“If I ask Hecate, do you think she would answer the same?”
Out beyond the balcony, a bolt of lightning sizzles through the air, breaking apart with a loud crack. My father’s eyes narrow. “Your disobedience is intolerable.”
I arch a brow. “Oh?” My heart races, pushing up into my throat. It did not take much for him to turn against me. It did not take much to inspire that dark anger in his eyes. Why does my father care so much about the wine? “Because I do not wish to drink? That is intolerable to you? What do you wish to do, then, if I am intolerable? Do you wish to send me to the Underworld? Do you wish to tell my mother that you have done so?”
The storm that rips through the sky is as loud as a scream. It rages behind him as he sits like a stone with a glare that could kill. More bolts of lightning tear across the darkness. They’re blindingly bright, but I blink until the spots fade from my vision.
The cords in his throat tighten as he swallows. My father sits up straight in his seat, unmoving, as if he did not cause the storm. We both know he did. We both know that it was his anger that burned through the sky. We both know that it was not an appropriate level of anger for questioning a glass of wine. In all my memory though, I don’t believe I’ve ever disobeyed him. Never.
“It would be so easy to see you in the mortal realm, Persephone.” My father sounds as if he is mentioning the melody of the harp or the sunset. Something of no importance at all. “Do not press the limits of my grace and patience. Those things come from a place of love.”
“Love?” I echo, my breath coming faster. How can he speak to me of love when he threatens to send me to the mortal realm? How can he act as if it was my fault that he lost control? “Such a dynamic and powerful spell.”
An angry smile cracks across my father’s face as fast as lightning. “Are you only just learning such things, daughter?”
“Is it too late for me to learn?” I shoot back. “I might have learned earlier, if my father had taught me, but he did not. Perhaps he was too busy with his other pursuits.”
My father lays a hand on the table, his teeth gritted. “Daughter, do not speak of things you cannot know.”
“I believe there is nothing I cannot know. There are only things that have been kept from me.”
An emotion I cannot name flashes across his face. It is gone too soon for me to identify. He is keeping something from me. There is a secret he does not want me to know. Perhaps many secrets. Anger burns inside of me that Hades did not confide more in me. I’m woefully unprepared.
I open my mouth to demand that he tell me, but another bolt of lightning cracks nearby, forcing a shudder through my body.
No—it is not a bolt of lightning. It is black and dissipates more quickly. In the short distance, dogs bark and the harp is no more. The sky darkens, but two torches are seen. A chill runs down my spine and my lungs still. Several servants scramble beside her, their heads bowed as they plead with her to wait. The dark cloak gathers behind her as the wind blows the thick fabric back. Beneath it lies a saffron garment that’s slick to her body. Hecate strides through the place on the balcony where the bolt touched down, her face set. Ever gentle and unaging, yet powerful with a strikingly dark gaze.
“Hecate,” Zeus greets her. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Please forgive me if I have interrupted,” she states smoothly, her cadence nearly a lullaby. “I came to see the goddess.”
Hades
The wind in the Underworld whips up, tousling my hair and tugging at my dark robes as I stand in the dead gardens outside my home. Cerberus leaps at my side. He plants himself in front of me, then runs forward to viciously bark at the sky, all three of his heads making a cacophony. Before howling at the streaks of lightning that blister above us.
It doesn’t escape me how he whines when my pain is evident. My dog is loyal. He is trying to warn me. He is trying, in his way, to keep me safe.
I learned long ago that safety is elusive. The only way to have safety is to live in isolation, and even complete solitude is not safety. It can drive one to madness just as easily as it protects him.
I cannot go to Olympus as I am bound to rule the Underworld, but all the realms are tied together by the powers of the gods. Zeus may wish it wasn’t so, but there are bonds between our realms. Some things that happen in his realm inevitably reflect into mine.
The bolts of lightning rush across the sky in the Underworld, their color changed by the distance between the realms. The striking violets remind me of Persephone. Everything reminds me of my queen.
The ground shakes as the thunder and violent lightning greet us in unison.
Zeus’s anger reverberates through the mortal realm to the Underworld. If it was only his frustration with me, I don’t imagine it would make such an impression, but it is my queen he is furious with.
I know it as surely as I know that I need her back.
Cerberus faces me, barking louder. He pleads with me to stop the storm that rages overhead. He urges me to act.
“Shh, my faithful companion,” I attempt to soothe him although I imagine the rage is only just beginning. Zeus has lost the faith Persephone once had in him. I returned her to him stronger and more powerful. Afterall, that is the warning the Fates gave him that coaxed him into poisoning his daughter in the first place.
With stiff shoulders, I force myself to breathe as I watch the symphony of strikes above. The Underworld’s murmurs can be heard and their fear felt. I cannot stop Zeus’s rage. I can only wait to see if his outburst ends. And wait for it to return.
I cannot stop him or change what the Fates have decided for us. But it is my duty to aid those in this land. The only fear felt, should be fear of me. And my queen.
I watch the skies for any further sign of Zeus’s temper flying out of control.
