Chapter sixteen Persephone
Chapter sixteen
Persephone
My temper flared, my long-simmering indignation finally boiling over despite the cool breeze of the courtyard. I snatched my arm back from my mother as she rounded on me with her teeth bared. Something that usually stopped me in my tracks, something that happened right before the thunder and rage.
I wasn’t sure if I still felt the edge from those shadows earlier, or if Hades or the Morningstar had somehow emboldened me, but I stared her down the first time not just as her daughter—
—but as a goddess.
It was Mother who opened her mouth first. “Persephone, what—”
She would never finish that sentence.
“Who was the mortal you loved?” I didn’t mean to blurt it out so abruptly, but the question had bounced around my thoughts all night.
Now that Mother was in front of me, the words came barreling out before I could stop them.
Anger simmered, spreading through me like drops of blood in rippling water.
Mother stilled, the ire in her eyes flashing so hot I nearly expected coals to burn beneath her. “How did you know there was a mortal?”
“Deities talk, Mother,” I said, slowly finding purchase on my own voice. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out? What are you hiding?”
“Stay away from Hades.” Her volume pitched, the light fractured above, and the air trembled in fear, like a mouse facing down the mighty Cerberus. “He’s not worthy of your trust, let alone any affection.”
I don’t know what’s gotten into me, only that the flood gates opened and I would not be denied answers. Not anymore. Today, mother wouldn’t see a little girl, of that I was determined.
“Give me an answer for once in my life,” I pushed, “I’d hate to think you’ve been lying to me, Mother.”
This time when her ire flared, the winds picked up and tossed our hair about, but I felt her a flash of Mother’s pain layering and weaving into it like threads of a tapestry.
“I am the only one speaking sense, daughter!” Her hands came up to shake my shoulders, as if trying to force her will into me.
“I am the only one you can trust. The only one who loves you!”
“You lie to her even now, Demeter.” Another voice trilled from behind mother, making her seethe. A voice belonging to a god I’d been excited to see all evening.
Zeus. My father.
He strode forward with the rest of the pantheon peering curiously behind him.
Hera’s gaze dripped malice. Ares leaned forward the way I’d witnessed mortals leaning in to watch a tavern brawl.
The Morningstar leaned against the door frame, his expression carefully casual.
Lightning streaked overhead, sending fragmented light to leach the world of color with each vicious flash.
Zeus’s words were the gathering of a storm, “You cannot keep me from my daughter and turn her against me because of your own personal vendetta,” Mother snarled at him in turn, her knuckles turning white with rage.
Zeus strode forward, putting himself between Mother and myself. “Demeter, it is not fair.”
“What do you know of fair!” Demeter cried, her curated composure slipping for a moment. The tremble of a summer storm fizzed in the air around us, and lightning flashed in my father’s eyes.
“Fair for our daughter, Demeter, not you. After all the bridges you burned, you’ll find not everyone cares whether things are fair for you.
” Zeus glanced back to where I stood stock still, enraptured.
“Daughter, away. There are things we must be in understanding of, but I will find you shortly after.” When I hesitated, he bowed his head and spoke, a command from the King of the Gods, “On my honor. The moment we’ve concluded our discussion.
” His eyes softened, "I've waited for this moment a long time.
I wanted to give you a chance to get comfortable here before I overwhelmed you. Now away."
"I'll be in the gardens, father." I turned to leave, explicitly ignoring the ocean of eyes not even bothering to be subtle about watching us all. Based on the long line of goddesses and bastard children mercilessly subjected to Hera’s possessive glare, I wondered if the King of the Gods had any honor.
I bowed my head in turn and walked towards the chaotic garden from earlier, needing something that was tangible. Mine. I needed it like a mortal drying out in the dessert heat needed an oasis. I was in severe need of an oasis as I wandered the garden Hades had let me grow.
I stamped the warmth his name evoked from me. Hard. Immediately.
He and his shadows were toying with you, I sneered at myself. You’re acting like a lovesick mortal. Get a grip.
Hugging my arms as I walked deeper into the darkening garden, I felt grateful that the sounds of the party began to recede behind me.
Yet peace would not return to me. My mother’s words, the threat in her eyes, still ruffled me like leaves in a storm.
I inhaled deeply, appreciating the blooms around me, finding comfort in them.
“Persephone?” a familiar voice ventured, startling me into whirling for the source, “Is that you?”
It wasn’t Zeus. It wasn’t Hades. Nor was it Mother.
My hand flew to my heart, as the other braced on a column to steady myself.
My sense quickly returned as I saw the Morningstar strolling towards me.
“I was worried my heart wasn’t going to start beating again!
” I quipped with a small smile when my breath returned to me.
He offered me a rueful, lopsided grin by way of apology.
“You slip away quieter than even the shadows.” The Morningstar’s smile was lopsided. Unassuming. “The way you endured that. Many would have crumpled beneath the weight of Demeter’s rage.”
“It does have a certain gravity.” I sighed, my anger crumbling just enough that I felt unsteady, like a support column had been taken away from me.
Now that the adrenaline no longer raced through my veins, the force of mother’s anger was battering into me like a monster at the gates.
I sat against the stone flower boxes before my waning energy left me entirely drained.
“I suppose in a way I’m used to it. I don’t know what got into me tonight. ”
The Morningstar shifted, looking around like he was scouting for witnesses, before settling down next to me.
“The burden of being exceptional has gravity too,” he murmured. Both our heads whipped towards the pantheon where storm clouds darkened over the courtyard we’d vacated only moments before. An exasperated sigh left me plopping my head into my hands.
“Are all the gods like this?” I wondered aloud.
My eyes hardened on another flash of lightning overhead, his head tilting back to me with that lopsided smile again.
“This fickle? Mother always said the gods were evil. I don’t see that, but I can’t help but wonder...
” I trailed off, not knowing what it was I was trying to say.
“It’s not as uncommon as you wish it was,” the Morningstar chuckled.
“It wasn’t long ago Hera turned a nymph into a rabbit and sicced her hounds on them for making eyes at Zeus.
Or perhaps Zeus made eyes at them. The point is, this is a typical day here, so if you’re worried you did something wrong, please know that you didn’t.
The unexceptional always try to clip the wings of those who are,” He turned to meet my eye intently.
I watched as he plucked a bloom, one of my mother’s perfect, sterile white roses, twirling it between nimble fingers before holding it out to me with a tight smile. “Mortals do it too, more often even, so you must be used to it a bit,” he continued brightly.
I cocked my head, accepting the rose more out of politeness than anything else, noticing how his cold fingers gently brushed mine. A casual contact I deliberately ignored. “Mortals do what?”
“They ruin what they don’t understand. What they fear.” The words were tossed so lightly, so casually, so at odds with his entire implication. “Always making the wrong choices. It’s like they enjoy the chaos they sow.”
I offered a tense smile. “I’ve never seen mortals behave that way. At least not the majority. I watch them toil for one another, help one another. They’re often so selfless and kind, it’s what I strive to be.”
His smile falters—a thin line, like a crack in the surface of otherwise perfect ice.
“Someone like you shouldn’t waste her compassion on beings incapable of understanding such a concept.”
My body stilled. Something in his searching gaze chilled me, freezing me to the spot.
“I think compassion is never a waste. Effort is never a waste.” I asserted, “If someone squanders those things, it says more about them than it does about the one delivering the kindness.”
His calculated gaze settled on me like fixating on a flaw, a fault in need of immediate rectifying.
“I believe I’m misspeaking.” The Morningstar laughed, his hands busying themselves to clean lint off his tunic.
“I only wish to show you that there’s a different way.
A better way. You’re extraordinary, and you could be that way, as you are, with me.
Accepted. Safe.” His voice lowered slightly, huskily, “Adored.”
“You think I’m not accepted or safe?” Confusion and shock rippled through me. I strained to keep my voice light, giving him the opportunity to amend his statement. “I don’t believe I’m in need of a savior, but I appreciate the thought.”
“You think I’m trying to save you?” He shifted closer so that we very nearly touched.
The heat of him seared my thigh, making something churn uncomfortably within me.
A breathless laugh escaped him, more frustration and impatience, than amusement before he slid closer.
The column was cold and unyielding, blocking my escape.
“I want to align with you. You and I are the newest deities here. We’re kindred spirits, you and I.
Always on the outside, never fully appreciated. ”
The air tightened. Stilled. Chilled. His words rang hollow, like the echo of a gong.