Destroyer of Light (42 page)

The orange lights in the room left trails across his vision. He rubbed his eyelids and shook his head. The trails remained, then thickened and grew brighter. His fingers felt numb. Aidoneus tried to draw in a breath, but his chest constricted. Sweat broke out on his forehead. He stumbled backward. Distantly, he heard the clay cup shatter as it hit marble, the remaining nectar and pomegranate splashing across the floor. The trails of light blazed. His stomach clenched, and the spilled dark nectar on the floor started creeping toward him— following him. The slain demons of Echidna, his faithful guard dog’s monstrous brothers and sisters, flashed through his memory. Their blood lurched across the floor.
Murderer… murderer…
The wet snap when Kampe’s neck broke. The screams of the Golden Men… Iapetos’s son, Menoetius, falling into the nothingness below Tartarus, falling forever. The Titan’s cry became his own. He clapped his hands over his ears, but still the screams echoed. The blood chased after him, spreading across the map of his kingdom, rivers of blood he’d shed during the war. He heard weeping.

No… no…

Next to the golden poplar tree engraved on the chamber doors, he saw a pale nymph crouched, heavy with child, her face contorted and streaked with tears. Her fingers reached in his direction, his name a plea for mercy on her lips…

No, Fates, please…

He retreated toward the bedroom, the light streaking toward him.
Destroyer… murderer…
His weight slammed against the door as he stumbled into his bedroom. His knees started to give out and the muscles in his legs seized. His fingers twitched. The roaring fire was all consuming, raging like a great furnace, filling the room. He lost his balance and his back met the wall. The creatures inside the amber twisted and screamed all around him, their pincers and teeth cracking against their translucent cages, shattering their prisons. They leapt to the floor and skittered toward him. Aidon cried out and shambled to the bed, threw himself on it, and closed his eyes.

This isn’t real… this isn’t real… Persephone! Persephone, please… where are you?

He burned and froze. His limbs wouldn’t respond to his will. They twitched, splayed out, his heart racing, his stomach roiling as though the scorpions and centipedes from the walls were tearing him apart from the inside.

“Hades…” The voice was velvety and female.

This wasn’t real. The nectar had been poisoned. He had to fight it.

“Why so afraid, Hades?”

With all his strength he tilted his head up. “S-sweet one? Persephone, d-don’t drink…”

“The nectar?” A pale woman with flaxen hair came into view, slim-figured and naked but for a crown of golden poplar. His crown. Her form wavered in the firelight. “Ergot is a curious thing. Mortals see the most monstrous visions before they die of it.”

Her voice… he knew that voice. He knew that pale figure and those poplar leaves… Please, Fates, don’t let it be her. Of all the memories sent to torment him…

Help me…

“Your minister, Thanatos, is rumored to take kykeon laced with ergot on occasion… just enough to give him visions, but
never
with nectar. That affects a god the same as it affects a mortal, no? And though you feel like you’re dying, though perhaps you’d welcome that release, Hades, you simply won’t get it, will you?”

He sputtered trying to form words. “You’re n-not real.”

“Oh, I am. Or perhaps it’s a memory you see?” She giggled, sauntering closer. “Mortals react to ergot by doing the most peculiar things— accusing the old women in their villages of witchcraft and stoning them.” She lowered her voice. “They are often struck mad— haunted by old memories.”

“You’re not her…”

The naiad’s face was blurred, her features twisted by his memories of another. “Tell me. When you see me, what haunts
you
, Hades?”

***

Persephone…

She felt cold. Aidoneus was panicked and confused— she felt as though his alarm were her own. She looked around the room for her husband, trying to find the source of his voice.

Persephone, please… where are you?

“Aidon?”

Her eyes widened and Hermes stopped his story. “Didn’t Hades leave a while ago?”

“I thought he was talking with Thanatos and Hypnos…” She turned and saw Thanatos looming toward her, Hecate by his side, trying to keep up with his long gait.

Help me…

“You know,” Hermes said, “I’ve never seen him so happy. It’s almost stra—”

Thanatos shoved Hermes aside, his eyes wild. “Go to him. Now.”

“Where is he?! Where is my husband?” Persephone’s skin felt clammy, prickling with fear.

Hecate closed her eyes. “Upstairs. Hurry, my queen.”

The ether flashed and her helm appeared in her hand. She put it on and disappeared from the view of the immortals before bounding up the stairs.

I’m sorry… please… I’m trying to stop… but she…

She? Persephone’s heart raced. What was he talking about?
My love, what is wrong?

No answer. Persephone pounded up the stairs, faster and faster, too distraught and distracted, desperately willing herself to bridge the space between them as she ran. She failed.

Please tell me! What has happened to you?

His lone word made her whole body flare with rage.

Minthe.

***

The naiad’s hips swayed from side to side, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders and breasts. Aidon convulsed, illusion and delirium transported his tortured mind to the days after his arrival in the world below. He recalled the beautiful nymph who tended the poplar tree in front of the palace, the poplar crowns she fashioned for him from its leaves, the friendly words exchanged, the loneliness she’d admitted to him. His visions darkened, showing how their acquaintance had soured, how she had wanted him as a lover instead of a friend.

“You are
not
Leuce,” he managed, speaking around his thick tongue. “She died long ago in the world above.”

“But before she was banished,
by you
, Leuce told you she loved you.” Minthe climbed on the bed, astride one of his twitching legs. “She told me how she offered herself to you. Leuce was no idiot. She knew it wouldn’t last, that you were destined for another. But instead of letting her go gently…”

Aidon remembered that distant morning. He remembered how temptation had almost won over him, how he had nearly broken his vow and given in to her. How Leuce had crawled into his bed, naked and warm, had caressed him to wakefulness, how he had angrily shoved her away. The words she had spoken were etched in his memory.
Aidon I know what I am
, she said,
I know who you are. But for just this brief time, please… My king, my sweet lord, let me care for you… ease your troubled mind… take me please… I offer you my innocence…
He had bellowed for Leuce to leave his room at once. Hades had told Hecate to send Leuce away, even before her training as an acolyte was complete, to lie with a river god in the world above. He refused to speak with her or any of the other Underworld nymphs after she left. Hades saw Leuce only once after that, months later. She was pregnant, bawling, waiting at the shore for Charon to row her away from her home, never to return. Of all the sins he’d ever committed…

“…you had her raped by another.” Minthe’s face came into focus above him. Her scent, sweet and sharp, made him gag. “Your coldness created
me
, Hades, and I watched my mother die slowly of a broken heart, cast off and exiled by the man to whom she’d confessed her love.”

“Minthe.” Aidoneus swallowed. “Y-you— Leuce was…”

“My mother.”

“I never… Minthe, I didn’t— I’m not…”

“I know you didn’t sire me. My mother was abandoned, rejected, then taken in a ritual she did not want by a man she did not want. When I was born, Kokytos refused to acknowledge that he’d sired me. And when I sought his help in winter, he threw me out to his court to be used day after day like whore. Thank the gods that the Corn Mother saved my mother, and when she died, Demeter was able to bind Leuce’s spirit to the poplars of Thesprotia to keep her soul from returning to this wasteland.”

“I didn’t know…”

“Coward. It was so easy to send her off, wasn’t it? An inconvenience to be discarded. And now you have your spoils of war, your plaything… the daughter of the goddess who was our salvation, the innocent girl you ruined to keep beside you.”

“I didn’t…”

“Liar. Everyone knows! Everyone knows what you did to her. And her mother knows and I know that you aren’t capable of love. You destroy, despoil, break, and ruin. You are incapable of compassion or regret. It is simply your nature,” she said, inching up his body to straddle his hips.

“Not with her… not w-with Persephone…” Through the cacophony of pain and illusion, the Harvest Goddess’s plans, executed by this simple pawn, came into sharp relief.

“Defiler. Do you, does
anybody
honestly believe that you can change like the flip of an obol, as though aeons of being the cold unforgiving ruler of Tartarus could be erased in an instant? I will save her from you. I will
break her heart
to save her from you.”

“Why would-d you do this to her?”

“Because finally, my mother’s spirit will be able to rest. In Leuce’s name you will reap what you’ve sown.”

Aidoneus saw the fire blazing around them, rippling with scalding heat. Minthe pulled her prize from behind her back. Its shaft glinted gold, and she aimed it straight at his heart. He tried to sink into the mattress, tried to put distance between the golden point and its target. If it pierced him…

He mustered all his will, trying in vain to keep the golden arrow’s proximity from affecting him. Fire flooded his loins. She felt him stir underneath her. She grasped his flesh stroking him with delicate fingers. He quaked, her touch the only relief from the poison coursing through his veins. He let out a soft moan, his senses overwhelmed by the mix of ergot, the arrow, her touch… Aidoneus narrowed his eyes, shutting out the visions, the pain and pleasure. He wouldn’t give in so easily. “Persephone… s-she will know. If you do this, she’ll know how it w-was done.”

“That will be quite a thing to explain to your wife, when she comes in the room and sees you fucking me. Don’t fret, Hades. She’ll be here any minute.”

Minthe pushed back his foreskin, ready to impale herself on his length. Her heat, her flesh quivered above him. He tried to writhe out of her grasp. “What you wish to do— this is suicide. Minthe, for your sake and mine, don’t do this. I b-beg of you. Everyone will know…”

“You are cut from the same cloth as all the other licentious gods,” she hissed, gripping his phallus and centering herself above him. “Who would ever believe you?”

“I would,” a female voice growled behind her.

Minthe flew backward, her hair yanked by an invisible force. She flailed, kicking Aidon hard in the side. He curled up, shaking, his body succumbing to pain and poison. Through the haze of hallucinations, he saw the lights in the room and beyond extinguish. All light was gone but for one: the writhing body of a screaming woman bursting into white-hot flames.

***

In the hall and gardens below, the torches and brazier lights, the lamps carefully set on the Styx and the
magnes
burning atop the towers went dark all at once. Sound ceased, and Hermes was left mute mid-sentence, along with all the other guests of the Underworld. Long, silent moments passed.

A pained wail, female and filled with anger, echoed from the chambers above. When the scream subsided, sound returned to the hall below. A single torch appeared in Hecate’s hand, the only light in the chamber. She cajoled the shrieking Lampades, fruitlessly trying to calm them. The Erinyes spread their wings and alighted, hissing curses. Thanatos gestured to his brother. Hermes’s knees shook, and he glanced from one daemon to the next. Hephaestus grabbed his arm, startling him.

“We need to leave,” the God of the Forge muttered. “Now.”

“Y-yes,” he said, his mouth dry. Hermes looked upward in the direction of the royal chambers. “What
was
that?”

“My mother once screamed like that.” Hephaestus tugged at Hermes arm. “But when Zeus was caught with another woman, Hera didn’t silence and darken the world. We are strangers here, Hermes. We don’t know what she’s capable of if Hades did what I fear he did.”

Hermes looked at the creatures surrounding them, their eyes glowing in the light of Hecate’s solitary torch. “Best we find out later.”

He grabbed Hephaestus and flew from the terrace across the river, past milling shades and onward to the caverns leading back into the sunlight.

Persephone’s helm clanged
against the floor. Her throat was raw. Before her lay a pile of ashes. Her hands shook. She could smell the burning hair, charred bones, and entrails of Minthe, whom she trusted, whom her mother had insisted attend her. Persephone gasped in air, her skin prickling.

She had brought this upon them. She’d confided in Demeter. Demeter had insisted on sending Minthe. And Minthe…

Aidoneus lay on his side, his body seizing, a thin foam bubbling from his lips. His eyes stared into nothingness. “Aidon!” She ran to him, her eyes blurred by tears. “Fates, no… please… Aidon, what’s wrong? Aidon!!”

He looked up at her, his eyes unfocused and his arm flailing toward her, glancing off her shoulder. “The n-n-nec— the nec— Don’t… don’t…”

The nectar. Persephone ran to the antechamber. A piece of clay from his shattered cup cracked under her sandal. All the lights in the room flared to life with a pass of her hand. Persephone dipped a finger in the full cup on the table, her digit wet and coated in red powder when she pulled it away. She rubbed the grit between her fingers and sniffed it. Persephone had known every plant for as long as she could remember. Not just the lovely flowers like larkspur, or the herbs and roots for eating and healing, but also those for numbing, like willowbark, or even poisoning, like hemlock and foxglove. She knew the countless wispy molds and fungi that grew on the plants, and every good and poisonous mushroom. But beyond all of them, she knew the dark red, deformed barley that grew after late rains and spoiled her mother’s crops, the stalks tainted and deadly, burned before children could find them.

“Ergot.”

She ran back to Aidoneus and laid him back, placing a hand on his chest. She could feel the poison moving through his veins, through his mind. “Lie back… lie back, my love.”

She covered his body with hers, lying atop him and feeling the rush of the bad herb moving through his blood. She laid her head on his chest, listening to his shallow, uneven heartbeat. Persephone closed her eyes and concentrated. “Hold still… hold still… I’m right here with you…”

The life she brought with her from the world above radiated from her until it filled the room, pulsing with green and growing things. She poured the concentrated energy into him, felt it spread through him like fire, the ergot burning away like a leaf landing on hot coals. Under her splayed fingers, she felt his heartbeat slow, steady, and soften. His breathing deepened and his limbs stopped shaking. She opened her eyes and looked into his. His pupils shrank and she could see the dark brown of his irises. “Aidon.”

“Are you real?” He cupped her face in his hands.

Persephone started crying. “Yes. I’m real.”

“Show me you’re real… That you’re not another illusion.”

She kissed him hard on the mouth, sobbing
. I’m real, my love.

He rolled with her, holding her underneath him, gathering her in his arms and trailed his lips over her collarbone, burying his face in her hair. Hades stopped and sat up, his jaw clenched, relief quickly replaced by anger. His voice growled low. “Where is that wretched girl? I will
ruin
her for this.”

At that, Persephone burst into tears, her mouth open, moisture spilling down her temples. Aidoneus quirked an eyebrow, not sure what he’d said to make her react so. He stroked her forehead.

“No, no, my love, nothing happened between us. You saved me. But she…” Where was she? Aidoneus glanced around the dark bedroom. Had the vision of Minthe burning been real? He stood and walked to the hearth, passing his hands over it, rekindling the Phlegethon flame. When the room filled with light, everything was as it once was… the room didn’t blaze like an overheated furnace, and all the little insects and creatures of long ago were still frozen in the stones covering the walls and ceiling. His eyes widened when he saw little purple, hooded flowers and uneven waxy leaves bursting from the walls, growing from the spaces between the amber. Aconite. The poison that was in him had transmuted, living and growing harmlessly on the walls of their bedroom. Persephone cried on, curling into a ball on their bed.

On the floor was a black pile of ash— now become rich soil, and sprouting from it was a bright green sprig, its scent pungent and disturbingly familiar…

His eyes widened and he stared at his wife. She had killed the naiad. Healing him, purging his body of ergot and filling the room with her life-giving energy had brought the little plant to life within Minthe’s remains. Aidoneus shook his head, his teeth grinding together. With the flick of his wrist he summoned his clothing, his himation winding around him and darkening to a midnight black.

One hand scooped up the little mint plant and the other tugged his wife to stand. “Come with me.”

“I didn’t mean to…” Persephone choked through her sobs. “Aidon, she was going to…”

“I know.”

“I should have said something. My mother sent her with me to s-serve… I’m so sorry! This is all my fault… my fault…”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Not with you.”

He pulled her with him down the stairs and through the palace, past the last of their guests, before stopping in the empty stableyard. Only once they were there did he let go of her hand.

Aidoneus grabbed the staff from the side of the gate and hammered it against the ground as hard as he could. The stones in the center of the yard broke apart and fell away, and Persephone could hear the whinnying of horses, the rumble of chariot wheels.

***

The sun was high in the sky. Demeter sat alone outside the Plutonion, twirling a crocus in her hand. Her veil fluttered in the chilly breeze.

Frost had already started climbing the barren stalks of wheat. She touched the crocus flower and it wilted; she let it tumble to the grey, fallow ground. Would her daughter hate her for this? She worried at her lip. If Kore was angry with her, then so be it. It was better than watching her shrivel like that purple flower.

She walked into the empty fields, reaching under her veil to brush away her tears. Her eyes felt raw. How would she endure the next six months, not knowing how Kore fared? She had no doubt of her servant’s commitment, or her desire to avenge her mother, Leuce. Even so, perhaps it had been a mistake to send Minthe.

Demeter stopped at the oak tree where her daughter’s shrine had once been. The shoots had been uprooted last winter by mortals desperate to fill their empty bellies. Husks of larkspur, killed by the cooling evenings, stuck up out of the earth. She shuddered, remembering the day Kore had been taken from her, how she had torn out the plants that had grown around her sleeping daughter. A single asphodel still grew at the base of the tree and Demeter plucked the last ghostly bloom clinging to its stalk.

The earth trembled.

A crack split the ground. The sound of crumbling stone was deafening. Smoke jetted from the yawning chasm. Her stomach dropped and Demeter staggered, bracing herself against the oak. Four great black chargers thundered from the depths of the cold earth. Her hand covered her mouth and her knees failed her.

She wanted to run. She couldn’t run.

A golden chariot followed the four horses, its rider shrouded in smoke. Demeter heard her heart thud in her ears, but steadied herself and stood her ground, tight lipped, ready to face the Lord of the Dead.

As the smoke cleared, she saw a form clinging to Hades. Her daughter. Tears streaked Kore’s face. She stood on the quadriga’s platform, holding her husband’s arm and shaking, her gaze unfocused. Aidoneus stepped off the chariot and marched toward Demeter, cradling something against his chest. Demeter took a cautious step back, then stopped and balled her fists. She would not run.

Hades flung his parcel at Demeter’s feet: dark soil and a fragrant little plant. It smelled sweet and familiar. Demeter’s eyes widened and she stared at the mint in horror. Her mouth went dry.

“You… you murdered her…”

“I did nothing,” he said. “If you want to know where this came from, look to your daughter.”

The Goddess of the Harvest glanced up at Kore, whose eyes were tear stained and bloodshot. She stared at her mother, unmoving. In that moment Demeter knew.

“Shame on you,” he hissed. “Shame on you, Demeter! Do what you will to me. Hurt me, send your minions against me, take all from me, but for Fate’s sake
leave Persephone out of it!
”

Demeter flinched, her lip quivering.

“She turned her friend into a pile of ash. You’ve made your daughter a murderer.” Aidoneus paced in front of her.

“Hades—”

“She
killed
that nymph! A girl she trusted. You sent your servant to do your dirty work because you cannot leave well enough alone! You sowed betrayal and infidelity…
violence
because you were too jealous to let your daughter become her own woman. And for what? To destroy every remaining shred of trust she placed in you? How dare you do this to her!”

“She…” Demeter choked on the lump in her throat. Her eyes burned. “Kore would never—”

“She walked in on
your
servant,
Leuce’s daughter
for Fate’s sake, poisoning and violating her husband!”

“Poison? B-but I never told Minthe—”

“What did you
think
would happen?! I would never stray from my wife, and Minthe would never
dare
tangle with me when my wits were about me.”

“My daughter would have never killed
anyone
if not for your influence! The power you have over her… She wouldn’t have killed Minthe if you hadn’t already tainted her.”

“Tainted?”

She stabbed her finger at him. “
You
know all about killing, don’t you Aidoneus?”

“I have slain tyrants and monsters, Demeter. But you outdid me in ways I never imagined. Not with your two hands, no. But you starved the earth, and man and beast alike died by the scores of thousands.”

“To keep you from ruining her!”

“Ruining…” He shook his head. “This from the woman who would have obliterated her precious Kore to keep her at her side…”

“I could never hurt her in the ways you could! At least with me her heart would be safe from what the gods—”

“I am not like them!” Aidoneus bellowed, pointing toward distant Olympus. A vein stood prominent on his forehead and his face grew red. Demeter cowered, shielding herself from him with upraised hands. “I waited
aeons
for Persephone! There is nothing in this cosmos that could turn me from her! I love your daughter. I always have and always will love her, and her alone.” He drew in a breath, trying to calm himself. “You know that. I am sorry Zeus treated you so poorly. Truly I am. But I am
not
him, I am not
them
, nor will I ever be. Deme…” He spoke gently, his voice low. “Deme, deep down you
know
that.”

Demeter stared up at him, her face drawn and pinched. She broke like rain. The goddess hid her face in her hands. “Aidon, I… I didn’t—”

“Shame on you Deme, for what you did,” he said again through clenched teeth. “And mark me… my wrath will fall upon you tenfold if you
ever
hurt her again.”

“I didn’t mean to—”

“But you did.” Persephone stepped from the chariot, her voice as unsure as her footing. Minthe, burning in a flare of white and green until there was nothing left, flashed through her thoughts again and she shuddered. She could still smell charred bones, acrid, pungent and sweet. She wondered if Minthe’s final scream would follow her forever. Persephone calmed herself. The wind whipped around them. “I’ve always known you to be wise. But you’re blinded by your hatred for my husband. Did you think your plan wouldn’t hurt me? Hurt me
and
you? The Agreement says that I am above for half the year. It says nothing about me staying by your side.”

Demeter paled. “Please… Daughter, you must forgive me.”

“You said I needed servants.” A tear rolled down Persephone’s face. She lifted her hand toward the fragrant little mint plant and it dug itself into the rough soil, rooting and sprouting, spreading across the ground. “Now Minthe will serve me forever. She will be your constant companion in summer
and
winter to remind you of what you did. And if you choose this path again, Demeter, know that you will lose me forever, and it will be your own doing.”

“Kore…”

“If you are in Attica, I’ll be in Thrace. If you are in Peloponnesus, I’ll be in Macedonia. If you are in Hellas, I will be in Illyria. If you cover the earth, I will raise flowers and shoots from beneath the soil.”

Demeter averted her eyes from her daughter. The Goddess of the Harvest knelt before the Queen. She curled forward and wept, reaching out to touch her daughter’s right foot in supplication. “Persephone…”

She tried to hide her surprise. Demeter had never called her that.

“Persephone… please forgive me,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Swear it. Swear that you will never interfere with my marriage ever again,” she said.