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Another child complains from the other side of the room. His gaze turns from Hades, glancing over to where the nymph assisting Kore tries to calm the child.
“My apologies, Your Majesties. I’ve got kids to wrangle.”
Zeus releases a bawdy laugh, waving Kore off. “Of course, we will speak soon.”
Kore hesitates, his renewed gaze lingering on Hades as he dips a bow in her direction. She rarely receives a show of respect from other gods or lesser deities outside of her own realm.
“I hope to see you again, my queen.”
Hades inclines her head with the slightest acknowledgment. No person ever expresses the desire to see her again. Not even her siblings, who shared the same horrors she did in their imprisonment and whom she fought beside in war.
Her eyes track the movements of Kore’s shoulders, broad and strong beneath his white t-shirt. The way Kore’s veins pulse beneath bronzed skin, and the shift of his muscles with each movement of his hands and wrists; Hades swallows.
As Hades stares, she wonders what hands have mapped the curves of his skin, what fingernails have traced the dipping valleys of his body’s definition? What mouth has claimed the hollow of Kore’s throat? The nymph at Kore’s side places casual touches against his arm, and Hades experiences a foreign sensation. A feeling she’s heard woven in many of Hera’s vitriolic words.
Jealousy.
5
Kore
He shakes off Samia’s hand when he feels the eyes of the Underworld’s queen upon him—a gaze that reminds Kore of a desperate lover. He swallows. In all his centuries, Kore has never felt the stir of desire or care for a woman. He’s taken dozens to bed without an ounce of interest in them beyond what they could sate in the moment.
Hades feels different. She feelsdangerous.
A danger that lingers long after she’s left the room and his presence. She remains like a specter, haunting him with the lure of a mystery. Or maybe that’s the power of an Erebian queen; he has heard stories about the effects of living in Erebus for too long.Daemons are made in shadows, and living in the darkness changes all creatures. No god, demigod, or lesser deity is immune to the effects of the primordial void.He never thought too hard about the rumors; having met other creatures from Erebus, Kore knew they had an aura about them. Though, Hades’ power is more intense. Her presence shifts the world around her, sucking out warmth while arctic air follows. To others, it’s horrific, but Kore’s intrigued. He wants to know more about the woman who breaks summer without trying. He wants to touch the hand of the goddess who smiled at his garden with tenderness. Hades didn’t damage a single bloom, despite the rumors that Death kills everything in her path.
Kore picks up the salt dough from one of the sensory centers, rolling it between his fingers while he thinks of the woman with a tantalizingly dark aura. Dressed plainly, in the same black, chiffon dress he saw that morning in Zeus' garden. No crown and no ornamentation. Demeter never leaves home without gold laurels in her hair, and he’s never spotted Hera without a diamond diadem adorning her bright yellow curls.
“She’s kinda plain for a queen, don’t you think?” Samia asks, breaking Kore from the silent spell of his thoughts.
“Hmm?” Kore hums, before registering the question. “Oh, no, I don’t think that.”
Samia doesn’t enjoy his reply. He can tell by the way she tightens her jaw, but Kore doesn’t call attention to the action. It’s not his responsibility to feed into the one-sided expectations Samia has for him. Kore isn’t interested in being her fantasy. She can put that on another man.
“What did you think of her, then?”
Kore doesn’t understand why some choose to twist the knife in their own wounds. Samia torturing herself with Kore’s answer makes him want to pull his punches, even when he knows she deserves honesty.
“She’s beautiful, radiant in ways that none of the old stories capture.”
Kore remembers the descriptions of Hades he found in his assigned reading for Mortal Lit—a class he took on a whim at the University of Athenians. The only thing mortals got right about her is that her hair is blacker than the darkness of night. Long, shiny tresses that remind him of spilled ink. Kore wants to run his hands through Hades' hair and see if it’s as cold to the touch as he imagines.
“She has kind, warm eyes,” he says, thinking about her pale-gray gaze. The color of mist on a cool morning, but they weren’t cold or ruthless as a person might imagine for a ruler from the Realm of the Dead. Compassion was evident in that gaze, but Kore wonders how many people have missed it due to fear. Looking at Hades too closely is a crime, according to the narrow-minded. Kore dared to stare and found a melancholic figure who seemed desperate for comfort. For kindness.
“You have nasty tastes,” Samia says to him with a note of disdain. Kore lets her words slide. He has no right to defend Hades against any slander.
But, he thinks as he gathers more toys from the floor,if she were my wife, I would kill any who dared to sully her name.
“Hurry up.” He tells Samia, “I’ve got more reading to do before my night class.”
* * *
Kore gathershis bag from the floor of his bedroom. It is a room with few items of personal significance—a made bed, an oak dresser, and bedside table bearing a lone gravity lamp. Spartans have more in their chambers than Kore, but he prefers this simplicity. It reminds him that nothing he has here, in his mother’s home, is important. Not the space, and certainly not him.
He stiffens when he hears her footsteps—heels clicking imperiously against the wooden floor of the hall.
Demeter is suffocating. A force of disappointment that chokes Kore but still leaves him enough oxygen to live, torturing him by never giving him a sweet death.
