Prologue
Lightning speared through the clouds above the bone white temple. Set upon the peak of Mount Parnassus, three polished pillars surrounded an altar in the center. The sudden light illuminated a mortal struggling upon the steps that led to the mountain’s peak.
His name was Ambrosius, and he had dedicated his entire life to the gods. Every decision, every action, every loss, all of it was in their honor.
Now he wanted answers.
Another arc of lightning split the sky. He stared up into the clouds and for a moment, he swore there was a face staring down at him. A white-bearded face with piercing blue eyes.
“Zeus,” he called out. “I know you’re watching me!”
The clouds closed once again and thunder rumbled like a snarl. If the gods were angry with him, let them be. Ambrosius had good reason to be here, and the Oracle would provide him with the information he sought.
She had to. He wouldn’t leave without the truth.
Stumbling on the last step, he fell onto his knees before the marble altar. The stone pillars behind it were at least ten men high, monolithic and impossibly beautiful. The vaulted ceiling hid him from Zeus’s gaze, but somehow he knew if the King of Gods wanted to eavesdrop, the Oracle would allow him to.
“Great Oracle!” He pressed his palms to the marble floor. Sweat dripped from his brow and landed on the floor in wet plops as the clouds opened and rain poured from the sky. “I seek the truth.”
She made him wait for long heartbeats. And for a moment, he thought perhaps she wouldn’t answer. The Oracle was picky about those she spoke with. Was he unworthy?
Then he heard footsteps. Quiet. Soft. Too light for an elderly woman. He looked up and his jaw fell open at the vision before him.
She was young. The Oracle was a beautiful woman with burnished copper skin and ebony hair. Her graceful fingers moved at her sides as though she plucked a lyre. Her sheer peplos revealed a lithe body beneath it, but somehow it felt wrong to look at her blushed skin.
She was more than just a woman.
She was the mouthpiece of the Gods.
The Oracle made her way to the altar, standing behind it with shadows swirling in her dark eyes. And he saw the world in them. Centuries of knowledge and a great weight on her shoulders that she carried every single day.
“Ambrosius,” she murmured. “You’re late.”
His stomach clenched and his breakfast heaved. “You—you know my name?”
“I know everyone’s name. I know who your children will be and who your greatest grandfather was. And I know why you are here.” She lifted one of her fluttering hands and pointed back the way he came. “I will not give you the answers you seek.”
No. That wasn’t possible when he’d traveled across the entire country to get here. “I’ve given up everything to seek your knowledge.”
“And you will survive without it.” She turned away from him. Her peplos fluttered in the breeze, shifting around her as though she was floating in crystal clear water.
“Wait!” Ambrosius shouted. He needed to convince her. To make her understand. But how did he persuade an Oracle?
She knew everything, she said. She had seen his path and all the ways he could walk. But what did he have that she didn’t?
He reached for the chain around his neck and lifted it over his head. It wasn’t much, but the price was one he was willing to pay. The droplet of amber contained the tiniest seashell within it. An impossible creature unlike anything he’d seen before.
“This was my grandfather’s and his grandfather’s before him. I will part with it, if you share your knowledge.”
She glanced over her shoulder at the necklace he held out. “I don’t want your trinket. You don’t know what this information will do to you. You don’t know what the story will cost.”
“I will pay anything for it.”
“The gatekeeper of the Underworld will tear your soul apart when you try to enter the realm. You will be forced through every river of the Underworld from pain to sorrow, and then they will throw your soul into Tartarus for the Titans to feast upon.” Her dark eyes opened wider with every word.
Ambrosius felt himself swallowed by that dark gaze. She could send his soul there now, he realized. She could bring his fate to him faster than was planned on the thread of his life.
He swallowed hard. “Then I accept my punishment.”
“You doom your offspring as well.”
He spread his hands wide. “I have no family.”
“You would have.” She sighed, but returned to the altar. Instead of raising her arms as though she was giving a speech, as he’d expected, she sat upon the altar itself.
The Oracle’s shoulders curved inward. She braced her hands beside her hips and stared down at the glossy floor. This was the portrait of a defeated woman, and every artist in all of Greece would have given their right arm to paint her.
Ambrosius sat at her feet. He wrapped his arms around his knees and watched her with rapt attention. “Oracle of Delphi, I need to know the truth of Hades and Persephone’s tale.”
“Why, mortal?”
“I have come from the city of Eleusis. I have dedicated myself to the worship of Persephone and Demeter, but...” The next words he said would doom him forever. He knew. If Persephone herself didn’t kill him, then her mother, Demeter, would. “I don’t believe the history to be true.”
“Why?” The Oracle met his gaze with those dark eyes. “Why would you believe the story to be untrue when you are just a mortal and they are the gods?”
“Because I don’t believe the Bringer of Death would have stayed with Hades. I believe she is strong enough to leave him, but the stories claim she loves him.” Ambrosius felt tears build in his eyes. Emotions welling too strong as the Oracle drew power from his thoughts. “If I feared someone, if I was stolen from my family and raped, I would never love them.”
Tears welled in her dark eyes as well. They slid down her cheeks and she reached for his hands. “Oh,” she whispered, squeezing his fingers. “I didn’t see that.”
He knew what she’d seen in his memories. The pain and anguish would never leave him. Bowing his head over her fingers, he pressed his forehead to the delicate lengths. “For all the years I have given her, I deserve this.”
The Oracle remained quiet for a long time before slipping her fingers from his. “So be it.”
Ambrosius braced himself. He finally would discover the truth to the mysteries of Eleusis and all he’d dedicated his life to. Would he survive it?
“You’ve heard the story of how she was kidnapped. Hades stole her away from her mother and dragged her kicking and screaming into the Underworld.” The Oracle turned her gaze toward the sky and frowned. “You know of the plot between Zeus and Hades. The flower that opened the portal that freed the dark god. You know the pain and torment of a mother left behind.”
“Yes, Oracle.” The tale he was certain was wrong. Hades couldn’t be that horrible of a god, but he hadn’t the faintest idea of what the truth was.
The Oracle looked down at their feet again and smiled. This time, it was a slow grin. A sly expression that made him quake where he sat.
“Kore, the maiden, was no fainting woman as everyone liked to think. She wasn’t just a weak little nymph who turned meadows into golden wheat.” The Oracle turned her eyes upon him, and he saw the madness of Tartarus in her gaze. “It was she who placed a petal of ichor upon his lips. And when he stole her away, it was she who steered his chariot into the grave.”