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“Who are you? Who is it you know well enough to know who I am upon seeing me? Who spies on me for you?”
“I—” Persephone’s mouth open and closed, searching for the right words to bring his memory of her back.
“Darling,” the woman said from behind him, her hand resting on his arm as she stepped out from behind him, “She has obviously been watching you from afar. How else could she know your name and your face without having met you before?” She turned her head to address Persephone now, her eyes like the clouds of a winter storm as she into Persephone’s. “You should leave. Before we call for aid from his father. I’d hate to watch them drag such a pretty girl through the streets and throw you into the freezing dungeons to be forgotten entirely.” Persephone clenched her jaw, opening her mouth to berate her when she spoke again. “And a pretty girl like you should be married. Not…”
Persephone didn’t hear the rest of her words over the raging river of blood that filled her ears.
“I am married,” was all she managed to say, the words strangled. She watched Pelops as she spoke, searching for the emotions he had to feel at her words. Hoping to see his heart break into thousands of pieces knowing she had married someone else.
All he did was nod once in acknowledgment, averting his eyes. He touched the woman’s back with his fingertips and they continued walking down the beach, her arm linking through his and chattering to him about something silly and unimportant, like a party.
When they had walked far enough down the beach that they were nothing but tiny moving dark shapes on the mainland, Persephone screamed.
She poured every bit of emotion out of her through her screams. From deep within her stomach she screamed until her throat was hoarse and the skin around her mouth ached and throbbed.
Collapsing to the sand again, Persephone stared out at the ocean.
Pelops didn’t remember her. There was no recognition in his bright eyes, no warmth to wash over her when he looked at her. Only the coldness reserved for strangers looked out at her.
She never should have made that deal with Hades.
She had made a mistake.
This was all her fault.
§
Hades watched as Persephone saw Pelops for the first time since she had tried to save his life on Olympus. He couldn’t help but sneer as her eyes brightened, glowing with love as she saw him approach through the water, the woman on his arm doing nothing to diminish the light in her eyes.
That was his wife, his queen. Absolutely beaming at a mortal man.
Watching their interaction from behind the sand dune Persephone sat upon allowed him to watch without her seeing. Mortals couldn’t see him unless he wished them to, but immortals, gods especially, were much more difficult to hide from.
Usually, Hades was forced to make himself invisible, stealing their sight of him, in order to stay remotely hidden from the other gods; he had done it while watching Persephone many times. He couldn’t resort to it around his wife though. She would know the icy wind following her around was him, probably before he realized she had noticed him.
“No, you are exactly who I’m looking for, Pelops.” Her voice broke as she spoke to him, and when she smiled at the man, Hades tensed.
He had known she would search for Pelops, he wasn’t surprised by her decision to disobey him and go against their agreement, but it still felt awful. Watching his wife pine for a mortal man while she was married to the most powerful god of their time made him want to drown the man.
He wanted to kill him just for looking at her.
His eyes narrowed as Persephone’s shoulders fell when Pelops, clearly confused, asked her who she was. She looked like a fish thrown onto dry land, opening and closing her mouth, gaping at him.
It was embarrassing. Not only was his wife in love with another man – a mortal man – she was unable to even speak to him she was so infatuated. Acting this way, she was not a queen, she was barely a goddess.
Hades paced along the sand, sinking slightly with every step, pushing the small grains to the side with his weight. He rubbed his eyebrows in contemplation enough that they became tender, aching under his touch. As he walked toward the water, intending to soak a piece of cloth he’d conjured to aid his sore head, Persephone’s scream cleaved the world.
It was so loud and full of pain that he fell to the ground, clawing at his ears. It grated down his spine, tearing at his bones, his skin threatening to peel off his body in thin strips. He had never heard a scream so deafening and intense, not even from the tortured souls in Tartaros.
When the ringing in his ears subsided and his legs felt strong enough to support him again, he stood and walked toward where Persephone had been sitting.
She had left at some point. All that remained to show she had been there at all was the imprint of her soft body crouched in the sand and a few strands of golden hair, bright and shining in the sunlight, twisted around a stick jutting out of the sand, blowing toward the water.
22
THE CURSE
Persephone screamed at every tree and rock and stream that got in her way on the journey home. Let the world soak in her anguish and anger, let it feel her pain for her.
