Seeking Persephone by Sarah M. Eden

groom who was standing near Persephone suggested. John, Adam identified him. John Handly. Jeb’s son. The man was good with horses. Persephone had sought out the right person if she was seeking any information about the stables. Wise girl.
    “Atlas?” Persephone asked with a hint of doubt. “Who named him Atlas?”
    “His Grace did,” John answered, the statement almost sounding like a question.
    Adam was close enough to see a smile touch Persephone’s lips. “And His Grace does not think it a ridiculous name?” she asked, almost mockingly. “It being Greek and mythological?”
    “I ’spect not, Yer Grace,” John replied. “Named ’is own mount, Zeus. That be one o’ them heathen gods, too.”
    Persephone looked very near to laughing. A quick glance at Harry revealed that he, too, found the revelation particularly entertaining. They were laughing at him.
    Adam tensed his jaw. “Such names are not ridiculous for horses.”
    Persephone turned as he spoke, a look of embarrassed surprise on her face. Now she would slump her shoulders and tiptoe off. Adam watched and waited. But Persephone surprised him. Her jaw set, she seemed to square her shoulders and returned his gaze. “Then I had best search the forest for a sorceress who can transform me into a horse, or else I shall be doomed to spend the rest of my life in a constant state of ridiculousness.”
    It was a set-down, Adam knew. And yet he couldn’t help feeling reluctantly impressed at her show of backbone. “You would make an atrocious horse, Persephone.” Adam dismounted with his back to her.
    “There are some ‘obvious flaws’ in that plan, then?”
    Again, a barbed comment. Adam had little experience being on the receiving end of criticism. “Why, precisely, have you come to the stables?” Adam allowed a stable lad to lead Zeus back to the stables while he moved to stand on Persephone’s right side.
    “I was hoping to attempt to ride again.” Persephone watched Alibi, who was running in a rather erratic pattern around the paddock.
    “How long have you been out of the saddle?” Adam asked.
    “Ten years.”
    “Ten years! And you were going to attempt to retake riding on Alibi ?” Not such a wise girl, after all.
    “No, Yer Grace,” John quickly jumped in. Like his father, Jeb, John had few qualms about addressing Adam without invitation; it was an impertinence that didn’t bother Adam in the least. He only interrupted or spoke up when the topic was one on which he was considered an expert. The man knew when to assert himself and when to hold his tongue. “She weren’t wanting to ride Alibi. Her Grace had only just arrived at the paddock an’ asked if the filly were ailin’ or upset.”
    “Alibi is a fine horse in warm weather,” Adam explained to Persephone, hoping to stem the tide of any rash course of action she might be considering. It was his experience that people, in general, had a tendency to do incredibly stupid things when faced with situations they knew little of. “She is confined to the stables and the paddock in the cold.”
    “I gathered as much from John,” Persephone replied. It was something near a scold. Adam turned his head enough to look more closely at her. No one ever scolded him. “He suggested Atlas as an appropriate mount. And I am inclined to agree, his name having instantly endeared me to the creature. I am assuming the horse is, indeed, a he, considering his namesake was most definitely male.”
    “Another heathen god?” John asked her disapprovingly.
    “Decidedly heathen,” Persephone answered with a growing smile.
    “And was you named for one o’ them heathens, too?”
    “A goddess,” Persephone nodded. “She was abducted by the god of the dead, who held her captive in the underworld. The Greeks believed that while Persephone was held prisoner, the world was plunged into cold and darkness.”
    “Laws,” John whistled the word through the gap in his front teeth. “And how’d the Greeks