The Blood Heir of Sparta

Chapter 2

Laughter echoed around the throne room of the Underworld and Persephone couldn't help but smile at her husband and young son. Perseus had grown much in the past six years and the Goddess of Springtime and Queen of the Underworld could hardly believe that in just a few short months he would be seven. That thought erased the smile her family's play had brought. When they had first adopted Perseus she and Hades had agreed, as the last living son of Sparta and the bearer of her blessing, Perseus would be trained after the Spartan style.

That didn't mean Persephone wanted to see him go. No the teachers he would have, heroes all and many demigods from the great city states, would see that he became a true heir of not only the Underworld, as was his right, but also of his two birthrights, Atlantis and Sparta. The Athenians had run a smear campaign against their rival but the rulers of the Underworld knew the truth. Sparta was not a place that focused on the bloody side of war, producing brutal and mindless warriors to serve the city in her wars.

No, Sparta was a city that prided itself on its fraternity, on its strategy, on being the City of Ares, God of War. While Ares was probably Persephone's least favorite brother, because of his manipulation of emotions as a means of making war easier on his chosen side, did not mean that she did not understand where he was coming from. Athena might be the Goddess of Battle Strategy, but battle is not war, a distinction few chose to remember. Sparta was a nation that prided itself on knowing all there was to know about warfare. Her people knew that war did not allow luxury or time.

That was her problem, Persephone supposed, Sparta knew that everyone was drawn into war, the old and the young, women and men, the healthy and the ill, the wealthy and the poor. That was what made the city so strong, the knowledge they possessed and how they used it. Seven, that was the magic number, a child was only his or her parents until they reached their seventh year, and in mere months her little boy would be seven and expected to start his training as a citizen of Sparta with a modified version of the Agoge.

"Persephone, what is on your mind dear?" The gentle voice of Persephone's mother, the Goddess of the Harvest Demeter, broke through her musings.

"I have so little time left with him, Mother. It is already Maimakterion and his name-day is in Anthesterion. How does one say good-bye to their child for thirteen years? He'll be a man when next I see him." Persephone told Demeter, tears glinting in her eyes.

"There is no easy way, nor an easy answer, my daughter. You are lucky though, you know he will have the best training in all the worlds from the greatest heroes of those worlds. Also look at my grandson," here the two women paused to gaze and the lords of the Underworld still wrestling on the floor their laughter filling the hall. "He loves both you and his father with all his heart, yes he knows that you are not his birth parents and you have told him how much my brother, Poseidon, loves him and wishes he could give him a home in Atlantis, he loves Poseidon and Sostrate very much but you have raised him into the boy he is today. You have given him much which he'll never forget even without his training to reinforce it."

Persephone smiled at her mother, "And he's given us just as much, we are a true family now, no more ridiculous feuds, Hades and Poseidon spend time together both here and in Atlantis, I no longer feel like my husband is off seeking the company of other women because we cannot have children of our own and I know how much he longed to fill the role of a father. Our relationship is the strongest it has ever been and Mother, look at the changes it has wrought to our home. Light and laughter fill the halls, Hades is not confining himself to his paperwork all the time despite the piles of it that constantly await his attention. You yourself have changed too, no longer do I feel it necessary to mediate disputes between the love of my life and my mother. Perseus has brought us together, I'm just so worried that we'll lose that when he leaves." Persephone's words trailed off at the end the sadness returning to her youthful face and marring the natural beauty it held.