Destroyer of Light (10 page)

He was dangerous, she remembered. How many had he seduced, ravaged, buggered, and raped with those crystal blue eyes and handsome smile? His mouth twisted up, then his face fell, his expression pleading with her. It was a ploy, she knew, but he was still her only chance at getting her Kore back. Only Zeus could sway unbending Aidoneus. She stood and stepped toward him, her veil catching on the arm of the throne and falling away from her head. She glanced back at it.

“Leave it,” he whispered, his voice rasping as he said it.

Demeter shivered at his tone and descended the steps of the dais at a careful, measured pace, as though she were ready to bolt from the room at the first move he made. She knew that if his intentions toward her were in any way sinister she wouldn’t have time to run, but couldn’t help approaching him with trepidation. Demeter examined him carefully as she drew closer. More lines than usual traversed his cheeks and forehead, and his normally blond hair was streaked with brittle strands of white and gray.

The corner of her mouth ticked up. This is why he wasn’t coming to her with threats or edicts. This is why she wasn’t chained in the sky or cast into the Pit for ruining the earth and bringing the mortals to the brink of annihilation. Zeus couldn’t do anything to her. He hadn’t come here to talk; he’d come to
beg
. He was weakened.

And she was strong.

Demeter gracefully sat down across the aisle from him, folding her robes behind her and plaiting her hands in her lap. “Well?”

“I want to apologize first,” he said quietly, not taking his eyes off her.

“Ha!” She sneered at him. “For what, Zeus? Where would you even start? When you started dallying with Metis? When you sold our unborn daughter to Hades? When you broke your promises to me? Left me helpless and pregnant? When you took Hera as your bride the very day I was screaming with labor pains to deliver your child?!”

His brow furrowed, not from age or diminishment, but from what looked like genuine regret. She knew better. Zeus didn’t have a remorseful bone in his body. He cast his gaze to the ground. “That and more, Deme.”

“More?”

“Yes,” he bit his cheek and looked up at her. “I should have taken better care of you, Demeter. And when you fell into the arms of that… mortal…”

“Iasion,” she whispered.

“When you turned to Iasion for comfort, I should have let you be happy with him until he passed or you tired of him. I should have insisted that you stay at Olympus with the rest of us, to Tartarus with whatever Hera said. I should have seen through her. I should have seen through her when she brought that… crippled
thing
, Hephaestus… into being without me. I should have banished her
permanently
and taken you back when she tried to usurp my power. And you stayed loyal despite everything. Fates; I shouldn’t have left you in the
first place,
or doubted you. I should have made you my queen like I promised. I was an idiot.”

“You
are
an idiot, Zeus.” Her eyes stung. “There’s no past tense about that.”

He clenched his jaw. “When it comes to matters of the heart, yes. I am. I’ll admit that. I’ve come to you with no pride, Demeter.”

“Words,” she whispered. “I think I’ve heard enough of your meaningless words to last me a thousand lifetimes.” Tears filled Demeter’s eye and she turned her face from Zeus. How long had she wanted to hear him say all these things? To show a hint of remorse for all the aeons she’d spent alone and abandoned? She seethed. He’d waited until he wanted something.

“Deme…” he said brushing a hand down her back.

She spun around. “Don’t you touch me,” she spat out. “You think I will just relent because you came and…
apologized
for aeons and aeons of ill treatment that I’ll be appeased?”

“No, I didn’t—”

“Next thing you’ll be expecting me to spread my legs for you as a thank you for
lowering yourself
enough to—”

“I’m not worthy of you, Demeter,” he said, jaw clenched.

She straightened in surprise and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her mantle. “I’ll have you know,
my lord
, that true apologies come with reparations.”

“They do,” he said. “And I’m prepared to give you those reparations in full.”

Demeter held her breath.

“Except for one condition.”

She scowled at him. “Then it’s not a true apology at all if it’s conditional. Unless you are willing to make amends for everything, you will get nothing from me.”

“Damn it, woman! Will you just—” He drew in a breath and swallowed his frustration. “Please let me speak, Demeter. If, by the end of what I have to say, you
still
won’t accept my sincere apology and recompense for all the ills you’ve suffered at my hands, then I promise I will do everything I can,
within reason
.”

“That comes with an oath, Zeus, or you can leave. If you mean what you say, you’ll
swear it
,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

He pursed his lips. “So be it. I, Zeus Aegiduchos Cronides Olympios, solemnly swear on the great River Styx that if what I have to say— to
offer
to you— does not meet with your approval, that I will do
everything in my power
to bring Persephone—”

“Kore.”

Zeus had to bite his cheek. This denial was laughable. The whole cosmos knew that Hades had divested Kore of anything that would still make her… a
kore
. He’d even heard a rumor that the Lord of the Underworld hadn’t waited to consummate their union until he got to his palace— that he’d had her on the way there. When Zeus had first heard that bit of gossip he’d stared at Hermes in open-mouthed disbelief then laughed long and loud, smacking his thigh so hard that the sound of thunder rolled through the valleys of Thessaly. To think that cold, taciturn, law-abiding Aidoneus had done something rash and passionate for once in his long life! When Hermes had returned earlier this very week, his face pale and wincing, Apollo had grilled him until he gave up the news that he’d barged in on Hades and Persephone enthusiastically twisted into a position that only lovers who had happily known each other fully and many times over would have attempted. Kore she most certainly was not. He wouldn’t allow Demeter to labor under that delusion, no matter how much he needed to tread lightly with her. “I will do everything in my power to bring
Persephone
back to you.”

She sat still, her heart racing. It was done. He’d sworn. She’d done the impossible and made the King bend. Her daughter would be freed. She would see her again, and deliver her out of the hands of her cruel abductor. Demeter was no fool. She knew that Aidoneus had deflowered and defiled Kore. Her daughter had been raped; she was Persephone now, no longer a maiden. But Demeter had succeeded. All the suffering, all the sadness and waste and ruin had meaning. Her daughter was coming back from the Land of the Dead.

“But…” he said, swallowing. “No matter how you decide, you will let go of your terrible wrath against the mortals! And against the gods who rely upon them. Are we agreed?”

Her breath caught in her throat, disbelieving that she had just heard such joyous news. “We are agreed.”

He opened his mouth to continue, and Demeter interrupted him.

“
But
…” she said, trying to keep a gleeful smile from twisting her features, “my end will only be upheld once you fulfill your promises, Zeus. Not a moment sooner. Am I understood?”

“Yes, my lady.”

“Then I will listen.”

“Demeter…” he started quietly. “Do you want to retain your title as Queen of the Earth?”

“If you mean to take it away from me—”

“I do,” he said. “In a manner of speaking…”

“What manner would that be?” she rasped.

“By giving you one greater.”

Demeter felt ice pour down her spine. “You surely don’t mean…”

“You are the earth, Demeter, and I am the sky. When and where I am the sky, then and there you are the e—”

“Do not repeat those vows to me! You used them to lie to me and seduce me, and you fouled those words just weeks after we said them! Those words were meant to be sacred— to bind us to each other forever as male and female, but—”

“What if they still do?”

“You actions alone prove—”

“Demeter, hear me. You said you would,” he rumbled, raising his voice ever so slightly. When she stilled, he continued. “What if those words still hold true? What if I
made
them hold true?”

“And by doing so you would undo everything between then and now? Divorce your wife? Have her children declared bastards as my child was deemed a bastard by her?” Her lip curled up. “I have a feeling the Goddess of Marriage might take grave offense at this.”

“I will deal with Hera myself. She is the goddess of
nothing
without me.”

Demeter widened her eyes and turned away from him.

“But you,” he murmured, his voice warm and soothing. Zeus carefully moved next to her on the bench. “You are so very much a goddess in your own right.”

She flinched and stiffened at his closeness but didn’t back away or face him just yet. He caressed one of the tresses falling from her diadem and brought it up to his nose, inhaling. She could feel his thigh pressing against the outside of hers and her heart tapped a rapid staccato.

“You are the bringer of life. You’ve shown me how much power that holds. How much power
you
hold…”

“That you would then take from me?” she said, her voice far smaller than she’d hoped it would be.

“No. That is power that I would exalt and venerate and glorify. You and I were meant to be, Demeter. Like Gaia and Ouranos before us.”

“On Olympus…” she breathed.

“Yes. In the palace they built to bridge the heavens and the earth. Fitting for us, isn’t it, my heart?” He whispered next to her ear. “My wife?”

“Yes,” she whispered. Her pulse drummed so fast it made her lightheaded.

“Our daughter,” he said with the lightest of kisses on her shoulder, “will be my acknowledged firstborn. She will be made legitimate…”

Demeter closed her eyes as his lips touched her skin and shivered. How many aeons had she waited for this? His touch was electric, his scent like approaching rain. How easily he seduced…

…How likely he was to do it again. She thought about Triptolemus, his pure love for her, his devotion, his soul bound to hers since he met her aeons ago as Iasion. Zeus had killed Iasion.

Her anger boiled under her skin, undetected by Zeus. She thought about stone-faced Hera, witness to thousands of indiscretions and bastard children. The shame and the embarrassment of knowing that three of those same children, conceived in other women’s beds, and that crude seductress from the East who claimed she was descended from Ouranos, had been elevated to sit side-by-side with the Children of Kronos. She remembered Aidoneus warning her about Zeus, long ago. Demeter had felt like a fool when he’d been proven right. Never again.

She clenched her jaw and coiled, ready to strike. “What if Hera objects or rebels?”

“Metis met an… unfortunate end. Hera would be wise to avoid that fate.”

Zeus stroked her arm and her stomach turned, remembering the nebbish gray-eyed Titaness. She felt sick. To whom else would he make this promise in the endless years to come? If he were willing to go to such lengths with Hera, would she too meet the same fate when Zeus needed to bargain with another goddess?

“What say you, my heart?”

“You would have me trade places with Hera?” Her voice was low and sultry like warm, dark earth.

“Yes.”

“I would be your queen.”

“You would, my heart.”

“My throne would sit with yours on Olympus…”

“Yes, Deme.”

“…from where I can watch you fornicate with every goddess, nymph and mortal from here until aeon’s end?”

His eyes grew steely and he backed away from her. His jaw set tight when he saw her turn toward him and lift her chin triumphantly. He grimaced. “If this is a bid to keep that— your
lover
, I’ll let you. Though you have no idea how much I compromise to do so… But fair is fair. Poseidon has his own
arrangement
with Amphitrite, after all.”

“It has nothing to do with Triptolemus.”

He ground his teeth impatiently. “Then
what
?”

“Not long ago, you said to me that I wouldn’t want you for a husband as you are now.”

“Deme, my heart, I can amend my—”

“Don’t insult me! You might be able to crawl back to the bed of that
cow
over and over with your empty capitulations, but don’t think
for a moment
they would work on me!”

“You know what I am, Demeter! I am offering you everything. You would be Queen of Heaven for Fate’s sake! You would have my protection, my fealty, my willingness to put you
above
all others, you would have my love…”