The Eighth House_Hades & Persephone Read online

  And so there was. She never knew if she was simply adept at prediction, or if these things manifested themselves from her thoughts. Either way, just beneath the gentle rise of a hill to the west, a bloom stood out on its own. A lone green stalk topped by a vast number of yellow blossoms.

  Narcissus. Perfect.

  Poison, certainly, but also medicinal with the right preparations. A rare and exceptional gift. The thought of Polyxene’s inevitable clapping hands made her smile.

  Persephone stepped across the stream and made her way toward the lonely flower, her path heading straight into the blinding arc of the setting sun. Her bare feet pressed into damp grass and dark, loose earth with each step, and she angled her body forward now to compensate for the subtle incline.

  As she neared her goal, a perfume grew heady on the air. The narcissus? It had to be, but it was strong. She found herself swaying in place and had to stop and lock her knees for a moment to ward off a stumble.

  Sweet Fates, this thing is potent!

  A treasure indeed, for her mortal friend. Had she ever come upon one like this before today? Was the near giddiness jangling her nerves an effect of the beckoning scent, or merely excitement at a potential discovery?

  At her arrival, dozens of yellow blossoms burst open at the crown of the stalk, each with six-pointed petals arranged in a star around proud trumpets. She bent to inhale from the source and had to put hands on her knees to keep from swooning.

  If Polyxene bottles this, she will earn her fortune.

  Persephone laid down the basket and, righting herself, began to tug at the stalk, ready to pull the whole thing up, bulb and all.

  The narcissus remained stubborn and so did the goddess. She persisted and it resisted, as willful a pair as there ever was. She was about to give over and borrow a blade from Artemis to dig her tenacious adversary out of the ground, when she felt it. The faintest of rumblings, under her feet.

  Then: chaos.

  A sudden jolt.

  The hillside spasmed, horseflesh beneath a swarm of summer flies, and Persephone tumbled, scraping hands and knees.

  An awful grating of stone welled up from the deep. Eyes rolling wild, she turned to her sisters but ended up looking at sky. The land convulsed, terrible and violent, rending the earth at her feet. Where there had been gentle hills, a gaping chasm ripped Nysa wide.

  She did not remember losing her footing, but as stones and clods of moist soil bounced and spun away into the yawning depths below, Persephone saw her only support.

  That thrice-damned narcissus! You just had to have it, didn’t you!

  The defiant stalk was in her grip. The goddess held herself at the scarred rim of the earth, knuckles white, grasping at the mercy of a singularly unfortunate flower. A glance backward showed her black oblivion.

  Quiet yourself. Panicking will be of little help.

  She took a deep breath, and then another, slowing her heart, pushing down terror.

  One thing at a time. One. Thing.

  She planted her right foot on the wall of earth in front of her.

  Now the next thing.

  She levered herself against the freshly broken soil, testing the stability of the stalk.

  It held.

  With a grunt of effort, she brought her left foot up, ready to hoist herself over the edge of the gap.

  The defiant narcissus chose that moment to compromise.

  The bulb broke free and consigned Persephone to fate.

  Her heart stopped. Then erupted in terror, her fingers clawing, desperate. She tore at the ledge and tore at the ledge, and then didn’t.

  The goddess fell backward for a small eternity. The afternoon sky fled, shrinking from an infinite dome to a jagged, receding crescent of light.

  She almost laughed through the horror.

  You did this, Mother. This is what happened when you tried to protect me.

  And poor Polyxene. She would never get Iacob’s ring back.

  Persephone fell and fell and fell. A swallowing darkness separated living from dead, thought from form.

  For a time, she thought no more.

  *

  Hades stood at the base of the chasm and watched his intended struggle with the narcissus. He watched the Fates give her to him; watched her tumble from her home above the earth. A patient hand rested on one tall wheel of his chariot, and a harnessed pair of black mares waited with him.

  Persephone fell and he was there to catch her. He scooped her unconscious form from the last of its plummet with a swing of his arms, reducing the impact as he cut her fall short.

  What Hades was not prepared to shield himself from, however, was his first glimpse of the goddess, Persephone.

  Whatever tentative plans he’d thought he had burned away like so many shadows before the path of Helios. Hades was in unfamiliar territory.

  Immortals came in all sizes and forms: homely, handsome, hideous. He’d prepared himself to receive any manner of goddess into his realm, despite Aphrodite’s assurances. You won’t be disappointed, Polydegmon, she’d said with that smirk of hers.

  But this? This might be more than he knew what to do with.

  Persephone lay draped over his arms, her knees in the crook of one of his elbows, her neck in the other, head lolling back, unconscious. Such was the consequence of a direct passage into the Underworld from the Earth above, rather than entering his realm by the more customary and gradual means across the Styx. Kharon would not approve.

  It was not her limp body that gave him pause, however. No, Hades swallowed to wet his throat for a more unexpected reason.

  Here, in his black grip, was the embodiment of divine creation itself—at least if the Lord of the Dead were to try to describe such a thing. Petal pale skin all but glowed, even this far from the light of the sun. A dark waterfall of hair spilled over his arm, framing a face which—even at rest—compelled rapt attention from an infamously cynical god.

  Her eyes were closed, the black fringe of her lashes brushing her cheeks. What would those eyes look like? Would they be light? Dark? Would they dilate with fear at the sight of him? He wanted to shake her. To jar her to consciousness and see for himself.

  No. Control, Immortal. Master yourself.

  It was true. How would he retain power if their first interaction consisted of him staring down at her, slack-jawed, like some awestruck Son of Man?

  Reining in his urge to rouse her for the moment, Hades allowed himself instead the indulgence of gathering the goddess higher against his chest. He lowered his face between neck and pale shoulder and inhaled.

  Damnable Fates, what have you brought me?

  Had the scent of springtime ever been known in the Underworld? All things dewy and green flooded his senses in that one breath. It was as if Persephone was made of budding life itself, the antithesis of all that went on in his realm.

  Something small and dangerous flared to life beneath Hades’s ribs, and he clutched her body close. His thoughts began to spin with unspeakable possibilities.

  A stone skittered across the rocky ground.

  “What foolish thing have you done, Clymenus?”

  Kerberos padded toward him out of the darkness as Hades ripped himself out of his reverie.

  As always, he heard the ever-surly guardian’s voice in his head. Far easier for the great beast to form words by thought than with its three canine tongues. And what better way to taunt Hades than by greeting him with one of his epithets: Notorious.

  “A god cannot fulfill his desires?” It was not the entire reason for Persephone’s presence, but Hades couldn’t resist the amusement of needling the guardian in kind.

  “A Deathless One may rut any mortal bitch he chooses, and sire pups as he will. Why bring an immortal female here? You will roll in the stink of complications.”

  He shook his head at this admonition. Kerberos was right, of course, as he often was in that uncanny animal way of his.

  Hades was, without question, the lord of his realm, yet
he could hardly call Kerberos a servant. The imposing hound and he had cultivated a mutual respect, but unlike the dogs of men, the Guardian begged at the heels of no master. Of a height with Hades himself and nearly as old as the shores he patrolled, groveling before even a god would be laughable. Each was loyal first to his duties in the realm of the dead, and an easy familiarity had grown between the two from ages at work under the same purpose. Calling it a friendship, however, would be carrying the sentiment a bit far.

  “There is more at work here,” Hades said, “than a desire to ‘rut’, Kerberos. Unfortunately, matters are already complicated. Olympian complications are exactly what has brought this female here to me.” He turned with his explanation to lay Persephone across the floor of the chariot, taking care not to jolt or bruise her. “Barring interference from any injured parties above,” he continued, “she is to be my … my mate, if you will.”

  He’d almost said ‘wife’, but that was a thing of Aphrodite’s wishful imagination. Demeter’s daughter would never speak the vow of her own will. Not to the Lord of the Dead. And ‘mate’ was closer to something the Guardian might understand than ‘lover’.

  Kerberos snorted, one of his three heads shaking itself with dour mirth. The sound of flapping ear leather echoed along the crevasse. “Sometimes I think you immortals are as soft in the head as the humans when it comes to mating.”

  The horses stamped and chuffed in the presence of the great hound, their liquid eyes rolling with unease. Hades needed to be away from this place before the added disturbance woke Persephone.

  “Why have you come here, Guardian?”

  “My eternal charge, what other reason? I felt the rift open between realms. Kharon and Minos had not seen you, and the breach was significant. It falls to me to ensure no soul gets out. Or in.” At this last, Kerberos cut at least two pairs of disapproving eyes at the goddess.

  Hades lifted a brow at the beast. “And are you satisfied now that all goes on with my knowledge?”

  “Perhaps a poor choice of words, Unseen One, but yes. I see our realm shifts at the whim of its ruler, and not some external force.”

  “A relief, I’m sure.” Hades pronounced each word with all the slow weight of his annoyance.

  The Guardian ignored his peevishness, as always. “I’ll leave you to your female, then. I must return to my place at the river.” Kerberos turned his heads as one and trotted away into the darkness, his attention for the affairs of gods disappearing as smoke in a breeze.

  Hades turned to calm the mares with pats to their arched necks and a few murmurs of reassurance, but the goddess lying unconscious stole his focus. He could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she slept, her lips slightly parted. His placement of her in the chariot had rucked up her skirts to reveal a length of pale thigh.

  So vulnerable she was here in the Underworld. So exposed.

  Yes, the Underworld.

  A molten hunger welled up from somewhere as abyssal and deep as time. Everything in this realm belonged to him, from the waters of the Akherôn to the very souls of the mortal dead.

  Everything.

  *

  The scent of wet stone was the first thing to tell Persephone she was awake. Something soft lay under her prone body, and she tried to crack her eyes to see, but the lids were swollen as though she’d slept for an age.

  She rolled to her back and rubbed at her eyes with drowsy knuckles, blinking at last into a dim, diffuse light.

  Everything was grey.

  Her head fell to the side and she saw violet. Not everything. Violet and red. And black. An orgy of cushions supported her, somehow sinister in their opulence. As she pushed herself up on unsteady arms, Persephone saw the grey was stone. Everywhere. All around.

  Where in the three realms …?

  Panic stretched and began to wake alongside her. She levered her body out of the sea of pillows to stand. Arms clutched to her waist, she turned to find the unexplained nest atop a knee-high platform of still more grey stone.

  This is not Nysa.

  Persephone made a slow pivot on one heel to survey the space and understand just how much the sunlit field this new place wasn’t.

  The cushioned platform fit in the contour of a wall at one end of a long, ovoid chamber. Floor, ceiling, and walls all met with irregular curves, as though the cavity in the rock had been grown, rather than built.

  This is not my mother’s palace.

  She paced the room to investigate on careful feet—sandals intact, she noted—as though the slightest misstep might spring some trap. Her heart reported a thudding tattoo.

  Overlapping rugs, plush and patterned, lined the floor. At the opposite end of the chamber from the bed of pillows, a wide slab bench in formidable granite stood alone. A pace or so behind it, a waist-high outcropping jutted from the wall like a stone shoulder blade. A basin made of the same granite as the bench sat on the ledge and, when she approached to peer in, Persephone found it contained water. The liquid surface was a still mirror for her held breath.

  How am I—

  Nysa.

  The earth splitting wide, that awful fall. But to awaken in this? This … wherever?

  Her focus traversed the dimly lit space. No torches bracketed to the walls? No standing braziers? No one could make light without flame except—

  An immortal.

  And another conspicuous absence, now that her frightened perception began to expand: doors.

  Neither wall nor ceiling harbored a single opening through which a body could enter the room. The pattern of tiny vents pierced into the rock overhead might give passage to no more than an insect.

  This was a prison.

  Fates, what is happening?

  Leaden feet carried her back to the platform and she sank among the cushions again, lost.

  Which one of them had done this to her? And why?

  Maybe your mother knows. Everywhere you’ve been, everything you’ve done. Maybe this is her way of—

  Darkness. Black and complete.

  It didn’t matter where the light had come from, because now it was gone. And in its place, terror.

  *

  The ambient light drew back into the surrounding stone at Hades’s will, retreating before his entry like the sea before a tidal wave. It had been a long time indeed since he’d been interested in such games, but if he partook at all, it would be on his own terms. Another deathless god was on the other side of the rocky barrier, and she would see him when he deemed it most advantageous.

  By means only the Lord of the Underworld could manage, he passed through the stone of his realm and into the enclosed space. The heartbeat he heard in the darkness was wild with alarm, but shot through, as well, with an intriguing thread of fury. Perhaps this Persephone would prove herself a bit more ‘sporting’ than the daughters of men.

  The goddess sat among the cushions, feet tucked underneath her, back straight, eyes wide. Did she hope to find even the thinnest sliver of light? There would be none.

  To Hades, the absence of light was simply another way to see. The ability came like the working of a muscle, over time and with repetition—something for which his counterparts in the other realms never had need.

  True, he could have entered unseen wearing the Helm of Darkness as he’d done with Aphrodite, but Hades preferred the disconcerting effect the complete loss of vision would create.

  “Who is here?” she asked the opaque silence. “I feel you in the room, coward.”

  Why toy with her? Do you wish to forfeit her tolerance so soon?

  It was a finely-honed edge to walk, wasn’t it, to engage in subtle cruelty for his own amusement? Could anything intended to be a marriage begin this way and survive? And yet a wedding had been Aphrodite’s goal, not his.

  Still, indulging his depravities with Persephone as he had with the line of mortal woman stretching back through time … well. It was a risky gambit to say the least. Especially with a partner not so easily discarded after the
inevitable end of his games.

  “Did my mother send you?” she said. “Has she found some way to isolate me further?” Her voice came smoky like obsidian, yet building in upward momentum like the first green blades of spring, pushing past the ash and death of winter. The sound of it went straight to his cock.

  A suitable opponent, yes?

  Oh, yes. Aphrodite might have cornered him into this arrangement—this burden—but now, seeing and hearing and breathing in the arresting Daughter of Olympos, Hades forged his intentions anew.

  He would take what satisfaction he could before matters became dreary. Might she tolerate his attentions? Possibly. But if she met him with horror … Well. Resistance and fear had that potent tang he always liked, didn’t they.

  You could stop all this and simply explain what has happened. Let her make her own choices.

  But where would be the fun in that?

  And when will you again have the opportunity?

  Hades turned his attention to the waiting goddess and began.

  “Persephone.”

  He poured her name into the void, each slow syllable a stroke of oblivion. At her stifled gasp, his smile widened in the black.

  *

  “Where am I? And why?”

  Persephone tried to cover her start with demands. Fates be damned, she’d felt the presence. Why had the other’s voice shaken her so?

  “Well,” it said. He said—the tone was deep, and male. And self-satisfied, she noted with a downturned lip. “You’re not on Olympos, are you? Nor under the Seas.”

  Two of the three realms ruled out, and none of the beehive hum of mortal activity stirring on the periphery of her senses. Only one possibility remained, and it made the fine hair stand up on her arms.

  “The Underworld.”