Destroyer of Light

by Rachel Alexander

  The earth and all waking life rose through her in pulses and waves, just as it had when she stepped through the ether in Nysa with Aidon at her side. The light grew stronger, turned golden and her eyes adjusted. She could smell the cold tree bark, the wind and snow. And blood.

  She felt the chariot slowing and looked around, the blue sky above them, the sun shining in the west, an hour or so above the horizon. Persephone blinked and saw Demeter in a dark robe, her hair veiled, with her hand cupped over her mouth, and a strongly built man with a thick blond beard and a cloaked himation standing beside her. She felt dizzy as they came to a stop and looked around at the cave from which they emerged with its sandy granite and withered husks of chaparral brush, then at the blinding layer of snow covering the dead ground.

  Persephone stepped from the chariot and her foot sank into the white banks, freezing. She willed it away, and the snow vanished from around her feet. Green sprouts replaced it, growing around her in a circle, sprouting up and crowding each other. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. The pulse of the earth beat with it and she looked down at the blood staining her right hand. Roots. Soil. Life. Sprouting seeds. Aidon…

  Doubling over with a cry, she placed her palm on the ground and felt the earth warm beneath her fingertips. She closed her eyes and felt the snow melt away, replaced with heat, with roots digging through the frost. Her womb clenched again and she cried out anew, concentrating. She heard faint trickling as water leaked under the snow; slush flowing in streams, the rivers of the world above began to thaw.

  Grow.

  She felt a pulse of life nearby— a crocus bulb, its green tip bursting from the hardened shell protecting it. She exhaled and pushed vitality into it, just as she had when she was Kore. Thin shoots strengthened into leaves, buds blossomed into broad purple flowers that opened to reveal bright saffron anthers. Persephone reached past that bulb until she felt another. The ground was littered with crocus bulbs, each bearing precious cargo ready to spring forth and greet the sun. Other plants twisted in the dirt, their roots pushing down, their stalks and fledgling leaves pushing up. They were rooting themselves below and above.

  The seeds of this world will bloom in the world above.

  Blood streaked her thighs under her peplos, but she didn’t care. What life she had been unable to carry in her womb, she realized, she was giving to all the earth. She felt heat and fertility spread from where her palm touched the earth, radiating out for leagues and stadia around them, across all the lands, the face of the waters and the islands. The frozen sea creaked and groaned, fissures splitting the ice. Snow melted and caved in as roots sipped its life-giving water. Warmth. Seeds. Roots. Leaves. Flowers.

  Persephone gasped in a breath and withdrew her hand from the earth. She opened her eyes and stood. The gathering of gods— Demeter and Zeus, Hermes and Hecate— stood thunderstruck, all staring at her.

  Persephone gazed at the altered landscape surrounding her. The snow lay in patches, and in its place grew the first hints of grass, the earth deep and rich in color, muddy and waiting to produce more. Scattered across the freed fertile ground and even bursting through the last drifts of snow were crocuses. Hundreds of them. The purple flowers were strewn all over the hillside and stretched out across the valley around the Telesterion. The trees still looked gray, their bark lifeless, but on a small olive tree close by, Persephone could see little buds with tips of green emerging from the branches. She calmly walked over, ignoring the others and touched a frail offshoot. Under the path of her fingers, buds burst open further and bright green leaves appeared. So much work still needed to be done.

  “The Goddess of Spring,” Hecate said quietly, interrupting the silence. A smile curled her lips. “The bringing of life above and below. It will come to pass, then.”

  Demeter took a cautious step forward. Persephone looked at her mother’s face, the first time that she had seen her in two months. She bit her lip, conflicting emotions coursing through her. Demeter… who had endured months of anguish and pain after her only child was ripped away from her. Mother… who had always been her protector and nurturer. She had tried to save Persephone, however misguidedly, from an arranged marriage that would part them forever. Despite everything, Persephone had missed her greatly.

  “Mother!” She barely heard herself shout it and ran forward, embracing Demeter. Persephone felt arms wrap around her and heard her mother’s uncontrolled sobs of relief, her tears of joy at seeing her child again. They held tight to each other, weeping. She had missed her, oh how she had missed her!

  Persephone knew why she had wreaked such havoc on the mortals. Men governed the world above, and a woman— even a goddess such as Demeter— was nearly powerless under their rules. It took an act of great strength and severity to make men listen, to bend them. Persephone understood. But her mother needed to return that understanding in kind, now. She needed to listen. Persephone held her, willing herself to be brave, to be strong but kind.

  “Kore,” Demeter cried out into the shoulder of Persephone’s peplos. “Kore… My sweet, darling Kore! I thought I’d never see you again…”

  Persephone held her breath and pushed gently away from Demeter’s embrace. “Mother, I—”

  “Look at you. Gods, look what he did to you…” she whispered, shaking her head. “You look so pale and your cheeks are so gaunt.”

  I’ve grown up, Persephone thought. I am who I was supposed to be. “I am well, Mother. I was never mistreated. But I need to speak to you.”

  “Of course, my dear Kore,” Demeter said, brushing a strand of hair behind her daughter’s ear. She restrained herself from tearing the asphodel out of her daughter’s hair and the jewels from her throat. They were marks of Hades’s ownership, his enslavement of her daughter. As soon as she could, she would give Persephone a new linen chiton, and discard that revealing black peplos Hades must have forced her to wear.

  Persephone saw her mother’s eyes darting to her offending crown and cleared her throat, regaining Demeter’s attention. “Mother, you cannot call me that anymore.”

  Demeter pursed her lips and looked away, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “Kore, I know that… things happened to you, but you needn’t bear that mark forever. We can return life to how it once was.”

  “We cannot. Everything is different now. I—”

  “I know what happened to you, child, and it wasn’t your fault that Hades raped you.”

  “Raped…” she said under her breath in shock.

  “It’s not your fault, you did nothing to provoke him, and you are safe now. Please know that first.” Demeter gripped her arms and squeezed gently, trying to comfort her. “I love you no matter what happened to you. You’re still whole; you’re still my daughter. My sweet darling Kore, and you always will be. We can still—”

  “Stop calling me Kore!” Persephone commanded, her voice assuming the tone she’d grown into the last two months.

  Demeter let go and retreated several steps back. She gaped wordlessly and Persephone took advantage of her silence.

  “My name is Persephone. Mother, I am here for one reason and one reason only, and you and I must speak plainly. You must stop what you’re doing and let the mortals live. The worlds above and below have been thrown far out of balance. So much so that the King of Ephyra has escaped from the Underworld. I am here only to heal the world above from the devastation caused in my absence, but once it is done, I need to return to my rightful place.”

  “Persephone…” Zeus muttered.

  “No, no, it’s all right, child,” Demeter said shakily through tears. “You don’t have to go back to that horrible place ever again. Hades has no power over you here. You are safe at last and you can heal and one day you will look back on all this without fear and it will no longer hurt. You are home, Kore. You will never have to endure him violating you ever again.”

  She shook her head, trying to abate her anger. “Mother, I was not violated. But nonetheless, I am a maiden no more. I’m
not Kore; my name is Persephone and always has been. Hades Aidoneus Chthonios is my husband—”

  “Persephone…” Zeus started, his voice rough with irritation.

  “—And my home is with him in the Underworld where we rule together as King and Queen.”

  “Persephone, you are not the queen of anything!” Zeus bellowed finally. “And you are no longer Hades’s wife. You are a girl child of my oikos, and my property. And you will obey my edicts.”

  “Father.” She faced Zeus, throwing her shoulders back. “Before the end of the Titanomachy, you swore a Stygian oath to my husband while I was still in the womb. An oath that you kept and that we expect you to continue to honor.”

  He stared at her, taken aback, then stood tall again, lifting his chin. “You are not able to make that decision, girl, and I suggest you not take that tone with me. I am not only your father, but your king.”

  She stopped and nodded, then curtsied to him as one sovereign would to another. “My apologies, your grace,” she said without fear or facetiousness and stood up again to her full height. His eyes were like hers, but far more blue. He wasn’t as tall as she had remembered, but she hadn’t seen him since she was a little girl. “However, I must request on our behalf that our marriage is honored and that I return to my realm to rule with Hades.”

  “And as you well know, Lady Persephone,” Zeus said with a sneer of sarcastic formality, “your marriage was annulled. You have nothing to say concerning whom I chose to marry you to, nor do you have any say in the ending of it! If anything, this is a matter for Hades and I to speak upon alone.”

  “Then we shall,” said a voice from the shadows.

  13.

  Persephone’s heart flew into her throat and she turned around to see Aidoneus loom forward from the mouth of the cave. He shielded his eyes and blinked when the sunlight hit him. Askalaphos walked behind him, shaking. In their gardener’s hands was her pomegranate.

  Demeter threw her arm over her mouth and stumbled back, terrified. Hades made no eye contact with her, nor did he look at Persephone. He strode forward to his wife’s side and faced Zeus, lowering his gaze to look at him. “My lord,” Aidoneus bowed out of respect before continuing, “You well know that the lots were divided equally. You have rulership over us all, but not over the rules of my kingdom. As such you cannot forcibly take her back once you sent her there.”

  Zeus turned and glared at Hermes. “Did I not clearly instruct you to tell—”

  “He told us,” Aidoneus interrupted. “Hermes stood in my halls with that pitiful scroll and told my wife and I how you broke your oath, young one.” The last words came out as a growl. “You hold no sway over the world below and you were bound to honor the pact we made. I expected her to turn against her word—” he said, pointing at Demeter.

  “Now wait just a minute!” the Goddess of the Harvest said, storming toward them.

  “—But not you. Surely if the King of the Gods cannot keep a Stygian oath, then you should not expect the fealty of those who would,” he narrowed his eyes at Zeus. “What do you suppose will happen the next time your lady wife has had enough of your philandering? Or if Ares or even Athena decides to follow in your footsteps, and Kronos’s before you, and depose you? Do you think I will bother to send Briareos to break your chains and subdue the gods again?”

  “What would you have me do, Aidoneus? Be honest with yourself and look around. Your choice of bedmate and whatever we said at the Styx aeons ago means nothing when measured against the ending of all things. I had to consider the greater good. Surely you can understand that.”

  “And I do. But you should have brought Demeter in line before trifling with me. Instead, you unwisely engaged in a battle of wills with her that brought us all to the brink of ruin,” he said, his voice dispassionate.

  “We couldn’t—” he stopped himself, not wanting to give away to the ruler of the Other Side how weakened by Demeter’s famine they truly were. “Your obstinacy had a part to play in all this, you know. Did you truly understand the severity of all this, or were you too busy entertaining your bedmate? Surely your kingdom is overwhelmed right now.”

  “It is,” he said with a nod. Zeus’s accusation stung. It was true— his singular focus on her had been a way for him to ignore the devastation of the world above. But, he needed her by his side now more than ever. “All the more reason to have the God and Goddess of the Dead there to set it aright.”

  “The Goddess—” Zeus shook his head. “Your consort, you mean. What more is she than that?”

  “As the Lord of the Underworld, it is my right and my wish to confer power upon her. She rules Chthonia as my equal.”

  “Oh, so that’s why she wishes to stay!” Demeter interjected and folded her arms in front of her. “By poisoning her mind and promising her a throne at your side as you raped her into submission every night?!”

  Aidoneus gritted his teeth, wishing with all his might that he could taunt Demeter about how willing her precious daughter had been to lay with him, to seduce him as many time as he had seduced her. He didn’t want to embarrass his beloved by telling all the secrets of their bedchamber. Or their garden. Or their throne room. Or the pool. Or the walls and tables and a dozen other places in their palace. Instead, he scoffed and rolled his eyes at her. Demeter huffed.

  Zeus spoke. “Aidon, you’ve let Hecate and Nyx influence you for far too long. Aren’t you master of your own realm? It’s your third of the cosmos for Fate’s sake, not theirs! And yet you call your realm by their old word for it.”

  “The Underworld is as it ever was, and what I say is the truth. My wife and I preside over Chthonia. And what’s more, while Persephone and I rule side by side in Asphodel, the true source of her power lies far, far deeper than that.”

  Demeter and Zeus both looked at Persephone in shock and leaned away, almost imperceptibly.

  “Tartarus bends to her will. She has faced Titans.” Hades smiled triumphantly. “And my queen is now as much a part of my world as I am. Askalaphos!”

  Persephone took a step forward before her plan fell to pieces. “I ate the fruit of the Underworld, Mother!”

  Demeter’s legs faltered and she took a step back. “No…”

  “I ate six seeds from a pomegranate—”

  “Tell me you did not do this!”

  “A pomegranate!” Zeus laughed. “Pomegranates don’t grow in the Underworld! I’ve heard some tall tales in my time, but this one, Aidon—”

  “It is the truth,” Hecate said from her place beside the chariot. “For aeons the seeds lay dormant. But by your daughter’s union with her husband and through their united dreams, they grew.”

  “Where else could you possibly find a pomegranate?” Persephone said calmly. She reached for the fruit in Askalaphos’s hands and held it out to Demeter and Zeus. “Certainly not in the living world.”

  Demeter snatched it from her hand and turned it over in horror, then threw it to the ground. She gripped Persephone’s arms tightly almost shaking her. “By what trick did Hades deceive you?! How did he make you eat these? Tell me!”

  Persephone wriggled out of her grasp and stood next to Aidoneus again.

  “You did this!” Demeter hissed at Aidoneus. “You were going to lose her and it wasn’t enough for you to have ruined her for all eternity, you had to bind her to your hideous dead kingdom!”

  “I did no such thing, Demeter! I didn’t even know she had eaten them until after I sent her on her way. Persephone kept it from me!” He glanced at his wife, his voice gentling when it spoke in her mind. Why didn’t you tell me?

  Persephone winced at his words; spoken and unspoken, feeling a sting of guilt that she had deceived her husband, even for the sake of them all. “I ate those seeds without Hades’s knowledge.”

  “Of course you would say that when threatened by your captor, Kore!” Demeter cried. “He forced them on you just as he forced himself on you! But we can correct this, Kore. Surely we—”

  �
��Mother, I ate them alone, and knew exactly what I was doing when I ate them. Aidon didn’t find out until after I left,” she said looking at him purposefully. My love, please… They would have blamed you unless I revealed it myself.

  They will anyway, sweet one, he answered. It makes no difference.

  Demeter scowled. “You look to him before you speak! Why should I believe what he is obviously coercing you to say?”

  Askalaphos stepped out from behind Aidoneus. He bowed to low before Zeus. “Y-your grace,” he stood and nodded to Demeter, “and great Lady of the Harvest, what the Queen says is true.”

  “And who, pray tell, are you?” Zeus boomed.

  “My name is Askalaphos, s-son of Orphne, nymph of the river Styx. I am the Queen’s gardener.”

  “You mean Hades’s slave—” Demeter snarled.

  “Be silent, woman!” Zeus said. He turned to Askalaphos. “Speak.”

  “I…” he swallowed and breathed shallowly, looking from one powerful, angry god to the other. “I saw the Queen go out to the garden at night, alone. She didn’t know I was there and must’ve thought she was alone in the grove. I-I panicked and hid so she wouldn’t see me. Queen Persephone pulled a pomegranate off the tree and I saw her open it and eat six seeds. Just as she said. I didn’t even want to come here, but Lady Nyx saw it too and told me I should say something. She saw her eat them, Erebus saw her—”

  “Nyx witnessed it too?” Zeus asked.

  Demeter’s face grew red with rage. “How dare you incriminate my daughter on behalf of your master! You lie and screech and give false witness… I ought to turn you into an owl!”

  Askalaphos cowered behind Persephone for protection. She grasped Aidon’s hand and together they shielded their gardener. “You will do no such thing, Mother. He speaks the truth!”

  Persephone glanced behind her. Askalaphos had already taken off running for the safety of the caves, not waiting around for the angry earth goddess to make good on her threat.