“Daughter…” Hecate stroked her arm. “You can make this right. But you must let go. This is not a war; there is no defeat, no cause for shame. She will still see you, and you her. They asked me to be their voice, and in return I will also speak for you. Ask it of me and I will entreat Persephone to walk the world above with you. As often as you wish it. You would be welcome in her realm— to see her, and to know the truth of her marriage.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said, wiping away her tears with a sleeve. “How can I? You come here to shame me for what I’ve been forced to do to have even a chance at getting Kore back, to mock my grief as foolishness, then try to soften my heart, as if I should just forget all the aeons you forsook me.”
“How should I apologize first, Demeter? For leaving you to Zeus, after you chose him? If that will right this, I will fall to my knees this instant and ask your forgiveness.”
“As patronizing as you always were, Hecate…”
“It was never my intention.”
“What of the Eleusinians? They need her now, and nothing short of her return will suffice.” She thought about Metaneira and Celeus, Demophon and Triptolemus. The deaths of her lover’s sisters would be in vain. Demeter imagined Triptolemus accusing her of betrayal, spitting on her and cursing her name. She would be cast out from her own temple. The worshippers she had garnered throughout the winter would despise her, burn everything down, smash her altars. The rest of the Olympians would shun her and never come to her aid again if she relented now. Not after this. She would be an outcast among men and gods.
It was too late. Demeter looked at the groaning floes of ice that covered the sea. Poseidon might be angered enough that he would make good on his abominable suggestion and force himself upon her in the vilest way imaginable. And after all she’d done to weaken the rest of Olympus, the others would only be too glad to stand by and watch.
“Let us protect you,” Hecate said, reading her thoughts. “If it is the vengeful storm of sky and sea that you fear, then ally yourself with us; with your daughter who loves you. You are the goddess of all that grows upon the earth, and those who dwell beneath it would welcome you with open arms.”
“I will not accept exile! To become yours and Nyx’s docile pet as my influence dwindles to that of a nymph? The Eleusinians—”
“Your mind buzzes about this village like an insistent fly! Your accomplished lover and his family are here, but what of the rest of humanity who you starve and freeze?”
Demeter’s breath halted at the word lover. Then she bit at the side of her cheek. Of course Hecate would know that. Hecate knew everything, she thought angrily. “I leave Zeus’s followers to Zeus. Whoever wishes to come to me is welcome. I welcome all at Eleusis, slave and freeborn.”
Hecate slitted her eyes. “So your precious Kore is not at the heart of this. This is about your power. Your pride…”
“This is entirely about Kore. She was taken unwillingly. Stolen from me. And you dare speak of power? Hypocrisy! A trade was done between kings— between two of the three who divided creation itself— with no regard for her or for me. Do you think when I made that oath at the Styx I would have been allowed to say no? To the likes of Zeus and Aidoneus? My daughter was bartered like chattel before she even came into the world and sold off to a man twice her age! I thought you were against that on principle!”
Hecate sighed and bit at her own cheek. Demeter was right, in that at least. “What is time like that to beings like us? What was done is done. Would you have me remake her maidenhead? Uproot her blossoming love for Aidoneus? Slip her a dram of the Lethe and make her forget she is a venerated and powerful Queen? These are things that will not happen.” Hecate paused, taking a slow, even breath. “But I am endowed by Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, and Aidoneus, her divine Consort, with the ability to grant your desire. Name what you will, Demeter, and I will do my utmost to make it so.”
For the briefest moment, she considered it. Then she weighed it against the scar in the field of Nysa where Hades had violently ripped her daughter from the world above. She thought about Kore’s stolen innocence, and her unfeeling, blood-soaked adversary in his dead kingdom. She thought about the borrowed helm and the bargain she was forced into once her plan to win back her love went awry. She thought about the Eleusinians. Celeus. Triptolemus. Metaneira. All she had done, all the death and destruction, in vain. Demeter stiffened and stood tall. “Annul the marriage. Bring her back to me. I will accept nothing less.”
“Demeter—”
“Nothing less!”
Hecate stared at Demeter for a long moment. She finally stepped back and shook her head. “I tried, Nyx.”
She vanished and Demeter was alone again. Hecate’s torches lay in the snow, crossed over one another, their lit ends burning out. As wisps of smoke rose from the extinguished pitch, Demeter heard her former teacher’s voice on the wind.
I tried.
2.
“Careful!”
Persephone smiled. “Pay him no mind.”
Merope dipped the comb in olive oil again, cautiously pulling it through Aidon’s hair. “Beg pardon milord, but if your purpose in judging kings is to meet them as a king yourself and dispel whatever hubris they still have, it might serve to look as they look. All the Peloponnesian kings wear their hair pulled back this way. If they haven’t cropped it at the neck, that is.”
Aidon pursed his lips.
“Would you rather I cut it all off?” Merope asked.
He tightened his jaw and turned sharply, giving her a withering glance.
Persephone laughed, and Merope suppressed a smile. The nymph shrugged innocently. She yanked the comb through another unruly curl, and he growled. “They know who I am. I don’t see why this is needed.”
“Then why I am I wearing these?” Persephone said. Merope had woven rubies into her hair amidst the asphodel, and the weight of the jewels and her pinned-up hair strained her neck. Merope paused, unsure whether she should continue.
Aidoneus relaxed his shoulders and motioned for her to resume. “Forgive my obstinacy, Merope. We’ve never had a servant before.”
The nymph tied back his hair with a gold band and braided his hair. “You needn’t apologize. You’ve dressed for judgement many times since I’ve been your wife’s maidservant without my assistance. What’s the occasion? Are you seeing someone important today? A demigod, perhaps?”
Hades and Persephone glanced at one another, unsure how to answer. Neither wanted Merope to know who would be coming before them today. Her nightmares had subsided, and she could sleep through the night without Hypnos’s poppies, but even so, she’d awoken half the palace earlier that week with a scream.
Aidon refused to cause her further pain. He forced a smile. “It is my queen’s first time sitting the throne with me for judgement.”
“A special occasion, indeed,” Merope said, looping sinew and gold thread tightly around his last few braids.
“And as such,” Aidon said, standing up from the chair, “one must look the part.” He fastened a gold torc around his neck. His normally gray himation was deep black and bordered in a thick meandros of gold. The same pattern was etched into the wide golden bands that he wrapped around his biceps. Merope helped fasten smaller versions of those bands onto the arms of his wife.
“I hope you’ll tell me how it went.”
Aidon’s eyes met Persephone’s again, his expression set tightly. She tilted her head at him and he softened, nodding his approval.
“I will, Merope,” she said. They would have to tell her at some time. And it would be easier when Sisyphus was in Tartarus— once justice had been done.
Persephone stood in front of the mirror, hair glimmering with jewels, a noble compliment to her dark-haired husband. She looked every bit the wife of Hades Plouton, the Rich One Beneath the Earth. Merope picked up a heavy apron of gold, fire opal, garnets, and rubies, and fastened it over Persephone’s black dress. She clipped it together at Pe
rsephone’s neck, and then fastened it at her waist. Jewels cascaded from collarbone to ankles. The girl that was Kore chafed under their weight. Kore no more. She shared a bed with the Receiver of Many. She had walked the Fields of Asphodel and weathered Tartarus itself. She was Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.
***
Hades and Persephone Chthonios sat in their thrones, receiving the dead one by one. Rhadamanthys stood at the door, allowing kings, archons, and magistrates to enter, one at a time. Minos sat below the dais on their right side at an ebony table, a scroll laid out before him, carefully recording all he heard and saw onto the parchment. The judges had never seen so many in one sitting, and all were anxious to receive their final ‘guest’, the king of Ephyra. Aidoneus held his raven-crested staff in his right hand.
Two departed leaders, an archon and a magistrate of Athens, had stood before them earlier in the day. Both were well educated and spoke to Hades and Persephone in their own tongue— the divine language of the Theoi. Early in his career, the archon had accepted a substantial bribe; the magistrate had fathered a child out of wedlock and had hid the girl from his wife, but had provided for her and the mother until his death. For their sins, both were terrified of being condemned to Tartarus. But they had otherwise lived good lives, for the most part.
The archon had fallen to his knees, begging for mercy until Aidoneus shook his head and bid him stand and not fear him. Persephone noticed that her husband’s judgement was almost conversational, asking after the men’s families and relaying to them the details of their own lives, and how their livings acts had influenced his judgement. Each guest was thrown off guard, expecting a catalog of sins to be read aloud and thus condemn them. At the end of each judgement, Aidoneus pronounced that the archon and the magistrate were free to drink the waters of the Lethe and join the souls in Asphodel, giving them the chance to return to the world of the living once they were ready.
“How do you know?” she had asked under her breath as the magistrate departed.
“They are part of this realm from the moment they arrive. I can see into their hearts,” he replied, grasping her hand. The rings of the Key of Hades glinted off his fingers in the muted light of the throne room. “I see in each of them what was done, but I speak with them to know how it was done. A king is just a man, and kings go to war. They kill and decide to kill others. If a man has ended someone’s life, even if he is using another’s sword, I want to know why.”
“What happens to most?”
“Asphodel. Once they drink from the Lethe, they are no longer kings and queens. They are just shades in my kingdom. Most are brought before me knowing exactly what they did. Their perceived sins make a prison for them in life and they come here terrified that I will send them to Tartarus. But all men err, some more than others. Our responsibility,” he said, gripping her hand and turning to face her again, “is to determine whether or not they have learned from those mistakes within their lifetime.”
She smiled at him. He returned it, then turned solemn once more and stared forward.
“I don’t care what power or wealth they had in life. They can’t take it with them, though many think they can. They think it will sway me, somehow. Mortals and immortals alike say many things about me in the world above. But my reputation for being inexorable is well earned.”
Persephone smiled wryly. Draped down the front of her clothes were more jewels than the oldest, richest dynasty could hope to acquire in all its generations, much less a single mortal in a short lifetime. Any one of the rubies in her hair could ransom a princess.
Minos stood up and nodded in a cursory bow to the royal couple. “Your Excellencies, there is one more to be judged before we bring in the Ephyrean,” he said. Minos refused to even breathe Sisyphus’s name. His shame at his mistake with Merope was too great. Aidoneus had made the same error and had quickly forgiven Minos and Rhadamanthys, but the Mycenaean brothers still held onto their guilt at recommending an innocent soul for Tartarus.
“Who is it?”
“King Hebros of Thrace.”
Aidoneus sat back on his throne. Hebros, son of Heamus, whose parents were turned into two Dacian mountain ranges after daring to compare themselves to Zeus and Hera. He sighed. “Send him in.”
Rhadamanthys opened the door and a man entered, his himation plain and black like all the others. But Hebros’s arms were covered in the ink markings of his people— a dark pattern of horses and sunbursts. His hair was a mass of auburn curls with streaks of gray at his temples.
“Hebros. Zin na Heamus i Rhodope od dieza na Thrakos. Nositel na alopekis na mezenai zibythides,” Aidoneus said, continuing in Thracian, “You died three days ago when you rode your horse across a frozen lake. The ice broke underneath you, no?”
Persephone listened to him speak in perfect Thracian. The language, hard on her ears, rolled smoothly off his tongue, as if he spoke this way every day. Her heart beat a little faster, listening to the calm baritone of his voice. The words were unknown to her, and the only clues she had as to what he was saying were the reactions of the Thracian king.
“Hades i Despoina, zibythides,” he said, falling onto his knees, his forehead touching the cold stone floor. Despoina. That was the name the fisher folk on the outskirts of Hellas had called her when she was Kore. Her husband’s head shook and he raised his hand to stop him.
“Ne, ne. Tya ne e Despoina. Tya e Persephone,” Aidoneus corrected him, “My beloved wife and your queen now that you are here as our guest.”
“Forgive me, my lord,” he replied in Thracian, cowering before the dais.
“Think nothing of it. Stand,” he said, waiting for the Thracian king to rise. “How is your queen, Hebros?”
“Pardon me, my lord?”
“Your queen. The Dacian woman. What is her name? Nevena?”
“Yes.”
Aidoneus leaned back on his throne. “You took her from her father’s family… unwillingly?”
“Nevena was promised at birth to me by her father’s father. Therefore she was mine.”
“How did she come to your marriage bed? Did she desire to do so?”
“Does it matter? She was my woman! They should come to the marriage bed whether they are willing or not. The gods decree—”
“I am the only god you need answer to anymore,” he interrupted darkly.
Persephone watched the Thracian’s face go pale, his feet shifting under him. She stared straight forward, a flutter forming in her stomach, feeling the respect and power her husband commanded here. She wanted to look at him— to look at the face that she loved so well— but remained poised, eyes fixed forward, remembering that her presence here meant they were speaking and passing judgement as one. She felt Aidon’s hand cover hers as he ran a finger over her upturned wrist. His touch sent a shiver up her spine and reminded her of the vision from Tartarus— the two deities enthroned, and life swelling within her. She tamped the thought down. Hecate would return soon. She would speak to her about that then.
“Yes, forgive me,” he said, bowing once more, “Our people made our due sacrifices to you, Lord Hades.”
“And if you had made more or made fewer it still would not sway me. Perhaps you didn’t understand my question. Did you, Hebros, rape your wife and then make war on the Dacians, her people?”
Hebros stood shocked, his mouth open, a nervous smile curling his lip. “My lord, surely you must know… the Dacians… they’re barbarian sheep fuckers that worship wolves. They raided our lands from the mountains and… and…”
“Go on…”
“I… I did it to stop the raids.”
“Did you, now… Couldn’t you could have sent just a few of your forces to patrol the borders instead of sending your armies to pillage the city of Arcideua and burn it to the ground?”
Hebros was stunned, his mouth hanging open as he took a step back and looked at Minos, his eyes cast down to the scroll, transcribing Hades’s words. He darted a glance at Persephone, her f
ace cold and serene as the Lord of Souls languidly stroked her wrist. They were implacable. King Hebros fell to his knees and wept, extending his clasped hands in the air toward them. “Please, please, your Excellencies, do not send me to Tartarus! Yes; I took my wife against her will, and I shouldn’t have, I knew I shouldn’t have the moment I looked down at her face. She was crying for me to stop. It was three years after our wedding night before she would even speak to me!”
Hades raise his eyebrows at that and shifted in his seat. “What changed?”
“Our son— Ardeskos. We both loved our son. I apologized to her for his sake so we could be a family. I was faithful to Nevena. I grew to love her. And in time, she forgave me and loved me as well. I would do anything for her, and turned my armies around after Arcideua to come home by her request, with no further burning or rapine, not even on the way back. But I’d beaten the war drum too loudly before we left. I couldn’t tell my men that turning back was my wife’s decision! They would think I was weak and soft. Any of my rivals would have murdered me, then Nevena, then our son! I’m begging you—”
“Save your pleas. I’m not sending you to Tartarus. You did what you thought was right. What your father taught you, and his father before him. But Arcideua did not deserve your wrath, no matter how much your wife’s father insulted you or raided your lands.”
“Am I to go to… Asphodel?”
“No.”
“B-but…”
Since she could not understand his words, Aidoneus tapped her on the hand, signaling that it was time for them to stand in judgement. They rose in unison before he spoke again. “Hebros, son of Heamus and Rhodope, you will not be given the water of the Lethe. Instead, you will stare into the Cocytus until you understand the pain you caused others in your mortal life. We will see you again in one century to determine if you have learned enough to peacefully join the other souls in Asphodel.”
The Thracian looked up at Aidoneus, tears staining his face. “I will have another chance?”
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