The Taste Of Divinity

Τ Ρ Ι Α Ν Τ Α Π Ε Ν Τ Ε

"Persephone."

Her name echoed in her ears, a faraway sound formed by the grotesque, teeth filled mouths of the winds. It became one with her heartbeat, travelling in her veins, throbbing in her arteries. She heard it again and again until her lips could form no other word, until it became a strange sound that held no meaning, until the sky grew dark and the sun bled into the stars.

"Persephone, Persephone, come here."

Her body sizzled with remnants of acrimony as it breathed its last wisps of smoke and fire onto the charred flesh of her fingertips.

Her flesh ached, her physical pain nothing but a dull throb that grew more and more faded with each beat of her heart. It was her soul that pained her the most, dark and calm, a rose that was rotting from the inside, an ululating sky after a thunderstorm.

The aether grew stronger, its voice louder.

She felt it on her flesh, that voice, slipping under the clothing she'd donned earlier, dragging her away from the embrace of the sea she had built in her mind to drown inside. It was familiar, the call of the sea as it begged her to return to the shore.

She felt it; loud; possessive; powerful.

And yet, no breeze collided with her ghostly form, no wave chilled her bones. No, the world stood perfectly still, an abandoned battlefield. Only the vines, like the souls of the dead, disturbed that peace with their slow crawling as they curled themselves around the sorrowful willows, the cypress' and the poplars.

Perhaps, it was not the winds calling her, after all.

Perhaps, it was the darkness.

Perhaps, it had always been the darkness.

"Persephone, listen to my voice and let me carry you out of it." Strange, she had heard those words before, slithering into the drum of her ear, pulling her from the endless dark abyss. This time, however, there was nothing holding her, nothing grounding her, nothing but his tantalising voice.

As it appeared, it was enough.

It was his eyes she recalled first, as the sky drank the clouds, the pride in them. Then, came the faint memory of something tearing at her flesh from the inside, bolts of lightning and thunders that adored her enough to cause her harm.

The vines.

The gaping earth with its torn heart.

The vines.

The flowers dancing motionlessly all around her.

The vines.

His body caged against the cypress.

The vines.

"Come to me, my love. Return to me." The King besseched adamant, his tone resembling a sharp command rather than a plea. It was comforting, his low voice of burning ice. It was comforting, the way he knew what she needed before she even realised it herself.

Ice kept Kings on their thrones and Queens at their throats.

Ice gave Kings flames and Queens a taste of their golden veins.

And how could he, who the poets had named pitiless Master of the Underworld and thunderous sea, differ?

And how could she, who the King had named his equal, his Queen, his own tempestuous sea, differ?