The Taste Of Divinity

Ε Ι Κ Ο Σ Ι Ε Ν Ν Ε Α

The King arrived days later, as the Sun fell from its throne and kissed the sea.

His arrival was announced by the tireless whispers of the walls and the creaks of the wooden doors, the constant whining of his horses for his attention and Kerveros' bark of joy. It was rather odd, considering he had no voice.

Persephone stilled when she caught it, the murmur of his footsteps, heavy enough to crack the granite flooring, as they disappeared into the room next to her own. Truly, it should have alarmed her, the way she recognised the sounds only he produced, the way she distinguished the echo of his faintest sighs, his thunders and his earthquakes.

But it did not, not when her mind had all but abandoned her alone with her foolish, gullible soul and her insides turned darker and darker as the moments passed on.

He would be so pleased if he knew.

It was that thought and not his sudden arrival or her remaining guilt for her earlier actions--surely it could not be that--that caused the gemstones she'd been caressing like grains of sand to fall from the cracks of her fingers and land on the bed without a single word of protest. They became water, her hands. The seams of the cloth she'd named flesh tore open and all she truly was, was released into the world.

From behind the walls, she could hear the crashing wave of his commands, muffled by the distance and the barriers and yet, clear as though spoken inside her ear by the mouth of a seashell. He was the Mediterranean in its entirety but his tempestuous waves, his quiet gales and his violent tranquility weren't meant for her.

He didn't call for her.

❁❁

Persephone didn't utter a single word, did not make a single sound of protest when the maids marched inside her bedroom and ushered her towards the chair by the jewelled mirror, mere minutes after she'd called for them. She allowed them to fuss over her hair and bare face with painfully patient smiles and a faraway gaze in hopes that their tongues would loosen and she would be able to catch more secrets or, at the very least, more murmurs about the man who had decided to tear her life to pieces and then retire for the winter, ever the iron minded soldier.

But the maids' chatter consisted nothing of true importance, only compliments towards a face she had not chosen and a body her soul had been forced into after ascending from the darkness.

It was at times like these when she missed Kyane the most, when she allowed herself to remember the stinging pain of her honesty and her oftentimes snark remarks. She didn't remember the creature she'd met at the Nekromanteion, that strange being with the stolen words and unfamiliar touch. Her teeth gritted, the same way they used to when they argued. Her nails found the flesh of her neck and seconds later, those lingering emotions were buried in the shipwreck of her mind, once more.

It was a matter of survival, after all.

The shadows were insistent in their lingering touches as they placed ornate pieces of heavy jewellery on her naked temple of a body and helped her into a gown that took after the night sky. They were faint, their touches, they weighed no more than a feather each as they came to caress her bare shoulders, her collarbones, her breasts. They were familiar. Still, they vexed her.

When the next touch came, on the curve of her neck, the thunders sent the shadows away, to cradle their sizzling fingers against their chests. No, the thunders weren't as tolerant as their mistress. Nor were they as kind.

Pressing her nails deeper into the back of her neck to get rid of the first signs of regret, Persephone dismissed the maids with the lowered, translucent heads of clouds and the burned fingers that held their violent, dread-filled hearts, desperately trying to clean them off the feeling of Holy Terror that appeared to consume them.