Demeter Sito's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Demeter found Hera walking alone in the gardens under the great glass dome. The queen's peacock feathers dragged across the marble path. Demeter had rehearsed this moment for a month. Her daughter was still in the underworld. Hades had stretched the term from six months to eight, and Zeus had allowed it. Demeter wanted Persephone home for good, and she had come to buy that with the one thing she owned that Hera could not survive losing. "Hecate told me," Demeter said. Hera did not turn. Her hand tightened on the lotus-tipped scepter. "You put Zeus in a trance," Demeter said. "You merged him with the goddess he swallowed. Every mortal woman he beds now carries the boy who will end him. Aether is already too strong. You know it. You lie awake with it." Hera turned then. Her blue eyes went flat. "Prove it," Hera said. "I don't have to." Demeter stepped closer. "I only have to say it once, in the right room, to the right god. Zeus. Hades. Either one will tear the sky open to find the truth of it. And they will find it, because Hecate will break before you will." "A grieving mother's story." Hera's voice stayed level. "No one will believe you." Demeter did not answer with words. She looked past Hera at the tall cypress near the fountain, at the pine beyond it, at the vine-wrapped pig rooting near the beds. She let her grief move. The cypress browned from the crown down. Needles dropped in a soft rain onto the marble. The pine's golden light dimmed and the bark split with a dry crack. The vines on the pig's back curled black and dropped away, and the animal squealed and bolted through the doors. Hera watched it. Her knuckles whitened on the scepter. "I don't need proof," Demeter said. "I need silence. Yours, and Hestia's. She keeps every hearth. She hears everything. Make her forget she ever heard your name near Hecate's." "And in return?" "You go to Zeus. You make him take Persephone back from Hades. For good. No return trip. No eight months, no six. She comes home and she stays." Hera was quiet for a long time. A dead needle drifted between them. "Zeus fears Aether more than he fears me," Hera said. "If he learns what I did, I lose everything. If Hades learns, he burns the underworld down looking for Hecate." She met Demeter's eyes. "I will speak to Zeus. I cannot promise he will listen." "Then make him," Demeter said. "You have until Persephone's next return. After that, I choose a god." Hera inclined her head. Once. A queen's nod, not a friend's. Demeter walked out past the blackened cypress. She had bought a season. Now Hera had to deliver a husband, and Demeter had made an enemy of the only goddess who could ruin her first.