Destroyer of Light (14 page)

When his eyes drifted up to meet Persephone’s gaze once more, a tear had rolled down one of her cheeks.

“Do not be sad for me, my queen. With any luck and by the will of the Fates, you will be with your beloved for just as long.”

The lapping of the water grew louder against the craft, and the boat scraped against the shoreline before lurching to a halt. Persephone stood up carefully, regaining her balance before taking Charon’s proffered hand.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright, my queen? The stories I’ve heard from the shades…”

“It’s not going to be the world I left, I know. But trust me, Charon; I’ll be fine.”

“Trusting you is not my worry. What of those petty gods above?”

“I am Hades’s Queen,” she said, hopping from the prow to the shore. “That alone should be enough to keep me safe.”

His jaw set in a grim line for a moment, then he bowed farewell to her. “I’ll be eagerly awaiting your return.” Persephone smiled shyly, and Charon continued. “I shudder to think what a foul mood Aidon will be in while you’re away,” he said, smirking, and she laughed.

Persephone scanned the shore, seeing the tops of hundreds of heads bowed toward her. The recently arrived shades stood, walking once again toward Charon’s boat.

“One obol… one obol… one at a time… one obol… a drachma! What did they imagine
that
would buy you here?…Yes, yes, I’ll take it… one obol…” she heard as he allowed each of them aboard. Persephone walked on, watching shades respectfully lower their heads at her approach. She listened to them whisper amongst themselves. They created a wide berth for her, parting as she walked further up the shore away from the throngs so she could concentrate.

The dark passageways leading back to the world above stood in front of her. Spirits wandered in, looking around in awe and terror as they took their first steps into the Underworld. A few had coins in their hands, some in their mouths, others removed obols from their eyes to behold the vastness of Chthonia. She felt a cold brush of air on her left and looked to see a soul wandering back toward the passageways. It had become as faint as pale smoke, wandering away as a ghost bound for the world above.

There was nothing she could do for these newly dead, nor for the lost souls. They were part of Chthonia and would find their way back, or Hermes would return them eventually. She had to concentrate on those she
could
save in the mortal world and let her husband look after these. Persephone stretched her left hand in front of her and shut her eyes.

Eleusis—

“Kore!”

Persephone’s eyes snapped open. She swore she recognized that voice.

“My Lady Kore!”

She glanced to her right and saw a shade running toward her. Persephone held her breath and took a hesitant step back. Did this soul want something from her, like the voices from the Trivium had late last night? She looked side to side, worried she was about to be surrounded by pleading spirits. The female shade stopped several steps away and prostrated herself. Persephone hesitantly reached out and touched her on the shoulder. “How do you know me by that name?”

The woman raised her head. Their eyes met and Persephone stumbled back.

“No…”

“My lady, we worshipped you in Eleusis. I would know the image of our lost Kore anywhere.”

No, no, gods please no!
She cupped her hands to her mouth and her vision blurred behind tears.

“My lady?”

Her throat was dry and her heart was beating out of her chest. “You… please, it cannot be you. You couldn’t have died… Please…”

“I do not mean to trouble you so, my lady… Forgive me, I’ll go.”

“No; wait!” Persephone cried out. Her chest felt heavy. “I know you.”

The woman turned to face her, then pushed a lock of black hair from her face. “How could you know someone as humble as me, my lady?”

“Two months ago. On the day of the full moon… do you remember?”

“That was…” The shade’s lip trembled and she looked away. “That was my wedding day.”

You know as well as I do
that Eleusis calls me to bear
witness to their marriages
, Demeter had told Kore.
I can foresee their fates and cannot stop her from passing to the Other Side…

It was the bride from Eleusis— the one whose marriage she had seen consummated in the wedding tent. Her mother had prophesied her death, but Demeter had thought it would be from bearing children. Little did she know, little did any of them know that it would be because Kore, Persephone, was in Hades. She tried in vain to hold back a sob, her breath shallow and tears running down her face. “I was there.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “You,” she stammered in shock. The slightest smile lit her face. “I knew it! I told Dimitris the next day that I felt your presence there.”

“Dimitris?”

“He’s my husband. He—” she stopped, choking on her words. “He
was
my husband.”

Persephone wiped her tears away with the edge of her peplos. “Where is he now?”

“At home. He— Dimitris had to bury me two days ago. He couldn’t stop crying.”

“What is
your
name?”

“I was called Melia, milady.”

“How did you know I was there at your wedding?” Persephone choked out.

“I
felt
you there. Watching over us. I felt it with every heartbeat. Dimitris didn’t believe me. Especially in the coming week when it grew so cold…”

“What happened?”

“The crops outside Eleusis withered overnight. And it was nearly harvest time. Dimitris and I took all we had and journeyed east. Surely Athens would have food, we thought. But it started snowing when we were on the road, slowing us down, and by the time we got there their grain stores were empty.

“We heard from other travelers that the Lady of the Harvest had returned to Eleusis. We started back almost as soon as we got there, and took the road by the sea. On the way there, we could at least fish. But the trees were frozen too solid to build a fire. Even the withered grasses had been pulled up for fires. Nothing remained. The sea froze
over—”

“It… it what?!” Persephone gaped, horrified.

The shade looked perplexed by Persephone’s ignorance. “Everything is frozen, my lady. The sea, the ground, the air is cold as ice. They can barely dig deep enough to bury the dead. You see all those there?” she said pointing to a group of shades huddled together away from the river. “They don’t even have coins. No one was left in their village to bury them. And they built pyres out of abandoned homes in Athens because their dead were too numerous.”

Persephone looked away from her. It was so much worse than she had even guessed. She’d expected the land to be brown, stripped of fertility, as it had been when her mother’s temple had burnt down a century ago, but not this. Not a frigid blanket of death covering the earth, with nowhere for the forgotten souls to go once they reached the Styx.

“Everything above is gray. Nothing but a gray waste. And the ice covers everything else. People fleeing from the north told of great crushing walls of it overtaking mountains…”

Persephone’s legs wobbled and she stared aghast at the Eleusinian bride. That was why the shades were eating the asphodel. They couldn’t help themselves. More food grew in the world below than in the world above. The Fields must have looked like a
paradise
compared to the ruined earth. “Please. Tell me more. What happened to you and your husband?”

“Dimitris… he… I miss him so much,” she said, shaking and wringing her hands. “He’s all alone now. And he tried so hard… so hard to take care of me when I got sick… but it was too late by the time we got back. He refused to send my body with the carts headed for the sea.” She looked away, her throat closed. Persephone’s eyes stung with tears as the Eleusinian bride continued. “He chopped down his family’s old fig tree. Then Dimitris burned it so he could soften the ground enough to bury me properly.”

Persephone heard other shades wail mournfully as they passed by her, their voices a chorus of sobbing and confusion. Women, men, and children milled about, lost. The shore was empty. Charon’s boat had already departed, laden with souls to ferry to the other side She sputtered another cry and took the Eleusinian woman’s hands. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

“No, my lady, this isn’t your fault.”

“I—”

“You were stolen. Ravished.”

Persephone looked up at her in shocked silence.

“Weren’t you? You wouldn’t have abandoned us, would you?”

She stayed silent. “I—”

“But you are going back?”

“Yes.”

“You are escaping, then!” Her hand tightened around Persephone’s. “Quick! Let me help you! That is why you are on this side of the River, isn’t it? I can show you the path back to Eleusis!”

“No, I didn’t escape. This is my home now, and I—” the shade wrenched her hands away from Persephone’s and took a step back, her eyes growing wide. Persephone felt her mouth go dry as fear washed over the woman’s face. Her voice rose, pleading. “You don’t understand. I’m going back to see my mother. But I
will
return here after I do.”

“Then you— you did abandon us…”

“Hades is my husband. I am his queen.”

“But everything is
dying
without you!”

Persephone swallowed. “I know. But I will set it right again—”

“Destroyer,” the woman whispered, shaking her head and backing away. “
Destroyer!
”

“No, please…” Persephone whispered.

“Destroyer!” another shade wailed as it wandered past. “Destroyer!” “
Katastrofeas!
” she heard in the common tongue. The voices blended together in Theoi, Attic, Thracian, and other languages.
“Despoina, torelle mezenai!” “Persephone!” “Ekeini pou katastrefei to fos!” “Destroyer of Light!” “Perephatta!” “She who destroys the light!”

They weren’t speaking to her, but around her. It was as though her conversation with the Eleusinian woman had rippled outward, affecting the shades. The shoreline became a shrill chorus accented by wailing and sobbing. Destroyer of light. Ice poured down her spine and Persephone doubled over as though the wind were knocked out of her.

A balance has existed here for all the years you’ve been alive, Praxidike
, Kottos had said.
You are the one who transcends and connects the worlds. You are the embodiment of balance…

She was caught between her mother and her husband, and the fate of the world was bound up with her, just as the Hundred Handed Ones said it was.
No, please Fates, no…

“Please, I didn’t mean to—”

“My Dimitris was right,” the shade hissed. “You weren’t there to bless us. You did nothing but curse us!”

Carrier of curses…

“I didn’t… this wasn’t… Please, you
must
believe me,” she cried, nearly hysterical. “I had no idea that it had become so terrible! It’s why I’m going back. I— Please, tell me what I can do to help you; to take away your pain. Please!”

“Take me with you.”

Persephone blanched. “I am sorry, I cannot.”

“I must see Dimitris. He
needs
me!”

“You
cannot
ask that of me. You know there’s no going back to the world of the living.”

“Please, Soteira, take me back!” she cried frantically.

“Do not ask this, please…” Other souls began to take notice.

The shades around them began to cry out to her, their voices a cacophony.
“Aristi, my children!” “Metra, please, spare me…” “Just once more, Thea, let me see her once more…” “Soteira, voithiste me! Voithiste me!”
someone cried out in the common tongue.

The shades circled her, begging her to spare them. The Eleusinian woman backed away from her, fading to translucence. “My lady, I will not go. I’m not ready. I must see Dimitr—”

And with that she was disappeared— a soundless ghost bound for the world above.

Persephone crouched and shut her eyes. She clapped her hands over her ears to block the wandering shades out, crying loudly to drown their voices. They stopped their petitions and started weeping as she was. They milled about, wailing and moaning, their cries incessant as she huddled close to the ground, too distraught to rise.

My mother isn’t strong enough to undo this on her own
, she realized. The weight of it sat on her shoulders like the punishment that had been doled out to Atlas.
She needs me
.

It wasn’t as simple as talking to Demeter. It was easy enough to blame her mother, stay implacable and do nothing. She needed to restore balance. Persephone was a goddess of the earth, like her mother, her grandmother, a lineage stretching all the way back to Gaia herself. Even if she was Queen below, the earth was still her domain. A reality, cold as the world above, struck her.

Caught between her love for her husband and her mother’s love for her, she’d forgotten why she existed in the first place— for them. The mortals. To look after their eternal souls, not just when they were here, but during their brief time in the sunlit world. To feed them. To protect them.

If Demeter would not take responsibility for what had been done and, she thought woefully, if Hades could not, then the obligation fell to her. She would need to stay above far longer than a few days—
months
, even— to truly right all that had gone wrong. She would have to break her promise to Aidoneus. Persephone slowly stood and stretched forth her hand, ready to create a path back to Eleusis.

“Kore? Persephone?”

It was a high tenor voice, almost lost to her amidst the weeping shades. It sounded so clear and distinct that she thought that it was an illusion.

“Lady Persephone!”

She looked up through her tears to see a young man wrapped in a chlamys, his face hidden by a golden petasos. He descended from above and landed next to her.

“Wh-who…” She knew who he was. Hermes. Persephone blushed hotly, thinking about the last time he had caught a glimpse of her. “Why are you here?”

He lightly took her hand, barely touching her fingers. “You’re free.”

“What?”

“Persephone, I was sent here by our father to bring you back to your mother, Demeter.”

“We never asked for you to— what…” she drew in a breath as he grasped at her wrist. She wrenched it away from him. “Let go of me! What are you doing?!”

“You’ve been freed from Hades’s captivity. I’m here to bring you back to your home in the living world.”

“Freed from— Hermes, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”

“There isn’t much time. Please! Zeus insisted I take you back at once.”

“No!” She stepped away from him and backed toward the Styx.

He looked at her, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“Who gave you the right to haul me away from here? From my realm?”

“Your—” he looked at her dumbfounded. “The King of the Gods! Are you going to obey him or not?”

“But… Zeus said…” she stilled, her blood freezing. If her father, the one who had permitted her union with Aidoneus, had told Hermes to take her from here then that meant… “Hermes, you need to talk to my husband right now and get this straightened out.”

“I’d rather not,” he snorted, then smiled to cajole her. “Look; it will be easy. I’ll fly us back, quicker than you can fathom. You’ll be gone from here before he even knows you went missing.”

“No!” she cried out. This isn’t happening! She felt her limbs go slack, felt helpless and crushed. “You need to tell him—”

“Please, Lady Persephone,” he pleaded, “If we do that, it will only complicate matters.”

He grabbed her wrist again and closed his fingers tightly. She struggled against his grip. “Let me go!”

“Persephone, you’re already on this side of the river—”

“Let go of me now!” she cried out, finally wrenching away.

“You and I can avoid all that and—”

“While you are here, God of Thieves,” a gravelly voice said behind them, “I suggest you follow the rules set out at the division of the cosmos.”

Persephone stifled a cry of relief when she saw Charon, whose long oar stood beside him. His jaw was set grimly, his eyes steely, his skin frighteningly pale underneath his hood. Though thin of frame, he towered over them both from his place atop the stern bracing. She relaxed her shoulders as Hermes took a step back.

The Messenger swallowed. “I-I have my orders, Charon. You cannot stand in my wa—”

“The realms were divided equally,
Thief
, and this domain does not belong to your king. You know that, I know that.” His voice sank into a low growl. “And if you touch our queen again, boy…”

“You’ll what?” Hermes said, narrowing his eyes as Charon tightened his hand around his oar. Hermes rose an inch from the ground.

“Enough!” Persephone said. “Both of you!”