“Kore.” Demeter spat out the name like a bad pit of a date. “What did I just tell you? We will not speak of the Unseen. Such conversations only prove I was correct. You will return to your chambers and you will not leave them until Artemis comes to get you. Is that understood?”
“But Cyane and I thought maybe we would visit the gardens today.”
“No!” Her mother interrupted her again, this time with a slash of her hand through the air. The wheat to her right blew down in a sudden wind that crushed them into the ground. “You will not leave your chambers until another goddess can convince you that such thoughts are foolish and childish. Do you understand?”
Kore ducked her head. “Yes, Mother.”
“Good.” Demeter pressed a hand to her forehead. “You try me, child. I’m going to my own chambers to get some rest. I suggest you do the same.”
Knowing Demeter, Kore would be watched until she got to her own private home. Kore raced to the columned building and slipped inside. She closed the door firmly and pressed her forehead against the solid wood.
Why was it that Hades could see her potential, but her own mother couldn’t?
She spent the rest of the week locked within her own rooms. She wandered the marble halls, swearing her footsteps would wear a path in the floors. Back and forth. Waiting for the moment when Demeter remembered she had a daughter. When she decided Kore had finally learned her lesson.
She didn’t want to learn a lesson when there wasn’t one to learn. She was a grown woman and Demeter couldn’t keep her locked away here.
But she could.
And she did.
A full week passed as the sun rose and fell on the horizon. Kore was certain she would lose her mind with the knowledge that her own family was controlling her so easily. She wanted to be free. Gods, how she wanted to be free.
The knock that came on her door was a blessing and a curse at the same time. Kore already knew who it was. Who else would her mother send but the virgin huntress who was supposed to convince Kore her life wasn’t all that bad?
It was always Artemis. Always the one person her mother wished Kore was more like.
Kore opened her door and leaned against the frame, crossing her arms over her chest. “So she finally sent you?”
Artemis grinned. “Really? That’s how you’re going to greet me? Maybe I just wanted to see a friend.”
“I doubt it.”
The huntress wore her finest leather armor today. Apparently they were going for a walk, or perhaps a hunt. One never knew with Artemis. Her hair was twisted in twin braids at the very top of her head, and her famed bow was strapped across her back. A bundle of arrows sat next to it between Artemis’s shoulder blades.
The goddess of the hunt shrugged. “I thought we could go for a walk. Your mother seems to think you’re rebelling, and that’s her greatest fear, you know.”
“I’m aware.” Kore should have slammed the door in her friend’s face and told her mother to shove it. But she wanted to get out of these four walls more than she cared about her pride. So she threw a himation over her shoulders and stepped outside. “Where are we going?”
“I need to check on my temple. Familiar grounds for you, I’ve been told.” The twinkle in Artemis’s eyes made her sick.
Obviously the other goddess knew Demeter had sent Kore to clean the floors of the temple with the other nymphs. It wouldn’t have bothered her if she didn’t know the very Lord of the Underworld saw her as an equal.
Someone like her shouldn’t be sweeping the floors of another goddess’s temple. Such demeaning labor only undermined her own power.
Didn’t it?
Maybe she was being dramatic. That’s what her mother would have said. And probably what Artemis would say as well if she brought it up.
How frustrating it was to live a life where no one agreed with anything, she thought. She wanted to tear out her hair and instead, all she could do was follow Artemis as they walked through the fields to her temple.
“You know,” Artemis started, and Kore knew this was the moment when her mother’s words would start coming out of Artemis’s lips. “It’s not all that bad being a virgin goddess.”
“Is that what this conversation is going to be about?”
“I’m just saying, there’s a lot of us who have taken the