The Eighth House_Hades & Persephone

by Eris Adderly

  Persephone let out the breath she’d been holding and moved to follow. When her foot touched the bottom step, an iron grip came around her upper arm.

  “Persephone.”

  Hades stood over her when she turned, everything that moved her and killed her at once. Those black eyes consumed and made promises. The heat of his touch branded her with the most bitter reminder of the depths to which they’d descended in a matter of only days.

  “The equinox,” she said. “Our agreement stands.”

  At her hushed words, he pulled her close, made her hands collide with his chest. The Lord of the Dead laid his final caution on her lips, riding with it that blade edge of danger and affection as their every interaction had done.

  “Beloved, you will have my mercy. The others,” he said, “will not.”

  She couldn’t help a tremble at the endearment, but he released her and stepped back before joining them in any sort of embrace.

  Every choice she made would have consequences. For him. For her. For countless others oblivious to the affairs of the gods.

  When she turned at the double doors, Hades had not released her from that throat-tightening stare.

  You must do this. You must.

  She set her jaw and followed Hermes out of the palace.

  *

  The light of day dazzled anew after Persephone’s time in the Underworld. The subdued light of the Unseen Realm had taught her to see with less.

  Tall, dry grass swished around her ankles, and she squinted ahead as she walked, doing her best to ignore the incessant chatter of her escort.

  Hermes trotted along beside her, his questions buzzing like gnats. He walked backward to face her since she wouldn’t stop for him, and Persephone wore a grim internal smile at the way she was forcing the Swift One to curtail his normal pace. This must have felt like the trickling of sap to him.

  “Is it true?” he said. “The ground tore open and you fell?” She eyed him and made a face, but he went on, incredulous. “No one can enter the Underworld that way. How did you survive the drop?”

  “Lord Hades caught me.”

  Another short answer, but her patience wore thin. And how formally she referred to the god with whom she’d shared such intimacy this last week. Now that she was out of his sight, Hades seemed so very far away.

  “Ugh! With those black claws of his?” Hermes grimaced. “How perfectly wretched for you.”

  Did he think to commiserate? What would his face look like if he knew she didn’t share his revulsion? The dark hands of Hades fading to grey at the elbow and then marble white by the shoulder … and the way those fingers looked when they pressed into her flesh …

  This is helping in no way. Stop.

  The Swift One barreled forward in his line of thought, eyes wide with speculation. “Persephone!” he said. “You were down there for over a week. And Hades means to have you as a consort? Did he try to—I mean, did the two of you—”

  “I don’t see how that concerns you, Messenger.” She marched on, refusing to look at him.

  He gasped in scandalized glee. “You did! Oh how awful for you! Is his touch as cold as it looks? Did he have to truss you up so you wouldn’t run away?”

  The rude questions made her face burn. He had trussed her up a bit.

  But you didn’t want to run. Not unless it meant he might chase you down.

  The very idea called up memories of the blood union. Of seeing, of feeling him hunt that mortal. But Hermes only saw her cheeks coloring. The god all but cavorted under the late morning sun.

  “Persephone, you liked it, didn’t you? Fates! Wait until your mother sees you in such a state.” He untangled his pipes from his belt and brought them to his lips, playing out a mischievous series of notes.

  She shot him a glare, but didn’t stop walking. “Enough, Hermes. I will go to Olympos with you as my father bade. I will not listen to nonsense the entire way. Wag your tongue for someone who cares to hear it—it isn’t me.”

  How had she ever seen this frivolous god as anything but the shallow reflecting pool he was?

  And then he was standing in her path, making her jerk to a halt before they collided.

  “What now?” Her hands came to her hips.

  An impish grin turned the corner of his mouth, and his hand rose to grip her shoulder. Then he was tracing a thumb over her collarbone, blue eyes traveling her flesh anew.

  “You are maiden no longer, Daughter of Zeus.” The thumb tickled her throat. “Perhaps you’d care to sample a lover a bit less … grave?” He managed the audacity of a smirk at his own word play.

  “Did you hear nothing in that throne room, Trickster?” She swatted the hand away and stepped out of his reach. “I am bound to Lord Hades as surely as Hera is bound to my father. I’ve no room for any of … this.” She gestured at him with a nod of disgust.

  “And yet Zeus has tasted many sweets outside his marriage bed,” he said, advancing on her again. “Your own mother being one of them. You’re not in his kingdom anymore, Persephone. The Lord of the Dead needn’t know a thing.”

  Not in his kingdom. Yes.

  “You’re right,” she said, growing a cruel little grin. “I’m not in his realm. I’m in mine.”

  Power she hadn’t tasted in days flooded her veins in a twisting rush. The soil burst at Hermes’s feet. Before he could finish swearing, dark, damp roots as thick as an arm coiled around those swiftest of feet and began surging up calves and thighs. She only halted the ravenous growth at his waist, but Hermes stood trapped on the spot, all the same.

  Still, mockery curled his features.

  “What will you do?” he said. “Leave me here and run off to tell your mother? Or Zeus, if you think he’d listen?”

  She stepped close now, scalding him with a look. “It is not Demeter you should be afraid of, God of Thieves.” The roots began to constrict, making an awful stretching, snapping sound. “It is me.”

  She halted the squeezing growth at his first grunt of pain and crossed her arms over her chest.

  “I know the way to Olympos,” she said, “I have no particular need for your guidance. If you wish to be silent, you can accompany me the rest of the way. If not?” She shrugged. “Well. I’m sure someone will happen along who might find a way to free you.”

  Hermes spread his hands wide, all smiles and paper innocence. “I was only trying to broaden your horizons, Goddess. You’ve shown me how the wind blows.”

  “My horizons are broad enough,” she said. “Which will it be?”

  “Not another word from my lips, I swear it.”

  She wanted to slap the insolence from his face, but it would be one more thing wasting her time. Instead she cast her will over the roots and pulled them back down into the earth.

  Her escort stood dusting his chiton while she shouldered past him toward the inevitable. Olympos waited. Her parents waited.

  Decisions … waited.

  The nimble god skipped after her, mute as promised, but trilling away on his infernal pipes.

  *

  IX Limits

  “What do you mean, ‘she’s eaten his fruit’?”

  Demeter’s outrage furled among the columns of the throne room. The Lord of Lightnings raised a silver brow and Hermes cringed.

  “It is as the Messenger says, Mother.” Persephone maintained straight shoulders and a cool façade as best she knew how. “Lord Hades bid me eat of the pomegranate and I did so. I am bound to him now. You know what will happen if I do not return.”

  “But why?” Demeter clawed at the air, as if she could drag away answers. “Why have you done this thing? You know the laws of the Fates.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “You had no choice?” The heads of wheat crowning her mother’s brow bristled with ire. “There is always a choice,” she said. “Choose now. Refuse him. Remain on Olympos. He has no power in this realm to come and claim you—what can he do?”

  Persephone felt the color in her cheeks
and lifted her chin, defiant. “What would you have me do? Stay in the upper realms until I grow weak and wither away? Never seeking the communion as the bond now requires? You would have me a husk of myself rather than bend your will on this single matter?”

  Demeter’s eyes widened and she inhaled what must have been all the air on the mount. But it wasn’t her daughter on whom she rounded.

  “Zeus.” She was halfway up the stairs to his throne, a thing that was not done without invitation. Rancor seethed from her pores. “You approved this nightmare in the first place. You will extract her from it.” The goddess stabbed a finger at him, and Hermes made himself smaller still on the fringes of the confrontation.

  “You heard her,” Demeter said. “He didn’t give her a choice. He might as well be attempting to force the vows. Speak to the Fates. They can’t bind her to your brother forever over a faulty premise.”

  “Have you forgotten in whose realm the Fates dwell? Shall I venture to a place where I am without power? Where I now have quarrel with its ruler?” Zeus’s smile glittered as he leaned forward in his seat. “You know the laws, Hôrêphoros. We don’t trifle with the workings of the Moirai. The only thing we can do is return her to his halls before the bond saps her completely.”

  Demeter never released him from her glare, but made demands of Persephone. “Tell him,” she said. “Tell your father how that fiend stole you from the fields of Nysa when my back was turned.”

  Persephone looked at the floor and said nothing. There was no point in adding to the crackling tension in the hall.

  “Leave us,” said Zeus. She jumped, as his voice had dropped an octave in command. “I wish to speak to my daughter alone.”

  “I will do nothing of the sort,” Demeter said. “I will remain on this very step until you pull your head out of your Olympian a—”

  “Do not test me, Goddess.” Thunder growled from far away, and a heartbeat later, not so far. “I have very little patience for such wailings as all of these. You will wait in your palace or I will have you wait elsewhere.”

  Demeter’s mouth opened for another retort, but it was Persephone who spoke.

  “For every breath we waste here, Mother, your blight pours more dead mortals onto the shores of the Styx. The Underworld and its ruler swell with power as we stand here and debate. Is this your aim?”

  Whatever flashed in her mother’s eyes then could be described by none of the four seasons over which the goddess ruled. Demeter set her jaw. Stepped back down the stairs with shoulders back and an arched brow of warning.

  “Consider carefully before the two of you insist upon your way,” she said, holding each of their gazes in turn.

  Demeter touched the wreath on her head and it leapt into her hands in the form of her scythe. Much the way Hades would do in the Unseen Realm, she sliced the æther and whirled herself from the hall. Hermes flew from the room in her wake, streaking away on foot at his usual quicksilver speed.

  Persephone found herself staring at Zeus. Had she ever stood alone in his presence? In some respects, it was like standing before Hades. In others, it most certainly was not.

  Do not think of that now. You’ll be bright red in a heartbeat.

  The Lord of Lightnings stood and interlaced his fingers in front of him, inverted his palms, and stretched massive arms away from his chest. Then he descended to the second step from the marble floor and sat.

  “Sit with me, daughter.” He thumped the stone beside him with a palm.

  What else was there to do? She sat, and folded her arms around her knees. More than any other immortal, her father made her feel tiny. It did not help that she hadn’t seen him in ages.

  Zeus turned blue eyes on her and the air in the throne room shimmered. Something inside her chest felt like it was curling open, white waxy petals at dawn. The feeling peeled up through her throat and her tongue grew heavy, then light, just before the words spilled of their own accord.

  “I didn’t eat the fruit.”

  Fates! Why?

  But she knew why, didn’t she? Her father’s ability to compel truth was well known in the upper realms, but Persephone had never experienced it firsthand. It was … oddly freeing, once a body got past the sensation of something opening the core of their being like a fish.

  He had a slow nod for her blurted revelation, his gaze turning out over the hall, considering. His elbows were on his knees, his fingers laced together out in front of him.

  “And yet Hermes believes you did.” It was not a harsh accusation. He tried to solve a puzzle, not shame her for lies.

  “We—Lord Hades and I—decided, well …” You shouldn’t be telling him any of this. “If my mother were to think I had eaten of the pomegranate, she would see my return to him as the only possibility. If she believes I still have a choice, she will never let me alone again.”

  Persephone shrank in on herself, ready for the tirade to come. She’d deceived Hermes, deceived her mother. Deceived the Lord of Olympos, if only for a time.

  The outrage came in the form of a smile.

  “Hades is wise in this plan,” he said. “He is right about your mother.”

  She had to make an effort to close her mouth. He was … accusing her of being right? She sat there in rudderless silence, but after a time, Zeus had more questions.

  “Persephone, do you know why I approved this courtship?”

  “I don’t,” she said. “Not when you knew Mother had such fierce protections on my innocence.”

  He tilted his head and glanced over from under knowing eyelids. “Helios sees all, Daughter. Even such happenings as we might attempt to confine to the mortal plane.”

  The mortal pl—oh!

  “You do not understand, Father. I went to the m—”

  “I do understand,” he said, “but that isn’t the reason for the courtship.”

  She shook her head, but Zeus found her right hand and took it in his. Fingers squeezed with affection.

  “You deserve more than I was able to give your mother,” he said. “Hades is … well …” Air huffed out through his nose. “Hades is many things. The Unseen Realm is not like ours. Mortals fear him because they do not understand death. Immortals keep their distance because they do not understand his ways. He is from a time before the War. As am I. As is your mother. But Persephone,” he said, “he will be a fair and loyal husband, should you choose to make the vows.”

  Her brows came down, perhaps trying to dip into a place of hope. “How can you know this? Mother is sure he will leave me in disgrace.”

  “She does not see many examples on this plane to establish her confidence otherwise. So many of our kind”—he let go her hand to gesture—“grow restless and bored over the æons. Our attention wanders. Aphrodite should be faithful to Hephaistos, Poseidon should have eyes for none but Amphitrite, and I … well, I’m sure your mother has regaled you to no end about what sort of creature I am.” A rueful chuckle accompanied a shake of his head.

  She gave him a look, but Zeus only shrugged.

  “I do not deny it. We are what we are. All of us.” He turned an unfocused gaze back to her, blue eyes serious now. “It is for this reason I can make such judgments. Hades has ruled below all these many ages without choosing a consort. What would have stopped him from doing as so many of us have done? From speaking the vows out of passion, and then forsaking them when he grew tired?”

  “I … don’t know?”

  “Whatever it is he seeks in a consort, the Lord of the Dead has waited for it. He has a patience none of us can match. He will stay true, Daughter, and this is what you deserve. So much better than what Hermes would have given you, or Apollo.”

  Loyalty. Who knew? It had been her father’s concern, just the same as her mother. And yet his assessment, of at least one immortal, differed from Demeter’s as the night from the day.

  Hades’s attentions had swept all other concerns out of existence. It wasn’t until the end of her time in the Underworld that Persephone ha
d begun to consider practicalities. She hadn’t been able to catch her breath—or stay on her feet!—long enough around the god to even worry about a marriage, let alone whether he would remain faithful.

  Her father bounced her palm in his. “You spent a week in the Underworld, daughter of mine. I’m sure it wasn’t to sit alone in the dark.” Now he wore half a smile, and her face went hot in an instant.

  The gentle teasing was like nothing her mother would have to say on the matter. How had her parents tolerated each other long enough to produce her?

  “Do you love him?”

  Persephone almost choked, but the question should have come as no surprise. Zeus was about as subtle as the lightning he commanded. Still, after settling herself, she nodded. “I believe I do.”

  There. Her father compelled truth, even when he wasn’t trying.

  “Will you go back to him then?”

  “If only it were that simple.”

  Both brows climbed now, a series of lines furrowed above them. “I see.” The two words speculated and judged, but also kept a surprising respectful distance.

  He stood from the step, straightening his chiton as he went. “Well,” he said, reaching a hand down to help her up, “we won’t tell Demeter otherwise, will we? I don’t know how much peace it will afford you, but it should continue to buy you time.”

  When she joined him on her feet, her father caught her in a warm embrace, thumping her back with a massive palm. “Don’t make him wait long, Persephone.” The words brushed the top of her hair, “If you’re not going back, you should tell him before it hurts too much.”

  *

  It was beginning to hurt too much.

  Hades stirred atop the platform of the Elaionapothos. There was comfort in no position, rest after no amount of silence. The stalactites above pointed at him in accusation while their counterparts rising from the floor all stood by to witness.