“Stand beside me, Leuce,” said Persephone, and as she did, the nymph shook.
Persephone frowned. His goddess had far more sympathy for Leuce than he did, though he was not surprised. It was in her nature, but Persephone also knew what it was to live beneath the constant and critical eye of Demeter.
“She will lash out,” Leuce said, her voice trembling. “I am sure of it.”
“Oh, I expect it,” Persephone replied with no hint of dread in her voice. “She is my mother.”
There was a strange anticipation to this, one that wasn’t unpleasant but almost freeing. Hades wanted this, he realized: to present to Persephone’s mother united, to show her they were stronger than her ploys and games.
“Hermes has returned,” Hades informed them when he felt the god’s magic erupt. It was like sweet citrus and fresh linen, clean and crisp, and it mingled with Demeter, who should smell like a rotting corpse flower but instead smelled like fragrant wildflowers.
The doors at the end of the room yawned open, and Demeter strolled in ahead of Hermes with a confidence that faltered. The air grew heavy and charged with her anger. It had been a while since Hades had looked upon the goddess, though he noted nothing about her had changed, except that perhaps she appeared far more resentful than before.
Hades wondered if she’d thought she had been summoned to retrieve her daughter, only to find her sitting at his side, a queen to his king. Her stony gaze slid from him to Persephone, bitter with contempt.
“What is this about?” she demanded, and there was a sharpness to her voice that Hades imagined Demeter had often used with Persephone, but if it had frightened her before, it did not now.
“My friend tells me you have threatened her,” Persephone said, and Leuce shook beneath the attention.
“You would believe your lover’s whore over me?”
“That is unkind,” Persephone said with an edge to her voice. “Apologize.”
“I will do no such—”
“I said ‘apologize.’” Persephone’s voice echoed throughout the chamber, and Demeter hit the ground with a loud crack.
Hades knew Demeter had felt Persephone’s magic rise but had not considered it a threat, which was evident in her stunned expression as she knelt on the floor before them.
Her shock quickly melted into fury, however, and when she spoke, the air vibrated with her animosity.
“So this is how it will be?”
“You could end your humiliation,” Persephone said. “Just…apologize.”
It was difficult for Hades to remain stoic when he had never watched anything more entertaining in his entire life than this—Demeter on her knees in his realm, seething.
At Persephone’s suggestion, Demeter’s lips had gone pale and pinched.
“Never.”
Demeter attempted to rise and sent her power barreling outward, a tremor that was likely an attempt to both break Persephone’s hold and call forth some kind of destructive magic. Whatever it was never manifested. Persephone managed to hold Demeter in place on the broken ground, and Hades’s magic lay in wait, ready to defend if hers failed.
Against Demeter’s suffocating wave of magic, Persephone rose and advanced on her mother, who had not relented in her efforts to break Persephone’s hold. As she drew nearer, her magic grew stronger and heavier, and it sank Demeter farther into the ground as if it were soft earth and not stone.
“I see you have learned a little control, Daughter,” Demeter said, allowing her magic to dissipate. Hades noted that it left her body shaking, and he wondered if the goddess was frightened.
He was.
Not of Persephone, but for her.
He thought of the power she had displayed in Tartarus. Her anguish had fueled that magic. It had overpowered him. Now she had managed to overpower Demeter.
It was an ominous prospect, a dreadful one, given that if she was a threat to them, she was a threat to anyone—to Zeus—and his brother liked to dispose of threats.
“All you’ve ever had to do was say you were sorry,” Persephone said quietly, but there was a power to her voice that commanded attention. “We could have had each other.”
“Not when you’re with him.”
Demeter spoke with venom. He had always known the Goddess of Harvest would not approve of a union between him and Persephone, but she took it a step further by refusing to have a relationship with her, all because of her choice.
“I feel sorry for you,” Persephone said at last. “You would rather be alone than accept something you fear.”
“You’re giving up everything for him.”
“No, Mother, Hades is just one of many things I gained when I left your prison.”
As those words left her mouth, she took a step back, and the hold she had over Demeter broke. The release was sudden, and it was clear Demeter had not been prepared, because she nearly hit the ground when it no longer held her up.
Hades watched the goddess stare up at her daughter with no hint of affection in her face, and his heart twisted painfully. He knew he would never fully understand what it meant to live beneath the reign of such a mother—one who could turn her love on and off at will—but he imagined it had left Persephone feeling very unworthy, and it was likely why she had so much doubt when it came to their relationship.
Sometimes he forgot the baggage she carried, forgot that her need for reassurance did not necessarily mean she had doubts, only that she needed comfort, and this was why.
It made him resent Demeter even more.
“Look upon me once more, Mother, because you will never see me again.”
Demeter’s expression changed, and a faint smile curled her lips. Hades did not like it, and he did not like what she said next.
“My flower. You are more like me than you realize.”
Hades watched Persephone closely, and at her mother’s words, he noted how her back stiffened and her fingers curled. As much as he hated those words, he knew that she feared their truth.
You are not like her. You never will be, he thought.
Demeter vanished, but the silence felt heavy with her presence. It was Leuce who broke it, taking a few cautious steps before she hurried to Persephone, throwing her arms around her.
“Thank you, Persephone.”
The goddess hugged her back, and despite the smile on her face, Hades knew she was changed by this.
Hades’s gaze slid to Hermes, who still lingered in the room. When their eyes met, he knew they had both reached an understanding about what had occurred here.
Demeter was no longer Persephone’s family. They were, and they would do anything to protect her, to give her what she never had—even in the face of war.