14. Underworld: Good girl

Part 2: Chapter 14

This is Part 2: Chapter 10 of the serialised YA Fantasy Fiction novel ‘Underworld’, a reimagining (not a retelling) of the myth of Persefóni. Use the button below to access the Table of Contents and navigate back a chapter, or begin at the beginning. For SHORT STORY content click here instead.

In the previous chapter… Afrodíti made Persefóni an offer of protection, which she refused, leading to Áris and Apóllonas forcing her to eat ambrosia.

CHAPTER 14: Good girl

I wake in a room that isn’t mine. A huge, opulent room of gold. I’m in a bed with billowing hangings of the finest weave, and I’m not alone. Apóllonas sprawls beside me, as if he fell there. He’s naked and, I realise with a jolt of horror, so am I. Even my knife in its exquisite sheath is gone, and that isn't all. When I push myself slowly into a sitting position, I find I’m bruised and hurt as well.

I raise my head, and see two nymphs lying unconscious at the foot of the bed and a third on the floor, her arm thrown over the sleeping form of Áris’ dog, Kyría. In an chair, facing the bed, sits Áris himself. He’s awake, although his eyes are unfocused as if he’s still under the influence of nectar, and he’s looking at me with an expression of such satisfaction that I feel suddenly cold all over. He has won this game that I’ve been playing without realising it—the game that I was always going to lose.

I grab a sheet from the bed and cover myself with it, getting shakily to my feet. I feel weaker than I’ve ever felt, and not just in my body. I’ve never been more vulnerable, and Áris knows it.

“Don’t worry, Koroúla,” he slurs, using the familiar form of my name that even my mother has never spoken. “Your virtue is still intact, although I can’t say the same for your dignity.”

I see that he has the knife Ífaistos forged for me on his lap. It’s still attached to the leather belt I made for it, and it’s somehow obscene the way the ties, which have been tight around my waist and thigh for months, hang down between his legs. I know the power of ambrosia, but it’s still hard to believe that it made me biddable enough for him to be able to take my only weapon. I’ve learnt self-defence almost from my cradle—it’s second nature to me. But now everything I thought I was has been ripped away and I’m left with only this: I’m an object, a piece on a board for any of them to pick up and play with.

“You’re despicable,” I tell him, and my voice betrays me, shaking with emotion. He hears it and I can tell it makes him feel powerful.

“I gave you plenty of chances to make an alliance with me,” he says, “but you were arrogant enough to believe you could not only refuse me, but defy me also. Now you know who holds the real power. Next time I call you, you’ll come. And if you don’t, we’ll do this again. We’ll do it again and again until you learn to behave like the little bitch you are.”

He whistles, and his own Kyría jumps to her feet and trots up to him.

“Good girl,” he says, his eyes fixed on me. “Sit.” Kyría sits. “Lie.” She lays down in front of him. “Roll over.” She does. Then, still looking at me, he gives her a vicious kick. I flinch and she whimpers, but she doesn’t growl or bite. She doesn’t even run away. She just lies there.

“Like that,” he says.

Shame, anger and frustration are building inside me. I want to attack him. I look around the room and see several things I can use: an empty bottle, a candlestick. But he isn’t a mortal—he is a god. He’s drunk, but I’m weak. Perhaps we would be evenly matched, but I can’t be sure, and anyway, would I really attempt to kill the god of war? The consequences for me would be untold if I did. So I have to concede that he is right: now, in this room, in this citadel, there is no difference between me and his pet.

I stumble towards the door, half-blinded by hot tears I refuse to let fall in front of him. He lets me go. I suppose, for the moment, there’s nothing more he can do to me.

---

Mercifully, I meet no one on the way down to the meadow. They must all be sleeping off the effects of the night before. I want to get outside. I stagger into the early morning sunshine of an incongruously beautiful day.

Squinting against the bright light, I take in the scratches on my arms. We immortals heal incredibly fast, so they must have been deep to still be visible so long after they were made. My palm is burnt and I strain to remember how it happened, but I can’t recall a thing. The blank space in my mind is terrifying, but more frightening is the thought of the missing memories that could fill it. Images of things I’ve seen at feasts, in dark corners or in plain sight, come pouring into my thoughts. Except that it isn’t poor nymphs and helpless mortals I see in my mind’s eye, but myself.

I retch and then fall to my knees, vomiting on the grass of the meadow. Immortals don’t get sick, not unless they’re poisoned. And, although I suppose ambrosia is a form of poison—I’ve heard it can kill mortals if they eat more than a small bite—I don’t think it’s that which is making me ill. It’s the horror of being completely in someone else’s power.

My face burns with shame. I’m on my hands and knees, stomach heaving, my eyes streaming and my body shaking uncontrollably with shock. I can’t stay here, but I don’t think I can stand. I don’t think I can do anything but lay here and cry.

Then, a shadow falls over me. Terrified that it’s Áris, that he’s followed me down here to humiliate me again, I scrabble backwards across the grass. I bare my teeth like the savage Dímitra thought I was when she came to Arkadía to claim me, though I know I’m too weak to fight or even get away. But it isn’t Áris. It’s the witch-woman, Ekáti.

She’s dressed in grey and her hair is a dark mass of wild curls. In her eyes, I see concern and compassion, and that surprises me. She holds out her hand to me, not seeming to mind the vomit, not seeming to notice my nakedness. She picks up the sheet that has fallen from my shoulders and wraps it gently around me.

“Come, child,” is all she says, and I do. I get shakily to my feet and let her support me as we make our slow, painful way to wherever she’s taking me. I go with her because no one has looked at me like that since I left Ánitos standing outside his cave. I go with her because I have nowhere and no one else.

To be continued …