Chapter 11

“You’re doing fine. Okay, nope, a little to the left… Yes, better… No, no, no!” Hecate quickly rushed over to Persephone’s side and gently grabbed her wrist.

Persephone made an exasperated sound and tossed her hands in the air. “This is pointless!”

After returning from the feast of Dionysus, Persephone found herself staying the night at Hecate’s. There was a spare room already prepared for her when she’d arrived. That morning, Hecate pulled her out of bed shortly after sunrise, fed her breakfast, and pushed her out into the garden to start working on controlling her powers immediately.

“It’s not pointless.” Hecate sighed gently. “It’s going to come naturally to you.”

“We can both agree that this is not ‘coming naturally,’” Persephone deadpanned, pointing to her most recent disaster in the yard. A tree was perfectly split down the middle—half rotted, and the other half grew exponentially.

“It’s not coming naturally because you’re at war with yourself.” Hecate shrugged. She snapped her fingers, and the tree shrunk into a small sapling, barely waist high. “You don’t feel like you belong with the Olympians, and you don’t yet feel like you belong here. There are two sides to your magic, and they sense your hesitancy.”

Persephone wasn’t used to Hecate’s ability to cut to the quick and wasn’t prepared for it. She stepped back and stared at Hecate with wide eyes, her hand coming up to her chest.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Hecate waved it off. “You’re never going to be able to figure out your powers if you can’t figure out yourself.”

“Well, I hope you’re prepared to stand out here for another millennium.” Persephone quipped. “Frankly, you don’t know me very well.”

Hecate was unperturbed, still effortlessly collected.

“I’ve dealt with worse.” Her tone softened as she studied Persephone. “You might think I don’t know you, child, but you would be wrong. The Underworld has waited centuries for you, me included.”

Persephone started to get choked up, tilting her head backward so her tears didn’t fall. “The whole Underworld, huh? I can think of someone who wasn’t particularly keen to find me. All that time, I was suffering from Demeter.”

Hecate placed her hand on Persephone’s shoulder. “Hades was never going to save you from Demeter. That was always going to be something you had to do for yourself. As far as coming to find you, trust me when I say there was nothing he dreamed about more. But dreams are tricky things. Often, the ones we want the most, we’re afraid to chase. Because gods forbid, we catch them and realize they were only our imagination.”

“Cryptic.” Persephone sighed heavily, wiping at her cheeks. “I still don’t think that will make me any better at this.” She looked over at the small tree with a frustrated expression. “If I can’t figure this out, I’m proving Demeter’s point that I’m better off being her lackey and a minor spring deity.”

“Persephone,” Hecate sighed heavily, shaking her head, “as long as you believe that, it’s true. Magic is intuitive. It responds to you. If you do it to degrade yourself, your power won’t listen to you.”

“You’re making this sound a lot easier than it is.”

“I’m not.” Hecate raised an eyebrow. “It’s exactly like I said. You don’t want to belong with the Olympians and don’t feel like you belong here yet.”

“Yet?” Persephone sniffled, a few tears escaping as she finally turned towards Hecate. Hecate’s expression softened, and she opened her arms, pulling Persephone into a tight embrace.

Persephone’s chest cracked wide open. She wrapped her arms around the older goddess and squeezed, feeling unmoored and adrift. Her worldview shifted in a matter of days. She didn’t know what to make of her newly discovered identity or process her feelings for Hades. Hecate held Persephone until she was the one to let go, sniffling furiously and pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I bet I look glamorous now.” Persephone grinned. Hecate chuckled and squeezed Persephone’s shoulder again, redirecting her towards the sapling across the yard.

“I know you can do it.” She smiled. “The Underworld has been waiting for you, Persephone, but not as long as I think you’ve been waiting to find yourself. Try again.” Hecate took a few steps backward as Persephone cleared her throat and recentered herself.

You can do it. Persephone closed her eyes and breathed deeply, feeling the rush of magic start pounding in her veins again. You were always meant to do it.

Persephone considered the small tree and envisioned it growing taller than Hecate’s house. The fresh spring powers bubbled in her veins, coming forth without hesitation. The entire valley started to smell of fresh grass and rain, and Persephone welcomed the familiar sensation of the powers she’d known her whole life. When she opened her eyes, the sapling was a behemoth, towering over Hecate’s house.

“Excellent.” Hecate clapped her hands once. “But that’s the easy part, Persephone.”

“I know,” Persephone grunted, cracking her knuckles before fixating on the same tree again.

Persephone took a deep breath and began focusing on the world around her. She thought of life in all its cycles—birth, death, and rebirth. She pictured spring turning over to summer, fall, and winter, a continuous motion that never ceased, even for the gods. The magic in her veins began to blacken and started rushing through her body. The powers of spring felt like a warm summer breeze, but the magic of the Underworld was almost overwhelming. It left no space for anything else; it was all-consuming in its path as it ran through her. It was heady, addicting, and powerful. Persephone wanted to stop and simultaneously gasped for more.

“Persephone!” Hecate’s voice sounded distant as if she was calling to Persephone from a dream.

Persephone didn’t listen—or couldn’t listen. Her heart was racing, and all she wanted to do was keep falling deeper and drowning in the intoxicating sensation of darkness and all its mastery. Everything she’d ever wanted was hidden inside those powers, desperate to be let out and craving the ability to cut herself free of any expectations placed on her shoulders.

“Wake up!” a second male voice called out, but Persephone didn’t recognize it. She continued slipping, deeper and deeper, embracing the complete authority and exhilaration running through her veins.

“P?rs?phóni!” A deep, booming call vibrated through Persephone’s bones. It shook her awake, and Persephone started blinking her eyes, looking around for the source of the voice. All she could see was darkness, and she began to panic.

“What’s happening?” Persephone cried out. “Where am I?”

“Focus on my voice and my voice alone,” the abyss said. “Who are you?” Persephone started feeling light-headed as her pulse started pounding faster and faster. The dark was so warm, so enticing. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes and sleep forever.

“Answer me,” the abyss demanded. “Who are you?”

“Persephone,” she mumbled, her voice sounding weak and lost. The rolling blackness around her started to shift. Persephone felt she was lost in a sea of power and complete darkness.

“Not good enough,” the mysterious speaker insisted. “Who are you?”

“P?rs?phónia!” Persephone gasped, her chest tightening. “Despoina, daughter of Demeter.”

“Abandon that name! Try again!” the voice sneered, and Persephone physically recoiled at the command.

“Pamvasíleia, Queen of All!” Persephone’s head was spinning, and her words were not her own. They were coming from someplace deep inside her, a place that had previously only been known to the Fates. Power surged through her, and it danced across her fingertips. Persephone could feel her body changing, shifting, cracking…as though her bones were coming undone, and her soul was knitting itself back together.

“More!” the voice cried, and Persephone’s body screamed in response as she writhed equally in passion and fear.

“Agní, ánassa! Creirwy! Llywy!”

“Again!” The call resonated in Persephone’s bones. Her entire body trembled in its command, and her mind was fracturing. Her powers were mixing and rolling in her stomach, the cycle of death and rebirth, death and rebirth, reoccurring over and over within her. Persephone barely had the comprehension to breathe, let alone witness herself beginning to go mad. She could see nothing and feel everything.

“Karpophóra, fruit-bearer. K?ró?ssa, horned one!” Persephone strangled out.

“Good, good,” the voice started to praise her, and Persephone nearly started gasping in relief. “Keep going.”

“M?gála Th?á!”

“Great goddess, indeed. More, tell me more. Who are you?”

Light started to dance in Persephone’s vision, only tiny flickers of it, but it was something. The pain in her chest began to ease, and it was slightly easier to catch her breath. Persephone continued, names coming out of her mouth that she had never heard before but could feel each one getting engraved on her bones.

“Khthónia, queen of the earth and the mortals who will be buried under the earth!”

“More!” Thunder rolled whenever the voice spoke, cracking across the abyss Persephone was trapped in. Her back bowed under the weight of its command.

“Wife of Ploutohn, much revered, ruler of the Underworld, the Dread Queen!” Persephone was spitting blood as the words crossed her lips, and her entire body seized. She collapsed to her knees and only then realized she’d been standing the whole time. She could feel her heartbeat ricocheting in her head and through her body, gasping for more air.

Slowly, the abyss around her started to lighten. Persephone began to look around for the rising sun, disoriented and confused. She collapsed to the earth and waited for its dull impact but felt nothing. Her limbs trembled and ached, but a strange fuzzy feeling and a renewed strength started to slowly—ever so slowly—replace the fatigue in her body. Her eyes began to flutter, and she started to see shapes in front of her.

The shapes started to fill in, and more details were revealed until Persephone could see they were faces. There were three faces. One of them was murmuring something, chanting repeatedly. Another made no movement. The third one was the closest one to her. She focused on that one.

“Hades,” Persephone whispered. Her voice sounded cracked and dried. She attempted to sit up but realized Hades was holding her in his lap. His hand came up and gently stroked her cheek, shaking his head. He was appearing before her in his full god attire—all the finery and savagery that Persephone had come to associate with Hades.

Why is he appearing like this?

“Don’t move.” His voice was softer now, but Persephone realized he had been calling to her in the darkness.

“What happened?” Persephone started to tremble, and a cold sweat broke across her forehead.

Her body didn’t feel like her own. She looked past Hades and saw Thanatos and Hecate standing several feet away, looking concerned. Only then did Persephone realize the earth around them was scorched black like a wildfire had raced through the valley. Hades was holding her in a crater of smoking, charred ruins. Hecate’s house was still a stone’s throw away, unscarred even though the burnt grass stretched nearly to her front door.

Hades sighed heavily in relief, and he turned to Thanatos and Hecate and motioned for them to give them some space. The gods looked concerned but nodded, slipping away into Hecate’s house without a word of protest.

“What happened?” Persephone repeated, her voice already sounding a little stronger. “When did you get here?”

“Catch your breath first,” Hades commanded softly.

Persephone was too tired to argue, so she rested her head on Hades’s chest, trying to battle the myriad of sensations in her body. She suddenly felt alive and surging with power, as if she’d stayed in the sun too long.

Hades stood to his feet without jostling Persephone, keeping her close to his chest as he started walking them out of the ruins. Persephone caught a glimpse of the devastation and gasped when she realized the entire valley had become a desert. The ground was cracked in every direction, all the vegetation was gone, and some of it was still smoking.

“Did I do this?” Persephone felt like crying, the intense highs and lows of adrenaline still wearing off in her veins.

“That’s not important right now.” Hades shrugged. “Hecate or I can fix it as easy as breathing. I’m going to take you back to the palace,” Hades informed her, and Persephone could only nod, exhaustion finally winning out as she slipped into unconsciousness.