Page 34 of Hades and Persephone: Threads of Fate

“Are you sure?”

“You know I cannot lie,” he spits, finding the energy to curl his lip. “Not while my blood lingers in your belly.”

“Then how, if you did not sire her, does she possess your gifts?”

Hyperion freezes. I watch as his mind races behind pale eyes, muscles locking under near translucent flesh. “She holds the gift of the sun? The light of all life?”

“Yes.”

“Are you certain?”

“I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Hyperion is quiet. I can see the thoughts as they form, see as he tries to push them away. I only have to ask the right question to spill the secrets he tries to keep.

“Who else could give her this power?”

Hyperion growls low in his throat, eyes flashing with revived rage. He grits, “Have you spoken to Helios?”

I had not. I hadn’t considered the Sun-God, for his feelings regarding Demeter have always been clear. Helios shines his sun on Demeter’s earth, encouraging lush harvests that she claims sole credit for, earning the worship of the people while he is a God forgotten. The idea that the two could come together long enough to create a child without clashing in bloody destruction is near unthinkable.

“You think Helios fathered Persephone?”

“No,” Hyperion admits, finally pulling himself to boney knees. “Did Demeter not claim Zeus as the father? And did Zeus not take responsibility for the Goddess?”

“She did, and he did.” But we all know Zeus is known for his ego. More, he is not known for honor.

“Then why are you here?”

“I told you. She possesses the gift of life. Of the sun.”

Hyperion shakes his head. “If it is not me, and it is not Helios, then you must be mistaking this light for the light that flashes when Zeus looses a bolt.”

That’s what I once thought, what I once told myself. Before her murder, that light had been dim, arcing in much the same way a bolt of lightning arcs. Flashing quick to come and go, like lightning.

Now, it is not a light that can be mistaken.

“Zeus is not her sire, and the light is not a bolt.”

“I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain, Hades.” Hyperion glares up at me from knobby knees. “Now give me my sun.”

Chapter

Sixteen

Persephone

“This is different.”Hades glances over a shoulder to where I stand in the open door of his studio, leaning against the frame. His energy has felt somehow off this last week. Or maybe it’s not his energy, but my own. Maybe I’m projecting theoff-nessI feel onto him. Moving deeper into the room, I can’t take my eyes off the canvas, with its warm splashes of blue, golden-yellow, and sandy brown. The blue of the sky blends into a calm sea that laps at a sandy beach, and in the far, far distance I see the glitter of a Santorini-white building. A home, I realize.

It's so shockingly unfamiliar to all the other pieces Hades has ever painted.

I can’t help but ask, “What sparked the change?”

“A bargain. This is my end.”

“I’m confused,” I admit, as Hades picks up the bowl of shocking blood red. A red I know is owed to the spill of his own blood that he ceremoniously pours into every piece he creates. At first, I’d been horrified. It’s funny how quickly we come to accept that which strikes horror in us.

I wonder what he intends to do with the color now, in this lovely, bright work of peaceful art that stands in glaring contradiction to all the other doom and gloom pieces he crafts.

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