Page 124 of Aïdes the Unseen
Though it wasn’t harsh or cruel, it was still a claiming. A quiet, possessive gesture. Gentle fingers that said: "You are mine."
The memory dissolved like smoke into the chamber’s breathless hush. I staggered—not with my body, butinside.
Because it wasn’t the first time I had felt that power. That need. Thatgrasping feardressed as love. Demeter had not wept when Persephone left.
She hadraged. She had withered fields, split trees, and brought ruin to those who praised spring without her permission. She hadn’tmournedthe loss of her daughter.
She had mourned the loss ofownership.
I had seen it once, in another lifetime. Another cycle. Demeter’s eyes, hollowed by fury and betrayal. Not of Persephone’s disappearance, but her choice.
The memory was clear now. In Paris. After Élise’s fire. When I had tried to find the thread of her soul and felt something else tighten around it.
A force not meant to be there.
Demeter.
Not blocking the descent—no.
Reclaiming it.
Like a god refusing to return borrowed time.
The chamber grew cold with the weight of what I’d remembered. I turned to Irina—her face pale, her lips parted, hand tight around mine.
“She took you,” I said quietly. “Not once.Again and again. Even when you tried to go elsewhere.”
Irina swallowed.
Grief and recognition both flickered in her eyes. She had felt it too.
A presence she once trusted, twisting into a cage she couldn’t see.
The air had gone sharp and charged, the air before a summer storm, when everything stills in anticipation and you realize the silence itself iswarning you.
Irina hadn't moved yet. Her fingers were still laced with mine. Still warm. Still here.
Yet there was no escaping this revelation. Demeter would feel it.Would know. The memory was a key, and we had just turned it. Not just Irina’s reclamation, but herresistance.
She had always loved Kore best when she was obedient. Blooming. Rooted. Quiet. The maiden held in sunlit gardens, smiling softly while her soul withered underneath.
But Irina was no longer a spring flower. She had stepped through too many doors. Remembered too many names. I feared what Demeter might do when she realized the girl she once held tight now stood besideme.
Not in defiance, but infreedom.
I released Irina’s hand only long enough to brush two fingers down the curve of her wrist—a quiet signal.I’m with you.
Then I moved.
The dog followed at my heel.
I crossed to the far wall of the chamber, where the stones still held the pulse of the memory. Not bright. But ready. I knelt and pressed my hand against one of the still-sleeping sigils—not to open, but to prime.
If she came…
If she forced the path open, in all her harvest fury and love-turned-obsession…
Then I would be ready.
