by Molly Ringle
It was the first time he’d ever called her that, and tears stung her eyes. “We’ll find out,” she repeated.
His gaze dropped back to the flame, and she hesitated, not liking to leave him alone. She didn’t wish to ask what he saw in the flame, why he and Hera were down here, though she had plenty of good guesses.
He spoke instead, without her needing to ask. “There were so many we killed, or helped to kill, in all those wars. We didn’t look deeply enough into it, to see whether we were in the right. Too many innocent victims. And the women, all those I left pregnant, they usually died. We thought we were helping in wars, I thought I was giving the women a treat as a lover, and surely we did help a great many, but…no, on the balance, we tipped too far this way.”
Persephone’s mouth was dry. “I can’t free you. I’m so sorry. There’s no magic, no way to do it. With any luck you won’t be held long, but it isn’t up to us. Please know that.”
He nodded, not looking at her. “I know. It’s all clear to me now.”
Quick rhythmic footsteps pounded behind her. Hermes raced in, torch in hand, his face grim and gleaming with sweat.
Persephone leaped to him in a frightened hug, then pulled back to look at him.
“I’ve been there,” he said. “Heard them crowing about their victory. It’s…” His sigh shook with fury or grief. He stepped forward to look into Zeus’ cell. “Give me a little while with them,” he said softly to Persephone, his eyes upon Zeus. “Then we’ll collect everyone—in the spirit realm, where it’s safe—and go over what we know.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
They were bashed with clubs and rocks,” Hermes said quietly to the assembled group in the cave, “then thrown onto the fire. Evidently that does it.”
Hephaestus stared at the small fire they’d built. “I suppose if the flesh isn’t given a chance to heal, if it’s destroyed and scattered before it can…” He trailed off.
Silence and unsteady breaths rustled in the air as the group contemplated it.
Hekate felt the fear running through everyone like a winter flood, herself included. She shivered and lifted her face to the pale gleam of sky at the cave mouth. Outside, cold rain poured down, lashed along by wind. Thunder rolled between the hills. The weather magic exuded power today, and struck her as utterly indifferent to humans, immortal or not.
The group had taken refuge in a spirit-realm cave for their meeting, halfway up a mountain near Athena’s city. Not the Underworld itself: that location unsettled too many of them, especially now.
Not everyone was here. Adonis was still far away in the east, for one. Still, he needed to know this news, and Hermes had promised to track him down and tell him soon. Three of the women known as the Muses were away on travels too, as were Eros and Pan. But the oldest original immortals were all there, along with many of the younger ones who’d been turned immortal by the orange. Ares attended as well. Hermes had fetched him back.
“If they’re reborn,” Prometheus said, turning to Persephone and Hades, “would they be immortal again?”
“We don’t know,” Hades said. “It’s never happened, as far as we’ve heard. We can hope.”
“Do we know who the butchers were?” Ares asked, jaw clenched.
“The leaders, yes,” Hermes said. “I could point out the ones who were boasting and speech-making about it at the gathering I saw.”
“Then we kill them.”
Artemis answered Ares with a nod, her face stony. The point of her bow and the feathered tips of arrows stuck up behind her back.
But most of the others only gazed at the fire, and Aphrodite said wearily, “No.”
“No,” Hades echoed.
“I would agree we don’t fall upon them and massacre them like barbarians,” Apollo said. “But surely we capture them and turn them over to the city’s judges, given what they’ve done?”
“That’s fair,” Persephone said. “We do that anyway with murderers.”
“We’ll never get all of them,” Hestia said. “Even if their leaders are tried and executed, plenty of people who helped in the attack would probably still be walking free. And executing a few might only stir up outrage and make the rest more violent against us.”
“Killing the leaders sets an example,” Artemis corrected coldly. “It’s the way of war.”
“War?” Rhea said. “For the Goddess’ sake, none of us wants a war with the mortals.”
“We’d win if it came to that,” Ares claimed.
Hermes scoffed. “Even I wouldn’t gamble on that.”
The collective sour mix of bloodthirstiness, terror, and grief surged too strong for Hekate to take. She rose, her stomach churning, and clambered to the cave mouth. Covering her ears, she leaned against the cold rock entrance, and took gulps of the fresh outside air.
The debate raged all afternoon. She couldn’t bear to be a part of it vocally. Instead she wove an invisible rope circling the group, both of its ends out in the storm: destructive emotions channeling out, where they became lightning and thunder, and cleansing energy from the rain flowing inward to soothe and clarify. The little river traveled around the arguing immortals, and their words eventually turned from insults and defenses to compromises and ideas.
Hekate slumped at the cave mouth, exhausted and shivering, her head against her knees, her tunic soaked from the windblown rain.
The other immortals decided upon two pieces of action. One was to pursue the three leaders Hermes could definitely identify, and insist upon a trial for them if the people hadn’t already rounded them up. The other was to meet with as many local leaders in Greek towns and cities as possible, make clear the good intentions of immortals toward mortals, and request peace on both sides.
The sky and rain and earth still felt indifferent to Hekate. No assurance their resolutions would succeed, no hint of their failing. Still up in the air, as life usually was.
Her father’s hand fell warm upon her shoulder. She knew him by his energy even before she looked up. “We’ll need your help, if you can placate the people the way you’ve done for us,” he said.
“You knew I was doing that?”
“I’ve learned to detect a thing or two, even if I can’t perform it the way you can.” He helped her up, and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
“There’s one more thing we should do,” Rhea said, lifting her voice above the murmurs of conversation. “While we’re all here, and all together. Let’s join our blood, each with every other, so we can never lose one another again.”
“I suppose that’s wise,” Athena said. “In case anything happens.”
They all consented. Knives came out, and the immortals lanced fingers or arms, and pressed their blood together. The crowd mingled to make sure each met with every other. Hekate found strength in the exercise, fascinated by the unexpected tints or flavors threading through each person’s essence. She had sensed such feelings before, faintly, when touching their flesh, but the blood exchange gave a far brighter, stronger impression. An iron will she hadn’t expected in Hestia, a soft modesty in Artemis, a shimmer of anxiety in Ares, and a love almost innocent and pure in Hermes.
No, the future held no guarantees of cooperation. Too many conflicting wills, too many changing circumstances, too many souls. It was far beyond Hekate’s skill to weave that kind of peace. But she would try. And as Rhea had said, at least now this little group of flawed but beloved companions, this family of sorts, wouldn’t easily lose each other again.
Tabitha sat in the cold night air on top of her dorm, absorbing the sparkle of downtown Seattle and its roar of traffic. She wasn’t supposed to be up here, but had easily leaped onto the fire escape ladder and ascended. Getting on top of buildings without having to worry about falling: another plus of immortality. For what that was worth.
Zoe hadn’t texted her in several days. Tab supposed she should contact her, check in, see how she was doing. But her mind kept wandering before her thumbs could do the actual t
yping.
Freya. Hell. Freya wasn’t even Tab’s usual type—Zoe was, all lean and natural and short-haired and boy-wardrobed. But Freya wasn’t the goddess of love for nothing. She fascinated everyone; she got a hold on you. She haunted you.
Freya didn’t love Tabitha. At least, not in a way that would’ve put Tab above all other contenders. But such chemistry zinged between them. So many hotly burning flames in the past. Not just as Adonis and Aphrodite, but in other lives too. Tab had the disturbing impression that once her soul had gotten a whiff of Freya’s, life after life, the obsession had eclipsed all other lovers, though many of them would have been healthier for Tab, in her previous incarnations, to pursue.
Even as Adonis managed his slow metamorphosis into a god, hadn’t it largely been with the secret aim of impressing Aphrodite? Or at least becoming good enough for her?
Also, he had wanted worship and respect from as many people as he could get. Life had been grievously lacking in those for the guy.
Tabitha had a symphony to listen to and a paper to write about its technical details, but screw that. Her report card was going to suck balls this term anyway. Nothing she could do it about it now. So she wandered into the distant past, following the itinerant Adonis.
Hermes arrived with the sobering news about Zeus and Hera. Adonis was in western India at that point, having started at the southeastern coast and roamed his way along, usually on foot, though he kept his spirit horse tied near in the other realm in case he needed her. The news did make him reflect that he should be more careful, but it didn’t shake him the way it apparently had the others. Not long ago he’d been ready to die, and had nearly succeeded. It still felt a bit unreal to have survived. Now he reckoned, once more, that he probably would die some day, but at least he would enjoy strength and mental clarity until then.
India fascinated him, with its exotic array of gods and animals. In both the living realm and the spirit realm, the animals were different than the beasts in Greece. In the spirit realm here, he’d found reddish elephants, wildcats with stripes and spots on the same coat, hellishly huge crocodiles, small hoofed beasts with wings, and delicate butterfly-like insects in every color imaginable. He loved the animals. Sometimes he captured one and brought it into the living realm to astonish people.
He only sometimes bothered mentioning he was immortal. The language barrier was part of the issue. He didn’t speak the Indian tongue in any of his past lives, so he had to learn it the usual way, by listening and practicing. And mostly he liked to listen, and to experience new flavors. He approached wine-makers and other alcoholic drink creators, and talked to them about their techniques, learning from them and sharing what he knew.
Aphrodite still burned in his heart. But the ache lightened a bit with each passing month. He allowed himself to be seduced at Indian festivals, first by a young woman and later by a man, and although they couldn’t measure up to Aphrodite’s skill, their sweetness and avidity flattered him, and that helped heal him too.
After India, he trekked slowly westward, visiting deserts and mountains and warm seas. He learned new languages, and new methods of cultivating grapes and turning them into wine. He adopted a pet from the spirit world, a big leopard-like cat he raised from a kitten. He named her Agria, the Greek word for “wild.” She padded tamely along beside him like a dog; the sight of her terrified some people and delighted others.
He witnessed a thousand varieties of worship and revelry, and heard countless religious stories. One recurring in several areas was that of the dying and rising god, a person who was tragically killed and then brought back to life as a god. People worshipped the cycle of life through him, comparing him to the plants decaying into the dirt and then shooting up green and new again in spring.
Adonis related to the resurrection story rather literally, since such a thing had happened to him.
The dying and rising god had as many names as he had towns in which he was worshipped. But in Crete, when Adonis finally got there, the people called that god Dionysos. They honored him with wine and grapevines and animal masks, among other offerings. It seemed fitting.
Adonis discarded his old name. Henceforth he would be Dionysos.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Persephone stroked the smooth sides of the clay jar on her lap, gazing into its empty black interior. Beside her on the ground burned an oil lamp.
Hades walked into view, down the path between the orchard’s pomegranate trees, a leashed spirit dog lighting his way. Kerberos and Hekate followed, Kerberos nipping playfully at the spirit dog’s tail, though his jaws snapped shut on nothing each time.
Hades and Hekate sat on the ground near Persephone, the fallen black leaves crackling under them. The lamp shone in the middle of their triangle. Persephone set the empty jar beside it.
“Who do we assume would find such a thing, if we bury it here in the Underworld?” Hades asked.
“Only someone important and clever enough to get into the Underworld,” Persephone answered. “Which is how it should be.”
Hekate nodded, chin on her hand, gazing at the jar. “People will always remember us, of course. Once they become souls.”
“But souls can’t touch the jar or the trees or anything else,” Persephone said. “And if we’re all destroyed, they might not remember in the living world after a while.”
The three contemplated that idea soberly.
Hades murmured, “Grave goods. Before we’re dead.”
“More like a record,” Persephone said. “A gift. We could write something down, but writing may fade, or the language could become undecipherable. Whatever we put in it might not last, either. But after what happened to Zeus and Hera…”
“We should try,” Hekate agreed. “I’ll seal it with magic, to give it a better chance at surviving and being found someday.”
Persephone looked in gratitude at her beautiful, tangled-haired daughter.
Hekate returned the glance with a bright smile. “So what do we put in it?”
They settled on a number of items: small cuttings of their hair (including Kerberos’), a whole pomegranate that was beginning to dry up, an amethyst from one of Persephone’s jeweled belts, an emerald from one of Hades’ cloaks, a piece of a favorite rock of Hekate’s that had a strange magic of its own and attracted iron to it, a few clay figurines that worshippers had given to them or left for them, a scrap of the red cloak Persephone had been wearing when she eloped with Hades, a scrap of the blanket Hekate had been wrapped in upon birth, a twist of the willow-and-ivy reins from the chariot, and a single whole orange from the tree of immortality.
Persephone picked up the jar, rattled the items around, then grimaced at her daughter and husband. “Who’s going to make sense of all this, other than us?”
“But it might be us, someday,” Hekate pointed out.
They went soberly quiet again.
Persephone fit the stopper onto the jar and sealed it with beeswax. Hekate set her hands around it, doing nothing that Persephone could see or hear, but after a moment she declared, “Done.”
Persephone opened a small jar of dark blue paint, and picked up a paintbrush. “How should we decorate it? Something related to death? No, that’s a bit morbid.”
“The night, then,” Hades said.
“Bats?”
“Owls,” Hekate said.
Persephone nodded. “I think I can draw owls better than bats anyway.” She dipped the brush in the paint and touched its wet tip to the jar.
And over three thousand years later, Sophie thought as she awoke, a wheelchair-bound boy named Adrian Watts remembered that jar after eating the pomegranate seeds Rhea gave him. Rhea carried him into the narrow passageway to the spot where the jar was hidden, deep behind rocks in a crevice in a wall of the Underworld, and the soul of Hades uncovered and beheld the jar painted with owls. Inside they found the star-shaped seeds of the long-dried-up orange, and replanted them, and they grew. Thus immortality was back in season again aft
er all these centuries.
Just not, quite yet, for Sophie.
Nearly four years after Adonis’ near-death, Hekate thought of him one spring morning, and stopped mid-stride in the Underworld’s fields. He was near, much nearer than he had been in all this time.
She ran with Kerberos to the river and crossed it. Her mother knelt in the entrance chamber, weaving a harness for a spirit horse.
Hekate seized her horse and unwrapped its reins from the stalagmite. “I’m off for a ride. Perhaps I’ll visit the market. See what’s in season.” She wasn’t sure why she was lying about her purpose for leaving. Because crushes were embarrassing, she supposed.
“Choose one of the friendly villages,” Persephone warned. “You know the ones to avoid.”
“Yes.” Hekate picked up Kerberos and leaped onto the saddle with him.
“And switch realms instantly if there’s any trouble. Even if you have to leave Kerberos.”
“Of course. I know.”
Persephone sent her a worried smile, and waved goodbye.
For the past two years Hekate had been traveling with Hades or Persephone or another immortal envoy to one village after another, doing their best to spread the truth about immortals and to combat the vicious rumors. On the whole, people were glad to receive them and hear their assurances, and most promised they had no intention of participating in an uprising against the gods. But in nearly every town, they did find some who glared fiercely or shouted “Thanatos” at them. It didn’t help that Hekate and her parents couldn’t deny that some immortals had killed mortals in battle or self-defense, or that Ares had stabbed a mortal rival over Aphrodite.
“We’re humans too,” Persephone tried to explain in one town. “We have passions and moods, and at the worst of times, such things happen. But we do wish to abide by your laws and do no harm.”
“If you’re human too,” a man growled back, “you ought to be mortal like us. Thanatos!” The chant was picked up by others, and Hekate and her mother retreated swiftly, protected—that time—by a circle of kind mortals who escorted them out of the village and apologized for their fellow citizens.