The Eighth House_Hades & Persephone Read online

  Aphrodite went on, oblivious to his internal debates.

  “First of all,” she said, “Demeter’s edict prohibits her daughter from consorting with any of the gods of Olympos. But you are not a god of Olympos. Are you, Lord of the Underworld?” Clever white teeth flashed in the light.

  He inclined his head to acknowledge her point.

  “And second,” she said, “Demeter’s consent becomes irrelevant when I have already obtained approval for the match from her father. Zeus.”

  Indeed. The goddess had been busy.

  As if orchestrated to coincide with this last revelation, to which she had no doubt been building the entire time, her trio of vassals was now grinding toward a climax, and they found it increasingly difficult to keep quiet. Aphrodite rose from her makeshift seat and turned to watch the final throes of their performance from a few steps away.

  The woman’s face was flushed and damp from her efforts to accommodate the men. Fingers tangled in the gold of her hair, kneaded the pink curves of her bottom. The three pushed and worked, building to a crescendo and then seizing to a halt in the grip of their shared climax.

  Three pairs of glassy eyes remained on their goddess, begging for approval. Aphrodite nodded and granted a dreamy smile of approbation. Enraptured mortal faces beamed thanks, and the two men bent to help the woman rise to shaky feet before they half-walked, half-stumbled back to wait with the others.

  Aphrodite turned back to Hades, aglow with the high of worship. It was an addiction the others had. The Lord of the Dead needed no such displays from mortals. Not when they all came to his realm in the end.

  But what of immortal devotion?

  “Why has Zeus deigned to give permission after all this time championing Demeter’s cause?”

  A rich chuckle. “Our Loud Thunderer wouldn’t be shackled to a feather for any longer than he absolutely must,” she said. “Zeus grows tired of such constant vigilance. He grows tired of constant anything, as Hera will tell you. It was a simple matter to convince him to abandon it.”

  And here the goddess was. Convincing another ruler of the Three Realms to abandon reason.

  “So.” His grip on control faltered. “Her father’s permission. And you expect me to approach Persephone with an offer of marriage, is that it? You do know we’ve never met.”

  “No,” Aphrodite said. “You will not be able to come near her without Demeter learning of it. Your powers above the earth are insufficient.”

  “And if I have other means?”

  “Oh?” Copper brows ascended. “Means you’d like exposed? No? I didn’t think so. The Goddess of the Seasons will thwart your advances. No. One does not entreat a flower to leave its soil and come live in a vase. One plucks the bloom and has done with it. Particularly if the Lord of the Skies has already given consent to the plucking.”

  “You suggest I do what? Abscond with her then?”

  “Precisely,” she said. “So pleased you understand, at last.”

  “Ridiculous. You are well aware a deathless god cannot be forced into a marriage. She must speak the vows of her own will. You expect her eager to give her eternal hand? To the Lord of the Dead? After I’ve abducted her?” His voice had risen in incredulity to an unacceptable level. His fingers gripped the arms of the throne.

  The goddess only smiled, predatory and eerily sweet all at once. “I am certain you possess the ability to ‘persuade’.”

  “How in the name of the Three Realms do you expect me to accomplish such a thing?” He leaned forward on the throne, flinging one hand wide in exasperation. “Does her mother not watch over her every move?”

  “Ah, Hades.” Her sigh was just this side of patronizing, and something twitched at his temple. “You imagine I am ever filled with desires and this leaves no room in my mind for forethought. But I have thought this venture through very thoroughly indeed. Listen a while longer, and I will tell you exactly how you will be able to snatch your bride away to your own domain, without interference from her mother or any of her other companions.”

  And so, whether out of exhaustion or sheer morbid curiosity, he listened to her plan.

  And it was very thorough.

  It was so airtight, in fact, Hades could see almost no possibility of a failure. If he decided to go through with it, that was.

  Stealing the daughter of another immortal and ‘persuading’ her to wed? This was not a mere favor Aphrodite asked of him. This was not a gift of riches, nor the return of a mortal soul to the living world, nor any other act he might wash his hands of afterward. This ‘favor’ would result in his having a partner here in the Underworld. And unlike his promiscuous brother, he would be loyal to one wife, if he married at all.

  What was the likelihood he would want to share his immortality with Persephone, a goddess he only knew of by the fame of her birth, and had never seen with his own two eyes? And more unlikely still, that she would want to share it with him?

  Especially when she sees what you really are.

  What good could come of it?

  But an escape hatch might free him to explore some of the potentials. Perhaps he’d see word slipped to Demeter, after the fact. The goddess would demand the removal of her daughter from the Underworld, and this would absolve him from blame while curtailing the situation with Persephone, as the inevitable need would arise.

  He could play his games without the fear of a loss.

  “I will think on this plan of yours,” he said at last, settling back in his seat. “And I will inform you of my decision before the next time Selene’s crown shines full in the night. Be grateful, Goddess, as that is more consideration than I was willing to give when I first found you in my hall, caressing the Throne of Tears as though it were your own.”

  Aphrodite moved to stand before him and cut him an insolent brow. “Think for however long you like, gracious Lord,” she said, “But you will do this thing for me.

  “It has been a great many years since I aided you in bringing about the Elaionapothos. A creation, I might add, we both know would not be entirely permitted, were its existence known among the other Powers That Be. I imagine you would like to continue to keep your little ‘plaything’ to yourself?” She waited for his acknowledgment.

  Of course, he had no intention of giving up his secret to the other gods, his brothers Zeus and Poseidon in particular. It would upset the balance. He forced a nod and she continued.

  “You see, that is why you will follow through with this plan and make Persephone your bride. Then Hermes’s attentions will be back where they belong, and I can put my lovely mouth to better uses than telling tales of what Lord Hades has been up to, hidden away down here in the Earth. Do you see it now, Polydegmon?”

  He exhaled through his nose and faced down the goddess come to do business in his halls.

  She has you. There is nothing else for it.

  He could almost respect it, in a grudging sort of way. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had tied him in such a tidy manner.

  “I see quite clearly,” he said.

  “Splendid.” Aphrodite was all smiles now. “You have a week to prepare. Always a pleasure, I’m sure, my Lord Hades.”

  She turned from him to glide across the room, but when the green swirl of sheer linens brought her to the open doorway, the goddess looked over her shoulder.

  “Seven days,” she said. “You know where you must wait. I will make good as to my part; see that you do yours, as well.”

  The Goddess of Love flowed from the hall, her entourage following without a backward glance for the Lord of the Dead.

  Persephone had no idea what was coming.

  And when it came right down to it, neither did he. All because of the Elaionapothos.

  What in creation’s name had he brought upon himself?

  *

  II Promise

  Persephone knew what was coming, and it didn’t stop her. The weight of Polyxene’s ring, transformed now on her finger, somehow lifted the bu
rden of words like ‘forever’ and left her bold. Heedless.

  The infamous Question, asked anew after a tree-fattening number of years, did nothing to stop her mother from scowling, either.

  “Much has been said, Daughter, about those who persist in repeated endeavors with the hopes of new, different outcomes each time.”

  Demeter’s barley-crowned cattle flicked their ears as their mistress stood beside her chariot. Her eyes meandered over the rolling swells of Nysa on a humid, windless afternoon, late into summer. Fat honeybees hummed from perch to powdery perch at the center of the season’s last blooms.

  “Ah,” Persephone said, gaze also conspicuously avoiding her mother’s, “new outcomes such as their elders seeing reason?”

  “I have seen every reason,” Demeter said, “and with far more clarity than have you.” The Goddess of the Seasons placed the wide basket her daughter refused to take on the ground between them. “They will never be faithful. You know this. Not Apollo, not Hermes. Not any of them.”

  It had become something of an art form, the way Persephone and her mother could have entire, stiff-backed conversations without ever making eye contact. The ring might have made her reckless enough to start flinging open old doors, but she had no interest in the wake of scorched earth that followed behind the locking of eyes on this issue. And so she remained, lacing her knuckles together for patience. Chin high.

  “They’re no threat to me, and I’m sure you know this,” Persephone said. “Most of them are clamoring after Aphrodite these days, from what I hear. Ares, Hephaistos …” She shrugged. From a distance, their conversation would look casual, even bored. The tone of their words remained low, but a tension strung them together, pressing the mother and daughter pair so tight into their long-held roles the very earth beneath their feet felt ready to erupt at any moment.

  “That bearded anvil pounder.” Her mother made a low noise of disgust. “Be thankful the Fates saw fit to bind him to that faithless wife of his and not set him hungering after you.”

  But Persephone had not heard Hephaistos’s rare and sudden bark of laughter in an age, nor Ares’s crude jokes. Compared with the mortals, their kind were but a few. Eternity was daunting enough with such a limited number of peers; reducing that number by half had her wanting to wail. A prison with spacious rooms was, after all, still a prison.

  “I have no interest in the Artificer or the Stormer of Walls, nor they me,” Persephone said. “Surely it’s not necessary to keep me sequestered from them.”

  Her mother’s words grew a shade darker with ferocity. “You believe you understand the nature of immortal men?” she said. “You do not. They will ruin you, Daughter. And for what? To satisfy their lusts? I will not have this for you. I will not.”

  The great and subtle voices of the mountains sang a more moveable song than Demeter’s words at that moment. It was no use, and never would be.

  The muscles under her eyes tightened and Persephone felt her nails making delicate, crescent shaped cuts into the backs of her knuckles.

  The others were arriving in the distance, by chariot. Artemis’s hound leapt to the ground and went tearing through the grass, flushing out an explosion of small birds.

  Persephone wanted to explode with them.

  The metallic weight of Polyxene’s ring as she let her hands fall to her sides was what kept her in one piece. She inhaled. Held it. Exhaled.

  “I understand,” she said. “I will not trouble you with this matter again.”

  She felt more than saw her mother’s curt nod and it took everything Persephone had to maintain her placid composure. A black tide swelled in her veins, filling her to the rim with the urge to lay waste to the fields. To draw back into herself every last drop of growing life from leaf and branch and root, and leave Nysa a rolling heap of ash.

  Which of her parents she’d inherited her temper from remained a mystery, but it was this wordless gesture of Demeter’s that set Persephone seething.

  “Some wisdom at last,” said her mother. “Perhaps your time with Athena has begun to bear fruit. Now go on.” The goddess gave the basket a nudge with her foot. “Your friends are here. If I know you, by the time you’ve filled this, you’ll have forgotten this whole idea.”

  But that was the marrow of the thing, wasn’t it? Demeter didn’t know her at all. No one did.

  By the time her fists relaxed, her mother’s chariot had dwindled to a gnat-sized silhouette above the hills. Persephone’s gaze fell to the fate-cursed basket and she scowled.

  *

  Gold touched every stem and leaf in the field as Helios the All-Seeing drove his blazing chariot toward the western horizon.

  Persephone stood at the edge of a tiny stream with her eyes closed, taking in the warmth of the titan’s disc, the sun turning the inside of her eyelids an amber red. The first knuckle of her right hand brushed against the second, the feel of Polyxene’s ring there a continual reminder.

  She sighed. Opened her eyes. Clutched in her hand was the infamous basket, bearing a shallow layer of greenery. If she’d been there alone, there would be no need to pretend interest.

  Her companions made sport far enough away that she would have to yell if she wanted their attention.

  Persephone turned an eye over her shoulder to find Artemis playing games, as usual. The Goddess of the Hunt had something dark and unidentifiable in her hand, and was chasing Athena who—in a rare moment of irrationality—was shrieking in half-feigned terror and darting about to avoid her sister’s grasp. A laughing circle of Oceanids cheered them on while Artemis’s hound tore and leapt between the pair, wild with canine enthusiasm.

  In truth, the three of them were half-sisters: Athena, Artemis, and Persephone. They all shared Zeus as a father, but a common mother was not to be found between any of them.

  Of course. The Lord of Lightnings may rain on as many fields he chooses, but am I allowed one—one!—from among my peers?

  Her sullen thoughts were ill-matched for the lazy serenity of the day. Would her mood be obvious to the others? Persephone couldn’t see how their skies deserved darkening over her personal concerns.

  She looked down at the basket she held by the handle. The size of a large serving platter and flat-bottomed save the slightest curve, the reed-woven burden was yet another reminder that her current state of affairs could not continue.

  It in no way surprised her how little Demeter knew about what Persephone considered a worthwhile day. For the sake of appearances, however, it was best to go along with her mother’s suggestions from time to time. At least if she wanted to forestall the arguments. And it was a fair enough excuse to gather new gifts for Polyxene. Not only had she failed to arrive with anything on her last visit, but she’d left with the woman’s ring.

  After her mother had placed her once again among female immortals—glorified chaperones, is what they were—for a day of ‘flower picking’ in the fields of Nysa, Persephone had decided. She would be returning to the house of the mortal healer sooner than the woman expected.

  There were those who would kill and die for what Persephone had now, and here she was, ready to do at least one of those things, at some point, to be rid of it.

  Of course, the fields sang with beauty. The sons of Man would swoon and compose ballads. Blossoms in white and blue and purple dotted the sweep of foothills, and the occasional grove of trees, mainly cypress, but here a cedar and there an ash, punctuated the glowing afternoon landscape.

  And of course, her sisters were pleasant company, no matter how different they all were. Artemis in particular. The goddess’s sense of adventure always spurred Persephone to attempt feats when she probably shouldn’t. Not that she had any desire to try leaping from the top of a waterfall again.

  And yet here was her mother, so vigilant, so concerned. The goddess expending vast reserves of energy to harass, bribe, or bore the gods out of her presence. Demeter walked the eternal fields confident her daughter remained a maiden, untouched. Perfect. Arte
mis, her closest friend didn’t know. Athena—astute as she might be—didn’t know. They all rolled through the ages under their pretty illusion.

  Among the cities of men, as she’d been doing since shortly after Demeter’s unprecedented edict had gone into effect, Persephone had allowed her resentment to bubble into one of the best kept secrets on the immortal plane.

  No, the Goddess of Growing Things was no maiden.

  If her mother had an inkling of what she’d been up to on her last visit to Smyrna—or Argos, or Kornithos, or any of the others—well … there were only so many nightmare scenarios she was willing to entertain.

  It was one thing for Persephone to resent her mother’s interference. Any of her immortal companions could have explained her ill temper away with such an obvious irritant. Which of them would be content with their choices forfeit?

  It was because Demeter professed to care about her so much. Because the Goddess of the Seasons was willing to hide her daughter away, while at the same time knowing so little about her. Her mother was oblivious to reality. Persephone’s increasing boldness in her travels to the mortal plane were proof enough.

  When Demeter sent her to play in a field like a child, with the naïve belief her daughter was well under control, it made Persephone’s eternal golden blood boil. And it would go on and on, wouldn’t it?

  All the more reason to return to Polyxene.

  Artemis had given up her chase now, and she and Athena had collapsed on a grassy incline to stare up at the fierce golden sky. Athena pointed to something overhead, some bird or cloud perhaps, and Artemis nodded in agreement. The Oceanids had wandered toward a point further downstream to dip their feet in the clear water. Her companions allowed her and her peevish temper plenty of space.

  Can you blame them?

  She brought a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun and surveyed the field once more. There had to be something out there worthy of her time.