Hell Is An Empty Heart (Book One of The Triple Moon's Chronicles)

71 | A Plume Of Ash

The pounding heart of Mount Olympus sent smoke into the night sky. All the torches flared brightly at once under the firm steps of the guards. They all stood up and marched with tight shoulders of fear behind their king, Zeus, who only rumbled and grumbled in anger.

Contrary to Hades, who suppressed dormancy in favour of time, Zeus valued his rest because it was only then—in a cleansed state of mind—that he could structure the best for himself. As a result, when the shaking guard entered his bedchamber to wake him up, the latter was promptly thrown down to rot in Tartarus.

Zeus now appeared at the gates of his impressive throne chamber, barefoot and with only a loosely knotted sheet around his waist. On his ruffled hair, though, laid his laurel crown, the symbol of power, facing backward.

With a clenched jaw and an indignant snort, he glared at his immense doorways, ready to obliterate whoever stood behind them.

However, when the entryway opened, he didn't see the fingers biting Hermes, nor the weeping Demeter recoiled in a corner, or Hecate. She was the only one allowed to sit near the ill, assessing her conditions and yet invisible.

All he saw was his daughter drenched in her own ichor. Persephone was the only being in the room to his eyes, and Zeus cried for her ache.

He immediately ran to her, fearless of any contagions, only clutching her lifeless hand. Hecate broke down in tears at the scene, but Demeter couldn't care less about Zeus' late remorse. She stood behind him with her arm ready to take up the cudgel, which became a heavy, short stick of wood and thorns. Demeter lay in wait to pound him, though she burst into tears.

As her spine bowed, she hung her head in defeat, but not in death. "This is all on you!" Demeter sniffed. "If she..." her voice cracked as she couldn't bring herself to say the unthinkable without a trembling chin. "If she..." she repeated, puffy eyes now stinging her cheeks. "If she ever met her end as the first ever Immortal to die within Mount Olympus, I could only wish for her to haunt you until the end of time; as her father, you are also her own murderer."

All her taunting words fell on deaf in the ears of the wounded Zeus. His scarlet eyes couldn't free themselves from an illusion that his mind made more and more vivid. The blood of Persephone didn't heal them to better themselves, but she drowned them further.

Persephone's death would not only bring grief. It would wage an unprecedented war that none of the Olympians were yet ready to fight: the Daemonomachy.

This terrible vision escalated until another affront from Demeter brought him back to reality. "You never really love anyone, nor this daughter of yours, don't you?"

Zeus balled his fists in rage at her last remark. "I forbade you those words, Demeter!"

He turned back, his hand now clasped on her throat as he stood up. He pulled her off the ground, using nothing but his wrath.

"I love Persephone so much that I never see her one single day, so Hera won't harm her. I love our daughter so much, Demeter, that I granted her the right to be beyond any Olympians. I made her Queen, equal to her own husband, my archenemy, Hades, so that nothing and no one, not even myself, could hurt her."

When Zeus spoke out the truth within his heart, the sky darkened with a plume of ash and streaks of thunder. A violent rain slashed the air, as if the heavens would split apart in distress.

He gave her a fair warning, but Demeter wouldn't be the least frightened. If the loss of her child had taught her one thing, it was that everything was worth fighting for. Her hand clung to the wrist of Zeus while her other arm changed back into her cudgel. She hit him right in the face, releasing herself from his hold on her.

He would never have anymore control over her.

Arming herself with the courage of motherhood, she charged back at him. Most of her strike failed, but she never ceased to attack him. The immaculate throne chamber tiles broke under her fury, but Demeter wouldn't put an end to her retaliation. Her limb couldn't be softened, and her mind couldn't forget his cruelty to them. She would have nearly wrecked anything on her way to get him if it weren't for Hermes standing between them with his arms spread out.

He felt a mounting pain in the back of his throat as he said, "On her way back from the Underworld, Persephone confessed to me that she ate six pomegranate seeds during her captivity."

After learning the truth, Demeter shook her head. "Liar!" Anger and downheartedness blended into her orotund voice. And roots grew out of her wrist, readying themselves to fight Hermes and Zeus all at once and alone.

But this time, it was Hecate who interfered. Her tremulous voice squeaked, sending a ripple of uneasiness. "He is right!" And her hands brushed over Persephone's stomach. "There is something growing within her, something that is blocking all the Ambrosia from going to her body."

A tingle hit Demeter's chest. This was unimaginable. Her mouth dropped agape with the sound "no" echoing from within, turning her arm into the soft palm of a mother as she rushed to the side of her child. She pushed Hecate aside and put her hand instead over Persephone's belly. The Necromancer was right—something was growing inside of her daughter.

No, of course not! She remembered the words of Persephone. It was her first answer when she was returned to her mother. Now those words could only resound back into her head as a lie.

It was perhaps deception, a bit of distortion, and maybe a big fabrication; however, Demeter knew deep down that Persephone wouldn't have done it to hurt her. Putting her feelings aside, she urged Hecate, "Whatever they are, we need to remove them from my daughter."

Hecate refuted, "No, we can't." A light gleamed instead in the eyes of Demeter; the fire of confidence was burning bright in her as she took out a dagger from her dress to cut Persephone open. Hecate, though, held her back. "No, please, Lady Demeter, I beg for your reason. If we remove them now, this can be the last time you will ever see Persephone awake."

"She will survive this," Demeter said, flaring her nostrils. "She is an immortal goddess."

Hecate refuted, "No, she won't." She tried to seize back the sharp weapon from Demeter's hand, but in vain. "We don't know how long her body has been without Ambrosia; there is an equal chance that she won't heal if we cut her body open now."

At that remark, Zeus knelt down to snatch the knife away. "I won't let you do that either."

While Hecate and Zeus attempted to reason with Demeter, only Hermes stayed silent. He had witnessed with a broken heart how they passed the blame for Persephone's diseases, but none had noticed the most obvious. He chuckled and said, "So we are all going to watch her die and do nothing about it!" his lips twisted downward at his own words.

Only Hecate answered, "No Mycenaean Deities can live at Mount Olympus with the food of the Underworld in their stomachs," and she became his target.

"You said that, but you lived in the sky before you moved to the Underworld. How come you are not sick like her?"

All their eyes pointed at her, and Hecate refused to be a victim. She stood up and stared back at her accuser. "Young Hermes, you know nothing about this curse." She wouldn't start a fight over words, but he was right. She was the unfortunate one sent to the Underworld at a young age. The only Mycenaean who dwelled in the abyss long enough to have become accustomed to their secret rites. As tensions grew around her, loneliness wrapped its arms around her—the coat that had grown on her all her life.

Hermes carried on his diatribe. "Then tell us what's killing her!" he said with a pointed finger stabbed into her chest.

Hecate wouldn't flinch at his attack. She stayed put, frozen in time, stuck in an event that she was about to reveal to them all. "Gaia had taught you all the rule I had mentioned, but truthfully, not everything is inedible in the Underworld apart from one pomegranate."