And she is my queen. She has sat next to me at court and judged souls. This was no secret to her reign and entitlement. The souls here know that Persephone is their queen as well as mine.
Give up my claim to her? Never. Give up being able to see her face and touch her and kiss her? Never. To have her in any and every way she pleases… We have yet to discover how many ways I can send lustful chills down her gorgeous curves. There is so much more between us.
It’s too late, since Zeus has agreed to send her to me.
Would Demeter give up her own life? Would Zeus give up his power? Neither of them would do such a thing, so it is ridiculous that they would expect me to give up Persephone. She is more than my life and more than my power. More than anything else that exists.
She is mine.
Once again, I meet Minox’s gaze and his expression shows nothing.
I’m not the one who has gone back on my word. I am not the villain for insisting that Zeus stands by his promise to me.
I’m not the villain for using everything in my power to enforce the agreement. Zeus was barely thinking when he spoke to me. All he wanted was to relieve his own fears of his offspring’s magic becoming more powerful than his own.
Zeus did not want his daughter to surpass him. Zeus did not see that she had already surpassed him by existing in his realm. Here, she is no threat to him. More powerful or not, she is no concern to him.
Persephone has accepted her role as queen. She has eaten the pomegranate seeds. She has slept in my bed and kissed me with passion that cannot be undone and opened herself to me so completely that we will be bonded together forever no matter where she goes.
And I will stop at nothing for her.
My love will always be greater than my anger, but that is not all. My love will always be greater than anyone’s vengeance.
Zeus’s.
Demeter’s.
All the gods and goddesses on Olympus. All the mortals in the mortal realm and all the souls in the Underworld. All of their anger combined could not outweigh my love and need for her. They’d have to destroy my very soul before I relented.
The sooner Demeter recognizes she will not force me to let Persephone go, the better. The sooner Zeus understands that he cannot give his word without meaning it, the better.
The sooner all this violence will end, and balance can return to the realms.
If they choose not to see it? That is their choice, I suppose. They can remain cut off from the truth if that is what they desire, but it will not bring them peace.
I glance at the door, but Persephone is not there. Not yet.
“If Demeter says she will bring death again,” I say finally, looking directly into Minox’s eyes, “then death shall come again.”
Persephone
If Aphrodite and my mother utter a word to me, I don’t hear it. There is only ringing in my ears and anger in my bones that moves me.
They might. Distant voices echo in the room, as if I am listening to them from deep underwater. Nothing reaches me, though. The only words that reach me are the ones Aphrodite spoke just now.
The words change directions and try to rearrange themselves into something else. Something understandable. But there is nothing to misunderstand about the sentences. They are too simple.
The poisoned wine. The wine our father gave you.
My mind wars to make them separate things.
The poisoned wine.
Yes, that makes sense. Wine that is poisoned would weaken my magic. That is why it left me. It didn’t abandon me. It was forced out and I was too naive to know. It could make me feel weak and distracted. It could make it very difficult to decide what to do and even harder to fix the problem.
If I drank poisoned wine for long enough, it might take several days, or even weeks, to leave my blood entirely. It might follow me even into another realm, leaving me sick and weak until its effects could finally wear off.
Poisoned wine would explain what was happening to me on Olympus, and it would explain how it slowly seemed to reverse in the Underworld. I would never have the use of the same powers there, so it would not be clear, truly, until I came back to Olympus and had everything back again.
