Ghost Queen in the House of Love

2. Onia

As I sit at the head of the table, alongside the preening nobility, Cadmus comes close to my side, donned in a laurel crown of myrtle leaves and a dove-gray tunic. His golden skin is radiant. I often wonder how beautiful Adonis must've been, if he was the most perfect man alive. He sits with me, and I find I don't have much of an appetite. My stomach has curdled.

Thousands of years ago, Zeus and Athena awarded me to King Cadmus in a feast much like this. When I was eighteen. When I became a wife. When I received an enchanted necklace as a wedding gift.

When my life fell apart.

I was promised to him when my first moonflux happened, when a girl is considered woman enough to marry. I was twelve. But, mired in the grease and pus and blood of girlhood, I begged Mother, Aphrodite, to let me wait. She rolled her eyes but agreed, and Father was too ardently pursuing wars to care.

Besides my reluctance, I worried, too, for Mother's husband, not my father, was as jealous and vengeful of his own blood, Hera. The lives of bastards, gods and demigods, often don't fare better than mortals. Especially women. At least men can go on quests and be heroes. They can reclaim and rewrite their tragedies.

"Don't look so glum," he says, leaning close, hand squeezing the space above my elbow, his breath hot on my ear. He smells of spiced wine and almond blossoms, a half-empty kylix already in one hand. "The Olympian Mother is here. We can't have your pouting offend her."

We are honored every now and again to have the gods visit and attend our court and eat at our feasts. And because they often disguise themselves, we can never be sure where they are.

On Earth, I am queen. As designated by Zeus himself, as Cadmus is king. But in the sky, Olympus, he and Hera reign supreme. And we must always supplicate ourselves to their whims. We do not invite the gods; that would assume they need our permission. As such, when they visit, they sit at a separate table, atop a dais carpeted in silks.

Obliging my duties, I pardon myself and, drawn into myself, step lightly up the dais where Hera and her attendants, nymphs in stolas the blue of a clear midday sky, dine. I must cross the entire distance of the platform to reach her, and I must keep a respectable distance. Along the table, besides the honeyed lamb and the pies, are rows of golden decanters, brimming with sweet wine and nectar. Once, my stomach clenched at the mundane scent of honeyed wine, but I've grown numb to it.

As I ease toward the head of the table, Hera catches me in the corner of her eye.

Her black hair looks vibrant and blue in the flames of the hanging lamps, fueled by petrel fat. It is braided along her hairline, settled before an embossed, golden diadem with lilies and pomegranates patterned on the metal, a sparkling stone of lapis lazuli in the center. From its back erupts a silver, glittering veil.

Her ruffled chiton is a deep teal, like the part of the ocean where the shallows end. Golden rings line her throat with a plumage or brilliant turquoise peacock feathers set behind her hair, the feather patterns framing the back of her collar like eyes.

Her eyes are a deep brown and shrewd, narrowing a fraction.

Assuring my voice is light as air, I say to her, "Hello, Queen Hera. I hope the food and wine are to your liking."

Hera regards me with a cool stare, hands primly in her lap. "I fear I'm not well."

My eyes widen. "Oh, my lady, what is wrong? I will remedy it." I can predict her response before it comes out of her mouth.

Hera says, "I cannot stand to be around whoreseed, such as yourself." Yes, indeed. I'm evidence that Aphrodite was never faithful to her son, Hephaestus, who she loathes and loves in equal strides.