The Goddess Embraced (The Saga of Edda-Earth Book 3)

by Deborah Davitt

  Pluto could almost see the thoughts in the air around the knot of three Roman goddesses. Juno was doubtless telling Venus to seduce him. Venus’ faintly horrified expression spoke volumes, but there was also a faint hint of a challenge there. Get all the powers that are left, locked together, and moving in the same direction, he could almost hear Juno say. The calculating intellect behind his sister’s eyes was terrifying. After a long moment of silence, and just as Venus took a step forwards, her lovely lips parting, and a haze of her power rippling out from her. Barely discernible, it was, nevertheless, there.

  Pluto held up a finger. No.

  Venus paused, looking confused. You have not yet heard what I was about to say.

  I know you. Do not seek to beguile me. You and Mars once ruled over us. I am not Mars, nor do I seek to be. He turned and regarded Juno. How much better my brother’s rule would have been, if he had ever made you a true co-ruler, he told her, as his worms all recoiled into him, and began to solidify, temporarily, into flesh. How much clearer his understanding, how much more balanced his vision, how much more powerful would his reign have been, if he had truly blended himself with you?

  Juno looked . . . vaguely disturbed. You hardly bound yourself to Proserpine—

  She refused me her essence. In twenty-five hundred years, I could never change her mind. Pluto’s voice was stark. Hades had forcibly bound Persephone, before the compact between Rome and Olympus, and Pluto had more or less been required to echo that binding with Proserpine. He’d never forced himself upon either of them. And human belief had slowly stripped him of his generative urges. His very earliest incarnation had been half of a generativity-and-death pair, but the female half of that pairing had not lasted out the centuries, and her Name had been lost to time. I will not fight you, sisters, he told Juno, Venus, and Vesta, tiredly. Release Hephaestus from his chains and wring the neck of Jupiter’s eagle, for all I care.

  Will you fight for us? Juno asked, advancing on him. Her power suddenly radiated out from her. The strong mother who held together a family, the virtuous wife, the eternally wronged-woman, the protector of women in child-birth. She stood just before his throne, as Pluto lifted his head.

  There seems little left for which to fight. Jupiter, at least, will no longer be sending us out as assassins. Nor will I permit you to use me in such a fashion, my fairest sister. He could sense, at the edge of his perceptions, Orcus starting to sidle out of the hall.

  There is an entire world out there for which we can and must fight, brother, Juno urged, planting her hands on the arms of his throne, and leaning forwards, her long hair brushing his skin, which threatened to boil forth into writhing worms once more, at her touch. Our people need us. Proserpine died, fighting off a mad godling, as did her mother. Where were you?

  Pluto looked up at the ire in her tone. The original virago. Scouting for an opportunity to attack Odin. Per our brother’s command. I told him that I doubted I could kill Odin. Odin never rides alone. A dull ache, but it was not as if Proserpine had ever loved him. If you intend to fight the mad ones, I will assist. But if you intend to continue Jupiter’s foolish vendetta against the other gods . . . no. I will stand aside.

  No bargaining? Juno asked, her incisive gaze catching and holding his own. You have no requirements? You ask for nothing in return?

  Pluto winced as another ripple of pain rolled through him, from where Sekhmet’s jaws had clamped on his throat. No. There is nothing that I want.

  Venus laughed behind Juno. There is always something that someone wants. Nothing from nothing.

  Pluto heaved himself out of his throne, once more ignoring Hades, and began to draw invisibility over his form once more. Making of himself a cipher, an absence in the air. Juno caught him, putting a hand to his chest, and pushed him back. I require a bargain, the queen of the gods told him, firmly. You will bind yourself to our cause, with shared energies.

  So that any betrayal will harm me as much as it harms you? Is not my word enough? Have I ever broken my oath? Even the benighted ones I swore to Proserpine and our brother? He allowed himself to lapse into visibility to gaze past Juno with mild contempt at Venus, who had left the scene of Jupiter’s defeat unwounded. Venus bit her lip, and had the grace to look guilty—the more so, as Artemis brought Hephaestus into the hall, relieved of his chains. Pluto looked down at Juno now, and let his flesh uncoil. Let the horror that humanity had come to envision in him roil forwards, snaking around the fair hand that Juno pressed against his chest. You would have me bind myself to one of you? I disgusted poor Proserpine and Ceres.

  Venus recoiled, grimacing. Vesta quailed. Artemis, still tending to Hephaestus’ bleeding body, gave Pluto a look of pure repugnance. Juno, however, stunned him by leaning forward to wrap her arms around him. My poor brother, she murmured. I remember when you and I were newly come to this world. We have been hammered upon the anvil of time. I would not ask any other to bind themselves to you, or any with less power than myself. She leaned up and pressed her lips against his, unleashing her power. Offering and taking. Pluto resisted, but only for a moment. He’d test her resolve, her will. If she could bear the horror that he was, she was worthy of commanding his power.

  He dissolved once more into that writhing mass of worms, and flowed over and around her. None of them bit her, however; this was only a physical analogue, an appearance matrix for his actual power, which was raw entropy . . . something that had no effect at all in their native realm. His most powerful ability was functionally useless here, but he still held massive amounts of power in their native universe, thanks to the sheer amount of belief mortals had placed in him, over millennia.

  He showed her the nothingness, the negation, the power of entropy, as he wrapped around her. The yawning abyss that could threaten her own existence.

  Her power began to thread through him in return, knitting him to her, binding her to him. Winding his form back together, helping him find a stable point at which all his flesh actually cohered once more. Drinking in his power, and offering her own. His was greater than hers, at the moment. Almost everyone in the Roman empire had given two assarii, at least, to cover the eyes of their dead before burial or cremation. Everyone in the empire had given Pluto his homage, for over two thousand years. And Jupiter had been scrupulously careful to limit her worship to marriage ceremonies and rituals for the birth of healthy offspring.

  Pluto’s eyes opened. He’d been bound to his brother, by oaths of loyalty. And technically, he’d been bound to Proserpine, an unwilling wife. Though it had only been meant to echo the union between Hades and Persephone, the bond had rapidly chilled. Every union between Hades and Persephone had been rape. And Proserpine had inevitably begun to echo her double’s justifiable anger. But Pluto had not done any of these things. He’d locked himself away from Hades, removing all but a trickle of the power that having a twin provided, but to no avail.

  So he’d allowed himself to become what the humans made of him. Death. Changeless, unfeeling death. The fair, impartial judge of gods and men, who desired nothing at all.

  He’d never experienced what a willing and reciprocal bond could be. And he could see its effect on Juno, as well, as she almost lost control of her own form for a moment, as his power uncoiled inside of her. Her flesh, for an instant, became petals that fell away, and then re-integrated itself. I thought you only would require a small amount of my power, he whispered to Juno.

  I thought that was all you would offer. This is better, however. Her eyes snapped open, however, and she added, softly, with quick political awareness, It keeps those with the most power in control, and . . . balanced. Almost reluctantly, she moved away, but he could still feel the bond between them, burning in his mind . . . and he began to conceal himself once more, out of habit. No! she snapped at him, imperatively. I cannot have you being a hidden power behind the throne. They will see you. Juno turned back to the others, her expression fierce. I note that Orcus has left us. What a pity. Vesta, my dear? I think you wo
uld make an admirable messenger to Valhalla, Amaterasu, Sekhmet, and the Gauls. You are our least war-like. They should understand that when they see you.

  What message should I take? Vesta asked, apprehensively.

  Juno considered that, her eyes hooded. That with Jupiter’s death, there are policy changes. That Pluto and I now control Olympus, with Venus’ able assistance. And that we offer a . . . partnership towards the extermination of the mad ones. We can revisit the issues that have prompted bloodshed between us later. Once the world is no longer in direct danger. We will deal with issues of ‘weregild’ for Skadi and Neptune, for example, but later.

  Partnership. What an astonishing concept, Pluto thought, and knew she heard him. But he was dismally aware of the death he could feel all around him whenever he entered the mortal realm. He didn’t think there was enough time to save humanity. But he bowed his head slightly to Juno, and, rather than taking his brother’s old throne, kicked it away, and, sending Hades sulking away, moved his own beside Juno’s for the duration of the council.

  After various oaths of fealty were once more offered, they received word back from the other gods that they would accept Juno’s terms for peace and partnership . . . if she and Pluto and Venus met them in their own halls to finish the negotiations. Very well. Allow me to finish healing, and we will depart, Pluto told Juno, as she drummed her fingers on the arm of her throne. He stood and left the great hall, preparing to leave for his own gloomy realm.

  And where would you go? Juno demanded, catching him outside the main hall, having had to hasten her stately steps to do so.

  He regarded her, somewhat surprised. Tartarus. It is my domain.

  No. You will remain here. It does not send the appropriate message to the others, if their new rulers do not stay in the realm that they rule. If their new king and old queen do not embody unity. Juno’s form roiled for a moment, and then she steadied it.

  It was every bit the uncomfortable reality that a political marriage might have been for two humans, except . . . they had known each other since before they had ever set foot in the mortal realm.

  Their Hellene doubles had been birthed by the titans Cronus and Rhea, out of their own essences, splintered off into new beings. But because they had been young and inexperienced, and more attuned to the mortal realm than the titans, they’d been treated first as children, then as bound servants, and, as they grew in power, as energy sources by Cronus, who had attempted to devour them, leaving them as little more than Names. Then Zeus, with the aid of other titans, bound his siblings to himself, and killed Cronus. The Olympians had detested each other, but they’d been bound together for common defense. Hera had, for example, hated her bond to Zeus so much, that she’d produced Hephaestus through pure parthenogenesis, splitting off a piece of herself to create the crafter-god . . . something that even the humans understood and encoded in their mythology; in no legend at all, was Hephaestus the son and heir of Zeus by Hera. Vulcan had not been Juno’s son; he’d been one of the same knot of common brethren as the rest of them, who’d all entered the mortal realm and been adopted by the Etruscans, together. But his legends had been shaped by his association with Hephaestus.

  Neither Hera nor Juno had ever conceived a child by Zeus or Jupiter, in spite of over twenty-five hundred years of being bound to one another. Pluto suddenly realized that their union had been as empty as his own bond to Proserpine. The truth was that Jupiter’s marriage to Juno—the image on which Romans had shaped their own families, and their Empire!—was a sham. The Roman people, whether they had reflected the ordering of their early gods, or if their beliefs had shaped their gods, or some poisonous alchemy of the two, had had a very particular social order, which time had only changed so much.

  A Roman husband was the absolute authority within his own household, the pater familias, as Jupiter had been, within Olympus . . . and indeed, within the world. In ancient times, a father could kill his own underage son or his wife, and not suffer prosecution for it, though there had been a certain amount of social shame for having allowed the family to get so out of control. Disobedience, lack of filial loyalty, or lack of wifely fidelity had all been considered valid excuses. Humans had adjusted their laws over time, as women and children gained rights. But the image of the Roman family, encoded in Jupiter and Juno, had never really changed.

  A Roman matron was expected to keep the children in line, run the family with a fist of iron, and ensure the comfort of her husband, freeing him to be out in the world. The earliest Romans had treated their women as commodities; their girl children had had no names, beyond a feminized version of their father’s own name. For a woman to express indignation over the behavior of her husband was considered . . . unRoman.

  And yet, because of, or in spite of the weight of human belief on her, Juno—and Hera—had expressed their outrage at their treatment. Juno, queen of the gods, had been barren, or at least, had refused to bear Jupiter’s children, in spite of being the guardian of childbirth for her mortal followers. She had been forced to govern, educate, and tolerate the children that Jupiter and Zeus had produced with mortal women and other spirits. Had been forced to be mother to a brood not her own, and for her pains, she and Hera been portrayed by humans as bitter, jealous females who hated their husbands for their infidelity, and longed for the children that the other women produced, while at the same time wreaking spiteful vengeance upon them for being born at all. The virago. The shrew. The wicked step-mother.

  It was, and was not, the truth.

  So Pluto followed his sister to the bed-chamber—her domain—and paused, just past the threshold, in a moment of awkwardness. He did not quite know what she expected of him, and so took a backless chair near her work table, and was both relieved and disappointed as maps began to unroll before him. Maps of Rome, maps of the world. We should tell our humans to call back their troops from the lands of the Gauls, Goths, and Judeans, he suggested. Nahautl and Quecha are lost causes at the moment, as well.

  Agreed. I sense fewer than a hundred thousand of our people in Nahautl and Quecha, and many of them have actually made their way north into Novo Gaul. I can hear their women praying to me for safe delivery of their children. Usually in the same breath as an appeal to Freya or dead Damara. A bitter expression crossed her face. Birth control pills are in short supply, and the hospitals are overcrowded. We are returning to the days of women dying in childbirth, or of childbed fever. No antibiotics, and few healers. And I have no god-born to send to them. She shook her head. No matter. What cannot be helped, must be endured.

  When last I checked, Venus had god-born. Quite a few. So does Cupid.

  They do. They are, in general, more concerned with passion, than with its consequences. A grimace that covered all of Cupid’s peccadilloes followed, and Pluto nodded acquiescence. I don’t suppose . . . ? Juno gave him a sidelong glance.

  Persephone had a few. His tone was remote. Zeus, her father, impregnated her once, before she was bound to Hades. Her children were Zagreus and Melaena. Lesser fertility spirits. They had many children of their own on Crete. They lost all belief thousands of years ago, however, and passed like whispers on the wind. I have no god-born, nor any gift for healing. Who would, after all, choose to touch death? I will defend you when we treat with Valhalla.

  She gave him a dark glance. That proved of little help to Jupiter. The stinging scorn that might have rung from her words, however, was absent. Tempered with the newness of the alliance.

  Sekhmet and Amaterasu were unexpectedly powerful. Venus was also of no assistance in the matter. His tone was neutral; he was, among other things, a judge. Humans had perceived him as such, as universally fair to prince and pauper alike, and so, he had become.

  Is she ever? Juno tossed back, scornfully.

  She has enormous power in this modern world. The cinema, in particular, has made passion a preoccupation of these modern days, and she therefore has more power than she realizes. He paused, looking away. After we meet with Val
halla, I will go to our mortal soldiers, and order them to begin the retreat out of lands that are not ours. Their deaths would be pointless.

  Bringing them home across the waves will be nearly impossible at the moment.

  Order Poseidon to be of use. With Neptune dead, he has our last remaining control of the seas. I will guard him, and our people, as they pass across the waves. He stood, and offered her his hand in farewell, and watched as his flesh uncoiled again . . . and she very carefully smoothed it back into place, locking it back down against the bone. He had been dissolution and chaos, at the same time as the blank, static, unchanging emptiness of endings for a very long time. It was exceedingly strange to be touched by someone whose powers were creation and order.