Destroyer of Light (38 page)

But that was the crux of it. His seed. It was the truth of what Demeter had left unspoken in her passionless dismissal of their conjugal delights. Her father’s pursuit of nymphs, goddesses, and mortal women seldom lasted beyond a single coupling, yet his children were strewn about the earth like wild oat grass.

Eight months had passed since Aidoneus had first taken her in his chariot— outside the boundaries of the realm of the dead. Even if Hecate was correct and conception wasn’t possible in the Underworld, she’d been at her peak of fertility on the way there. They had met at midsummer in the Plutonion. But they had coupled when the moon was waning and she was past her cycle’s fertility. And surely something as momentous as conceiving a god didn’t always happen at the first opportunity…

“We’ve never actively tried to conceive a child,” Persephone said demurely.

Demeter pursed her lips and shook her head. “It happens if it’s supposed to happen. If it
can
happen. There’s no
trying
about it, Kore.”

She clenched her teeth. Her anger rekindled and flared into a roaring fire. “I’ve asked you so many times, Mother, to please stop calling me that. Kore means maiden. And if we’re talking about my— my marital life with my husband— then obviously—”

“You asked
me
about children. About your duties as his wife.”

“My
duties
as…” she looked away and shook her head.

“Yes, your imagined duty to bear him a child. Because honestly, I have no idea why you would willingly do so, since you must divide your time between worlds. Besides— the last time a god from below begat on a goddess of the earth, they brought forth Typhoeus, who nearly destroyed—”

“Enough!!” She stilled when a few villagers looked up at them and then hastily returned to their work.

“Kore, you asked me to swear to tell you—”

“I’m not speaking about this anymore! You’ve proven over and over that you know nothing about my husband.”

Demeter softened. The last thing she wanted was for her daughter to leave upset with her and have Aidoneus whispering hatred and lies in her ear until the snows retreated. “Daughter, forgive me. This must be very difficult for you, knowing that tomorrow you must leave the sunlight and all life behind.”

“I—”

“You’re overwrought, and here I am making it worse.” Demeter grabbed Persephone in a tight hug, her daughter’s arms pinned to her sides, before drawing back and resting her hands on Persephone’s shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

Overwrought? I’m the Queen of the Underworld and I’m not a little girl anymore!
She looked down at her bare, mud stained feet, her toes curling in the drying grasses. “I’m… The past few days have been long.”

Triptolemus was trudging toward them, a broad smile on his face. He carried a dark clump of dirt with cutting from the strongest wheat crop sticking out of it. Demeter gave him a wide grin and Persephone forced a smile.

“Come,” Demeter said. “We’ll go back to the Telesterion and rest. I’ll make you a warm cup of
kykeon
… you’ll feel better, I promise.”

Persephone sighed.

***

“Tomorrow is not here yet. You’re here. You’re safe with me,” he whispered, sinking into her. “I love you, my lady.”

His lips tasted of her, and her body still convulsed with the pleasure he’d given her. Demeter raised her hips and wrapped her legs around Triptolemus’s back. His arms gripped her shoulders and she clung to him, but didn’t meet his gaze. She tried to clear her mind, push away everything that she’d talked about with Persephone. She squeezed her eyes tightly and whimpered with pleasure into the hollow of his neck. She loathed herself for thinking about the god who had captured and captivated her daughter at a time like this. Every time she tried to banish her worries, they came back tenfold.

Hades had
lied
to Kore, and once her daughter knew the truth she would be broken, would hate him, but would still be forced to shuffle between worlds instead of leaving that deceitful monster forever. Would he drag her heart and hopes across the ages as she tried in vain to get with child by him? Would he blame her so he wouldn’t be forced to answer her about his own infertility? Demeter shuddered, futilely trying to stop herself from weeping. Here she was in the warm arms of her own lover, yet tears streamed down her face.

“Demeter?” Triptolemus breathed raggedly. She turned her face away from him, ashamed. “No, no no, my light,” he soothed, and traced the line of one of her tears with his rough thumb.

“I can’t stop thinking about… I’m sorry…” Her voice came out far weaker than she intended.

He kissed her again, chastely. “Do you want to stop?”

“No…”

“I won’t be offended.” He tentatively pulled away from her. “You’ve been through too much today.”

“My prince, please…” She dug her heels into his lower back, pushing him deeper. He let out a long gasp.

“Are you sure?”

“I need this. I want you,” she said.
I want you to sleep soundly beside me
, she thought. “Please…”
I don’t want to speak about this.

He gripped her hip and pushed forward. “I love you, Demeter.”

She moaned, tensing around him, concentrating on the sensation of him moving within her. When her thoughts drifted to the future, she would clench around him again, drowning her worries in waves of pleasure. Her head rested on his shoulder and his breath quickened. He swelled and grew harder, his thrusts more erratic. Demeter squeezed and rippled around him, and Triptolemus’s body stiffened and bucked. His skin was smooth under her touch and she laid kisses on his shoulder and collarbone when he collapsed upon her, a last shuddering moan lost in her hair.

With a contented sigh, Triptolemus pulled free from Demeter, lying beside her. He pulled her back against him and drew her into his embrace, an arm supporting her head, the other cupping her breast. Demeter lay still, listening to his breathing, the heat of his body behind her and the cool trail of his seed on her thigh.

“I’ll be here for you,” he said. “And she’ll return sooner than you think.”

“I know.”

“We have all winter together, my love. In a week, we’ll finish building the second granary, and all will be well for the mortals.” He kissed her neck. “And I’ll be here with you until spring comes again. I promise… I won’t leave you. Teaching our methods to the people in Scythia and Illyria can wait…”

Triptolemus drifted off. Demeter lay in his arms, her eyes wide open.

***

Persephone lay in bed, thankful that the noises had stopped, and anxious to be alone with her thoughts. She would see Aidon tomorrow, and all her questions would be answered. Hermes would take her there— Hermes, who had let her twist in the wind during her visit at Olympus. She’d have words for the Messenger when he arrived to escort her tomorrow morning.

Demeter would likely not conceive by Triptolemus. Unlike the licentious gods, it was rare for a goddess to do so with a lesser being. Hypnos had kept poor shepherd boy-turned-immortal Endymion in eternal slumber so that he might sire children by his lover Selene, the great Titaness of the moon. Triptolemus might be immortal, but no divine blood ran through his veins and no half-sisters or brothers would be forthcoming for Persephone. Her forehead crinkled. Was that why Demeter kept insisting that Persephone’s union with Aidoneus would produce no offspring? Was she jealous?

Hades and Persephone were equals, divinity flowing through them since birth. And the deathless ones seemed to effortlessly produce children. Poseidon and Zeus had countless demigod and immortal offspring. She had been between the tides when Hades had first taken her, and should have conceived then, if her mother’s words were truthful.

Of course he will tell you the truth… if you know which questions to ask.

Kronos’s words splintered through her. Persephone hadn’t even considered children until after Tartarus.

I can give you what he cannot.

She froze, curling her arms around herself. Hades had nearly lunged at Kronos when he’d said it. She’d thought nothing of it at the time. Persephone contemplated the vision she’d received there, when Kronos had tempted them: Aidoneus enthroned at Olympus with her by his side, heavy with child.

Persephone, don’t listen to him!

Aidoneus had broken her trance and in the vision Kronos sat by her side. A wave of nausea passed over her. The Tyrant hadn’t been showing her heavy with her husband’s child, but with his own child. The desire to have a child with Aidon had been planted like a splinter in her mind, and the Tyrant must have thought that she already knew that her husband could not…

Tears streaked her face. Persephone thought about her father’s peculiar new oath to them, that their son would inherit Olympus. If he knew the truth, why would he say such a thing? And wasn’t his son Ares his heir? He was at least legitimate. Why not Athena? She was easily Zeus’s favorite. She remembered the look that had crossed Aidoneus’s face when Zeus had spoken, the hurt that had twisted his features. The same expression of anger and hurt crept across her face as she lay in bed.

Zeus hadn’t made the oath to make amends. He’d said it to bring his vassal, her husband, back into line after Aidon had caused so much trouble. Persephone sobbed quietly. There would
be
no children. Not above ground, not below.

Ten years… a thousand… of nothing
, the God of Prophecy had spat at her.

Every mention of children she’d ever made flashed through her mind. Aidon in the pool after their last practice, wincing when she’d said that she wasn’t innocent to how babies were made… Hecate’s vague dismissal of a possible pregnancy in the Underworld… the stopping of her cycle and its violent return when she came above. His utter silence when they last lay together… Aidon’s admission that he had eaten the food of the Underworld as penance for nearly unleashing the Titans.

As atonement for what I’d nearly done, I ate the asphodel roots in the fields to eternally bind myself here and took the name Chthonios.

She stopped breathing. Did the fruits of the Underworld render one unable to bear children? Did he know and willingly do so to punish himself? Acid welled up in her throat and tasted sickeningly like pomegranate. In binding herself to her realm and the man she loved, had she unwittingly destroyed any chance of having children for all the long aeons of her life to come?

It made no sense. The nymphs of the Underworld bore children. Askalaphos and Menoetes were both children of the Stygian nymphs. Minthe herself was born from a nymph of the Underworld.

He is Hades and Hades is him, and there is no life among the dead.

He ruled the Dead. He was Lord of the Dead, she thought to herself. Persephone burst into tears, unable to control her confusion and sadness any longer. Her chest hurt, her nose ran, she huddled into a ball and cried. What a little fool she had been, to think it could be otherwise. How silly her denial must have sounded to her mother. She would have to face Aidoneus tomorrow. What could she possibly say to him? Should she say anything at all when she herself was uncertain of what sort of future any child of hers might have? She rolled over, taking the sheets with her and pulled a pillow to her face to bury her sobs.

***

Demeter listened in the dark. Triptolemus breathed slowly and heavily against her neck, but she could hear her daughter. A tear rolled down her face and she scowled.

How dare Hades do this to her Kore? If he had been honest with her, would she have bound herself to his kingdom? Or would Kore have walked away from him and returned to the light, never looking back? Aidoneus had robbed a mother of her child, and had robbed her child of being a mother. He would steal all Kore’s happiness, his selfishness leaching her dry as the centuries passed. And once she had become as empty as the chaff blowing on the cool breezes outside, he would grow tired of her and take another.

Demeter got out of bed, hastily pinning a chiton across her shoulders and wrapping a himation around her to keep out the chilly air. She padded across the floor, then slowly closed the door so as not to wake Triptolemus. Demeter lifted the hood of her himation over the mess of her loose hair and picked up an oil lamp in the hallway, lighting it as she walked.

She paused outside her daughter’s doorway. The sound of Kore’s barely muffled choking and sobbing filled the hallway. Demeter’s eyes brimmed with tears. There was nothing to be done. Kore would not listen to her, just as she had not listened this afternoon, just as long ago Demeter had not listened to Hecate’s warnings about Zeus’s nature. Her daughter would go below tomorrow, likely confront her husband and his heartbreaking lies, and have to stay below with him, either watching her imagined happiness crash down around her or timidly believing his falsehoods.

Demeter and Kore would be condemned to this, coming and going, waiting, dreading, for eternity. And every time she returned, Demeter would see just a little more of her daughter left behind, consumed by the dead and their inexorable master.

She knew what had happened to Sisyphus, and how it had been Persephone’s doing. Her daughter was strong, but Aidoneus would weaken her over time. Without him, she could rule the Underworld by herself as its Queen if there was any truth to what Hecate or Nyx believed. But stubborn Kore would persist, fed by lies and false hope until all the light within her burned out and her joy turned to ashes in her mouth.