When we’re back in the palace I assume we’re going to celebrate, just the two of us.
But Hades disappears for a few minutes, leaving me in the courtyard, and when he returns the whole court beginstrickling in. Just on the edge of the horizon, you can see the humans – you can see paradise.
‘Your queen has an announcement,’ he declares.
I’m not even nervous about speaking in front of them all, revealing myself to them. I don’t know where to start so I just say it. I look at the crowd of faces – Styx grinning and Charon confused and Hermes intrigued and more gods I’m yet to know casting uncertain glances towards one another – and I say: ‘I’m the goddess of life. And I just moulded the afterlife. I created paradise for the mortals.’
A beat of silence is broken by Styx screaming: ‘Rivers of Hell, you did it!’
Which is followed by a stampede to porticoes and a dozen different exclamations.
I jolt as Hades comes up behind me and wraps his arms round my waist. He brings his head close to mine and whispers in my ear, ‘I imagine the whole court is wondering how I got so lucky.’
I press back into him almost instinctively, his firm body against mine, and I’m arching my head to find him when I suddenly remember our performance – the romance before the court. This is an act. He’d never hold me like this if it weren’t for the audience.
In the rush of everything, I was swept away from the pretence.
I don’t want to feel the weight of my disappointment. I don’t want to reckon with all those feelings right now, not when I should be so excited.
‘Oh,’ I call in a desperate attempt at distraction. ‘Also Hades never kidnapped me. I ran here. There was a power inthis land that was calling to me and I’m so pleased to have found it.’
No more hiding.
But I won’t destroy the illusion of our love – that would get back to my father. This hint of the truth we might survive. So I clutch my hands over Hades’, keeping his hold on me – an attempt to tell him not to give the full game away.
The court fall silent as they reckon with this new information.
‘Ah, that makes so much more sense.’ Thanatos shakes his head.
‘To Queen Persephone!’ Styx calls, raising a bottle of wine.
Hades curses beside me. ‘I knew I never should have shown her where I kept that stuff,’ he mutters, but he’s swiftly drowned out by cheers.
It’s like watching the humans again – the gods grab instruments, food and drink. Some rush off to see paradise and return so elated that others run to see it too. I spend the whole night dancing, talking to subjects who seem genuinely happy I am here. I feel more at home having removed one facade. My love for this realm has never been more potent.
I pull Hades aside. ‘Thank you for giving me a way to stay here.’
He hasn’t been able to stop smiling, has been wandering around the party in constant conversation, his smile not wavering once, even as he sways on exhausted feet, his power drained from him. He has shaken off any suggestion he might rest, too busy revelling in the celebration, always beaming with delight. But now his smile falls and he looks at me, serious and sincere. When he speaks, it’s with a gravity beyond mere words. ‘Thank you for staying.’
My knees feel weak and I want to grab his robes and pull him down to me. I could kiss him – we’re in public after all – and he’d kiss me back. But I don’t want this to be fake too. So I settle for hugging him. My head pressed against his chest, I could almost convince myself I hear his heart beat faster.
Rumours of my new-found power will undoubtedly spread and I think of my father finding out. A few days ago that would have terrified me. If he thought me a thing to be managed before, me being truly powerful can only make that thought worse. But now that I am queen of an entire realm? There’s nothing he can do about it, which is pleasing enough by itself but I have never imagined anything outside Father’s remit. He is all-powerful. And yet here I am, perfectly safe in a home I have built for myself with people I am growing to love.
There are gaps in Zeus’s power.
And I am one of them.
IWAS PREPARED TO FOOL EVERYONEwith a wedding, less so with married life.
Now that court is officially open there is nowhere Hades and I can go without having to pretend, except the topmost floors of our home. In court I hold Hades’ hand and he kisses my cheek and there are so many careless glances it feels more of an effort not to pretend when we cross the thresholds of our rooms. It’s all pretence. It all hurts. But letting go of his hand when we walk upstairs aches more than I thought it could.
It’s only been a few weeks and the loneliness of all this distance from him is cutting. I have no idea how I’ll survive a lifetime of it.
I can’t even take solace with Styx or the mortals, or even finally visit my mother, because the demands of the new afterlife and court are so pressing. There are so many disputes, so many things to arrange, and, while I’m confident things will settle down eventually, right now it’s thrown everything into disarray.
‘So if I’m ferrying the dead souls, do I take them to Elysium, Asphodel or Tartarus? Elysiumiswhat we’re calling paradise, right? And, wait, did we settle on just calling it Tartarus or did we go for the Dungeons of the Damned?’ Charon asks. ‘My vote is still for the latter.’
‘Kind of unfair that the mortals get all this paradise. Don’t we deserve one too?’ This from the Furies, and I promise that as soon as the mortal afterlife is fully functioning, I’ll create more beauty in this realm for them to enjoy too.
