Prologue

The woman had become desperate.

Yes, very desperate.

She had prayed to her Patron, begged and cried that she helped save her child before the evil destined for her daughter prevailed.

But she never got an answer.

Athena, had gone silent on her.

Nektaria did not even know how it happened, was not even sure if the story that the slave had told her was accurate but it was the only thing she had going on that seemed to be true.

Her daughter, who after her birth, everyone had thought she would have been under the same familia as her Mother, was found to have a different emblem on her back.

A blue peacock.

Hera herself, had even come on the day of her birth, presenting her with a gift, it was the gift of life, a coin, that if one had in his or her possession when they died, could reach the underworld and come back, though the coin only worked once.

Even though this turn of events had shocked everyone, they celebrated the birth of the daughter of Charilaus Diamandis, the head of the Apollo Familia and she was named Persephone, by Hera herself.

Persephone was a good girl, a bit temperamental and a little bit curious about everything, but she was beautiful and the Earth loved her, even the gods sometimes came to see her while the girl played on the fields, to stare at her and ask her questions just to get an answer from the child.

She was Charilaus' pride.

She was Nektaria's joy.

And though Nektaria was not favourable to her husband, no, her husband had only married her because it was the law decreed by the gods so she could have a child and as he was more interested in his male slaves, one particularly being Cleon, a Hermes familia of low birth.

So he despised the sight of Nektaria even though she loved the ground he walked on, but he gave her Persephone the love Nektaria would never have and she was grateful to him.

Until that fateful day.

Persephone had been playing in the fields, her curly bouncy hair flying, Nektaria was talking to Aglaia, who was telling stories of her son who was as defiant as his Father before she saw it.

Her daughter, lying on the ground, unconscious and Achilles Eliades with a broken and bleeding nose.

The slave that was with them had said that Achilles had demanded the submission of Persephone, who had blatantly refused to submit, and as he tried getting her to kneel, she had hit him.

Nektaria nearly went mad with fear.

Her daughter, kept being unconscious and though Charilaus called unto his Patron god, Apollo, and many medicine men, all they said was that she had offended Ares, the god of war and that this was her sin for being disobedient.

And what was worse?

The blue peacock tattoo at the back of her daughters neck had transformed to a red tattoo of an Eagle.

Zeus' emblem.

Nektaria was at a cross road.

Stories of children who had a different emblem assigned to their genders, that is males who had blue and females who had red, were said to be jokes played by the gods who already made it known that the child was faulty and they were killed immediately they were born, this children, were only ever under the Hestia and Hermes familia, never the others.

She did not understand why Zeus had picked her daughter this way.

Nektaria knew that if it was known by Charilaus or the other Familias, her daughter would be killed immediately and for that reason, she never left her daughters side.

She prayed that her daughter would awake, that Zeus would pity her daughter and let Hera take her back, she prayed to Ares and begged for his forgiveness and then to Hera.

They were all silent.

And so Nektaria, in her most utter desperate moment, seeked Hermes.

Hermes answer was immediate, he had said that he seen her daughter's soul walking aimlessly on the Earth as she was not yet dead and could not cross over, but that he could help her cross both her and her daughter to meet Hades and ask for his help.

Nektaria fully aware that he was the god of trickery, asked what he wanted in return.

Hermes only asked that she paid him sacrifices as well and that was all.

Still desperate, Nektaria took an Elixir that Hermes had presented her with, and entered a state of half dead, just like her daughter and then with Hermes, found her daughter and they both went to Hades for help.