Cerberus stays close to me, his side against my knee, while I send five more demons to the mortal realm. Then ten. He wags his tail without stopping. He must think the demons will bring her back.
In one way, they will. They must. Or else it will be all-out war.
Persephone
I must scry with Hades. It was my last wish from my father. Just a little time to appease my mother. A little time before I will obey the law of the gods and return to the Underworld.
As I wait, I’m tortured. My mother’s vengeance wrapped in a curse struck through Olympus before vanishing. She will not stop. I know it so. I could feel her agony in the last look she gave me. She thinks there’s a way around what is written but there’s not. I’m hopeful that Hades may see reason, because she does not. It is as if the loss of a loved one has turned her mad. Although I still exist. I will thrive even. But she feels nothing but pain.
She’s not left the courts and her arguments are screamed for anyone who cares to listen…which is all of Olympus save my father.
She claims the divine law not to be fair as the seeds were only eaten as I was leaving. One foot in and one foot out. Half she screams. But she does not want me halved. She wants me to choose. To choose her. To choose war against my lover for the sake of betraying a binding law. “Hypocrisy!” she screams, saying someone broke the law to abduct me. She blames Zeus, she blames Hades, and with the way she looks at me, I fear she begins to blame me as I do not fight beside her.
No one else speaks to me. The gods and messengers bow their heads and avoid my gaze. They do not wish for war, and I believe they blame me more than anyone else.
And then there are the voices. The prayers come at all hours of the night.
I do what I can to soothe those who call for me, but I cannot reach them the way I can reach the garden beds on Olympus. I send my best thoughts, my best spells. I sing lullabies and incantations for them. I tell old stories about persevering through hardship. I remind the mortals, as often as I can, that the world renews itself. That there will always be life after death. But with so much death upon them, they pray for a different side of me. For mercy in the depths of hell. They pray to me, to aid them in ways I knew not how until Hades wrapped his arms around me.
My hand falters at their pleas. Because I’m not there. I have no power in the Underworld while I reside in Olympus. They need me. The prayers are nonstop and they cry for me to help.
At night, when I’m falling asleep, the prayers get louder. I pull a pillow over my head to block them out, but simple cloth and feathers will not stop the sound. Those pleas are directed to me. Right into my heart.
“I know,” I whisper to the sobbing woman. She is crying so hard that I cannot understand her words. They may only be the frantic prayers inside her mind, but her crying interrupts it just as it would interrupt her voice. Fire, she cries. Fire destroys us, please, we need water. We need— Her prayer breaks off into more tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
It pains me to hear these prayers. What am I supposed to do about a fire? I want to ask. How can I save you? I do not know. I cannot grow flowers to cover a house and put a fire out. I cannot call clouds to come pour rain on what is burning, that is for Poseidon.
I sit bolt upright in bed.
I sit at my altar for hours, asking for rain from Poseidon. Surely he has heard the pleas. My own pleas go unanswered…for he does not wish to go to war. Helplessness falls upon me. It is either Hades’s or my mother’s doing and given my mother’s powers… Hades.
No. I whisper the disbelief under my breath.
The prayers never cease. It seems there are more of them, overlapping so that I cannot understand the words. I concentrate hard on my magic. To bring life to hope. To remind them that life is precious and there are cycles, but there is always hope. Tears prick my eyes.
Is this not war against my own lover? To defy the fear he’s created for them? If it is, then I must also be at war with my mother, to defy the starvation she’s also delivered to the mortal realm. They will learn of my betrayal. That I bring life to hope. But that is balance. And I will not fail to do my part. With new conviction, I work my magic and the storm that brews in the Earth realm flows through my veins. We will not give in so easily to death and darkness.
I do not know when I finally drag myself to bed. The prayers still come, but exhaustion takes me under. There is no rest, for I am far too depleted.
There’s a lull in the morning, I think, because it is the silence that wakes me. I sit up, rubbing at my eyes, trying to settle my racing heart. Perhaps my magic worked even in my sleep. My soul is restless.
I swallow a harsh lump in my throat, wet my dry lips, and throw off the covers. I bathe and dress, blinking heavily. I have not slept very long, but another morning is here. On the horizon in the distance is a beautiful sunshine, a golden hue against a pale blue sky. As if my father no longer fights. Leaving the war for only my mother, my lover, and myself.
With shaky hands, I brush my hair and pull it back from my face with a golden tie, then sit down at the table in my room to eat. Bread. Honey. Water. None of my father’s wine. It is difficult to eat, but I force myself to do it. I need to keep my strength and my wits. I need to keep trying with my mother, and even with my father.
Most importantly, I need to make a decision.
Any life who consumes the seeds is condemned to remain in the Underworld for all time.
It is law. My fate is sealed. Although it is not what the Fates promised me. Absently, I chew and swallow another bite of bread.
They will call you the queen of death.
Those who love you torture souls in your absence.
The world is at your mercy.
Dropping the rest of the uneaten bread, I know war is not what I wish. The world is at my mercy, yet I cannot help them from Olympus in a way that will stop the destruction. I can soothe and comfort them and send my well-wishes to the mortals who are suffering, but I have not been able to stop my mother nor Hades from making them suffer. I can breathe new seeds into the earth and call them to grow, but I cannot replace land that has been destroyed. There is only so much I can change from Olympus.
