“No, we didn’t sleep. I spread my legs for him and just before he could find his pleasure, I removed your face. Once he saw mine, he wept. He left you alone for months after that.”
She smiled proudly at me.
If Zotera was a creature, she was a simple one who didn’t seem to understand she’d been manipulated in the worst way. I hurt for her as I processed the horror she was so innocently sharing with me. I’d known the gods were cruel. However, the tales of the titans eating their children and the bloody wars that resulted were nothing compared to what Zotera just shared.
Hades warning not to harm her made more sense now.
“Persephone was your mother, Zotera. She was supposed to protect you. How could she do that to you? Use you like that?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “But that’s why you made me. I am yours. I help you make Father miserable.”
“Made you?”
“Yes. You shaped me from the rivers. Hatred, forgetfulness, fire, pain, but not wailing.” She recited it like I was testing her. “It’s too noisy and hurt your ears. Then you added your blood so I would forever be yours and only yours.”
“So he isn’t really your father?”
“You said I must always call Hades Father even if you did not use his seed.”
Each word out of Zotera’s mouth made Persephone sound more and more messed up. As much as I wanted to believe it wasn’t true, some of the things Hades had said agreed with what Zotera was saying. His ramblings about blood raining and payment due hadn’t been him worrying about other monsters but me. And his reaction when I’d smiled? Gods, Persephone had to have been sadistic.
I thought back, trying to see everything from a different perspective, and covered my mouth when another piece clicked into place. All those times he’d asked why something wasn’t real had occurred during the moments when I hadn’t been horrible to him. He was so used to Persephone’s cruelty that he didn’t believe my responses were real. How sad was that?
While I felt a large amount of pity for him and Zotera for what they’d suffered, nothing had changed. Hades was a god. A very disturbed god who believed I was his psychopath, deceased wife. And I still needed to find a way back home. But in order to do that, I needed to better understand what I was dealing with.
“Can you tell me more about, uh, your father? How did he react when Persephone made him miserable? Is he why your face is scarred?”
She gave me another puzzled look.
“You gave me these scars to make me prettier and to make Father miserable.”
Make her prettier? A small sound escaped me as I realized Persephone had cut her own daughter for the sole purpose of upsetting Hades. Persephone’s level of cruelty topped any other creature I’d ever heard of, and I was relieved she was now a pile of bones.
Part of me wanted to tell Zotera the scars were a lie, but looking at her open and trusting expression, I couldn’t. She’d been hurt enough. Besides, it wasn’t my place. Her problems weren’t my problems no matter how badly I felt for her.
My stomach interrupted my thoughts with a hungry growl.
Zotera jumped to her feet. “I will fetch you something to eat, Mother.”
“No, wait.”
She stopped and looked back at me. It didn’t matter that she was a creature in Hell who would likely kill me the moment she accepted the truth that I wasn't her mother; her presence, like Hades, made me feel safer.
“I’d rather not be left alone,” I admitted.
“You want to come with me?”
“Maybe you could just stay here, and we could talk some more?”
“I would like that.”
She hurriedly returned to her spot. However, before I could decide what to ask next, someone entered the far end of the throne room. Zotera glanced in that direction then turned to me with distress in her eyes.
“I’m sorry he didn’t stay away longer, Mother.”
I focused on the distant figure and recognized Hades’ familiar stride. After everything I’d learned, it wasn’t smart to feel relief at the sight of him. Yet, as I watched the ruler of Hell approach, I couldn’t help but feel glad that he hadn’t left me for too long.
“It’s okay,” I assured Zotera.
