The Dark Wife (19 page)

But Gaea knew my thoughts, and the solace of her voice quelled my worries.
“Child.
Let go. There was nothing you could do to save
Charis
. And
Charis
is
at peace, Persephone.
True, enduring, forever peace.”

My heart still ached, and I knew I would carry the ache with me forever, but to know, truly, that she wasn’t suffering, that she wasn’t tortured by the memory of Zeus’ crime…
Let go
, Gaea said. I had been waiting for those words, for this permission. I lay my hand over my heart, closed my eyes, thought of Hades freely for the first time, without the specter of guilt haunting my heart.

Our story had been foretold…

“Do you love my daughter, Persephone? Do you love Hades?”

I reached for Hades, then, but she wasn’t there, and when I looked about me, I couldn’t see anything; the light was gone. There was nothing but darkness. I swallowed, anxious, and drew my knees against my chest.

“Do you love her?” Gaea asked again, and her voice was gentle, but I felt the true weight of her words, heavy as mountains.

“I…” I faltered not from doubt but because the strength of my love for Hades made me forget all else: words, reason, thought. How could I express my feelings, when words were such thin, mortal things, and the love I felt was something vast, timeless and, truly, immortal?

But I had to respond in some way, so I whispered, lamely, “Yes. I love her with my whole soul.”

“You speak the truth—a perfect truth.” Gaea cradled my chin in her hands. “Never forget, Persephone: you already possess everything you need to endure the challenges that await you. But take care of yourself. And…” There was a note of mischief in her voice. “Keep your head above water.”

I gasped softly, wondered if she knew of my misadventure in the Styx…

“I know, my child. I was there, with you, all the while. I blessed you then, as I am blessing you now, for all that you are and all that you will be. I love you.”

Again, I felt her lips on my forehead, and my body filled with light—light, light, and love in every crack and corner of my core. I lowered, slowly, gently, to the floor.

 
“Persephone?”

I opened my eyes to a dear vision of Hades. Beneath the glow of her golden sphere, she bent over my body, her hair shadowing my face. Concern etched her dark
brow
. “Persephone, can you hear me?”
            “Yes,” I whispered, lifting a trembling hand to stroke her cheek. “I hear you, Hades.”

 She blinked at me, once, twice, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears.

We were alone in the cavern, and the waters of the pond were calm, as before.

I breathed in and out, my body pulsing with magic. “Hades…” I gulped, sat up, heart pounding. “Hades, she’s…she’s
everything
. She’s…so…so beautiful.”

I fell against her chest, and she cradled me close, rocked me back and forth.

“Yes, she is.”

“I don’t understand how Zeus betrayed her. How anyone could.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, resting her chin on the top of my head. “I… Sometimes I wonder if…if all of the tales of cruelty and violence, the ones I have always accepted as established history—are untrue.
Were never true.
I know, for certain, that some of them are lies. What if he invented them
all
? What if all Gaea ever
was,
was love? What if the story of the birth of the world as I know it was a lie, Zeus’ lie? He told it to me, not Rhea or Gaea. He told us all.

“I’ve never asked Gaea about it; I trust and love her. I see and feel that all she is…is love. And it’s enough.”

I leaned against Hades, and she stroked my hair, and we sat for a very long time, stunned, healed, whole, broken, everything, all at once.

When we stood, finally, to go, I paused for a moment to peer down into the depths of the silver pond. Startled, I saw that I cast no reflection…but strange spirals swirled in the water, and, beneath my eyes, they coalesced into words, the written language of the Greeks.

“Danger approaches. Be brave, my daughter. Take heed of
Charon
, and ready your courage.” As soon as they appeared, the words faded.

A cold dread seized my heart.

Hades smiled at me, held out her hand. “Coming?”

Grateful that she hadn’t read
Gaea’s
warning—she had enough to worry about, too much, and I cherished her easy smile—I turned and followed her, and the earth’s music followed me, both of us, during our long climb back up to the Underworld.

“Hades,” I questioned, when, tired and breathless, we reached the dark, familiar plains of the Underworld,
“
you said that you knew some of the stories were untrue… Which stories? What did you mean?”

She wove her fingers with mine as we stepped over the path. In the distance, the palace shimmered, glowing like the
moon,
and it seemed taller, somehow—yes, it
was
taller, and more lovely than broken, more light than dark.

I gazed shyly at Hades, and I lowered my chin to hide my smile.

“Well,” she sighed, “so many of the gods’ stories, histories, are exaggerations, revisions of the truth. So many… And Zeus is at the center of it all. He has convinced the mortals that he is a kind and just god. Granted, he has done…some good in the world, but he is too selfish to truly care for anyone but himself.”

She sighed again, cast her eyes upward. “He spreads lies, Persephone, to the people of earth. Since the beginning, he’s spread lies about me. He whispers in their ears, invisibly, so that they don’t even know where the knowledge came from. Because of him, the mortals believe me a cold, ruthless, hardened…man.”

I leaned against her shoulder for a moment, and then I brought her hand to my mouth, kissed the gold-dusted skin. “If they knew the truth about you, perhaps they wouldn’t fear death as much,” I said, my voice just above a whisper, “and then he would lose some of his sway over them.”

She inclined her head noncommittally. “I can’t guess at his motives. Mostly, I think, he finds these things amusing, amuses himself by telling lies, destroying lives. He’s…a bully.” She pushed her fingers through her long black hair.

“For some years, his favorite trick was the reversal of genders— He is so powerful, he can become anything, anyone; he only has to think of it, and it happens. And he went through a phase during which he came down to mortals on the earth in the shape of a woman. I think that gave him the idea… He began to toy with the genders of the gods in the mortals’ stories, the ones they recited in the
temples,
and to their children at night.

“Cupid?”
Hades shook her head. “Cupid is a woman, Aphrodite’s daughter, not her son. Aphrodite was furious with Zeus for the confusion he caused—still is, I imagine. But he won’t retract the lie. He doesn’t care.”

Hades fell silent; she walked with her eyes lowered, so that the lashes shadowed her cheeks. I moved my hand to her arm, concerned, and when she didn’t respond, I tugged on her gently, coaxed her to stop and turn to me.

“What is it? You seem sad, all of the sudden.
Hades?”

She sighed, looked down at me, looked away. “Our story—our true story—will never be known, Persephone. The lies will take root, and they will spread.”

“What lies?” I asked, though I shook my head, fought the compulsion to cover my ears; I was afraid to know.

Hades placed her hands on my shoulders and spoke softly, her eyes on my eyes.

“To the understanding of the world above, I am a ghoulish, selfish man, who wants and takes whatever it is that pleases him.”

My mouth was so dry; I licked my lips and swallowed. I could hear the rush of the river Styx, the whispers drifting from the village of the dead, just beyond us, and, loudest of all, the leaping of our heartbeats, keeping time together in a place with no other means to measure it.

“They believe I’m a man, Persephone, a cruel one. When they know you are here, when they piece together Zeus’ furtive whispers, they will believe that I…took you, kidnapped you—” Her voice faltered, and I drew her close to me, my arms encircling her neck.

“Hades—”

“If I am a man, Persephone,” she insisted, her mouth against my hair, “and I have taken you against your will, they will say that I raped you…”

I held her closer still.

“…and that I forbid you to leave.”
She bowed her head and drew back, lifted her eyes to mine, mournful.
“My lovely, unwilling captive.”

The words lingered between us.

“Hades.”

She began to turn from me, but I held her, forced her to meet my gaze. “Hades, I didn’t know... I wish I could—” I stared at her, open-mouthed, crushed by the pain in her eyes. “We’ll make it right, somehow. I won’t have your name slandered—“

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured, and she kissed my neck, her lips trailing upward, drawing a line of fire over the surface of my skin.

“Do you think, for a moment,” she whispered, “that I would have done anything differently?
That I could have chosen anything but this, now?”
Her dark eyes were alive, bright, shining. “I would suffer any lie, Persephone, for you.”

“Oh…” My heart broke and mended in the same instant, and I drew her head down, kissed her deeply. “I love you, Hades.”

Her breath stilled, and then she was kissing me back, her mouth devouring mine.

“Yes,” she whispered over and over again, crushing my lips with kisses, her fingers tracing my cheeks, my neck. “Yes, yes, I love you,” she said, and I held her, a dream in my arms, and I was whole.

Ten: Uprising

“Please don't go,” I begged her, wrapping my arms around her neck, kissing her, laughing as she laughed and gently struggled from my embrace.

“I must, Persephone.” With a raised brow, she held my mischievous arms at my sides and kissed me good-bye—kissed me until my knees gave way.

I dropped down to the floor, laughing, sighing, drawing my arms around my legs as she paused in the doorway and smiled softly at me.

“I’ll come home to you as soon as I can,” she said, voice hoarse, her smile slowly fading. As I watched, her eyes darkened—not with anger or grief or sadness, but…She gazed at me, at my mouth, my hands.
Every part of me.
My mouth opened; my heart stopped.

I wanted her, and she wanted me, and as she turned and left, I knew it would be tonight—it would be
tonight
. I lay back on the floor and stared at the ceiling, my head spinning,
the
whole world spinning. She was gone now.
But tonight…

“You’re so obvious,” Pallas sniffed, stalking into my room.

I propped myself up on my elbows and gave her the most unapologetic grin of my life. She sat down beside me, shook her head, and grinned back.

“I’m glad,” she said, earnestly. We lay down side by side on the cool floor, staring up at the veined patterns in the marble ceiling—as we sometimes did, when we were extraordinarily bored. Cerberus bounced around us, licked our toes.

“I’ve never seen
her this
happy,” Pallas said.
“Ever.
It suits her.”

My stomach twisted. Pallas—Pallas would never be happy, not with Athena. I wondered
,
could the dead love again? Could they find their soul’s match here, in the darkness? Or would they always be haunted by the memory of the one they left behind?
Waiting, biding their time, until they were at last reunited.