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Death is a gift to mortals.
“You’re working in the greenhouse tonight.” Demeter’s greetings are always commands.
Kore doesn’t acknowledge her words while he puts a notebook and pens into his worn bag.
Demeter steps fully into Kore’s room, rage wrapped around her like a shroud. “I said you’re working in the greenhouse tonight, Persephone.”
He winces at the name. The name of a goddess. A girl. The child she always wanted.
The Fates are cruel. Each daughter Demeter bore did not breathe—twisted, broken things that weren’t anywhere close to immortal. The one child the Fates allowed Demeter was the child Demeter desired least.
Kore detests the name Persephone.Sheis a person who does not exist, yet there are statues ofherthroughout the realms. Immortal and mortal alike—the people don’t know the truth about him. They all see the perfect, pious daughter his mother crafted from a half-truth.The gods have never seen Persephone due to her shy nature. The mortals who claim to have seen her beauty only see the dryad, Daphne. Oh, how KorehatesDaphne; not because she is wicked or anything. Daphne is kind and embodies that perfect image of a maiden goddess. She’s everything Demeter wishes for in a child—that’s why Kore loathes sweet Daphne. She receives the one thing Kore covets above all: love, from his mother.
After an uncomfortably pregnant pause, Kore responds, “I’m not going to the greenhouse. I’ve got class.”
Demeter’s smile is cruel, a cutting curl of a mouth Kore has known since birth. She keeps the smile he longs for locked away, doling it to others but never to him.
A smile of pride.
Of love.
For Kore, his mother’s expressions are notably mocking.
“I don’t know why you bother with school. It’s not like you can ever become anything noteworthy.” He grits his jaw, listening in silence as she continues. “No one even knows you exist, Persephone. They believe you’re a beautiful flower nymph of a goddess.” She gestures at him with a sweeping hand, “Look at you. You’re nothing like that. A beastly man—hmph.” Demeter glances away as if it disgusts her to look at him for too long.
“You don’t have to tell anyone who I am. You could just let me use my studies to serve under another god.” It’s always been his hope to serve under Ares or Athena. War seems like a perfect place to allow his wrath to surface. With his mother, it’s always boiling beneath his skin, beaten down by her barbed comments and cruel gaze.
“You will never leave this place, Persephone. You are my child, rotten as you are, and you will serve me for eternity. As it is woven by the Fates.” He wonders who those crooked hags were punishing more, Kore or Demeter.
He slings his bag over his shoulder, scowling at Demeter. “I’m not a servant. I was born to be your equal. And if you won’t allow that, then I’m going to leave.”
“Is that a threat, Persephone?” Demeter asks him with a narrowed gaze. Her golden eyes remind him of a tiger’s, predatory and bloodthirsty.
“It’s a promise, Mother,” he says, with a harsh tone he’s never used with Demeter.
“Then leave!” Demeter accepts the challenge, and perhaps believes it’s a bluff. She startles when Kore leaves, marching out of his bedroom without a backward glance.
6
Hades
Hera doesn’t say much through dinner. Her furtive glances—shot in Hades' direction as they wait for their dessert—cause Hades to shift in discomfort. She hates being where she’s unwanted. That’s what makes traveling to Olympus difficult. There’s not a place in this realm where she’s welcome; though she is the child of Rhea and Kronos, same as her brothers. She fought to overturn the suppressive rule of her father alongside those brothers; yet, no god holds Hades in high esteem.
Thought to be blood-thirsty, callous, and something of a bad omen, Hades remains an outcast millennia after the Titanomachy. The Underworld is a realm of darkness and ancient magics. Home to some of the worst beasts the world has ever known, and—to many in Olympus—that means Hades must also be a wicked, awful thing to rule over those beasts. Especially as a woman. Mortals are no better, regarding her in their myths and legends as a male figurehead. Because who could ever believe a woman is capable of dominion over darkness? Who could ever believe that a queen rules over dead souls, and the creatures who gather them? Who could ever believe awomanis a fair judge?
Not those drinking the poison of patriarchal lies. Hades brought worries to Zeus, long ago, after the fall of Kronos, and demanded that he right the wrongs of her position in both Olympus and the mortal realm.
Tell them the truth about me.
That was when she quit believing in her little brother. As he laughed and waved off her worries, Hades knew she would never have a fair shake of things in this immortal life. She accepted her role. Long ago, she made peace with living quietly as something to be feared.
Now, once again, Zeus is waving away her misgivings and telling her she needs to marry. A male on her throne will give Olympians peace, or so Zeus infers throughout their tense dinner—but Hades thinks it will give her brother more peace than his subjects.
As their sorbet is served, Hades glares across the table at the seat where Zeus continues talking about the good that will come from her entering a union.
“I thought this search-for-a-husband shit was just for show?” Hades interrupts, drawing the attention of her sister-in-law and her nephew, Ares.
“What is she talking about?” Hera asks, while Ares turns his attention to Hades.
