by Eris Adderly
Helios shook his head and gave the nymph a tap on the shoulder. She slid to lounge near his feet and he shifted in his chair. “The Hunter and the Warrior did not lead you false, Demeter. I can confirm the tearing of the earth they described. What Zeus’s daughters did not see was your Persephone tumbling into the rift during the tremor.”
Demeter’s throat closed and the reflection of her eyes bugged back at her. Her mouth came open, tongue and palate working and failing to produce sound. When she found her voice at last, it broke at a wail.
“So she’s gone? My daughter is gone?” Her hands were at her face, a barricade to the sanity that might escape through her mouth.
“No! Not gone at all.” Helios rose and stepped in her direction, one bright hand raised in reassurance. “I saw her fall to its end from my chariot. The rift opened æther as well as earth. Lord Hades was there to catch her. I assure you, Goddess, I saw her unharmed.”
Her lungs tried to collapse. Demeter whirled on the titan, and then hissed at the light and turned to face the obsidian, the heels of her palms rubbing her eyes.
“Hades?” There was horror, and then there was this. “Hades has her? For what purpose could that stone of a god possibly want my—” Fingers flew to her mouth as her own gasp severed her words.
“I think you may wish to have a conversation with Zeus about this,” the titan said. He resumed his seat and made some oblique gesture at the two Hesperides. They gathered themselves and disappeared away behind the throne, but not before pausing to whisper in his ear. The line of his mouth was much less jolly than it had been.
“What does Zeus have to do with this?” Her nails bit her palms, quelling fury she could ill afford.
Helios sighed. “Just over a week before Persephone’s fall, Lord Zeus spoke with Aphrodite about Hades courting a wife. This did I also see while on my course.” Radiant hands spread in useless apology.
“A wife? And Aphrodite involved as well? Am I the only one who didn’t know of this? Why did no one speak to me?” Demeter’s voice climbed octaves and her eyebrows followed.
“And if they had spoken to you, would you have allowed such a thing?”
“No!”
All efforts to remain calm in the presence of the titan fell away like so much leaden ash.
“Demeter,” his reflection said, incensing with placating tones, “what could be so terrible about a marriage between Persephone and Hades? He is just, he is cool-headed. None of us have ever known him to take lovers, and the Unseen One has gone many an age without a consort. As a husband, he has much to offer your daughter: dominion in two realms instead of one, power only matched by the Lord of Lightnings himself, all the riches under the earth.” He gestured wide at the gold and precious stones covering nearly every surface in the room. “I have seen tragedy, Goddess, and it did not look like this.”
Her knuckles whitened around unmollified fists at her sides. Tears stung the corners of her eyes and not from glaring at the blinding immortal at her back.
“I tried to protect her!” She could feel saliva gathering in her mouth. “Hermes and Apollo? Do you know what they would have done to my only daughter? And now you tell me Hades Clymenus has taken her instead? The mortals won’t even speak his name, Helios! He is a monster!”
“Then here we are.” Helios settled back into his throne and ran fingers through molten locks of hair. “As I said, you should speak to Zeus. I have told you what I know.”
The goddess faced the image of the titan mirrored in the black stone wall, her gaze unblinking. Furious. His eyes, when she met them at last, were sunspots. Hers were a mess of scalding tears. There were no words left to say.
Demeter strode from throne room, from the halls of the House of the Sun. The night waited for her. Wrath waited for her.
The presumption. The audacity! Hades. Aphrodite. Zeus!
They would return her daughter. Or they would come to know ruin. There was no other choice.
*
V Trust
The river of fire curved its way through the Great Cavern like an endless molten serpent. Of all the unimaginable sights Persephone had seen since her descent into the Underworld, the Phlegethôn, its destructive flow somehow death and life at once, proved so far the most worthy of her combined fear and awe.
Well. Except perhaps for that first glimpse of Lord Hades.
Both red ends of the oozing ribbon of rock disappeared into the vast black of the cavern, one ahead of her, the other at her back. In the distance, what looked like a bridge spanned the river at an impossible height, and it was toward this landmark Persephone made her steady way.
She kept, of course, a wide and respectful distance from the guttural crackle of the river even as her path followed its deadly curves.
Hades had given her leave to explore and, once she had assessed the halls of his palace as more or less barren and uninteresting, one of the famous rivers of the Unseen Realm had no trouble capturing her interest. Doubly so now that late afternoon warmed the realms above and the watery paráthyra had gone golden and dim.
The lakes of the mortal plane. Who knew?
So many surprises here.
Her mother wouldn’t even allow her on Olympos during a crowded feast day where there would have been a hundred chaperones to shepherd her interactions. Now, here she was in the Underworld, supervised by no one at all. Allowing the Lord of the Dead to play his wicked games.
And she had allowed it, hadn’t she?
Agreed to obey at first, yes, but when the commands came, did she not enjoy them? So few had come as outright demands.
Stand up. Come here.
There had been those, true. But the greater portion had come as requests. Suggestions insinuated hot and deep, sure as the Phlegethôn twisted its inevitable way across the cavern floor.
Will you allow me to touch you? She had.
Do I have something you want? He did.
Shall I free you?
The last one made something in her belly turn over as she neared the foot of the bridge. While Persephone could curse herself for falling into his clever trap with the Elaionapothos—Fates, when had she become so naïve?—she should have raged more at her blind faith in a god she barely knew who wished to restrain her. Though their first unforgettable coupling had gone astonishingly, horribly right, there was no way she could have foreseen such an outcome. The encounter might have been much, much worse, and there would have been nothing she could have done about it.
And yet there was something in it. Something in him.
Was it that voice? That dark purr that rasped at the hidden core of her being? Was it the abyss in his eyes that promised to whisper back only truths, no matter how awful?
Whatever the truth, he’d promised not to hurt her. And Persephone believed. In his own realm, where Hades held the entire advantage in power, what need would he have to lie?
Not until you ask me to.
Even with the Phlegethôn’s heat shimmering the air, Persephone shivered. He had sounded so confident in her eventual arrival at such a point, but she couldn’t imagine what the intervening journey might look like. Yet each new advance he made had found her willing, begging.
What would she beg for next?
The bridge loomed ahead, a wonder in pale stone, larger in every dimension than it had appeared from the other side of the cavern. Its arching deck traversed a far greater distance than the width of the river alone. Persephone could see from the violent and mutable nature of boiling rock why it would be necessary to place the bridge’s uprights as far out of the path of potential destruction as possible.
The arc of the crossing rose with subtle grace from the surrounding cavern landscape, its grade easy for the passage of a cart or chariot. Persephone’s curiosity, however, had taken her to the base of the nearest upright, around which a staircase spiraled for travelers on foot.
Travelers. Pff. Who would those be? The mortal dead? The unsettling Enodia?
Yet as far as sh
e could see in any direction, there was no one. An hour’s lonely trek from the palace had her humbled. With the Underworld negating her ability to will herself over the distance, and the lack of other beings busying the space around her, there had been no choice but to dwell within herself as she walked.
Whether she could accept what she found there was another story altogether.
The curving stair before her fanned out around the column of the upright, not so much hewn as grown from the surrounding structure. Complicated sprays of milky crystal glittered at every crease in the stone, the spikes exceeding the length of her limbs or, here and there, her entire body. Their beauty bristled with chaos, but beneath that, the goddess felt art. Lit from below with the ruddy light of the river, the tower dazzled as surely as did the surface of Poseidon’s seas or the snow-covered slopes of Zeus’s mount.
Persephone had never met a stair she didn’t want to climb, and this far-flung wonder was no different. It only took one sandal on the bottom step.
She was rising, circling the upright. Crystal points glinted along her path like so many lovely, dangerous teeth. The only sounds in this remote part of the cavern were the crackling grind of the Phlegethôn and the hardened leather under her feet saluting every step.
Up and up she went, the ascent continuing for what felt like hours, though the light from the paráthyra told her it could have been no such length of time. Persephone began to worry she’d made a horrible mistake when her steps brought her the last bend around the upright to lead out onto the bridge itself.
Flaming creation, it’s about time.
She turned to survey the way she’d come and marveled.
The cavern domed roughly away in every direction, concealed in shadow except for a few, scattered lights. The spare patchwork of mortal lakes overhead, the minimal illumination Hades kept near the entrances and walkways of the now distant palace, and of course, the Phlegethôn.
The River of Fire stretched into a narrower band under the terrible height of the bridge. Though the distance made the churning breadth seem less, the heat, rising past where she stood, was more.
Her fingertips traced along the stone of the railing as she moved out toward the highest part of the arch. Far above, a small paráthyro let in enough wavering daylight to show her the curving roadway. Without it, the bridge’s path would have been no more than a black void bisecting the bright line of the river.
The cavern, its reach vast and limits questionable, swallowed the sound of her footsteps on the high span of stone. When she made it to the center of the structure, Persephone settled against the railing and let go of her focus.
It was a weight lifted to simply steep in the enormity of it. The rising heat loosening her limbs, the glowing brand of the river on the shadows of the cavern floor. The brush of red linen over her hips. Stone under her palms that felt like a temple’s steps warmed under the sun.
A glance down at her hands proved the only disruption. There was Polyxene’s ring, a dim glow, reminding her of choices unmade.
The Lord of the Dead, in all his seductive Underworld glory, would be an unreachable memory once her mother found and dragged her home. Entertaining ideas of ‘perhaps’ alongside the ruler of the Unseen Realm would be a foolish mistake. When her days returned to their prior normalcy, as was inevitable, the ring offered a chance of escape.
But is this not also an escape?
It was, and one such as she couldn’t have imagined, but, damn the Fates, it wouldn’t last. Those eyes, that voice, the delicious trill of fear when he made those demands. He wanted her to walk blind toward every outcome, the potential for disaster looming, but each time had ended with her calling out for—
“The River of Fire suits you.”
Hades.
She peeled her heart from the roof of her mouth as the strolling god approached. Whether he’d willed himself atop the bridge or moved with such care the daze of her thoughts had concealed the sound of his steps, it took her a handful of deep breaths to calm the speed of her pulse.
“How so?” Her best efforts not to appear startled were laughable as Hades came to her side at the railing.
“It is a live thing in a dead realm,” he said, hands folded behind his back. “It inspires a healthy fear.”
Persephone snorted. “No one down here is afraid of me.”
“Aren’t they?” The river lit him red and orange along his left side. Bottomless eyes glinted.
What does he mean by that?
“How did you find me here?” she said. “Did you send someone to track me through the shadows?”
“Why?” The corner of his mouth twitched, the beginnings of a smile. “Were you trying to run?”
“No.” An indignant hand came to her hip and her eyes raked him from brow to waist. A further curve of his lips showed what he thought of her attempts at derision.
“I can smell you.”
“What?”
“What else in the Underworld smells of green outside my orchards? You are simple enough to find.”
“But … this far?”
He shrugged. “It is not for nothing I remain Lord of this realm.”
Persephone frowned.
“You scowl, Daughter of Olympos,” he said, placing his own palms on the rail, eyes cast out over the river. “When we parted last, I had the impression we’d done much to remedy your distaste for my realm. Or at the least my presence in it.”
The corners of his eyes wrinkled in a mirth that didn’t reach his lips. Was he teasing her?
“I still do not understand.”
“Understand what?” His shoulders rotated in her direction just enough.
“Anything. The reasons I’m here. This realm. You.” He’d made his agreement with Aphrodite plain enough, but the way Hades continued to interact with her was hardly in line with the behavior of someone knuckling under to a blackmail demand.
Now he did smile. Teeth flashed in the ruddy light, tightening her stomach. Predator.
“Well we can’t have that.” He faced her more fully, leaning one elbow on the stone. “Go on, Persephone. Ask your questions. Ask something personal. Something rude.”
The curling innuendo licked straight between her thighs and she had to shore herself against collapse. Fates, he’ll have me on my knees, and I’ll have asked for it.
Something rude. Her eyes darted to the nearest possibilities. The river. The bridge. Hades.
“Your arms,” she blurted with a curt nod. “None of the other gods have those markings. Were you born of Kronos that way?”
He tilted a brow and smirked. “Original,” he said, “but maybe not as rude as I was expecting.” He stood straight again. “Do you see this river, Green One?”
“I see it.” Her arms folded over her chest of their own accord. Why did he irritate her so?
Hades slid to her side and then halfway behind her back, the dark forearms in question caging her at the railing on either side.
Because he was toying, of course. That’s what kept her on edge. A cat playing with a mouse before the kill. It wasn’t in his nature to find mercy and simply give her what she wanted.
And what is it you want, Persephone?
It was too humiliating to admit, but why?
“There are rivers in my realm,” he said just above her ear now. “Three rivers and two lakes. The Akherôn is the River of Woe, the first from which the mortal dead drink. With a taste, they grieve for all whom they left on the living plane.”
His voice came in a soothing hum at her back. Tension began to seep from her shoulders. The Lord of the Dead continued.
“The Kôkytos is Lamentation, and by its bitter waters, they know every misdeed of the life they left behind. It causes them to reflect and admit.”
The pad of his thumb brushed over the knuckles of her right hand and she couldn’t help but draw a breath.
Toying with you.
“I don’t understand what this has to do with the color of your skin,” she sa
id, sounding less formidable than she would have liked.
Lips pressed to her temple and the god shifted behind her. “Patience, little flower. Do I not keep my word?”
Persephone swallowed. The railing pressed below her ribs.
“Now the Lethe is Oblivion,” he went on. “If the dead wish to live anew, they must drink of it to forget.”
“Forget what?”
“Their former lives. How would it do for a mortal babe to awaken squalling in her mother’s arms, remembering everything that had come before?”
“I see.” The breathy acknowledgement was all she could give with the sensation of nails now grazing along her wrist. “And what of the Styx? And this one?”
“You do know some of them by reputation, don’t you?” His warm approval made her both swell and grimace at the same time. Why should she care what he thought of her? The void of the cavern stared back at the lesson in progress, ancient and observing.
“The Styx is my border. Kharon ferries those mortal dead who pay the toll across, and Kerberos prevents them from acting on any wild notions of returning to the living plane before their time.”
“But there are other ways in and out,” she said. “Aren’t there.”
“For immortals, yes.” His lack of elaboration glared, conspicuous.
“And the last?”
“The Phlegethôn,” he said, “is another boundary, of sorts. Have you noticed the silence in this part of the cavern?”
She nodded, mesmerized by the boiling flow of earth far beneath them, the liquid cadence of his words in her ear.
“All but a very few of the mortal dead avoid this river,” he said, his tone dropping lower, still. “It is the Unmaking.”
Something about this made her shiver, despite the heat.
