Destroyer of Light (45 page)

Persephone shook her head and took his hands in hers, guiding him back to the bed to sit beside her. “When you spoke to the Fates, what did they say to you?”

Aidoneus thinned his lips. “They told me that those who rule Chthonia do not have heirs. That is the fate of ‘those who share in the bounty of the souls’.”

“What if our child is meant to rule the sky instead?”

“Zeus said that to—” He calmed his angry voice. “It was an empty oath meant to silence and shame me.”

“Or he unknowingly speaks the will of the Fates. Tempting them…”

“
Please
don’t let their words go to your head. Curiosity about my destiny nearly destroyed me. The Fates told me that I would bring you here against your will, that I would have you but
not
have you, all of which has come to pass. They said that I would bring sorrow and destruction to the mortals…” He shook his head. “Gods above… I
ate
the fruits of the Underworld, the ‘bounty of the souls’, just as they predicted I would.
Ananke
is inescapable.”

“They also told me that you and I would have not one but
three
children, Aidoneus.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Is your continuing love for me bound up in this idea that we
might
have children?”

Persephone stroked his arm. “My feelings for you are unchanged whether we have no children or a thousand. I loved you before the idea was ever planted in my head.”

“Then why are you trying to convince me of this, Persephone?”

“Because they mentioned more than just children. They first told me about our role in this cosmos. You are not bound to this realm, to its ‘bounty’ and rule alone. You are not just the Lord of the Dead.”

He snorted and looked away from her. “Of course I am. It’s what I was fated to be… Well, after a fashion. I am the consort to the
actual
ruler of the Underworld.”

She leaned against him. “But that’s the very thing they said, Aidon. You are neither greater nor lesser than I. The Fates said we hold dominion over the earth and everything beneath it as equals.”

“As I said, their words are not meant literally.”

She reached for the plate Aidon had set at the edge of the bed after he had fed her dates and figs for breakfast. She held an olive up to his mouth. “Then consider this.”

He nibbled it from her fingers and bit into the briny fruit. “What about it?”

“It wouldn’t be here if you didn’t share in my role in the world above. You aren’t just the King of the Dead. Poseidon has the sea, Zeus has the sky…”

“We all
thought
the third lot would be the earth,” he said, chewing the olive. “It wasn’t.”

“Perhaps that’s because the earth is too big. Maybe it needed to be governed by something greater than just
one
of the Deathless Ones. Perhaps it needed to be ruled by a union of opposites.”

He spat the pit into his hand and set it on the plate, then raised his eyebrows at her. “Intriguing, but if you’ll please forgive me for doubting that…”

“There is a new order to the cosmos. Nothing will ever be the same again and we’d be fools to think anything would be after a union as significant as ours.”

“Which would be?”

“Well…” she braced herself, ready to feel her husband’s antipathy. “Demeter is responsible for the harvest. The season of harvest, no?”

He thinned his lips and grunted in acknowledgement.

“And you discovered that since the order of all things has changed, the earth cannot renew itself without me returning to the world above in the Spring.”

“True,” he said.

“The Fates told me that we
are the ones who bring fertility up to the earth. Because of us,
together
, I… carry the seed of the earth when I return to the world above each spring.”

“Carry the seed of the…” His ears grew hot and his throat closed.

She licked her dry lips. “Symbolically, of course…”

“S-so by virtue of us…” he tried to clear the growing lump in his throat. “When— because you and I… the earth is fertile?”

She fell to the side, giggling. His face burned and she could feel the heat from where she lay. “After this afternoon, and all we’ve done to ‘ensure the fertility of the earth’, you still blush, Aidon?”

A smile curved one side of his mouth, revealing a few white teeth. She sat up, relieved that his embarrassment wasn’t worsened by her teasing. His eyes widened and he rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, I had never considered that the…
consummation
of our love had meaning to anyone beyond you and I.”

“It wouldn't have, before. But the cosmos has shifted. Forever. For us, for the mortals, for the Olympians… What do you suppose it will mean for us down here?”

“Well, for the immediate future, it means I will gladly…
perform
my part in our new divine role eagerly. And vigorously,” he said, his eyes lit with passion.

Persephone bit her lip as her mind conjured images of Hades eagerly and vigorously fulfilling their divine purpose.

“After all, the mortals depend on us!” he said, raising his voice and eyebrows in mock urgency. Persephone doubled over again, holding her sides as her laughter pealed through the room.

He gathered her up in his arms and scooted them back toward the pillows, lying down side by side. Aidon brushed Persephone’s hair away from her face while she spoke. “As for marriage, there is something I would like to ask of you.”

“Name it and it’s yours,” he said, smiling.

“I want to see you more often. In a more permanent place. A home for us in the world above.”

The corners of his mouth tensed. “It’s bad enough that you’re away for half the year. My prolonged absence would be dangerous.”

“I’m not suggesting that. And I don’t intend to make you shoulder the burden alone.” She held up her left hand, the Key sparkling in the sanguine light of the hearthfire. “I have an instantaneous way back here and could come for a night or two or if I am… urgently needed. But not while the mortals are sowing crops or during the last days of harvest.”

“That leaves us a fairly narrow span of time. And I doubt that a few nights every six months will suffice for either of us.”

“Not nearly.”

He bit at his cheek. “I’ll come above. But for Fates sake, I don’t like risking Demeter or her priesthood walking in on us in the Plutonion. I can’t imagine that would endear me to your mother. Nor would it strengthen her truce with me.”

“So not there, then?” Her face fell. “That’s our home among the living.”

“We could meet there sometimes. And the Telesterion is… not what I had in mind either. What about Nysa?”

“Mortals can’t go there. We might as well be at Olympus.”

“I’d as soon drink the blood of a hydra than go there.”

She smirked and pinched his side. “I wasn’t suggesting that. But one of the reasons we should make time above is for the humans. We— I need to be among them in Spring and Summer.”

“Thera?”

“It’s so remote…”

“The mainland, then.”

“What about Locri or Sikelia?”

Aidoneus snorted and tucked his hand under his head. “And you think Thera is remote…”

“There’s farmable land there.”

“This might not be to your liking, but Thesprotia is distant enough from Eleusis. Its rivers are named for mine, and before the Mysteries, most of the sheep and oil sacrificed to my kingdom came from there.”

She ground her teeth. “Leuce’s resting place.”

“Persephone…”

“I know.” She sighed. “Besides— it’s still within Hellas and not
too
far from Mother. But in terms of permanently settling, we might as well take advantage of the fact that Sikelia is
mine
now.”

“How did that come to pass?”

“A wedding present, from Zeus.”

He rolled his eyes. “An island for a goddess queen’s bride gift? You merit nothing less than a continent.”

She giggled, rolling onto her stomach.

“It’s a silly thing to say, I know. You know my feelings on that subject.”

“I hope that our world and our ways will have at least some influence on the mortals. They already have, but not how you would prefer, I think.”

“How so?”

“Athena told me that men in her city have been taking their brides away in chariots. Some will toss their new wife’s flower crown— and one time a
girdle
— to the crowd before whisking them away into their house.”

Aidoneus flopped onto his back and covered his eyes with one hand, massaging his temples.

She poked his side. “Not what you had in mind, I take it?”

“The furthest from,” he said. “They re-enact when I rapt you away from Nysa?”

“Apparently.”

“I fear that despite all your efforts the mortals will never really understand anything about me, or this place, and that things will only grow worse.”

“They may,” she said. “But that might depend upon you. Come above. Be who you truly are to them— Plouton— the God of Riches and Fertility. The God of the Earth.”

He gave her a strained smile. “I can try.”

“Be my husband in this,” she said, grasping his hand. “If you detest the way things are above, then help me change those things. Look at what I did in six short months. Mere words to a handful of people. I thought they didn’t believe me, but they know the truth now: death is not the end.”

He examined her, watching her eyes flare with possibility. “I will. I’ll be your husband, your king and your consort. In this and in all things.”

She laid her cheek on the pillow and relaxed when he stroked her back. “Tell me your thoughts on the ceremony.”

He nestled closer to her. “Which part?”

“The
full
ceremony.”

***

“Cerberus! Cerberus, down!”

The great guard dog skidded to a halt in front of his mistress and sat on his haunches. Persephone gathered up the little black lamb that huddled at her feet for protection. It shook, wobbly legged, and curled up against her bosom. She patted its head and it gave an indignant bleat to its pursuer. Cerberus barked again, snarling, his fangs bared. The lamb squirmed in her arms.

“No! Stop scaring him,” she commanded her husband’s dog. Cerberus flopped to the ground, resting his center head atop the other two. He let out a rumbling whine. “You can chase after the others, but this one is Menoetes’s pet! You know that, you adorable beast.”

Persephone reached for one black head and scratched behind his ear. Cerberus’s tail thumped on the ground, shaking the Fields of Asphodel and scattering the shades away from them. He stretched his back legs and yawned, then shook himself and trotted away to watch over the Acheron.

“Aristi! Aristi,” the bondsman called out. His shepherd’s staff smacked against the tall stalks as he ran. Menoetes was out of breath by the time he stopped, and hunched over. “Thank the gods you found him, my queen.”

“You should really build a better fence for little Rodi,” she said, smiling.

He chuckled and took the tiny lamb from the Queen’s arms. “He continues to be nothing but trouble. You know that
he
was the reason I ran into Askalaphos and discovered your half-eaten fruit, milady?”

“So the King told me,” she said with a smile. “How is your mother, Menoetes?”

“Still feasting, along with the rest of the nymphs,” he said as they strolled back to the gardens. “You were most generous, sharing everything the world above gave to
you
with all the nymphs and daimones in the kingdom.”

She laughed. “Did you expect me to eat a palace full of fruit by myself?”

“Well, no,” he said sheepishly. “But Askalaphos and I weren’t expecting that you would give us so many olives. He’s quite fond of them, milady.”

“I heard he’s been sharing them with Nychtopula.”

“Ahh, yes…” Menoetes said with a smile. “If he can stop lamenting that he cannot get olive trees to grow in Chthonia, and if he can get it through his thick head that she wants more from him than olives…”

“Perhaps I should tell him there will be more next year.” Persephone opened the garden gate and walked ahead of Menoetes. Rodi drifted to sleep in the crook of his elbow, content to be home. She looked at the pomegranate grove, the fruits ripe and red, and took a deep breath. Aidoneus stood within, speaking with Hecate. He glanced in Persephone’s direction and she could feel him smiling at her. They had spent the last few days opening their thoughts to each other, even further than they naturally could. They were able to feel each other from across the palace, across the Fields, even on opposite sides of the Styx, just as easily as they could when they were intimate. She smiled back at him.

“Pardon my asking, but shouldn’t you be preparing for tonight’s ceremony, my queen?”