Destroyer of Light (34 page)

“I
know
you have concerns.”

“Rightfully so, considering—” Demeter’s voice climbed in pitch before she held her tongue and took in a deep breath. “Daughter, you were right.”

“About what?”

“I often speak of— and suffered from— your father’s hypocrisy. But if I have my own private affairs and chastise you for having yours, then I am no better than he.”

Persephone lifted the cup to her lips and sipped a long draught, the ambrosia mingling with the honey, thickened by the barley. It filled her belly with sweetness and warmth, hiding the bitterness of the herbs. “What assurance do I have that you won’t interfere again? That you won’t heap scorn on my husband or our marriage?”

“None, truthfully.”

Persephone snorted into the cup and took another sip.

“Only that I… promise to try.”

She looked up and set the cup down. The cramps eased and the pain lessened as the pennyroyal and willow bark took effect.

“Kore, I’m sorry.”

“But not enough to call me by my real name.”

“I called you that for aeons. You’ve…” she swallowed, the words heavy in her mouth. “You’ve been…
Persephone
for only a few months. Please give me time. I cannot change my ways overnight.”

“Mother,” she said with a strained smile, “can I ask you to change one thing right now?”

“You can ask.”

“Please stop disparaging my husband.” She watched Demeter’s lips thin. “I know how you see him. The
whole world
knows how you see Aidoneus. But I know him, I know the full, unfettered truth of him. And I love him.”

Demeter nodded slowly without meeting her eyes, her forehead creasing.

“He is my other half.” Her mother sighed plaintively, and Persephone felt waves of frustration rolling off of her. She took her mother’s hand in hers. “Just as Iasion was… just as Triptolemus is…
your
other half.”

Demeter grimaced. “Triptolemus… he is a good man. Iasion was a good man— a great comfort to me. But as for my other half…” Tears formed in Demeter’s eyes. “I chose poorly. My choice gave me you, and you’ve given me more joy than I thought possible, but I chose poorly.”

“But you have someone who clearly loves you now.”

“Yes,” she said. “But he and I will exist for eternity. And love doesn’t last that long. I learned that in the most bitter of ways. It will only be a matter of time. Centuries, if I am fortunate…”

Persephone was about to declare her bond with her husband eternal, to argue that love could last forever, but she stayed silent. What did she know of loss and betrayal? Demeter had loved and been abandoned in her most vulnerable hour, then had loved again and lost. If Persephone boasted about her idyllic marriage, she would only hurt her mother. “I am sorry for what I called you.”

Demeter blinked back tears and stared out the window. Lines of worry melted from her face. She smiled, then laughed.

Persephone leaned back, confused. “Mother?”

“No, it’s all right. I forgive you. I just remembered something from long ago.” Persephone inclined her head to listen as the Harvest Goddess continued. “Your husband called me a selfish sow once.”

“Mother…”

“I promise I am not speaking ill of him.” She brought the back of her hand up to her mouth and laughed again. “It was a long time ago, when I was young and foolish. I deserved it… somewhat. I was with Hecate when they slew Kampe. He’d stumbled back to camp, his hair singed, gashes all over him, his cloak still smoking. And I bounded over to Aidoneus and practically shook him by the armor, begging him to tell me that Zeus was unharmed.”

Persephone’s mouth quirked into a half smile. Demeter never spoke about the war except to exalt her father. And even at that, she hadn’t heard those tales since she was a little girl.

“Oh, the rage I put him into!” Demeter guffawed. “Hecate held him back and I was crying and crying… You should have heard the tongue lashing she gave him afterward, and seen his face when he had to apologize to me.”

Persephone giggled, imagining diminutive Hecate scolding her towering husband.

“But I
was
selfish back then. Rebellious and childish.” Demeter snorted. “If I had known then what I know now about your father, I wouldn’t have given a fig about his fate.”

Persephone snickered and drew Demeter into a tight embrace. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I love you, Mother.”

“I love you too, Daughter.” She relaxed. “Even if it comes out all wrong.”

“I know.”

“I’ll try. I promise.” She patted Persephone’s back. “Do you feel any better?”

“I do.” She leaned away, a grin spreading across her face. “Can I… blame my harsh words on the phase of the moon?”

“You can.” Demeter’s eyes lit up. “Are you feeling well enough to travel? I hear Thassos is lovely right now.”

For the next two months
mother and daughter did not argue. Demeter didn’t fuss over her, or pepper her with questions or insinuations. Persephone didn’t object to Minthe remaining her companion.

Hermes came on each full moon to visit Daeira and deliver gifts for Persephone from Aidoneus: first, an assortment of six jeweled hairpins, then a beautifully embroidered wool shawl woven from the fibers of the world below, and lastly a blank papyrus scroll and stylus pen. Demeter held her tongue. She said nothing when Persephone braided and snipped a lock of her hair for Hermes to take back to the Lord of the Dead. When Eumolpus or Metaneira or one of the Eleusinians mentioned anything about Hades, his realm or the afterlife, Demeter remained tight-lipped and let Persephone speak her mind and heart.

Three days before Persephone was to make her journey to the Underworld, Demeter stood in her daughter’s room, watching Persephone twist her hair into an elegant chignon and secure it into place with a gold and garnet hairpin.

“Why, of all places, would you go to Olympus?” she asked her daughter.

“I was invited,” Persephone said with a smile, tucking a loose strand behind her ear and adjusting her floral crown. She’d chosen an arrangement of asphodel and crocus, and put on the necklace and the jeweled girdle that Aidoneus had given her. She changed the color of her peplos to a rich gold, letting the garnets, rubies and fire opals stand out on their own. It was a dress for harvest— for the time between her dual role as Goddess of Spring and Queen of the Underworld. Her coiffured hair and jeweled raiment made her vaguely uncomfortable. This was as finely as she’d ever dressed, save for the ceremonial robes and jewels worn in Hades’s court at judgement.

Persephone giggled to herself. She half suspected that Aidon had transferred the responsibility of judging the wealthy and powerful to Minos, Rhadamanthys and Aeacus just so he would never have to wear uncomfortable ceremonial attire in his throne room again.

“What’s so amusing?”

“Nothing… a memory.”

“Who summoned you to the mountain, anyway?” Demeter asked softly, folding her arms. “I received no such invitation.”

“My father,” she answered cautiously. “He told me I should visit, and I think now is as good a time as any.”

“But you leave in only three days.”

“Exactly,” she said with a smile. “Tomorrow the wheat reaping begins, and I likely won’t get to visit Olympus while I’m below. This is my only chance.”

Demeter shook her head. “That place is a viper pit. Fornication and gossip are the Olympians’ only currency. There is a reason I go as rarely as possible.”

“Then I should find that out on my own, no?”

Demeter exhaled sharply through her nose. “No, you shouldn’t
have to
find out on your own— that’s why I’m warning you. It’s not safe— especially if you value your marriage and your privacy. Besides— it’s unwise to journey there alone as a woman.”

Persephone barely suppressed an eye roll. She wrapped her pomegranate-colored shawl around her shoulders. The mornings were crisp and dewy now, and she guessed it would be even cooler on the top of Olympus.

“Who is accompanying you?” Demeter said, following her downstairs through the Telesterion and into the great hall. She was tempted to ask if Hades was meeting her there for another tryst, and almost drew blood biting her tongue.

“Athena. She’s coming here first. And Hermes said he’d meet us there.”

Demeter’s lips thinned at the mention of Metis’s daughter. She still blamed the Goddess of Wisdom for passively aiding Hades when Kore was abducted from Nysa. “Be careful, Daughter.”

“I promise I’ll be alert and cautious, Mother, and I won’t stay too long. I’ll return before nightfall.” With that, she gave Demeter a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then started for the door. Persephone stepped outside, listening to a lonely sparrow chirp. A great flock of noisy terns flew overhead, bound for the south.

“Persephone?”

Spinning around, she saw the source of the voice, none other than the Patroness of Athens. Athena leaned against the walls of the Telesterion, wearing a sky blue peplos held to her body with a silver cuirass. Her hair was coiffed to hold up a hoplite’s helm that she wore tilted on her head like a crown. It was a lighter, more ornate design than Persephone’s, made in Hephaestus’s forge, not those of the Cyclopes.

“Athena!” Persephone stopped awkwardly in front of her, remembering that the gray-eyed goddess wasn’t as affectionate as she.

Athena surprised Persephone by giving her a tight embrace. “My dear cousin, I’ve missed you… How are you?”

“I’m well, and you?”

“Likewise. What a beautifully woven shawl… a gift from your husband, I presume?”

***

They walked down the Sacred Way, hand in hand, stopping every so often to observe menfolk getting a head start on the barley. The women had resumed their traditional roles inside the home, preparing for harvest, grinding grain into meal, no longer out in the fields. Many had grown heavy with child. Persephone missed seeing them.

“I’ve been watching how everything has progressed since you returned,” Athena said, “and it is simply beautiful. Even I can feel the life in the crops. The greatest part of the harvest is soon, yes?”

“It is, and thank you,” Persephone said, then sighed. “It hasn’t been easy.”

“I can imagine. But is the difficulty in managing the crops or managing Demeter?”

Persephone’s eyes went wide and she guffawed, clapping a hand to her mouth. She glanced sheepishly at Athena, whose nose scrunched when she smiled broadly. Persephone shook her head and spoke. “I… Mother and I get along well enough, and it’s been better these past few months, but I don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye on… several things.”

“Ah…” Athena said. She grew solemn and looked at the ground. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask since I saw you last, Persephone. Can you forgive my inquisition when I was here five months ago? I had heard things. We’d all heard things.”

“I know.”

“And it was wise of you not to divulge anything. I apologize for my motives in desiring your confidence. I prodded you for too much information.”

“You’re forgiven. Aidoneus doesn’t care what anyone on Olympus says about him. And seeing how hungry everyone was for the smallest morsel of news once I returned, I can understand why. Speaking of, I still haven’t heard from Artemis,” she said. The road bent around a centuries-old olive tree, its boughs filled with spear-shaped leaves and heavy with purple and green fruits.

“Give her time. She’s… uncomfortable around
married
women.” Athena reached up and plucked an olive. “I’m indebted to you for bringing these trees to fruit so quickly.”

Persephone shrugged. “They’re very important. I’m happy you asked after them when we last spoke. You care very much for the people of Athens, and this is their greatest crop.”

“Yes,” Athena smiled. “But more importantly, it helps me keep my claim over Attica. Without it, Poseidon would have tried to steal its worshippers from me.”

Persephone quirked an eyebrow. “Truly?”

“He is… not to be trusted,” she said, furrowing her brow.

“To be honest, I’m surprised. Aidoneus always has good things to say about him.”

Athena snorted. “Perhaps so, but your husband is a
man
. It’s different when you’re a woman, especially a
free
woman dealing with him.”

“Hmm,” Persephone acknowledged, remembering her mother’s bitter feud with Zeus, the lengths she had gone to in order to be taken seriously, and all that their struggle had damaged. Such suffering it caused, she thought, this conflict between male and female…

“I would likewise have cautioned you to stay away from Ares, but I doubt he’ll give you any trouble after how you dealt with Sisyphus,” Athena laughed. “He was quick to boast that he disarmed that wicked man but oh, the riot we had with him on Olympus when we found out from Eris! Well, partly from Eris. Hermes let slip what Hypnos told him…”

Persephone half-listened to her go on about it, laughing at Ares’s expense. She trained her features into what was becoming a practiced smile. Persephone would have to tread lightly on Olympus and be careful with whom she spoke. Her mother was right. Gossip was their currency.

As for their other tender, she was sure that fear of her husband would keep her safe from any sexual advances. Hades’s frightful reputation would keep her from harm. But if she revealed the depth of his affection for her, it might endanger her. Her shoulders sank. She would even have to be careful about how much she shared with Athena. They stopped on the road once they were clear of any mortals. Athena raised her right hand, ready to open a path to the home of the gods.

“Allow me.” Persephone smiled and summoned an asphodel bloom from the ground, which burst into a swirl of flame, creating a gateway through the ether. She drew their destination closer, the gardens of Olympus coming into sharp relief.

“Well then…” Athena gave her a wide-eyed grin, impressed. “After you, Queen of the Underworld,” she said with a playful bow.

“No, I insist, Patroness of Athens,” Persephone smiled. They giggled and Athena walked forward, holding Persephone’s hand.

They were met with blinding light and lush gardens when the gateway closed behind them. The trees and shrubs were carefully manicured and more symmetrical than anything that Persephone could have imagined, as though each tree had been clipped to expose their eternal fruits perfectly. She saw apples— a rarity in Attica— figs, dates and pomegranates, each fruit exactly like the other, growing above perfectly flat grass lawns where every blade seemed to be cut to the same length. An olive tree grew with only enough twists in its limbs to allow someone to easily scale it and pluck its dark purple fruits, which were all the same shape and shade. Persephone had only known these trees to grow untamed, at the whim of rain and sun. She discovered that she didn’t really need her shawl. The temperature was… ideal.

“Glorious, isn’t it?” Athena said, breaking her contemplation. She picked up the skirts of her peplos and walked up the perfectly hewn marble steps.

Persephone followed, and they entered a vast atrium, fronted on all sides with colonnades and murals of plants and animals. Water bubbled up from a spring in the center into the rectangular basin of a fountain. Its soothing trickle was accompanied by a lyre and flute played by two women in diaphanous linen chitons, golden beaded nets gilding their coiffured blonde hair. The delicately plucked strings and the clear tones of the flute filled the air with a soft, almost slumberous music.

Athena traversed the atrium with the Goddess of Spring in tow, and the musicians stopped mid-verse, genuflecting before the goddesses. “Persephone, these are Erato and Euterpe, the muses of poetry.”

“My lady,” they said in unison and bowed.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“May we continue?” one said.

“…Of course,” Persephone answered, surprised that they had asked her permission.

They curtsied again and started their melody anew. Persephone wondered if everyone would be so formal here. They walked on, passing into a great symposium hall. She balked. This was the throne room of Olympus… the same one she had seen in the vision Kronos had given her in Tartarus. There was a grand dais with twelve steps, upon which sat the throne of Zeus, and Hera’s seat three steps below his. A banquet table spread out on one end of the hall, strewn with amphorae of all sizes, each filled with wine, nectar or olive oil. Ambrosia was piled beside round loaves of bread, a great wheel of goat cheese, grapes, and figs. Great cuts of cooked, seasoned meat sat on the table: lamb, goat, and the fruits of the sea— the smells of which were overwhelming. Persephone felt nauseous. Though she would never begrudge the mortals their meat, neither she nor her mother ever touched it. None of the immortals
needed
to eat; they feasted for pleasure. Feasts arrived by way of libations and sacrifices, so food seldom, if ever, appeared in the Underworld. Aidon never partook unless it was a special occasion, like the first ripe pomegranate from their grove.

Mingling alongside the table and throughout the room were a host of immortals so finely clad that it made her feel plain. On her first day in the Underworld, she had thought the jewels Aidoneus had given her to be extravagant. But the gods and goddess, as well as their retinues and attendants, looked… over done. A few glanced at her, some out of curiosity, some in recognition. Over strains of music from every corner of the room she could hear faint whispers of ‘Persephone’, ‘Hades’ and ‘Demeter’.

Persephone suddenly felt herself missing the Underworld more acutely than ever. Though her husband was the Rich One, his domain the origin of every jewel and pin and fine gold chain adorning these Olympian gods, Aidoneus never made a show of it. She thought of the diamond and sapphire ceiling of the grotto pool under the palace. To him, jewels were not evidence of power or prestige. Instead, he carefully chose what he thought most suited something, or best complemented someone. Persephone touched her necklace and smiled.

“I have to warn you, Persephone, not everyone here is worthy of your time,” Athena said as they walked through the atrium arm in arm. “You should stay away from Apollo. He’ll only flatter you, and he doesn’t take rejection well. Hermes is a
notorious
gossip, as I’m sure you already know. And don’t trifle with either Hera or Aphrodite.”