He had also decreed that while he would arrange for wounds to heal instantly, the combatants would still feel the pain of their injuries. That hadn’t stopped the Olympian shades from lining up to try themselves against the Valkyria.

  But far more of the shades gathered as spectators—roaring, betting, cheering and jeering spectators. Hence the carnival atmosphere.

  “Ready?” Bru asked. Persephone nodded. The warrior-woman took a deep breath and flung herself on the waiting throng.

  A roar went up from the crowd as Bru vanished beneath a pile of bodies. A moment later, she emerged, with four men lying on the ground, groaning with the pain of healed-but-fatal wounds. The remaining combatants circled her warily, and Persephone averted her eyes. Even though no one was permanently hurt, she couldn’t bear to watch. Bru would eventually clear the way to the trees; all she had to do was wait. The disadvantage in numbers was more than made up for by the advantage of her armor and her skill. Even fully armored she was much faster than any of the shades.

  “You can look now,” Rhadamanthus said quietly in her ear. When she turned to look at the field of battle, she saw that, once again, Bru was triumphant, grimacing with pain, her hair plastered to her head with sweat, but taking the congratulations of those losers still able to stand through their pain. Rhadamanthus had ensured that the contest was fair by ensuring that the pain of the wounds persisted until the competition was over and the losers had all surrendered.

  Now he waved his hand, and they straightened or pulled themselves to their feet as their pain vanished.

  Bru turned to the cleft, without waiting to see if Persephone was following. Persephone hurried to join her as she stumbled to the tree in exhaustion.

  She went to her knees beside the tree still bearing fruit, and she and Persephone carefully cultivated a tiny amount of fertilizer made of finely ground vegetable peelings, a bit of eggshell and herb stems into the soil at the base of the tree.

  Bru took a dulled dagger and stirred the mix into the earth as Persephone poured it out of a small jar. Then she sat back on her heels as Persephone carefully poured water from a second jar into the earth.

  The tree looked ever so much better than it had when Bru pointed out what was wrong. There were more leaves on it, and they were greener. By now there was just a single fruit, barely a third the size of Persephone’s fist, and almost ripe. She thought about plucking it—then thought better of it. There was no telling what the effect would be if she took it when it was still a little green. Better to wait.

  She put the water jar down as a breeze came up and dried Bru’s yellow hair, sending little tendrils floating. She put both her hands, palm down, on the earth at the base of the tree; wearily, Bru did the same.

  Persephone closed her eyes and concentrated with all her might on bringing more life to the little tree—not just for now, but for as long as it stood. She didn’t want to just take the one fruit and abandon it; that felt wrong. The tree was giving her what she desperately needed; she wanted to sustain it and reward it.

  She felt Bru doing something that was not quite the same—Bru seemed to concentrate on the earth itself, where Persephone concentrated on the tree. Strange, but perhaps this had something to do with how their two mothers’ powers worked. When Demeter had blessed the fields, it had actually been the seeds that she placed her magic in—farmers brought their seeds to her temples, and representatives of their flocks and herds for her blessing. By contrast, from what Bru had said, her mother actually was the earth itself, she was made up of it, more like Gaia than Demeter. So, perhaps their magics reflected that.

  The last of Bru’s strength quickly ran out, however, and as they got to their feet, it was Persephone’s narrow shoulder that Bru leaned on as they made their way down to Rhadamanthus’s palace.

  The king of Elysium was waiting there for them, with the usual nectar and ambrosia that was the common drink and food among the Olympian gods. Bru had made a face and complained after the first few days of this, saying she would have preferred mead and meat. Persephone couldn’t blame her actually, for she was used to more “common” fare with her mother.

  This time Bru didn’t complain, and neither did Persephone. They were both in desperate need of restoration, Bru in particular. Yet beneath the exhaustion, Bru was clearly happy and triumphant, as always, because The Tradition was obviously working in their favor now. Persephone would get her pomegranate, and presumably a solution was being found for Bru and Leo’s problem.

  When they had rested a little, Rhadamanthus had Thanatos take them up in his chariot—nothing like as impressive as Hades’s, of course—to bring them back to Hades’s palace, where Bru, at least, would fall down onto a couch and sleep as if she would never wake again, until Persephone came to get her to do it all over again.

  They were nearly done.

  And if so, it would not be a moment too soon. Yesterday, Hecate had reported that the gods had gathered to confront Demeter in her own temple. Demeter would again demand the return of Persephone, and there could be only one answer to that, if they all wanted Olympia to be restored.

  But as the two of them arrived from their daily battle, the sound of a gong shattered the silence of Hades’s palace, a strangely penetrating sound that made the very walls ring.

  Persephone paled. Bru put a steadying hand on her arm. “Is that what I think it is?” she asked. The girl nodded.

  “All right then. Courage. We’ve done all we can do. No matter what happens, no one can have done more.” Bru patted her shoulder. “You go take your place. I’ll get myself cleaned up and wait in the courtyard, and we’ll see what the Norns have in store for us.”

  Persephone was rattled enough that she didn’t even ask what the Norns were.

  Persephone felt cold all over. This was the day she had been dreading. And it was the one day of all days that she knew, deep in her heart, she had to be the strongest. The Tradition would not reward a weeper or despair.

  And when she appeared to her mother, she would have to look, not like little Kore, but like a woman, and one capable of knowing her own mind and choosing her own destiny.

  Steeling herself, with head high and wearing her best woman’s gown—the long gown, not the little tunic that her mother preferred her to wear—she went to Hades’s throne room and took her place on the new throne that had been placed at his side. There they waited for Zeus’s messenger.

  He was not long in coming; it was Hermes, and her heart sank because she knew that Zeus would only send Hermes, and not Hecate, if this was a command that had the force of all of the gods behind it.

  Hermes would not look at her. Instead, he concentrated on Hades, and there was nothing of his usual playful nature as he addressed the lord of the dead. “Hear, Lord Hades, the command of Zeus, the king of the gods of Olympia, and master even of you, as you yourself have acknowledged.”

  Hades bowed his head, but his grip upon Persephone’s hand tightened, even as her throat tightened. “Speak,” Hades said, his voice dark with grief. “I hear the command of he who is overlord to us all.”

  “It is commanded that Persephone, daughter of Demeter, come up out of the Underworld and be restored to her mother, so that the good goddess will once more bring life to Olympia,” Hermes said in flat tones that brooked absolutely no argument.

  Persephone couldn’t help herself; a single cry of anguish broke from her throat. Only Hades’s hand on hers steadied her.

  But his words almost undid her. “Let it be so,” he said, and though his face was impassive, there were tears in his words. “But know that she does not look unkindly upon me. Know that I truly love her above all things. And know that I, who can make her a great Queen of the Kingdoms of the Olympians, am no unfit husband for Demeter’s child.”

  “All this may be true,” said Hermes, “yet still she must go. Make ready your chariot that I may take her to the Upper World.”

  “First let my husband and my love give me a last ride in his chariot,” Persephone demanded. “Husband, I would bid farewell to the Fields of Elysium, the kindly realm where the worthy souls find their home, and to Rhadamanthus who is lord over it.”

  Hermes nodded; the chariot was brought, and Hades took the reins. Persephone stepped into the chariot beside him and he put his arm around her. Hermes crowded in with them.

  “Is it ripe?” he whispered urgently to her. She could only shake her head.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. His arm tightened and he said no more.

  Hades had no need for doors or gates within his own realm. The horses had carried the chariot only a few paces when they broke through the mist and into the bright light of Elysium. Persephone recognized the path to her little tree immediately as the horses stepped onto it, and with a shiver of apprehension, she felt the chariot lurch as it headed up the slope. She hid her eyes in Hades’s shoulder. She couldn’t bear to look.

  The chariot stopped, and she felt Hades—moving. Passing the reins to Hermes. Reaching out with the arm that was not holding her.

  “Look up, my love,” he whispered, and Persephone looked up to see him pulling the branch of her tree within her reach. And on that branch was a single, gloriously ripe fruit that glowed like a ruby in the sun.

  Her heart soared. She plucked the fruit from the branch; it came away in her hand so easily it might not even have been attached.

  “Will you share it with me?” he asked tenderly. With a nod, she broke the tiny fruit in half and handed half to him. Within her half were seven scarlet-pulped seeds. She ate them.

  They were tart, very nearly bitter and dry—and she thought she had never tasted anything so good in her life, because the poor little tree had given her the best that it could, fully ripe. No one could say otherwise, and Hermes was the witness.

  In fact, Hermes’s eyes were as big as an owl’s. He surely knew that nothing grew in the Underworld except the asphodel. Well, nothing had, until now.

  Hades stepped down from the chariot then, his half of the pomegranate still untasted in his hand.

  * * *

  Demeter waited, impatiently, on the top of a hill just below Mount Olympus. Her stubbornness had cost the land dearly; the thin, brittle grass beneath her feet was brown and lifeless, the trees around her leafless, and nothing stirred on the wind but dust. There was not a bird or an insect in the air, and the only living things on the ground were the gods themselves, who waited with her.

  Demeter felt a moment of guilt, but only a moment. All of this could have been prevented if Zeus had forced Hades to relinquish her daughter moons ago. Now her magic, pent up within her, stirred and pressed against her, threatening to burst out at any moment. And she could feel the great weight of The Tradition hovering over her, waiting.

  She saw a plume of dust in the distance, a plume that soon became a trail, and beneath the trail, the black form of Hades’s chariot. It was driven by Hermes, and beside bright Hermes—

  Yes! It was Kore!

  She flew like a bird to meet her daughter, love and magic bursting out of her, the grass literally greening at her feet as she ran. Everywhere that her footsteps fell, grass and flowers exploded out of the ground, and streaks of grass and flowers raced away from her. As those streaks of magic reached the trees, they, too, came to life; buds swelling on the branches, and unfurling to leaves and flowers in a moment.

  But Demeter had no eyes for that, only for Kore, who leapt from the chariot and into her mother’s arms.

  “I didn’t realize until now how much I missed you!” Kore cried, and for a long, long time, all they did was hold each other, kiss and weep.

  But then, as the first sound of birdsong in moons echoed across the greening fields, and as the Otherfolk crept out of whatever places they had been keeping themselves until Demeter restored the land, Demeter’s heart…felt a moment of doubt.

  She held Kore at arm’s length, and for the first time, saw that she was wearing the long gown of a woman grown, that her face had grown grave and beautiful and—mature. Saw that the loose, flowing locks of the girl had been bound up into the hairdo of a woman. And knew that there was more going on with Kore than just the change in appearance.

  “My dearest,” she said, dreading the answer. “I know it should be impossible, for nothing but asphodel grows in the Underworld, but—has any food of Hades’s realm passed your lips in the moons you were with him?”

  Her daughter raised her head and regarded her with clear, blue eyes. “As we bid farewell, I plucked a pomegranate from a tree in Elysium, and Hades and I divided it between us. I ate seven seeds.”

  Demeter regarded her in horror. “Why would you do such a thing?” she gasped. “Was it some spell? Did Hades force you?”

  She saw a strange expression on her daughter’s face then. One that at first she could not identify. And when she did at last, she could hardly believe her eyes, for it was pity.

  “Ah, my dearest,” she cried, “if you had not eaten the pomegranate seeds you could have stayed with me, and always we should have been together. But now that you have eaten food in it, the Underworld has a claim upon you. You may not stay always with me here. Again you will have to go back and dwell in the dark places under the earth and sit upon Hades’s throne.”

  “I grew that pomegranate myself so that I could eat it, Mother,” the young woman said softly. “I know that you do not understand, but I love Hades. Not because of something he did to me, or some magic spell, but for himself. He is my beloved, and I am his and I could not bear the thought of being unable to return to him.” Then her eyes filled with tears. “But now that I am here, I know I cannot bear the thought of being unable to return to you.” Her lips trembled and she managed a hesitant smile. “Can you not at least agree to share me? What you call the ‘dark places’ hold so much joy for me, because they hold my lord and my love.”

  And that was when Demeter realized that little Kore, her baby girl, was gone.

  As egg becomes chick, which becomes a bird that must fly, as flower becomes fruit that must ripen and fall or be plucked, so Kore had become Persephone. She who was the goddess of fertility, knew this better than anyone; and though it was bitter, it was something that she had, in her heart, known would come.

  Weeping, she bowed her head to the inevitable.

  “As you ate seven seeds, so seven moons of the year shall you be with Hades,” she said. “And in that time, I shall mourn, and Olympia will suffer winter as other lands do. But not always you will be there. When the flowers bloom upon the earth you shall come up from the realm of darkness, and in great joy we shall go through the world together, Demeter and Persephone.”

  When she said that last, Persephone’s face lit up, for she had used her daughter’s adult name at last. “And when I go beneath the earth again, let that be a season of plenty and rejoicing, the Harvest Moon, when all things ripen and the earth is glad, for though I go from my beloved mother, I go to my beloved husband.”

  “So be it,” Demeter said.

  * * *

  Leo stood before the throne of Hades, already exhausted. He had literally fought his way down into the dark god’s realm, step by step, guided by Hermes, but facing every sort of obstacle that could possibly have been placed in his path. He had climbed a cliff, picked his way across a field of jagged rocks that held unexpected pockets of fire, fought a one-eyed giant, tamed a three-headed dog with the help of Hermes and had to outrun a pack of hellhounds.

  And now, at last, he saw Bru for the first time in months, and he wasn’t allowed to go to her or touch her. They stood before Hades and Hecate with Hermes standing between them, preventing them even from looking at each other.

  Hades sat on a tall throne carved of some black material, set in the middle of a courtyard in front of an enormous building that was the twin of the one Zeus called his home up on the mountain. But here there was no sun, no blue sky, only mist overhead, and more mist drifting across the courtyard, with a twilightlike light permeating everything.

  The goddess was shrouded from head to foot in black material, and held a torch. Two dogs stood on either side of her—and Leo wondered, suddenly, what was the obsession that these gods had with dogs? Athena had dogs, Apollo had dogs, Hades had hellhounds and that three-headed thing, and now Hecate had these enormous beasts whose heads came up to her chest. “You have done well, outlanders, in all the trials that we have set you, but there is one task yet you must face, before we can reward you,” Hecate said, her face absolutely still as a stone. “You must face yourselves.”