Destroyer of Light (47 page)

They were alone. Aidoneus stood quiet and staid, letting his eyes adjust to the faint moonlight. Shivers raced through Persephone and her mind churned, tumultuous, her heart beating quickly.

Be at peace, my love
, Aidoneus said. Persephone felt her pulse slow. He stroked her cheek. “Remember… as I said, I will guide you.”

She nodded. He pulled at his himation and Persephone gently moved his hand away to unwind the heavy cloth herself, pushing it off his shoulder until it fell in a heap on the ground. He wore a saffron
chitoniskos
underneath, girded at the waist with a strip of cloth. She pulled the veil from her braids and it floated down to lay atop his cloak. Her mantle followed, and Persephone was glad to be free of its weight until she shivered in the cool night air.

So beautiful
, he thought, knowing she could hear him. Aidon smiled at her, then took the staff in hand and dragged the end in a wide circle, ensconcing them within the grove. Persephone watched his eyes, his gaze unflinching as they stared at each other. When he returned to her and closed the circle, she felt a sharp vibration root her to the ground beneath them. The life within the grove was enclosed, sealed between them.

She took a hesitant step toward her husband and unhooked the pins at his shoulders, letting the tunic fall past his waist before she unfastened his sash and it dropped at his feet. Her chiton came next, and he twitched when she revealed her flesh, forcing himself to breathe steadily to calm himself. He focused, feeling her, opening himself for her to experience every sensation coursing through him.

Persephone felt the strength in his hands as they gripped the staff, the tension in his legs, the soft earth under his well-worn feet just as she felt it beneath her own. She pulled the simple ribbon from her waist and cast her garment next to his; both now wore only the laurels crowning their heads. She stepped deeper into the circle, and Aidoneus traced a smaller one within it, walking in the opposite direction, the staff etching a deep mark into the grasses and moss, trenching the soil like a plow. The Key shone brightly on his hand.

Aidoneus felt the ground below him pulsing, breathing with life once the second circle was closed. He could hear his wife’s heart beating. He could feel her delicate fingertips resting on her hips, the breath she’d just exhaled, the tingling in her stomach. His eyes met hers and he gave her a brief smile, then began carving the last markings into the earth. He started at the tree where they had been crowned King and Queen and crossed the grove, drawing straight lines between three trees and returning. He then started again at the tree where they had taken their vows as husband and wife and dragged lines through the soil in the opposite direction, joining the remaining trees.

When he set the staff down, they stood within a star that represented the union and conjunction of male and female. The pattern mirrored the little stars on each pomegranate hanging heavy above them. She felt his knuckles brush the earth, his feet sinking into it as he rose. She retreated to her side of the circle and felt his shoulders relax as he took his place opposite her.

“I am the sky and you are the earth,” Hades began. “When and where I am the sky, then and there you are the earth.”

“I am the earth,” Persephone repeated, “and you are the sky. When and where I am the earth, then and there you are the sky.”

They stepped toward each other, pulled inexorably to the center of the star. She let go of all fear, all trepidation, any worry that she might get it wrong. The moment Aidon felt her relax, he started speaking the ancient words.

“What I tell you, let the singer weave into song. What I tell you let it flow from ear to mouth. I tell you softly: come, my beloved. My beautiful one, come with me,” he recited, his voice just above a whisper. He felt her, felt her envelop him in everything that was her, her scent, her sound.

“The trees create their early fruit,” she said, her mind filled with a vision of the dark soil coaxing the new seeds to spring forth, their leaves to unfurl above the fertile ground. “The blossoming trees spread their sweetness. The fallow season is passed,” she said, drawing him closer until their hands interlocked at their sides. “The rains are over and gone. My beloved is mine, and I am his.”

She was reminded of when he’d shared the Key with her, how close they had needed to be— within each other, skin to skin and thought to thought— for it to pass to her. With just the touch of his fingers, she felt that same current flowing between them, the unrelenting pulse of life beneath them, drawn to and from the earth. The Styx wound through their veins, the seeds unfurled, their hearts beat, their bodies warmed, their essence was imbued with all the energy that coursed through the worlds above and below.

She felt him thicken and rise between them and molten heat charged from her womb. He trembled as he lifted her chin, then canted his head until his lips met hers. She shook as she shared his kiss, overpowered by the sensations coursing through both of them.

He feathered his lips along her neck and felt her pulse echoing in his veins. He could feel the trees surrounding them, the fruits growing heavier on their branches, the seeds ripe, the fruits pregnant with their multitudes.

“Come, my beloved,” he said, his voice rasping, “my beautiful one come with me.”

He knelt down and kissed her womb just below her navel, and their minds were simultaneously filled with visions of creation, and the visions from outside the Cave of the Moirai. He sat in the center of the grove before her, his phallus rising from his lap, his hand reaching up to hers, beckoning her to join him in the center of their circle. She grasped his fingers and straddled him, his arm holding her aloft as she slowly made her descent. Aidon held her against his chest and she hovered just above him and wrapped her legs around his torso, trusting his supporting arm. The tip of his phallus prodded her vulva, waiting and ready for the final words of the rite to be spoken in unison.

“Put your hand in my hand,” they said together, grasping their left palms between them. His voice shook. “Put your hand on my heart. Sweet is the sleep of hand to hand. Sweeter still the sleep of heart to heart.”

He released her and she opened to him, their last connection made, their bodies shuddering together. Persephone threw her arms around his neck and whimpered in his ear, her voice no longer under her control. “Oh, my God…”

“My Goddess,” he whispered roughly against her cheek. Aidon lifted her up with aching languor before dragging her down upon him again. They cried out together, sensations expanding. The grove filled with their presence, concentrating their pleasure and charging it back through their bodies. Their hearts slowed as one, echoing the timing of each thrust. Their breathing synchronized. Their eyes closed and they felt everything. Their eyes closed and they saw.

The seeds burst above them, the drops of juice ignited, fire trailed from them like falling stars as they dripped to the ground. A breath, a thrust, a heartbeat. Hades and Persephone were surrounded with light and flames, the branches spreading with white fire. She held him, he held her closer. Sensations became an inseparable whole, a graze of skin, a brush of lips, fingernails digging into flesh, hardness, softness, every chill that raced up the spine and every flash of heat, all fused together.

The fruits above them opened one by one, bathing them, anointing them. Fire rushed across their skin. It poured through their souls, merging, coalescing. It burned their laurel crowns and the sparks flew off like innumerable stars, surrounding them. They moved in perfect unison, building and destroying, ceasing and starting, crashing through each other. Flames licked and consumed them, lost to one another in holy fire.

They saw themselves distantly in visions— the past. They were an infant being ripped from Rhea’s arms, her screams wild, her eyes red as she tried to wrest the babe from her husband. They were born a second time, expelled by Kronos into the midst of war. They were at the great meeting and the
hieros gamos
on Olympus, and Persephone’s conception. They ran carefree through the fields. They sat on the ebony throne of the Underworld. They were within their first dream, shared in Eleusis. They were falling, falling through the earth, holding each other in the darkness of Erebus.

They were ferried across the Styx.

The good mortals— the ones who were especially brave or kind. There’s no place for them?
Persephone had said.

They shared the Key.

And sacrifice their usefulness to the world above? Won’t the living world only deteriorate if we cloister them here?
Aidon answered.

If they decided to leave, they would have that right. And new souls are made here every day. They can take the place of those who wish to stay. People can change,
Persephone reminded him.

If we could, what would we do differently? What would you want?
Aidon asked her.

She will have warmth; and light,
Persephone had said to Dimitris.
A place where soft breezes will fan her skin and there will be grass under her feet, trees to shade her, and cool water to drink. She will laugh and smile, and know no pain or fear ever again. And one day, a day long from now, Fates willing, you will be reunited with her.

They were the seeds. Spring rose from the earth, melting the snow, a thousand crocuses, a field above filled with asphodel. She gripped her husband’s hand to create them, his soul reaching through hers, replenishing the earth with her. Somehow she’d known then— she’d known all along. They carried the seeds of the world below to the world above, then carried the fruits of the living world to the land of the dead. They were the single narcissus opening in the grove and the flowers bursting forth in the Plutonion. It was their doing— always, together.

The future. Hades and Persephone sleeping amid narcissus dappled with sunlight. Both are in their antechamber where he is kneeling before her, his fingers reverently tracing the curve of Persephone’s swollen womb. And another vision, where she is holding a swaddled infant close to her breast. A girl with white curls is gripping her finger and toddling beside her through the palace garden, where they meet with Aidoneus who is holding a smiling little girl with messy dark locks perched atop his shoulders. She pulls his hair. He looks up at her with the eyes of a proud father and laughs.

The future. Persephone and Hades on the Styx, her doubled over in pain and clutching her womb, her shaking hand stained with blood, Hades holding her, panicked and trying to reassure her all at once, Charon crying out for Hecate. Persephone weeping inconsolably, crumpled on the floor, a wooden box shrouding a beating heart clutched to her chest, begging them not to take it from her. Hades staring up into Erebus, watching a thousand, thousand flaming scrolls rain down from the mortal world and into his kingdom, his face contorted into helpless anguish. Persephone running to his side to comfort him.

The future. The mortals. War and the fall of Ilium. Conquest. Famine. Slavery. Death. But amidst the darkness, the light of understanding. Tolerance. Wisdom carried by well-rested souls. A distant city, a great library, a great many peoples coming together. Ignorance, destruction, a stupor of thought, then a great rebirth. Time lumbers on, and the world changes with it. Loud, enclosed chariots without horses and immense, towering buildings crowding against one another. Some are squat with columns taller than those of the grandest temples, billowing dark smoke into the air. The temples of the gods above lay in ruins, stripped by wind and sun. They are forgotten. But in Eleusis, a bustling inn with strange glass ovens and metal mechanisms and oddly-clothed people staring at tiny, brightly lit tablets. Aidoneus and Persephone meet there dressed like the mortals, greeting each other with a kiss before sitting down at a table by a window.

Silence.

The present. They opened their eyes. They opened their eyes as one. They were themselves; they were each other. Aidoneus and Persephone saw darkness, absolute and endless, then rills and sinews of light twisting like faint branches all around them. One point, brighter than all others, rushed toward them, expanding in their vision— carried closer without effort.

Stars wheeled and danced below them, winding in a slow gyre. The wonderment of it all stunned them silent, and in that moment they knew. They were witnessing All. Life, Love, all things that bound existence. They were darkness and light. Rebirth and death. Male and female, in perfect conjunction with the power to make and unmake the cosmos itself.

Male and Female. Hades and Persephone. Names, an unending chain of what that duality of creation represented to all mortals coursed through them. Chaos and Void. Gaia and Ouranos. Anu and Ki. Shiva and Shakti. Ku and Hina. He and She. They were a thousand other names, to a thousand other peoples, with the power and responsibility of all creation at their fingertips. Their own private wishes seemed small and petty compared to this great expanse of Everything. Totality. Conjunction.

The twisting arms of the great spire of light streaked past them in their brilliance, filled with stars and worlds beyond account or reckoning. They saw the outlines of seas, the snow-capped peaks of great mountain chains with shining rivulets trickling down their sides. The thin layer of night sky clung to the earth, its edges cast in sunrise and sunset, and the shallow seas and deep oceans wrapped around an endless, curved expanse of earth. They were so very small, but their burden and purpose were great. They knew so much and so little.