A Touch of Malice (Hades x Persephone #3)(95)

“Tomorrow, young one,” she said with a smile. “We have a visitor.”

The Goddess of Fortune met Persephone’s gaze and the children turned to look.

“Lady Persephone!”

They raced to her, throwing their arms around her legs and pulling on her skirt.

She laughed and bent to accept their hugs.

“Have you come to play with us?” One asked.

“Please play with us!”

“I have come to speak with Lady Tyche,” Persephone answered. “But we shall watch you play. You can show us all your new tricks.”

That seemed to satisfy them, and they hurried away toward the playground—climbing and running, swinging and sliding.

Tyche approached. She was beautiful and tall and lithe, her body draped in black robes, her long, black hair was tied into a knot at the top of her head. She curtsied.

“Lady Persephone,” she said. “It is good to meet you.”

“Lady Tyche,” she greeted. “I am so sorry.”

“There is no need for sorrow,” she said, offering a small smile. “Come, let us walk.”

She offered her arm, and Persephone accepted. The two kept to the shade. In this part of the Underworld, the air was forever warm, and the trees had a glow to them that reminded Persephone of spring.

“I suppose you wish to know how I died,” Tyche said.

The words twisted into Persephone’s chest like a knife.

“I do not so much wish to know,” Persephone said. “But…I fear it will keep happening if we do not learn from you.”

“I understand,” Tyche said. “I was taken down by something heavy, like a net. Then attacked by mortals—several of them. I remember feeling the first stab of pain and being shocked that they were hurting me. Then I felt another stab, then another. I was surrounded.”

“Oh, Tyche,” Persephone whispered.

“I could not heal myself. I think, perhaps, the Fates cut my thread.”

They walked a little farther and then stopped. Tyche turned to face Persephone, her stormy eyes gentle.

“I know what you wish to ask,” the goddess said.

Persephone swallowed. The words were on the tip of her tongue—was my mother involved? Did you sense her magic, too?

“I did sense your mother’s presence,” Tyche said. “I’d hoped…she was there to help me. I was not conscious enough to understand it was only her magic.”

Guilt twisted through Persephone, making her stomach knot.

“I do not understand why my mother has taken this path,” Persephone said, and she felt the pain of those words ricochet through her body.

There was a pause and then Tyche spoke.

“Your mother and I used to be close,” she said.

Persephone’s brows knitted together. She did not know that Demeter and Tyche had been friends at all. In the time she had spent in the greenhouse, she’d never once heard of or met the Goddess of Fortune.

“I…don’t remember you,” Persephone said.

Tyche smiled and it was sad. “We were friends long before she begged the Fates for a daughter,” she said. “Long before she was so angry and hurt.”

“Tell me.”

Tyche took a deep breath.

“Your mother kept you secret for many reasons. You are aware of one—your eventual marriage to Hades, but Demeter was hiding long before you arrived. She was raped.”

Persephone felt like her throat was raw as she swallowed this knowledge.

“What?”

“Poseidon tricked her—luring her to him in the form of a horse, then attacked her. That was the beginning of her hatred for the other Olympians. It continued after she went to Zeus, begging that he punish his brother, yet he refused. I do not tell you this to excuse her behavior toward you or toward the world. I tell you this so you will understand her why.”

“I…didn’t know.”

“Your mother does not see strength in her survival.”

Persephone had never considered what her mother had come from—the abuse she had suffered or overcame.

But this.

This was Demeter’s trauma. It was the seed that had planted the roots of her fear of the world—her fear for her. Poseidon and Zeus were one of the three—when it came to Hades, it was likely Demeter had no room to consider him worthy.

“She was never the same,” Tyche continued. “I think she buried parts of herself so she could exist but in doing so, she lost the part of herself that also lived.”

Persephone tried to inhale but failed.

“I am sorry, Persephone.”

“I am glad you told me,” she said, though her mind whirled with a new understanding. Despite the wrong Demeter had committed, Persephone could see the threads that lead her mother down this path, and, in the end, they had nothing to do with her and everything to do with trauma. Poseidon had broken her; Zeus had crushed her, and she’d had to exist in a world where they remained powerful and in control.

“Does Hades know?” Persephone asked.

“I do not know that Demeter told anyone, save me.”

She wasn’t sure why, but that made her breathe a little easier.

“What do I do?”

Tyche shrugged. “It is hard to know. Perhaps live with the knowledge that Demeter did her best given her circumstances and yet know that does not mean your trauma is invalid. We are all broken, Persephone. It’s what we do with pieces that matters.”