The Messenger

Kore emerged, gasping, on the other side. She tumbled to her knees, landing in soft, loose dirt. Air dragged its way into her mouth, scraping against a dry throat and filling lungs that seized like she’d starved them for minutes instead of seconds.

She felt Hades sink beside her, then a hand on her shoulder, warm and heavy. “I know it’s not pleasant. Standing helps, if you think you can.”

Not yet. Not with her body convinced she’d tried to kill it.

But she didn’t want to look weak, not when he seemed so unaffected, so Kore held out a hand and luckily Hades took her meaning. He helped her to her feet, steadying her when she got there.

She could feel him staring. Probably laughing at her, at her unfamiliarity with the way gods traveled. Upset, maybe, that he had to help her all the way home because she couldn’t even call Mother, whatever that meant.

But when she opened her eyes, his expression was not teasing, or even amused. His mouth had opened in surprise, his eyes on her hair.

“What?”

“You grew flowers again.”

Kore’s cheeks flushed. “Sorry.”

“For what? They’re beautiful.”

That stopped her short.

Hades must have realized he was still staring, because he cleared his throat. He turned away from her, and that’s when horror came in slow creeping waves over his face.

Kore followed his gaze, and the world stopped turning.

They’d emerged onto some kind of great plain. The sky above them washed in pinks and oranges from the sunrise, light enough for Kore to make out hip-high grasses as far as she could see. At least, they would have been hip-high if they’d been healthy. Shriveled, wilted foliage stretched before her, the stems weak and the seeds drooping.

Kore turned, looked around her. A fire could have recently moved through the area, but that didn’t make sense, either. Fire did not leave the stalks standing and dead. It would have taken the whole hillside to blackened earth.

Before she could tell them not to, her feet started up the nearest hill, dust spraying over her toes with each step. Distantly, she heard Hades calling for her, but she didn’t stop. She crested the rise and, no matter which way she turned, found the same picture stretching to the horizon.

Kore felt Hades arrive beside her. “What’s the date?” she croaked.

“October. This is October on the Western Steppes.”

Kore ignored the placement. She didn’t know the human world enough to have a picture for what they should look like. What she did know was that unless all of the grasses had sickened and died at the exact same time, something had gone very, very wrong here.

Hades cursed beside her, and for once she shared the anger in his words. He crouched down, digging into the loose earth with his fingers. Before Kore could ask, he stood again with a hunk of golden rock, small enough to fit into his palm and large enough to weigh something hefty, judging by the way his arm moved.

He caught Kore’s expression and shrugged, something akin to embarrassment in his eyes. “God of earthly riches.”

Not only a king, able to move the earth beneath her feet, but he could make actual gold appear out of nothing, too. Kore wondered what other tricks he had ready and waiting.

Without warning, Hades cranked his arm back and threw the gold into the burgeoning dawn. Kore watched it tumble through the air, shrinking until she lost it against the line of mountains in the distance.

A moment of silence passed. Hades stared at the landscape, his expression unreadable. Just as Kore prepared to ask what they were waiting for, a voice sounded from behind them.

“Look who’s finally decided to show up.”

Kore whirled. Across from them stood a man—boy, really, barely out of his teens by the look of it—on the hill with them. His button-up shirt seemed out of place against the bleak landscape, black with bright red and orange fruits splashed across it. Tight red shorts ended just above his knee, and socks too white against the half-light had been pulled midway up his calf. He wore two different colors of sneakers, one red and one orange to match the fruits on his shirt. A hat covered his yellow curls, the same red with a brim covering his neck.

“Hermes,” Hades greeted with a nod. “I take it you know something about this.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard. It’s all anyone up here will talk about.”

“Please, enlighten me.”

The boy—Hermes—smirked. His eyes, blue and alive and far too intrigued, slid to Kore. “Hello, there. I don’t think we’ve met.”

Hades’s voice came as a rebuke. “Hermes, please. What’s going on?”

“I never took you as one to step out, Hades.” His head tilted in a way that felt decidedly sarcastic. “Does Minthe know about your new friend?”

Kore didn’t know who Minthe was, but the way that Hades’s mouth tightened, his brows lowering into a dangerous expression, gave her a pretty good idea. She took a step forward, before the conversation moved somewhere she couldn’t rescue it. “We haven’t seen the surface in a few hours. Did a fire come through the area?”

Hermes shook his head, smiling now. “Demeter’s one and only daughter has run off. She’s closed up shop until the girl comes back.”

The shock must have shown on her face. No way would Mother let this happen; she cared too much for the humans to let them slip over something so silly.

At least, Kore thought she did.

“How far has it spread?” Hades asked.

“For now, it’s the steppes and the eastern mountains, but it’s moving fast. Couple days, and this is what the planet will look like. Hope the Underworld knows what to do with the new arrivals.”

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A strangled sound came from Kore’s throat. “We have to stop this, before it goes too far.”

“I doubt you can, unless you know where the mystery girl went. If she even exists, that is, because some of us are skeptical.”

Hades glanced at Kore. “We might have some information on that front.”

Kore watched as Hermes put the pieces together, his eyes widening. “You’re the one they’re looking for?”

She could only nod.

Hermes drifted nearer, peering at her now. “I didn’t think it was true.”

Hades placed himself in front of her before Hermes could get too close. “As you can see, we need to get a message out. The sooner the better, by the look of things.”

Hermes faltered, his eyes flicking between them. A slow smile spread across his young face. “Can’t wait until Demeter hears her daughter has spent the last three days with the king of the Underworld. She’s going to rip you apart.”

Before Kore could right his demented assumption, he vanished. One moment there, the next, nothing but wind.

Hades had his nose between his fingers again. “I think there’s more to your story than you’ve said so far.”

Kore could barely hear him. Three days? She couldn’t have been gone three whole days. That much time did not exist in her memory. She pushed against the wall in her mind, tried to remember running, and then falling, and waking up…The forest. She remembered the woods outside of the farm, and someone there with her, before she fell.

A pop startled her out of her thoughts.

Hermes reappeared. He checked his wrist, where no watch rested, only skin and freckles. “She’ll be here in a minute. I think they’re using the rivers, if you want to move this party somewhere closer to one.”

Hades gestured for Hermes to lead the way. They set off down the hill, towards a glistening line of water in the distance, stark against the drained landscape.

Mother arrived before they got there. Kore watched as someone—Theo, maybe—emerged from the water first, hauling themselves up the low bank. When she’d steadied herself, she turned and offered a hand, and pulled Mother up after her.

Relief threatened to burst Kore open. Her steps came more quickly, the pressure in her head telling her she might be sprouting plants and flowers and who knew what else. She passed Hades, then Hermes, and then she crashed into Mother’s arms. She squeezed, and Mother squeezed back, and everything that had been wrong for the last several hours suddenly turned right.

Mother ran a hand over Kore’s hair. “There, there. I’ve got you now.”

Theo managed to get her arms around Kore from the other side. “We’ve been worried sick.”

Kore stood there for a long time, nestled between Theo and Mother, doing nothing more than breathing them in and convincing herself they’d really come.

Eventually, Mother pulled herself away enough to address the others. “Thank you, Hermes. We owe you an impossible debt.”

“Happy to help.”

“If you require anything from us, please do not hesitate to ask.”

Kore twisted in time to see his gaze slide to Theo, who smiled and flushed.

“I appreciate it,” he said.

Kore did not stop to wonder what, exactly, he might appreciate. She watched Hades, standing away from the interaction looking uncomfortable. He, too, deserved thanks. More so than Hermes, anyway.

Kore hadn’t taken three steps in his direction before Mother caught her wrist and yanked her back.

“Hades,” Mother said, her tone cold enough to send the hair standing up on Kore’s arms. “What brings you here?”

Hades matched her expression, his hands in his pockets and his feet set. “I wanted to see Kore home safely, the same as you.”

Mother hissed, like he’d thrown insults instead of peaceable words. “If you’ve hurt her, I will rip the earth apart to see you punished for your crimes.”

“Excuse me?” A muscle twitched in his neck.

“I remember the old days. You and your brothers, taking whatever you want and damn the others you leave behind, right?”

“Mother, no.” Kore pulled herself from Mother’s grip. “He’s been nothing but kind to me.”

“Hush, Kore. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Of course I—”

“Look at you!” Mother turned on her, the anger blazing in her eyes so far from what Kore had imagined for this reunion. “Where is your dress? Why are you wearing…whatever this is?”

Kore glanced at the clothes Hades had been kind enough to lend her. She didn’t say that Mother would have been a lot more upset if she’d shown up in the ripped and ichor-stained dress she’d left the farm in. That particular argument didn’t seem like it would help her.

Hades laughed that same pained, humorless laugh from the beach. “And you, Demeter? Is this what you call holding up your mandate?” He gestured to the sickened hills. “What of the humans who rely on you and your gifts?”

Mother’s teeth clicked together audibly. “I had more important matters at hand.”

“To which end a thank you would be appreciated, instead of accusations of the worst kind.” His eyes burned and suddenly Kore saw the fearsome king everyone had described. “I am not my brothers, and I do not take kindly to being compared with their misdeeds.”

“I suggest you walk away, Hades. We have nothing more to say to each other.”

Panic burst open in Kore’s chest. This was not the way she’d imagined this moment. Tears, yes, but warm hugs and, if she worded it right, an invitation for Hades to dine with them on the farm.

“Mother, Hades saved my life,” Kore said, keeping her tone carefully gentle. “The dead were attacking, and if he hadn’t pulled me off the shore—”

Mother screeched a wordless cry of anger and turned on Hades once more. “You pulled her into that infernal place?”

“No, Mother, that’s not what I meant!”

But Mother had moved beyond listening. She raised her hands. Nausea rolled up Kore’s spine as living things sprang from the barren ground, twisting yellow stalks quickly climbing five, ten, fifteen feet high. They twined around one another, forming a living spear that shot across the ground.

Right towards Hades.

Later, Kore would justify her actions by saying she hadn’t wanted a war. That a fight between Mother and Hades would split the Pantheon, and they’d have gods at each other’s throats for centuries. In the moment, however, the only thing Kore knew was the burning need to protect this man who had done nothing but help her.

Kore’s vision went blurry as her own power surged through her, calling whatever life still clung to the barren soil. She urged it forward, infused it with her own will, until green vines burst from the ground between her and Hades and knocked Mother’s creations out of the way.

The aftershock hit her like a truck, the taste of ichor blooming her mouth and black edges threatening to overtake her vision. She hadn’t quite recovered from her episode after the beach, apparently. Kore dropped to her knees in the dirt.

Distantly, she felt someone crouch beside her. Theo’s voice, asking if she needed help. Demands for Mother to stop, to see that Kore was not in a good way.

Mother did not hear. She screeched again, a sound Kore had never heard before. This was not the woman who’d raised her. Who’d tended to her scrapes and bruises with a gentle hand, who had brushed her hair and nuzzled her cheek and filled Kore’s hours with warmth and laughter and love.

Whoever it was that stood before her now frightened Kore.

Kore pushed herself to her feet. Theo grabbed for her, pulling her back, but Kore was stronger than her friend. She broke Theo’s grip, and when Theo started after her, she willed vines to wrap around the other girl, to snarl her ankles and tangle her knees and keep her from following. She ran past Theo, past Mother’s shouts, past the snaking yellow stalks moving like feelers, searching for Hades.

Kore emerged on the other side, but she didn’t see him. She turned in a circle, searched the hills, but he’d gone. Left her there to field whatever punishment Mother dreamed up for daring to defend him.

Mother’s tendrils snaked around her legs and yanked. Kore’s face hit the ground hard, stars bursting behind her eyelids. She clenched her fists and heaved, bile spilling into her throat, as a twisted green wall sprouted between her and Mother. Her own vines knocked the yellow ones away, formed a kind of cage around her to protect her from the onslaught.

Kore’s head spun as she found her feet again. She tottered, threatening to collapse, until warm fingers found her arm. A hand on her shoulder, steadying her, though nothing but air existed in front of her.

“I’m here,” Hades said.

Kore still could not see him. She sobbed, fighting to stay conscious, and hoped she did not imagine his presence. “We need to go. Before she does something she’ll regret.”

“There’s nowhere she can’t get to.”

“The Underworld. She won’t come down, I know it.”

“That will only make things worse.”

Black spots swam in front of Kore’s vision. She didn’t have long. “Take us down, Hades. Please.”

A hesitation, a moment for her to change her mind. But she didn’t, and with a rumble the ground opened beneath them. She tumbled, weightless, the black closing around her as she succumbed to the earth.