door to Hades’s megaron, Persephone swallowed, dried her damp hands on her tunic, and knocked.
She heard nothing for a time, then came some rustling, a thud, and a muffled curse.
“Hades?”
“Enter.”
Persephone pushed the door open and took a hesitant step inside. Hades stood on the far side of the hearth, gripping the back of the chair next to him so tightly his knuckles were white with effort. Lank black hair clung to his wan cheeks and his tunic was rumpled and darkened with sweat at the chest and underarms.
“You’re still unwell,” Persephone said. “I apologize. I’ll go.”
Hades held up a hand. “No. Stay. Please, stay. How fares Nadira?”
Persephone took a hesitant step toward him. “She’s well now, though she was overawed by the palace and in fear of me at first. She lost some of her caution, due mostly, I believe, to the bathing room. She spends at least a portion everyday reveling in the warm water. In Henna, our ablutions were conducted in an icy stream.”
“I felt much the same when I discovered that pool. I could do with a visit there now, though my belly tells me food should be my first concern.”
“You could join Nadira and me for the evening meal,” Persephone said.
“Would that please you?” Hades asked.
“It would,” Persephone said. There was no lie in her words. Nadira’s silence had been a heavy and strange burden to bear these last days, and Persephone had missed Hades’s presence.
A smile touched Hades’s lips. He let go of the chair and straightened. His face spasmed, and he hunched.
Hurrying forward, Persephone reached for him. Then, recalling the last time she and Hades touched, the ardor between them as they rode Akheron back to the palace, she stopped. Heat rose in her face and sunk low in her belly.
Hades watched her hands as they fell back to her sides. Then he returned his gaze to her face, but she couldn’t read what was in his eyes. “I imagine you and Nadira have had enough of being indoors. Would you like to show her Elysium?”
“May I? You said Cerberus—”
“I’d be with you.”
“Of course, but are you certain you’re—”
“I’m well. Can you ready some food for us to take out of doors while I cleanse myself and put on fresh clothes?”
“I can.”
Haltingly, he moved toward the door to his bedchamber.
“I could aid you should you need it,” she offered.
“Go.”
Persephone blinked, startled by the harshness in his voice. Then she turned and moved from the bedchamber. A low groan followed her into the hallway. She paused, but the vehemence with which he commanded her to depart had been unequivocal. He didn’t want her aid. She walked away but not without many doubtful glances over her shoulder.
As she descended the stairs, she came upon Nadira studying the frescoes on the walls in the entryway. Persephone called her name.
The woman jumped and spun toward Persephone. Persephone could scarcely fault her for her fear. Nadira had been in the Underworld only six days. Persephone had been resident here for some months and was still neither fully at ease with this place nor with the company she kept here.
“Would you like to dine out of doors today?” Persephone asked.
Nadira smiled and nodded eagerly.
As though in answer to her enthusiasm, a howl rippled through the air: Cerberus, crying out his need to reclaim the one he’d lost.
Nadira’s smile turned fixed and rigid as she glanced toward the doors.
“Hades will accompany us. He’ll ensure no harm comes to you,” Persephone said, walking to Nadira and taking her hand. “Now come. We need to prepare our repast.”
Persephone climbed the stairs to her chambers, Nadira at her heels. It was a relief that the ordeal of the past handful of days was at an end. It had been nearly unbearable, enclosed with Nadira in the palace while Cerberus prowled without, howling his discontent all day and through the dark of the Underworld night. It took all Persephone’s courage to force herself from the palace each day to free the horses from their stable. Though Cerberus didn’t threaten her with bite or bark, he stalked behind her in Elysium, his six eyes following her every movement with unsettling intent. Persephone didn’t dare leave the horses even for a few moments to check on her plants’ progress in the folly.
Cerberus’s vigil also forced Persephone to put aside all thought of fleeing from the Underworld with Nadira and Lethe. Cerberus wouldn’t allow them to get ten paces beyond the palace gates. Almost, she was glad of the beast’s presence. It freed her from wondering if there were other reasons why she didn’t take the opportunity for escape that Hades’s infirmity provided her.
Persephone moved to the table in her megaron and collected the bread and cheese left from their noon meal. Nadira took grapes, olives, and figs from a basket and brought them to the table.
Persephone went into her bedchamber to find a bit of cloth in which to tie up the food. She returned to her megaron and started when she saw Hades standing in the doorway, pale, silent, eyes glittering in the dimness. Nadira stood frozen in the middle of the room, eyes wide with terror.
Persephone hurried to the woman. “You needn’t fear him. He won’t harm you.”
Nadira flicked a glance at Persephone then returned her terrified attention to Hades.
Persephone wanted to tell Nadira how Hades, at great personal cost, had restored her to life, but the woman didn’t seem to know she’d been dead, seemed to fully believe she’d merely been ill and was in this place only until her convalescence was over. Persephone didn’t want to give Nadira more reason to be afraid, but it was wrong that the Sicani woman feared Hades when she owed him so much. The only thing Persephone could do to right that wrong, however, was repeat with all the certainty she felt, “He won’t harm you.”
“It is as Persephone says. You’re safe here, but I’ll keep my distance if that makes you feel easier,” Hades said.
Nadira nodded vigorously.
“Very well. Shall we repair to Elysium?” Hades asked.
Persephone hurried to the table and packed the food into the cloth she’d brought from her bedchamber. “Please.”
Hades turned and left the megaron. Persephone gave Nadira a reassuring smile and the woman fell into step with Persephone as she followed Hades.
They exited the palace and were halfway across the courtyard to the stable doors when a barrage of blows shook the palace gates. Snarls, whines, and growls reached Persephone’s ears. She halted and Nadira did the same.
Hades, however, changed direction, walking toward the courtyard entrance as he called over his shoulder, “Stay here until I say you may do otherwise.”
Hades lifted the bar from across the gate. One side sprung open and a snapping, snarling head entered the breach. Persephone gasped. Nadira clutched at Persephone’s hand and drew closer to her.
Hades shoved the head out then followed it, yanking the wooden slab firmly closed behind him. The crack of Hades’s whip shattered the air. The sound was followed by a short yip. There was silence for a time then a high keening whine, a sound Phlox often made when asking for another honey cake, though Cerberus begged for something much more terrible than that flavorsome delicacy. The whip cracked once again and the whining ceased.
The gate swung open.
Persephone stepped in front of Nadira, tensing for an attack, but only Hades came through. He placed the bar back in its metal brackets, turned to Persephone and said, “He’ll not harm Nadira now and a day more should see her fully recovered and ready to return home. Cerberus will no longer pose a danger to her then.”
Despite Hades’s reassurance, Persephone still kept a tight grip on Nadira’s hand as she and the Sicani woman half ran to the stable doors. Persephone wrestled one open and they hurried inside. Hades followed, head down, shoulders drawn up. Persephone cursed his slowness, for she couldn’t close and bar the doors as she longed to do. Nadira darted deeper into the stables.
Hades finally entered. Persephone closed the doors almost on his heels. He gave her a tired, humorless smile and moved to free Styx from his stall. Passing off the bundle of food to Nadira, Persephone released Lethe then Akheron. She left Phlegethon for Hades. The horse reared and squealed, kicked out his heels, particularly restless because Persephone hadn’t dared let him run in Elysium during Hades’s illness though she had brought the horse armfuls of fresh grass and filled his trough with water every day.
Persephone herded Nadira, Akheron, Styx, and Lethe out of the stable. While the horses ambled into the meadow, Nadira stopped, blinking, as if stunned, as Persephone had been at her first sight of Elysium.
Hades came out with Phlegethon on a lead. The pair walked past Persephone and Nadira. A good distance out, Hades halted the horse. Phlegethon resisted, jerking his head up, snorting and dancing in an effort to break Hades’s hold on his tether. It was apparent the animal wanted to be let loose to run and just as apparent Hades had no intention of allowing that. From his belt swung a rope that he’d already fashioned into hobbles, though how he was going to get them on the agitated creature, Persephone didn’t know. Perhaps if she held Phlegethon’s lead, Hades could calm the horse enough that he would allow himself to be hobbled. But Phlegethon frightened her, and she hadn’t Hades’s strength or skill in dealing with the tempestuous beast. Likely, if she involved herself, she would only make matters worse.
Shame and defeat pricked at Persephone with twin needles. She looked away from Hades’s and Phlegethon’s tussle and caught sight of the folly. The weight on her heart eased some. While she couldn’t command Phlegethon, she had succeeded in bringing Upper World plants to life here in this land below, a feat even Hermes deemed impossible. And now she had someone to share that achievement with. Perhaps, Nadira, upon her return to Henna, would speak of it to the Sicani and they would know, at long last, that Persephone didn’t herald death and despair.
Persephone took Nadira by the hand and tugged her toward the folly. She pulled open the door. In her enthusiasm, she forgot to warn Nadira to narrow her eyes against the light or to do so herself. The mortal woman’s mouth opened in a silent cry while Persephone put up a shielding hand and waited for her vision to adjust. Her skin needed no such transition, however. The warmth and brightness were immediately welcome to her chilled flesh.
After her eyes accustomed themselves, Persephone dropped her hand and stepped inside the hut. She gasped. Greenery abounded in every trough and pot. There were no blooms yet, but from the shape of the leaves it was easy to recognize every plant here as some kind of flower. When they did blossom, the display would be exquisite, just the thing to lift the somber mood and heavy heart of the lord of the Underworld.
Nadira stepped into the room, gestured about, and looked at Persephone with a question in her eyes.
Persephone put a hand to her chest. “I grew them. I did this.”
“Indeed, you did.”
Persephone spun. Hades stood in the doorway, gaze roaming around the folly. His face was as expressionless as his voice as he took in the profuse growth.
Persephone’s stomach churned and her palms went damp with sweat. She’d done something wrong. Or perhaps he was displeased because she succeeded where he had failed.
She stepped toward him, an apology trembling on her lips. Though begging pardon had never mitigated any punishment Demeter chose to mete out, Hades might prove to be different in that regard, as he had in so many other ways.
Before she could speak, he murmured, “This is extraordinary.” Then his gaze stopped its circuit of the room, settled on her face and his eyes sheened with sudden tears. “Extraordinary.”
Persephone’s breath gusted from her in a relieved gasp. “You’re not angry?”
Hades swiped a hand across his eyes, gave a little chuckle. “Angry? What cause have I to be angry?” He opened his arms as though he meant to embrace the room. “This is the most marvelous …” His gaze dropped to her face. “Words fail me, Persephone, but no, I’m not angry, simply in awe.”
A God. In awe. Of a thing she’d accomplished. Something in Persephone’s chest kindled, swelled, and burned away all her uncertainty. She’d done this all on her own and no amount of angry words or hard hands could steal that knowledge from her. It belonged to her and always would.
Persephone reached up, putting a hand to Hades’s cheek. “Thank you.”
Hades closed his eyes, then turned his face and pressed a kiss to Persephone’s palm. Something as quick and fearsome as lightning shot down her arm. Persephone took in a trembling breath but didn’t pull away.
Hades looked back at her, drew her hand away from his cheek, held it between both of his. “I’m the one with all the cause to be grateful.”
A soft touch on Persephone’s shoulder startled her. She turned. Nadira lifted the pouch containing the food, pointed to it, and raised her eyebrows.
Persephone chuckled. “Yes, we can eat.” She looked back at Hades. “I know you’re famished.”
Hades inclined his head in agreement, then stepped back out of the doorway. Persephone’s fingers slid slowly, reluctantly from his as she followed Nadira out of the folly and into Elysium’s grasses.
Nadira sat and undid the cloth bundle. Persephone lowered herself so the food sat between them and Hades took a seat at Persephone’s side. Amid many darted glances at him, Nadira parceled out the food. While Hades professed to be hungry, he ate with very little appetite. After only a few bites of this and that, he rose and returned to the stable.
Heart pounding, Persephone looked about for Cerberus but the dog was nowhere to be seen. The creature, it seemed, remained obedient to Hades’s command.
When Hades exited the stable, he held the bow in one hand and the quiver of arrows in the other. As he walked toward Persephone, he called, “It’s been some time since we’ve done this. I thought you might like to see how much of your lesson you recall.”
Persephone had forgotten very little of that lesson, indeed had thought of it overly much in the time since; Hades’s hands on her, her buttocks nestled firmly in the cradle of his hips as he showed her the proper way to hold a bow, the catch in his throat when she shifted against him. A flush of heat prickled over her head to toe.
To hide her discomfiture, Persephone turned to Nadira, “Would you care to shoot with us?”
Nadira greeted the suggestion with all the affront of a proper Sicani woman, waving her hands in an emphatic denial.
Persephone rose on legs that trembled ever so slightly and made her way to Hades’s side. She couldn’t meet his eyes as she took the quiver from him and slung it over her back. When she lifted her head from adjusting the strap between her breasts he quickly looked away as though her gaze would scorch him should it brush his. He handed her the bow without a word then took a step back, making it apparent she would be shooting without his assistance.
Turning so Nadira was at her back, Persephone reached into the quiver and pulled an arrow free. She nocked it, lifted the bow, sighted down the shaft at an asphodel, and let go. With a hiss the arrow excised the top of the blossom. Persephone gave a triumphant laugh.
“May I try?” Hades extended a hand, no sign of his earlier unease.
Persephone relinquished the bow. Hades plucked an arrow from the quiver and in one quick motion nocked, lifted, aimed, shot, yet no flower dropped its laden head. Persephone narrowed her eyes, leaned forward.
“You needn’t strain so. I missed,” Hades said, a laugh in his voice as he returned the bow to her.
Joining her laughter to Hades’s, Persephone selected another arrow. “I never thought to best a man in archery, to say nothing of a God.”
Persephone lifted the bow, aimed. In the moment she let fly, something prickled at the back of her knee. Her shot went wild.
She turned to see Hades looking over Elysium, his face a study of concentration. In one hand he held an arrow on which the fletching was slightly askew.
Hades turned his head, met her eyes. “It seems your skill has deserted you, Lady.”
“Very well, a contest then to settle who is the better archer.”
Hades inclined his head. “What prize to the winner?”
Hades would never grant the one thing Persephone wanted most from him, no matter if she bested him once or a thousand times and asking him to free her would only ruin this lighthearted moment. She waved her hand. “A garland of flowers to wear in my hair.”
“You shall have it.”
“And what shall your prize be?”
Hades’s eyes swept Persephone’s face and body. A strange sensation quivered over her in the wake of his perusal making goosebumps erupt from her skin and sweat prickle on her upper lip.
He looked away from her, eyes taking in Elysium once again. “It’s been many years since I’ve had flowers in my hair. Like you, I shall accept a garland as my prize.” He looked back at Persephone. “Shall we begin?”
Before giving her assent, Persephone turned to see how Nadira fared. The woman was on her feet now, gathering a bouquet of Elysium’s strange blooms.
Persephone turned back to Hades, and offered the bow. He waved it away, gestured for her to go first. A smile on her face, heart thumping at the challenge before her, Persephone reached for an arrow.
In what seemed to be a matter of moments the quiver was empty, arrows scattered hither and yon. For every hit of Persephone’s, Hades had an equal number of missed shots.
Persephone cocked a smile at him. “I’ll have my garland now.”
“And you’ll get it. Though it may take me some time to learn the ways of flower weaving. Will you teach me?”
“I’d be pleased to.” Persephone bent her neck in a little mocking bow and some strands of hair wafted forward over her face.
Hades lifted his hand, hesitated.
Persephone held his gaze, held her breath.
He brushed the hair back then trailed his fingers down her cheek, the touch warming her like a ray of Helios’s light.
Smiling down at her, he said, “I imagine the last week shut up in the palace has made you restive. Shall we walk while I gather your flowers?”
It took a moment for Persephone to regain enough composure and breath to say, “Will Nadira be . . .”
“Cerberus won’t dare disturb her so long as I’m near.”
Persephone fell into step with him and they walked, keeping on a parallel with the palace, silence holding them close in its friendly folds. The backs of their fingers brushed once, twice. The third time, Persephone slid her hand into Hades’s. She glanced at him. He kept his eyes straight ahead, but gave her palm a gentle squeeze.
Lethe grazed his way towards them and soon fell into step with Persephone, though he kept his nose in the grass as if he were utterly unaware of her presence.
After a time, Hades said, “I wish to speak to you of the act of physical love.”
Persephone turned questioning eyes on him. The knob in the front of his neck bobbed once, then twice. His chest expanded with the size of the breath he drew in.
Keeping his eyes on the horizon he began to speak. “I lived the first part of my life in darkness, Persephone. I was surrounded by it, inundated with it. When I was released from Kronos’s stomach, I was pressed immediately into a battle I knew not how to fight, but fight I did, and we won. Then, after a brief interlude, I came here and spent the next nine years in darkness of a different kind. Though I’m years older than you, I’ve walked in the world scarcely longer than you have.”
He cleared his throat once, then again. “I’ve known only two women in my life and that was scarcely a comprehensive lesson in how women think, feel, and behave. They each, however, in their own way, educated me in the pleasure lovers can give one another when they share their bodies. The last of these experiences was some years ago. In the time since I haven’t … I … what I mean to say is, the first night we were together in my realm, I was as a starving man before a feast. I took more than you were willing or even ready to give. In doing so, I hurt you and made you afraid of me.”
Persephone stopped walking and yanked her hand out of his grasp. Through thin bloodless lips she said, “I don’t wish to speak of what occurred between us that night.”
Hades lifted his hands, palms up, beseeching. “You needn’t say anything, but I beg you to allow me to say my piece. If I don’t, I worry it will forever remain between us.”
Though Persephone nodded her permission for him to continue, she wrapped one arm around her own waist and placed her other hand on Lethe’s neck, drawing close to the big horse and farther away from Hades. The trembling in her limbs and belly eased some.
Hades began to walk again as he spoke. “Before I brought you here, I believed I could turn your heart to me with proof of my love. I’m not, as some men are, easy with words. I knew it was only by my actions I could show you how much I cared for you, so I adored you. I painted the walls in your chambers with new and different images from what I put there previously. I know the blooms in Elysium can’t compare with those flowers that flourish under Helios’s light. I hoped my frescoes would return to you some of that lost beauty. When I went to Olympus to ask Zeus for permission to wed you, I plundered his palace for any finery I thought would delight you: ostrich egg cups painted with the daintiest of flowers, carved ivory combs, pots of sweet-smelling ointments, jewelry wrought by the finest of artisans. I collected from the Goddesses the most beautiful of their robes for your use, but still I knew my palace was a chill, grim place. Not one a maid would care for. Then I recalled Hekate telling me of her bed of fleece and blankets on the floor of your hut in Henna where, when you were distraught or afraid in the night, you would go to her for comfort. I fashioned such a nest in your bedchamber here and meant for you to rest in my arms the way you did in hers, hoping it would make you feel as though there were things familiar and loved here in the Underworld. I know now it wasn’t enough, could never be enough to make you care for an existence in this place.” He paused and then said, “I still hope, however, that my love will make up all the rest.”
He lapsed into silence and Persephone glanced at him.
He turned his eyes to meet hers and she looked away.
Hades continued. “When I came to your sleeping chamber your first night here, I meant only to calm and comfort you in the way Hekate told me she did. I was caught unawares by how much I wanted you. I allowed myself to be overcome and selfishly chased the satisfaction of my own desires, making me heedless, for a time, to your pleas for me to stop. When the fear in your voice finally penetrated my haze, I realized how deeply I hurt and frightened you. I abhorred myself, have abhorred myself every day since. I long to make reparation. If I could, I …”
At his silence, Persephone looked at him once more. Hades dragged his hand over his lower face, swiping at his lips and his beard again and again in obvious agitation. Finally, dropping his hand, he met her eyes. “I can’t tell you how deeply I regret that night. If it were possible, I would go back and do it all differently.”
Clutching at Lethe’s mane, Persephone said, “You stole me away from my home. You used your hands to force me to do your will. You took from me the sanctuary of my own body, the only thing I had left to me in this place. I’ve spent so much of my time here in fear that you’ll force yourself on me again, hurt me more than you did the first time.”
“I won’t. I vow it. By the River Styx, I vow it.
Persephone shook her head. “How am I to trust that? You took me captive. You deny all my requests for freedom and make it impossible for me to escape. You force your will on me in every other thing. How can I know you won’t make me accept your attentions again?”
He scraped his hand over his lips, down his beard again. This time when he lowered his hand, it hit his thigh with a defeated sounding thump. “You can’t. Though I hope these past months of being careful and considerate in the ways I touch you has inspired some belief that you can trust my vow.”
Persephone looked away from him, her eyes picking out the hazy ribbon of the River Lethe on the horizon. There were so many replies, too many replies she could make: that she knew how alike they were, that she saw the kindness in him, that she longed to allay his loneliness, that her body continually betrayed her in its lust for him, but, despite all that, still, still, she couldn’t trust him.
“Is it still your wish to return to home?”
Persephone held herself motionless, kept her eyes on the horizon. Perhaps this was some ruse of his to find out the truth of her feelings. If she told him what she wanted he might rage at her, forbid her from leaving the palace. Or, perhaps, he sincerely wanted her happiness even at the cost of his own. The only way to know was to answer him truthfully. His reaction would, at the very least, clarify how she should feel about him.
“I do.”
Hades said nothing for a long moment. She swiveled her gaze to him. He was also staring into the distance, his fist clenching and unclenching at his side. Her stomach plunged and she took a careful step away from him, crowding even closer to Lethe.
Hades drew breath once, twice, turned his head to meet her gaze. “Very well. On the morrow, when Nadira’s transformation is complete, I’ll convey you both to Nysa. Perhaps being part of her restoration will cause the Sicani to look kindlier on you.”
Exultation pulsed through Persephone. With a cry, she flung herself at Hades, wrapped her arms around his neck. His arms came around her waist, and he pulled her close. An awareness of how easily he could overpower her in this moment penetrated her haze of joy. She pulled back from the embrace. He loosened his hold and looked down at her.
Persephone surveyed his face, taking in forehead, cheeks, brows, hair, lips. Her eyes lingered there. He lowered his head. Their breath mingled, heated and humid between them. He didn’t press his lips to hers though she found she wanted him to, very much. She made a small sound, one of frustration or need or both. Finally, his mouth found hers, her eyes closing as their lips touched.
His arms were hard as they tightened around her, his body as solid and all-encompassing as the walls of his palace, but this time there was no fear, no thought of escape in her mind. Instead, her hands twined tighter around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair.
Hades abruptly pulled away.
Persephone opened her eyes.
The face that looked down on her was that of the God who’d taken her from her home, cold, hard, impregnable. He stepped back from her, his arms falling from around her waist. “We should return to the palace. You no doubt want to make preparations for your departure.”
Persephone reached for him. “Hades, I—” Then she heard the long, baying cry of the beast on the hunt, Cerberus.