Persephone's Choice: The Darkness & the Light | A novel of Ancient Greece

Chapter One: The Prophecy

He was an exceptionally handsome god, even by the standards of the Olympians. Taller even than Zeus, with an untidy tangle of blue-black hair that framed his chiselled face and piercing blue eyes that were startling against the pallor of his skin. Like all the gods, he was lean and well-muscled, but unlike the others, he did not like to make a show of himself, competing like one of Hera's peacocks for attention from the goddesses.

Had she not already been in love with Zeus, Demeter could have seen herself making a life with Hades.

Looking around the portico, constructed of gold-veined marble and housing the thrones of the twelve Olympian deities, including her own, Demeter eyed everyone with suspicion and fear. She saw danger in every shadow, and in every disingenuous laughing face. The gods of Olympus had a reputation for capriciousness, jealousy, pettiness and avarice, and she had no reason to believe that they would be kind to her daughter if they perceived any threat in her.

She had always wanted a child, and when her old lover, Zeus, had come to her again, she hadn't hesitated to seduce him, combining their power and their ichor to create the baby she longed for. Zeus had hundreds of children, mortal and immortal alike. Two things they all had in common were the striking green eyes of their father, and the eternal enmity of his wife.

Zeus had loved Demeter once, before he was ensnared by Hera. Demeter had thought he might make her his Queen, but Hera had refused his advances and piqued his curiosity. He turned himself into a cuckoo bird and tricked her into keeping him as a pet in order to seduce her. It was creative, Demeter had to give him that. In order to secure Hera's affections, Zeus had invented marriage, promising to remain bound to her for eternity, come what may. In memory of her husband's commitment, Hera carried a cuckoo-tipped sceptre as a marker of her majesty.

She stood now on the dais, beside her throne, clutching her sceptre in one hand. Her delicate daughter Hebe stood at her elbow, bearing a tray with her mother's cup of ambrosia.

Demeter had the unsettling feeling of being watched. Sure enough, she turned towards the dais to find Hera staring down at her, malice written clear in her large brown eyes. Her jealousy was legendary – the mortals had no shortage of stories of Hera's wrath against Zeus's lovers and children.

She returned the stare coolly, lifting her chin a little as she held her daughter to her chest. There had never been any love lost between them, and the hostility had only grown since Hera stole Zeus away, though it happened centuries ago. Demeter couldn't help but feel a little bitter when she saw Hera in her royal gown of peacock blue and gold sandals, elaborately arranged golden curls piled high atop her head and framing her face, encircled by a high polos crown and finished with a semi-transparent veil down her back. On her face, with its high forehead and fair skin, she wore a permanent, self-aware expression of solemn majesty. Demeter would have liked to slap the look off Hera's face.

She could have been Queen of the Cosmos, but for Hera. And so she couldn't help but feel a little self-satisfied at putting her nose out of joint, flaunting Zeus's child for all to see.

A light touch on Demeter's arm forced her to break eye contact. She turned into the smiling faces of the eternal maidens, fierce Artemis and gentle Hestia.

"Congratulations," Artemis beamed. "A new goddess is a blessing for the whole Pantheon, you must be so proud."

Demeter gave a wicked grin, "Tell that to Hera."

Artemis shrugged. A daughter of Zeus herself, she and her twin brother Apollo had never been on the best terms with Hera, "She'll get over it, she always does. He'll cosy up to her, sweeten her, cajole her... threaten her if he has to. Then they'll be fine for a couple of decades until he does it again."