Hades

Suddenly, a piercing pain shot through my chest. It was intense enough to make my grip on the reins loosen. The horses, sensitive to their master’s condition, slowed their pace. 

I clutched my chest and leaned against the chariot to steady my breathing. It felt like being run through with a red-hot needle heated in coals. The area beneath my ribs throbbed with pain.

I halted the chariot mid-air. We had been racing above the lake in Enna Valley. The lake, which had been rippling like waves due to our sudden stop, settled after a few undulations. Then it began to sparkle like a freshly polished bronze mirror. 

With my head bowed, I found myself staring into my own reflection on the water’s surface. It was a peculiar, unpleasant face. Pallid and irritable, looking like someone who spits out water snakes daily. Exactly what Zeus had said.

Damn him.

The thought of Zeus made my carefully suppressed irritation surge back. I shouldn’t have gone to Olympus in the first place. Perhaps I should spread rumors that Hades has gone deaf. 

Zeus wouldn’t believe it, but it would give me an excuse to ignore Hermes’s messages. 

I continued rubbing my still-aching chest while biting my lip.

Why was he suddenly tormenting me with talk of marriage? No matter how much I thought about it, nothing made sense. Zeus’s hobby of tormenting his siblings was nothing new. But shouldn’t he exercise some restraint with me? 

As I glared at the perfectly still lake without a single ripple, anger gradually boiled up inside me. Perhaps it was an aftereffect of the sudden pain.

Even when I entered Olympus, I harbored no particular suspicions. Since the Giants were stomping around enough to make my palace ceiling collapse, I assumed Zeus would naturally be concerned about it. 

I thought he wanted to see me to discuss his solution, whether it involved going down with his proud lightning bolt to scold them or having his blacksmith son reinforce the iron gates with three or four more layers. 

So I willingly visited the heaven with its many eyes and ears. 

I disliked Olympus. Zeus knew that. He welcomed me with a deeply furrowed face when I entered his quarters, gave me a firm embrace, and then greeted me with his characteristically sly expression and routine pleasantries.

“Let me get straight to the point. I’m already tired. So, what method have you been thinking of?”

“Hmm? What method?”

I always detested embracing Zeus. It always felt like being crushed in the arms of an overbearing bull.

“Aren’t you here to discuss the Giants issue?”

“Ah, so that’s what you thought. No wonder you came without much protest.”

Zeus threw his head back, making all his hair and beard shake, and laughed. Then he abruptly began prying into my bedroom affairs and went further by teasing me about finding a groom.

Is this how it is now? With no common enemies to fight, brothers become insignificant? Here I was, struggling to protect a territory without a single ray of light, while Zeus seemed to take pleasure merely in seeing me angry. 

He repeatedly ignored my attempts to steer the conversation back to the Giants and Mount Etna, and eventually even brought up Aphrodite’s girdle.

“Should I ask Aphrodite to lend you that girdle of hers?”

“I wouldn’t take such a thing even if it was given for free.”

If Aphrodite had heard that, she would certainly be displeased. I should apologize if I get the chance. But Zeus drove me to a point where I couldn’t help but get irritated. 

While he went on about lending the charm girdle, he deliberately avoided mentioning the spring of maidens that he himself couldn’t resist, which was practically an insinuation that he knew I’d never had any lovers. 

Did he think I had no pride? In that situation, kind words simply wouldn’t come.

That said, I had no intention of openly defying Zeus. He was born to be an eternally immature boy. 

Apart from enjoying teasing his sister whom he hadn’t seen in a long time, I knew that if I returned to the underworld in a foul mood, he would immediately descend upon Mount Etna in his terrifying form as the supreme god. And he would neatly solve my troublesome problem. 

Acting like I owed him for entertaining him.

‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that?’

I stared blankly at my reflection in the water.

‘Who was it that was born the youngest, inherited everything, and pushed me, the firstborn and eldest sister, underground? Who was it that covered me with a male name because they feared humans might disrespect the gods if they thought death was trivial?’

What sophistry. Zeus himself took away my name Hadeia and imposed the name Hades on me, making the whole world believe without question that I was a male god. 

Where would I find a groom, especially when I didn’t even want one? Since when did he get to act like a caring brother and expect gratitude?

The pain still showed no signs of subsiding. It stung like nails being driven between my ribs. The horses pawed the ground, sensing my discomfort. The pouring sunlight was heating my entire body excessively. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant feeling. 

I lifted my head and exhaled deeply. My first mistake was not bringing my cap of invisibility in my haste. Too many eyes had seen me, and those gazes alone were enough to exhaust me. 

All I wanted was to return home quickly. Bees buzzed noisily above the unnecessarily blue sky. The horses swished their tails in annoyance at the swarm of bees racing around.

Bees. There must be flowers blooming nearby. Come to think of it, when was the last time I saw a swarm of bees dancing? The memory was distant. Have I ever seen it at all? I laughed briefly. 

Then I turned my head to appreciate the cheerfully buzzing yellow bundles of fur.

There she was.

Zeus’s daughter, the only daughter of a respected mother.

How did I know? Anyone with eyes would recognize her. 

Deep in the Enna Valley, standing in the middle of a wave of daffodils covering a small, lovely field, surrounded by nymphs who looked like snot-nosed little girls in comparison, stood a tall maiden with golden hair so vivid it made the pink of her flowing peplos seem faded. Who else could she be but Zeus’s daughter?

She had her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face properly. But the briefly glimpsed bridge of her nose was remarkably distinct and sharp, giving me a general idea of her beauty. Well, both Zeus and Demeter are distinctly handsome. 

Even while my mind was running through these commonplace speculations, I was staring at her, entranced. There was no reason. No, it would be more accurate to say I didn’t know the reason. 

The peplos sliding seductively like jam, the grain-shaped golden brooch that was supposed to secure it, and the immature maiden standing tall with a bold attitude that never doubted she was the leader.

Suddenly, someone whispered in my ear.

‘She’s Zeus’s daughter, raised with everything she could ever need. He should be marrying off his own daughter, so why interfere with the ruler of hell?’

It was an irresistible temptation. An impulse that hit me like a storm capsizing a ship sailing in the dead of night. In one corner of my mind, reason was trying to stop this nonsensical prank in disgust. 

Setting Zeus aside, would Demeter stand for this? What if I stole her only daughter, whom she had raised so carefully that the girl had never even stepped on rough soil? 

But the voice still echoing in my ear was persuasive.

‘She’ll just be annoyed. But isn’t she just a daughter anyway? She’s my niece, so what great calamity could come from me taking her away briefly? If I were truly Hades, king of the underworld, it would cause quite a commotion, but Demeter knows that I…’

That’s right. I was a goddess. No matter how much Zeus deceived humans, no matter how Poseidon pretended not to know while looking after his own interests in the depths of the ocean, they couldn’t change the fact that I was female.

I gripped the reins tightly. The horses leaped into the air instantly, seemingly having waited for this moment. With a chilling cry, the ground began to split open. 

The flower field, fragrantly swaying with yellow, green, and scarlet, instantly froze and opened a gap, spitting out gravel and bones. Through that gap, I could already hear the underworld’s plea calling me in.

The nymphs leisurely frolicking on the daffodil field didn’t know what to do. They scrambled about like a group of rabbits spotting a hawk’s shadow, grabbing each other’s shawls. 

The child of Zeus and Demeter, a golden-haired beauty who lived in a world untouched by fear or loneliness, stared mesmerized at the twisted, opening red and black earth beneath.

If that child had seen the entrance to the underworld and fled in fear, would anything have changed?

Would I have hesitated to stretch out my arms and pull that child into my chariot? 

A futile question. In any case, I did exactly that.

The child was much heavier than I expected. And her hair and clothes exuded a strong scent of daffodils. I didn’t have the courage to look at the crying maiden’s face. So I drove the horses straight into the abyss. How foolish of me.

I opened my mouth. But in a situation like this, whatever words I uttered would only make me look ridiculous. That child, the young man who should have been Demeter’s daughter Persephone, was looking straight at me without a trace of fear. It was infuriating.

A man? How could this be?

I heard Thanatos mumbling something beside me. Hypnos was still maintaining his silence, but the fact that he hadn’t gone to sleep yet indicated his interest in the situation. 

What a humiliation!

That child was not Demeter’s daughter Persephone.

Just as I was not Zeus’s brother Hades.