‘Now?’ Hera asks sharply.
I nod, feigning innocence. ‘Yes, I’m so hungry. Aren’t you? I’ve been so excited that I haven’t been able to eat for days.’
Wind spirits gust in and chalices of wine appear to fill themselves.
‘It’s customary to –’
‘Oh, the waiting?’ I ask. ‘I know, but Hades and I both felt we couldn’t keep such important women as yourselves waiting.’
Hera freezes, jaw tensing.
I can scarcely breathe as I wait for her response.
Technically, the women are supposed to eat only after the men have finished. Hades and I decided that was completely sexist nonsense, but it was Hera who dictated these marriage customs – no doubt in some effort to appease her husband.
Hera is probably the goddess I’m most nervous around. I don’t want to insult her by subverting her traditions. She’s powerful – the queen of the gods and my father’s wife – andthere are plenty of stories of her vindictiveness and cruelty. She was also forced into marriage with my father and even tried to overthrow him once. He hung her from the sky in chains until she was in so much pain that she swore on the Styx never to rise against him again. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t loopholes. If I can get her on my side, she could be an invaluable ally.
Of course for now my focus is on surviving my father, but I have an eternity ahead and I’m idly thinking about the long-term.
‘Wonderful,’ Athena says, taking a seat at my side and it’s like she’s given the others permission to sit too. Hera hesitates only a moment longer before she joins us at the table, burying her expression in her wine glass.
There is no seating chart but the deities arrange themselves in a certain order anyway. Members of the council surround me: Athena to my left, Artemis to my right, and Hera, Aphrodite and Hestia – who rumour has it might be joining the council any day now – joining next to them. Other Olympians fill the tables after them, from the Muses to minor gods: Melpomene, the muse of tragedy, next to Selene, goddess of the moon. The three Graces line up next to Tyche, goddess of fortune. They sprawl on and on until they run into the deities of Poseidon’s realm, Oceanus, bookended by his wife, Amphitrite, and Thetis, a goddess of some sea I’ve never seen. The goddesses of my realm cluster at the other end, Mania chatting amicably with Enyo and the Fates bent together at the furthest edge.
‘To this union,’ Hera says, her voice ringing through the room and cutting short any conversation.
Everyone raises a glass, even Athena and Cybele who pointedly place them straight back down. It appears some deities are loyal to my mother. I don’t know whether that’s a relief or not. At least no one left a seat for her. I couldn’t cope with an empty space where she should be.
As I place my bouquet of flowers in an empty vase on the table it catches Artemis’s attention.
‘What is that?’ She nods. ‘It feels … odd.’
‘Ah.’ I smile. ‘Well, I wished to make an aparche but I’m rather attached to my hair.’
‘Yes, I had noticed,’ Artemis says, suddenly cold.
‘I thought I would honour you in a way only I can instead.’ I nod to the flower that caught her attention, clusters of white petals round a bud so yellow it makes the sun look pale. ‘I call it chamomile.’ The name feels like a secret joke:earth apple. It is the first thing I have created in this realm intended for consumption. ‘It is designed to survive many climates, it has many medicinal qualities, and it is quite delicious in tea. I thought it would be useful for you and your hunters when foraging.’
Artemis – no, the whole table – is quiet, staring at me.
Athena breaks first and taps a sharp nail absent-mindedly against a wine glass. ‘You have certainly made the most of your gift,’ she says, her gaze all the more intense for the stark contrast of her slate-grey eyes against her porcelain skin.
My smile is perfect: demure, bashful and pleased all at once. ‘It’s a delight to bring beauty to the world – but to bring use too is a brand of magic I feel honoured to have.’ My eyes meet Hecate’s and I expect her to return the spark of joy. She told me I was more than flowers. Is this not what she meant, the way I spin flowers beyond themselves?
But she’s not happy. Her dark eyes burn like wildfire.
‘Thank you …Persephone.’ Artemis’s clumsy tongue struggles with my name but I flush at her using it. No other Olympian has yet acknowledged that I have refused the name they all witnessed Zeus give me. I’m not sure if it’s loyalty to my mother or him. ‘It’s a gift I did not expect and far superior to a lock of hair.’
‘Yes, well,’ I say. ‘A thank you for protecting young girls.’ I raise my glass to her, biting my tongue.
I wonder if she can feel the challenge, see the glint of anger in my eyes.
Becauseshedidn’t protectme. I protected myself. Where was she when Mother was trying to marry me off? Doing whatever our father told her. Everyone in this room thinks I was kidnapped, forced into marriage and gods know what else, and not a single one of them has done anything to stop it.
And maybe it didn’t happen to me but I’ve spent enough time with the mortals to know such stories are far from rare.
All those young girls, forced to cut their hair in honour of a goddess who can’t protect them because she’s too busy pacing the cell her father created for her. He lets her run through the wilds but stops her from interfering with anything but the outskirts of this world. And she has embraced that. She clutches her limited freedom, too scared of stepping across the line he set.
She knows that.
