Aidon jerked out of an uneasy sleep to find something unfamiliar and unpleasant itching in his mind. Staring with unfocused dark eyes into the dimness of his throne room, he searched for the source of the sensation, and was not really surprised when he found what it was.
Kore was crying. She had wept before, of course, countless times, but this time the tears that flowed hotly from her closed lids and diffused into the steaming bathwater were wrung from a deeper part of her. He knew suddenly that it was because of him. At least partly because of him. He didn't realize he had clenched his hands so tight that his pale nails had cut half-moons into his palms.
Forcing his breathing to slow, Aidon allowed his awareness of her to fill his world, blotting out the darkness of the throne room, the cold stone beneath his hands, the faint scent of bitter herbs. There was nothing but Kore, and it seemed there never had been.
She lay still as the dead in the bathtub, her dark hair gleaming and moving gently like seaweed under the surface, her long lashes forming perfect French curves on her pale skin, jeweled with the tears she could not stop. Aidon, as gently as his desperation would allow, reached a little further and touched her mind.
She was desperately ashamed. That much was obvious. Ashamed, and in some part of her deeply dissatisfied with her relationship with her mother. Aidon rather thought that Kore and Ceres had never really understood one another; he knew Ceres of old, of course, and knew how she thought. Kore was more immediate, more emotional, more spontaneous, than her mother.
He caught the edge of a stray thought as it drifted out of her awareness. This time it was his lip he didn't feel as he bit deep enough to bring slow dark blood. She remembered his touch.
More than remembered; she had felt pleasure from his touch.
Aidon pulled back, remembering vaguely to breathe. His world was suddenly a lot bigger and brighter. He knew that it meant precisely nothing: he had no hold over her, he was nothing more than a pleasant dream to her, but even that small amount of hope was almost unbearable. Struggling to remain calm, he explained to himself that he would ignore her, and go out to discharge his responsibilities (sadly neglected during the past few days) to his realm. But the part of him that was old and original and not a little similar to his brother had grown suddenly more powerful, and he remained in his obsidian throne, unaware of the crystal tears that trembled on his own eyelashes.
I began to feel the bathwater cooling. My skin was pale and soft and wrinkled, my eyes hot and red and scratchy. I stood up, sheeting water like a plain naiad, and bent over to wring the water out of my hair. I caught sight of myself in the steamy mirror, and a sound that was half a laugh and half a sob came out of me. I looked like a madwoman; my face was death-white, my eyes big and dark and red-rimmed, my hair clinging in black straggles to my forehead.
Turning away from the unpleasant sight, I wrapped myself in the robe hanging on the back of the door. I had no intention of facing Mother, at least not until the evening, and I saw no reason to put clothes on.
My room was cold after the steam of the bathroom. I flung myself on the bed, aware that there were no more tears to come (and besides, crying was childish and silly) and curled up in a ball, waiting for the day to be over.
Aidon's older self remembered standing there on the steps of the palace, looking down at his brother. Zeus had been driving the MGB that day, he recalled; freshly washed and waxed, it gleamed like a dark green chariot on the gravel drive. The woman beside him was blonde and gorgeous, as all Zeus's women were. Aidon knew that if he turned to look up at the great third-floor windows he'd see the pale face of the Queen watching her husband absently fingering the blonde girl's hair.
Zeus had looked up at his brother, laughing amusedly at Aidon's raised eyebrow. "We're not like them," he had said. "When we want something, we take it. That is how it always has been."
"Is it right?" Aidon had asked mildly. Zeus's grin widened.
"Right and wrong are terms they made up. We are above such trivialities. Aidon, you really need to lighten up. You never have any fun."
He had put the MGB in gear and driven off with his mortal squeeze, the wheels kicking up a cloud of dust that obscured the car as it disappeared through the gates.
Aidon had watched until the dust cleared, thinking over what the King had said. When we want something, we take it.
He came back to himself with a jolt.
We take it.
I was almost asleep. The warmth of the water had driven some of the thudding ache from my skull. Lying curled up on my bed, I was almost able to forget the previous night. My mind was running along familiar, well-worn tracks: a fantasy I'd had ever since I was a child, wherein I was driving a long low black car, and a man sat beside me in silence. I had never been able to see the man's face.
Somewhere a door opened and closed. My mother, probably. I could hear footsteps a long way away. I yawned, and suddenly I was more tired than I could ever remember being. The man and the car disappeared, replaced by a sense of falling under the surface of some dark water. I had time to wonder vaguely what was happening to me before everything went black.
Aidon gathered Kore's slender form in his arms. The voice of Zeus was strong in his head, almost eclipsing his rational side, which shrieked What are you doing? What the hells do you think you're doing?
I'm exercising my divine prerogative, he thought half-hysterically. Kore's body was lighter than he'd expected, and in her spelled sleep she shifted a little in his arms, and one of her hands closed gently on his shirt. He shivered suddenly, took a deep breath, marshalling his energies, and took her away.
The simple cottage room faded in a blink of his smoke-colored eyes, and another room, much larger, materialized. He laid Kore on a bed hung with pale grey silk brocade, the canopy held up by intricately carved ebony posts. The room firmed around him as he turned more of his attention to it.
She clung to his shirt as he laid her down, and something almost unbearable turned over in his heart. Again he heard his brother's voice, and this time it gave him a little strength. He laid her hands by her sides, covered her with the sheets. Without taking his eyes from her he waved a hand at the marble sideboard, which suddenly groaned under the weight of a magnificently luxurious assortment of fruit, confections, cheese, breads and crackers, wines and juices in crystal decanters. Another wave of the hand created a wardrobe filled to capacity with exquisite dresses; yet another made a section of the wall waver and disappear to reveal a well-appointed bath suite. The balcony outside the great windows was barren, he noticed, and as he noticed it flowering trees popped into existence, standing in china tubs along the railing of the terrace. He raised his head and looked fixedly at the wall opposite the bed, which developed a fireplace complete with crackling logs and gleaming brass poker, and then directed his attention to the far wall. A bookcase built itself out of the air, stocking itself as it went with books of the sort he'd seen on Kore's own shelves: Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, Magic Flutes, Brave New World, Storm Warning, Paradise Lost.
He looked down again at Kore's sleeping face. She would take at least another hour to come out of the slumber he'd cast upon her, and although he wanted nothing more than to wait here with her until those long, long lashes parted, his realm was calling to him with more urgency every minute.
Ceres, sitting in her warm and earth-colored kitchen, watched as the day's light faded from the sky. Kore had been punished enough, she thought. The look in her dark daughter's eyes had told her that morning that she fully realized exactly what she'd done, and was deathly frightened and ashamed.
She got up from the table. Try as she might, she couldn't rid herself of the memory of Aidon sitting in that very chair, looking suddenly very young. He had looked so like his brother, then. So very much.
Unwillingly, Ceres allowed herself to remember the King. Smooth and dark-golden and thickly muscled, he had seemed the very embodiment of the statues made to him in the old days of marble and olives; his wide grin had opened the world for her, back then, the touch of his strong square hands had given her a reason to exist. There had been peace in heaven, at least for a while. And then there had been Juno, and in Juno everything changed.
Ceres had withdrawn, taking refuge in the golden wheatears and the swelling fruits of her realm, already feeling the quickening of the child inside her. Summer never ended. The harvests were gathered in the same golden glow of warmth that heralded the sowing of the seeds. The baby had been born in the flowering of the late rose, and Ceres had looked at the beauty of her leonine eyes and the down of dark hair on her finely shaped skull, and had felt the name Persephone rise in her mind like the upwelling of a spring.
Persephone she had been, until the day when she had seen one of the stylized pale statues of girls that stood in the marble temples of their world, and had asked her mother what they were called. Ceres remembered looking down at Persephone's five-year-old face, upturned and curious, and had seen a shadow pass across her daughter's golden eyes as she told her "That is a kore."
Persephone, always a dutiful and obedient child, grew to hate her name as the years passed. At thirteen, red-faced with crying over the latest disappointment, she had blurted out, "I want to change my name." Ceres had raised a wheat-gold eyebrow and asked what she would like to be called. "Kore. Like those statues. I want my name to be Kore."
Years passed. Ceres didn't think she'd ever really forgotten the shock of surprise and hurt that had flooded through her at Kore's rejection of her rightful name. Sometimes she could feel it like an invisible wall between them, a barrier as complete and absolute as the one she had tried to place between herself and Zeus, all those years ago. Yet there had never been a conversation about it, never had they spoken of that particular disagreement.
Restlessly, Ceres rose, pushing in her chair, and climbed the stairs to her daughter's room.