Persephone

"You're insane,"

"I am not!"

"Persephone, if you think I'm naming our baby Elpidios then you are, in fact, insane."

I laughed at that. We were sitting in our garden under the shade of the old pomegranate tree. I'd thought about getting rid of the thing when I'd started working on the garden, but had thought better of it. The gnarled old tree had been in this courtyard for centuries, it belonged there. I'd half believed that the sunlight would kill it off—that seemed to be the affect it had on all the other daemon life forms in this place. Contrarily, it had continued to thrive in its new environment, neither better or worse for the change of surroundings.

I was laying on my back, looking up through the branches of the tree. My head was in Hades' lap, my hair splayed out across his legs like some sort of blanket. He stroked my hair, running his fingers through it again and again. It felt nice.

It was hard to believe how far we had come in such a short time. Three months ago I had hated my husband. Now we were friends, spending most of every day with each other. It hadn't been easy, but necessity makes strange allies.

My belly had grown with our relationship. I couldn't see my toes from this position, which I found disconcerting. Hades didn't seem to mind. He liked touching my stomach, hoping to feel the baby kick.

"It's not that bad," I said.

He smiled. "Maybe you can come up with something else."

"We could call him Little Hades," I suggested.

His smiled widened. "Definitely. And for a girl?"

"You know, I've always considered Hades to be a rather feminine name . . ."

"You're ridiculous."

"Sire?" We both looked up. Tetheus cowered at the edge of the garden, his hand raised to ward off the light.

"Yes?" Hades said.

"A god is asking asking for an audience with you. I told him that you were busy, but he insisted."

Hades gritted his teeth. I could hear them grinding together and repressed a shudder.

"You should go," I said, pushing myself off of him.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Don't keep whoever it is waiting."

We both got to our feet and brushed the dirt off our clothes.

"All right," he acquiesced. "I'll be back soon." He kissed my forehead before he went.

I was left standing alone in the garden. Without Hades, the courtyard suddenly seemed too big. Shaking off the feeling, I wandered through the paths of my paradise. The garden looked more like a forest than the delicate, over-groomed courtyards I remembered seeing on Olympus. I preferred it that way. The tree branches formed a sort of latticework over my head, their limbs heavy with blossoming vines. Moss grew between the dark flagstones of the path, cool beneath my bare feet.

I brushed my hand over my flower children as I walked past. My magic helped them grow lush and green. Blossoms burst, trees spread their branches and the soft grass grew under my feet as I walked. I hummed a little and the air seemed to grow a bit warmer. Inside my womb, I felt the baby wiggle.

"Do you like that?" I asked him, patting my side. I hummed a little louder and laughed when he squirmed again. Squinting down at my stomach, I tried to see his little aura. Hades had been helping me with my magic, but I had a lot left to learn. Every once in a while I could see the little glow coming from my belly, but usually I just ended up staring at my stomach for an hour. Today I could see it fairly clearly once I relaxed my eyes just right. His aura was pink and bright, like a peony blossom. I hoped that meant he was happy.

I walked around the courtyard for an hour or so, making the flowers grow. I wondered what kind of magic my baby would have. Would he be an earth god or goddess? Or would his magic take on a darker form, like his father's? I didn't let it trouble me.

It was a little while later, while I was kneeling in a shady glen surrounded by ferns, that I heard someone walk into the garden. Pushing myself up, I hurried to meet Hades.

Leuce was standing there, waiting for me.

Seeing her, I stopped dead in my tracks. I hadn't seen her in months, not since the day after my husband's confession. I'd dismissed the girl from my service, telling Hecate that under no circumstances was she to return.

She stared at me, bruise-colored shadows under her eyes. She was a mess. Her beautiful blond hair was tangled and dirty, and her dress looked like she'd been sleeping on the ground. She had a split lip and her eyes were full of hate.

"Why are you here?" I asked her, my voice cold.

"You don't belong here," she whispered. Her voice was hoarse. "Go back to where you came from, you bitch."

I raised my eyebrows. Obviously, this was not a plea to get her job back.

"You need to leave, Leuce. Get out of my garden."

"Your garden?" she hissed. "Who do you think told Hades to do this for you? Do you really think he would have come up with it on his own?"

I eyed her. "I'm not sure I understand you."

"Your husband used to call me into his bedroom at night," she sneered. "He said he'd gotten tired of you, that you were nothing but trouble. Then we'd spend all night doing what you were too good to do. We enjoyed ourselves—he liked fucking me. BUt then you had to go ruin everything by telling him about your little bastard."

I stared at her in amazement. Was she out of her mind? Had she forgotten I was the queen? And did she really not know that I knew about the affair?

A slow, deadly rage was beginning to boil inside me, an anger beyond anything I had ever felt before. "What do you want, Leuce?" I asked quietly.

"I want you to leave. Hades doesn't love you, he just went back to you because of that." She pointed at my stomach. "Before you came here, I was going to be queen. My father Acheron had been trying to arrange the match for years, but then you had to seduce the king. You, who mean nothing to Erebus, who mopes and whines about your stupid Momma. You don't deserve to be queen."

"And you think I can just leave?" I asked. "You don't think Hades would object to that? Have you not been paying attention, Leuce? If I could have gone back I would have."

"That was before. He'd let you leave now, I think. Just seduce him into it like you've seduced him into everything else."

I stalked over to her until we were standing eye to eye. "First of all, I didn't seduce anybody. Secondly, I really don't care about your crushed dreams. I am Hades's wife. I am the queen, and I told you to get out."

Leuce eyed me balefully. "Hades told me he loved me you know," she said quietly. I tried not to flinch. "He told me that I was the most perfect woman in the world. He said that he was going to get rid of you and marry me. And if it wasn't for that whelp in your belly he would have already done it." She slithered closer to me until our noses were nearly touching. "I know that you hadn't been together for a long time when you told him that you were pregnant. Tell me the truth, Persephone, you heard about his plan to throw you out and you knew you had to do something. The baby isn't even his is it?"

I slapped her across the face. My hand stung from the impact, but I had the satisfaction of seeing tears well up in her eyes.

Leuce snarled, and, before I could duck out of the way, she pushed me back, hard. Caught off balance, I stumbled, terror shooting through me. I fell backward, managed to twist to the side, arms thrown out to absorb most of the impact. It hurt, but my hands and arms bore the worst of it. Tears of hate welled up in my eyes, hot and sticky. The rage that had been simmering since Leuce had walked into the garden boiled over. Pushing myself to my feet, I spun around to face her. She was still standing there, seeming surprised that I had gotten up that fast.

"You," I growled. I lurched toward her, trying to grab her by the throat. Leuce spun out of the way, beginning to look afraid. "Get over here."

She turned and ran. Not knowing where I found the strength, I chased after her. She'd not gone five steps before I caught her by that lovely silver hair and yanked her back toward me. She squealed in pain. Turning her around to face me, I still held onto her hair, shaking her. My fear for the baby turned to a madness, a rage so violent I imagined killing her right then and there. She struggled against me, trying to hit me in the stomach. I grabbed both of her hands in one of mine and squeezed, my other hand still wound in her hair.

"Aaaah," she wailed, the bones of her wrists beginning to grind together. I tightened my grip,the rage giving me supernatural strength.

"You've gone too far, Leuce," I hissed. "You shouldn't have come here." Then I unleashed my magic on her, flooding her with all the power I had. She screamed, throwing her head back. Brilliant white light blazed from her mouth and nose and eyes, the same light that had scorched through Cerberus months before. I screamed, fear and hatred and wild joy bursting out of me. The light suddenly became a long woody stem, shooting out of her mouth, her face melting and changing into the rough wrinkles of tree bark. The silver hair in my hand hardened into a thousand tiny twigs, fanning out and thickening to full tree branches with tiny silverish leaves.

Her legs soldered together and elongated with her body to become a slender trunk. Within seconds, the nymph Leuce, daughter of the River Acheron, was a tree.

Breathing heavily, I took a step back from her. Now that it was over, I gazed at what I'd done in ever increasing dread. I'd killed someone, killed her with my bare hands. What was I going to do?

I ran out of the garden, fleeing from what I'd done. I needed to find my husband.

The king's solar was just down the hallway from our bedchamber. That was where Hades would meet usually meet with his subjects. Pausing outside the doorway, I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. It wouldn't do to show others how shaken I was. I knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Hades shouted. I flinched. Whatever this meeting was about, it must not be going well. I thought about leaving, but it was too late.

"It's me, my lord the king," I called back. There was a pause.

"Come in, Persephone."

Opening the door, I entered the room. Hades was standing at the window, arms crossed. On the other side of the room stood a young man in a travel worn tunic, his brown curls windblown. The wings on his sandals fluttered when he saw me.

"Hermes?" I gasped. Sudden joy seized me, and I ran up and threw my arms around him. It had been so long since I'd seen anyone from home. Poor Hermes didn't seem to know what to do with this sudden enthusiasm, and just stood there, rigid with surprise. Hades cleared his throat. Feeling stupid for throwing myself at a near stranger, I let him go.

"Hermes, how is my mother?" I asked. "Is she alright? Does she know I'm safe?" Hermes looked even more uneasy. His gaze flickered over to my husband and back as if he wasn't sure what to say.

"Errm…."

"Hermes has come to take you back to your mother," Hades said.

Surprised, I took another step away from my half-brother as if he was going to scoop me up right then and there."Wha-what do you mean?"

"Father sent me here," Hermes told me. "Demeter finally figured out where you were and has been twisting his arm to have you brought back."

Hades slammed his fist against the window frame. "She's not going anywhere." He turned around to face the younger man, his eyes steely. "Zeus and I had a deal. Persephone is my wife."

"Well, the deal's off. Demeter says that if I don't bring her daughter back she'd going to destroy what's left of the mortal world. She'll do it Hades, she'll really do it."

"I hardly see how that concerns me," Hades replied.

A tingle of fear went down my spine. "Momma wouldn't do that," I whispered.

"She's half done it already," Hermes said. "The mortal world is a wasteland, thousands of people are already dead."

"What?"

"The whole world has been frozen since you left. Nothing grows. You didn't know?"

I turned to face my husband. We stared at each other for several long moments. He'd kept this from me, he'd known what was happening in the Land of the Living. He'd known that people were dying because of me, and he never said anything. He looked back at me, expression pained.

"Persephone-"

"No," I said, facing Hermes again. "I didn't know about it."

"So you'll come with me?"

I hesitated. I needed to end this, I needed Momma to know that I was all right. I couldn't let her suffer anymore, nor could I allow her to hurt the mortals. If I left though . . .

"Hermes, could you wait outside?" I asked.

He hesitated, looking between me and Hades like he was afraid we'd try something.

"Get out," Hades told him.

We waited until he was outside before we said anything.

"Persephone -"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I demanded.

"I knew it would upset you."

"Of course it upsets me!" I cried. "People have died,Hades! Innocent people have died because of me. We should have just told her where I was to begin with, if she'd known I was all right maybe she wouldn't have done this."

"If she'd known where you were she would have demanded I bring you back, just like she'd doing now. Persephone," He came over to me and his face was full of such sorrow that it took me aback. "Persephone, if you go back, I might never be allowed to see you again."

"What? Of course you will," I protested.

"She wouldn't let me marry you to begin with. Do you think that after everything that's happened she'll let me have you now?" Hades took my hand and drew me closer to him. "I can't bear to lose you, my love, it'd be the end of me. I can't go back to how things were before you came into my life."

I stood there, unsure what to do. "You should have told me. You should have trusted me with the truth."

"I know."

"If I don't go more people will die because of me, is that what you want?"

He looked at me. "Are you leaving, then?"

I bit my lip. "If I leave, what'll happen to you? The gods might try to hurt you when I'm not here."

"Don't worry about them," he said. "Worry about yourself. You're the one who said you don't want our child to grow up without a father. Your mother won't allow us to be together, Persephone."

"I'll explain everything to her. She'll understand."

He seemed unconvinced. It was time to tell him.

"Hades, something happened after you left the garden." Fighting back tears, I told him what I'd done to Leuce. He was stunned.

"Did anyone see you?"

I shook my head.

Hades sighed. "If anybody finds out about this there'll be trouble." Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose, thinking hard. He sighed again.

"You'll have to leave. I can't have them going after you for this."

My stomach twisted. He was right, but I still didn't want to leave him. I felt like I was being torn in half, my love for my mother warring with my love for him.

I drew up short. Love? Is that what I felt? I looked at my husband. The last three months had been nothing but stress. I'd lived in fear, terrified that the other deities would find a way to hurt me and my baby. Hades had been my only ally, yet I had never considered loving him. It still hurt me to think about his affair with Leuce, even though I had tried hard to put it behind me. In fact, I think it hurt more now than when he'd first told me—especially after the things Leuce had just said in the garden. Was that because I cared more now than I had then?

We'd formed a strange kind of friendship the last few months. I was no longer uneasy around him. Was that love? I didn't know. All I was sure of was that I did not want to leave him here to face this uncertainty alone.

"I won't let her take me away," I told him. "I love her, but the baby needs you." I walked over and wrapped my arms around his waist, burying my face in the soft fabric of his chiton. "I need you too." Hades' breathing hitched when I said that. He'd wrapped his arms around me and held me close, our embrace a bit awkward because of my belly.

"I love you," he whispered, his breath warm in my hair. "There has to be a way."

"We'll find one."

Pulling apart, he kissed me once before calling Hermes back into the room.

"All right," Hades said, his arm wrapped around my shoulder. "I'll bring her to see Demeter."

Hermes seemed relieved. "Good to hear. Let's go."

"Not right now. I'll bring her in the morning." I glanced up at him.

Hermes didn't like that. "But I'm supposed to bring her back as soon as I can."

"You aren't taking her anywhere. Tell them that I'll be bringing her to Olympus tomorrow morning."

"But—"

"Are you questioning my integrity, Hermes?" Hades asked.

"No, but—"

"Then go back and tell them that she'll be there tomorrow morning."

Hermes shuffled uncertainly, looking back and forth between us. Finally, he left, the door closing loudly behind him.

"Are we really going?" I asked him. My heart fluttered at the thought of seeing Momma again after all these months.

"Yes, but we have to do something else first." Taking my hand, he led me out of the room. We hurried down the corridors of the palace. I looked at all the paintings, trying to memorize them. I hated to consider how long it might be until I saw them again. After awhile I realized where we were going.

"Hades, no, I can't go back there," I whispered, overcome with dread.

"You'll be fine." He squeezed my hand in encouragement.

"But, but she's there."

"You mean a tree is there? You're garden is full of trees."

"I killed her," I hissed, stomach knotting in fear.

Hades slowed down and turned back to me.

"She was trying to hurt you," he murmured. "You fought back. She should have known not to pick a fight with you."

"I killed her though," I repeated. "How can you try to justify that?"

"Nobody tries to hurt my wife and gets away with it. Nobody." He touched the side of my face. "Besides, I'm rather impressed. You're even more powerful than I imagined, my little flower queen."

"You're mad," I muttered.

He grinned and kissed me on the forehead.

We entered the garden a little while later. I tried not to look at the silvery tree at the edge of the courtyard, but my eyes drifted over there anyway. The tree looked innocent enough, no sign of the gruesome thing I'd done. Hades didn't even look in that direction. He was making his way toward the other end of the garden where we'd been sitting earlier that day. The old pomegranate tree crouched in the shadows, seeming to watch us as we approached.

"Do you remember what I told you about eating the food of the Underworld?" Hades asked.

I nodded. "It binds the soul of the eater to Erebus." We paused under the branches of the tree. Over our heads the dark leaves blocked out the sunlight. Deep red pomegranates hung from the low boughs, heavy and tantalizing. Hades looked down at me.

"You don't have to do this," he said as he reached up and plucked one of the pomegranates.

I blinked in surprise. What was he suggesting? He knelt in front of me, and, taking out a small knife, sliced through the thick rind. Juice sluiced out of the gash, staining his hand reddish-purple.

"Sweet, lovely Persephone, will you be my wife?" he asked, holding out a chunk of the pomegranate. I stared at his outstretched hand and the red beads of the fruit, shining like rubies in the rays of sunlight.

"Hades…I don't understand."

"You don't have to stay here forever—you'll be allowed to come and go whenever you like—but if you eat this, a part of your soul will always belong here. Your mother won't be able to separate us, you'll have to come back to me." He looked up at me, his gray eyes like pools of liquid silver. He looked so vulnerable, like he was offering me his heart instead of a piece of fruit. My heart softened towards him. How could I ever leave him alone?

"Of course," I said, taking the pomegranate. He smiled up at me, a beautiful smile that lit up his whole face. Blushing, I smiled back, and plucked a few seeds from the pale rind. I looked at them in the palm of my hand, six red seeds that would bind a part of my soul to the Underworld forever. I shivered to think about that. But was it really so bad? I looked at my husband. Eating these meant being with him forever. Six months before I would have been appalled by the idea. Now it made me feel warm inside.

Tilting my head back, I clapped my hand over my mouth, crushing the juicy seeds with my teeth. They were so sweet.

"Persephone …" he breathed, watching me with shining eyes.

I smiled down at him and pulled him to his feet. Once he was upright, I threw my arms around him, kissing him. He kissed me back, his tongue darting into my mouth to taste the sweetness there. I giggled and drew back from him.

"I love you," I said.

To moved to speak, he leaned in and kissed me again.