zeus
will
do to you if you don’t deliver this.
He shivered again.
Probably send me to Tartarus
. His mind was made up. If he was to be damned either way, then so be it. Hermes stood tall once more. He was the Messenger; the voice of his father, the King of the Gods. Or so he kept trying to convince himself.

He took a deep breath as he unfurled the scroll. “B-by the holy order of Zeus Pater Aegiduchos Cronides, King of Olympus and of the Gods,” he swallowed hard, “the marriage of Hades Aidoneus Chthonios, firstborn son of Kronos, Lord of the Underworld, and Persephone, daughter of Demeter, Maid— Lady of the Flowers is hereby annulled. The histories shall hereafter state that Persephone tempted the Lord of the Underworld by picking a flower sacred to his realm in order to draw him up from the depths. Hades then abducted Persephone from her garden in Nysa by force, committing rapine against her, and dragged her unwillingly to the Underworld to force her into unlawful marriage. Any titles bestowed upon Persephone by Hades are hereby rescinded and any issue from their union will be
considered—”

The parchment burst into flames, swirling embers turning to ash between Hermes’s singed hands and vanishing before Hades’s outstretched curling fist. The Messenger gasped and stumbled backwards as the Lord of the Underworld closed on him. Hermes didn’t see Hades’s hands wrap around his throat; he only felt his voice, his breath, cutting off. The dark god stared down at him, gritting his teeth, his eyes lit with fires of murderous rage as his fingers tightened around the young god’s neck. Hermes tugged and clawed fruitlessly at Hades’s grip, his gold petasos clattering to the ground. His knees buckled underneath him, and his senses began to fail him. As if from a great distance, he heard Hades’s wife call out.

“
Aidon, stop!
”

Hades released Hermes and watched the Messenger crumple onto the marble floor at his feet. As Hermes coughed and sucked in rasping breaths, Aidoneus bellowed at him. “You dare to abduct my queen from the shores of Styx, you insult us both, and then you announce that the oldest oath your king ever made is now broken?!” Hades kicked the crumpled god’s petasos clear onto the terrace outside. “That he plans to end my marriage and
steal my wife
?!”

Hermes held up his hand, trying to shield himself from Hades’s wrath, his breathing still labored. “I’m only the Messenger…”

“You are a coward hiding behind Zeus’s skirts!” He picked Hermes up by the front of his tunic, shaking his limp form. “Answer for what you have said to me in my own halls!”

“Please, Aidon…” Persephone said quietly, taking a step toward him. Hades looked over his shoulder at her and paused, collecting himself, then dropped Hermes and retreated a step back.

“You are no longer welcome here, Hermes Psychopompos,” Aidoneus said with a growl as he turned back toward the dais. “Do not ever come to the shores of the Styx again.”

“You need me now more than ever,” he said as he coughed, slowly getting to his knees. “The dead are too numerous for Charon’s boat. The unquiet souls will wander back into the world of the living and sap what’s left of its vitality even faster. They
must
be returned here, and who else will do it but me?”

“That is not my concern,” he said quietly.

“The borders between the realms are collapsing! If you do nothing, every man, woman and child will die, Hades!”

“I said that’s not my concern!” Aidoneus shouted. He sat back down on his throne, motioning for his wife to sit with him. He narrowed his eyes at the boyish god before him. “Strange that the rest of the immortals care so much for them now, when century after century it fell to
me
to clean up the messes you made with your petty wars, your pestilence, your famine and floods! Need I remind you how aeons ago
your king
left only
two mortals
alive when he flooded all of Hellas?”

“This is diff—”

“How?” He slammed his fist on the arm of his throne. “How is this different?!”

“Because this isn’t Attica or Crete or even just Hellas. Humans are dying
everywhere
.”

“Mortals begin their slow march to my realm from the minute they draw their first breath! Some arrive faster than others.”

“Please, Hades… You must return Persephone to Demeter—”

“I
must
do nothing!”

“Hades, I’m begging you. Our worlds are intertwined. Have you not noticed that souls are no longer drinking from the Lethe and leaving your realm to be reborn? That mortals are openly crossing back and forth as if no border existed? Don’t think we haven’t noticed that Sisyphus of Ephyra—”

“Sisyphus is
mine
to deal with, and I assure you my justice will be hard and swift,” he growled.

“You’ll never get the chance to exact it, Aidoneus!” Hermes said. “The world is ending. Because you
insist
on keeping
her
the world is ending!”

“Hasn’t your
king
taken enough from me already?” He leaned forward and gripped the arms of his throne, his knuckles turning white. “That scroll you delivered was a
declaration of war
!”

“Aidon, my beloved, no—” Persephone said, her voice low. She placed a hand on his. He turned to her and caught it in his grasp.

“What choice are they giving me?” he pleaded, wide eyed. “What choice do I have? You heard what he said!”

“Reason with your husband, madam. The world cannot survive—”

“You will be silent, Hermes!” she said, her voice ringing through the hall. She turned back to Aidon and stroked his cheek. “My love, think about what you’re saying.”

“I have, sweet one,” he rumbled. “I’ve thought about this from the moment Charon ferried me across the river all those thousands of years ago.” He turned to address Hermes. “If it were not for me, if it were not for every
moment
I spent planning, fighting,
killing
in the Titanomachy, they would all be in Tartarus right now! I
won that war
for them and this is the thanks I get?! Is it not enough that I was forced to be the warden of Tartarus, night and day, for all eternity?”

“But, Aidon—”

“If it were not for my own accursed suggestion to divide the lots, I would be sitting Olympus right now, ruling over all by birthright, instead of being
discarded
down here! I should have trusted my instincts and
never
left the rulership of the cosmos to that bloviating, philandering fool!”

She turned to him, shocked. “Aidon, what are you saying?”

“That I should have done this aeons ago, and now is the time to correct my mistake! They are weak. Look at them cower before us even now,” Hades said, pointing dismissively at Hermes. “Every moment that Demeter starves the earth only enriches our kingdom and weakens theirs.”

Persephone watched the rims of his irises begin to glow with the fires of the Phlegethon. She shook her head gently, considering her next words carefully, and spoke to him where Hermes could not hear them.
I cannot support you in this. Aidoneus, please. Tartarus is reaching through you. Kronos—

This has nothing to do with my father!
He turned away from her frightened gaze.
He has no power over me.

But these are not your words
, she said.
They sound like his!

Can’t you see what is happening?
His eyes returned to dark brown and grew wide, his panic palpable.
They are separating us forever! Their oaths, their laws, now mean nothing and they are making you and I and every mortal on earth victims of their capriciousness! They care nothing for us, and nothing for them!
He gripped her hand in his. “Allow me to end their foolishness,” he said aloud.

“These are not your words,” she repeated.

“I am the eldest of my generation and you of yours. You and I are the rulers of the cosmos by
birthright
! It is time for us to embrace our fate, my love. Please, I need you.” He knelt forward from his chair, and fell to his knees in front of her throne. Aidoneus took her hands in his.

She looked down at him, mapping the fear and desperation on his face, her heart beating out of her chest. Persephone considered acquiescing— considered telling him to unleash the Erinyes, the Keres, the Tribe of the Oneiroi, the Hundred Handed Ones, all their innumerable allies and go to war. Then she remembered what she had seen in Tartarus. The throne. The fall. The rising embers. Destruction. Rape. Death.

Aidoneus squeezed her hands, drawing her attention back from those frightful visions. “The Olympians have never taken responsibility the way that you and I would— look how they wantonly destroy the very threads of existence itself! You
know
in your heart that we can rule more justly than they ever did. Say the word, Persephone, and we will cast down these oath breakers. I will exalt you as the queen of heaven, the earth and the seas, of everything above and below. You and I will reign over the cosmos and restore order and honor and justice.”

Persephone shook her head in horror. “Absolute power drove your father to madness, Aidoneus. Just as it did to your grandfather. It will do the same to you— and to me. And to any immortal. We are the rulers beneath the earth, and only there. And the earth above is
dying
! Chthonia’s borders are weakened, and we must tend to our own realm.”

“They’re not as weak as you think,” he muttered, out of earshot of Hermes. “And neither are we.”

“You saw what happened when they tried to take Sisyphus to the Pit. Nothing is safe anymore, my love. You know what
he
showed us! Kronos and the rest of the Titans will break free if this disaster continues. They will kill
everything
. Destroy
everything
; destroy us! He is influencing you even now—”