Authors: Aimée Carter
“Come in,” I called, sitting up in bed and smoothing my hair. I
was exhausted, my body heavy with sleep, but it was hard to shake the sensation
of being on edge, as I had been during the past ten years. A knock then could’ve
meant another battle or a turn we hadn’t seen coming. We’d devoted every moment
to strategizing and watching, and none of us had gotten a proper amount of
rest.
The curtains parted, and Zeus stepped through. My stomach
turned. Olympus hovered eternally between the blue sky of day above us and the
rainbow of dusk below, but even with the golden sunlight that washed across his
face, he looked pale. As he should have. If there was any justice in the world,
he felt guilty for how he’d treated me and our sisters.
“Hera?” he said softly. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Since when have you ever been concerned with courtesy?” I
curled back up in bed and closed my eyes. “Be quick about it. I was having a
nice dream.” One that involved dark hair, silver eyes and a lack of sunlight
Olympus would never experience.
Zeus said nothing for nearly a minute. By the time he finally
spoke, I’d drifted back to the edge of sleep. “I love you.”
My eyes flew open. “Excuse me?”
“I have for a very long time.” He stepped closer, reaching out
for me as if he expected me to take his hand, but I didn’t move. Zeus hesitated.
“You are extraordinary, Hera. You are beautiful. You are powerful. And out of
all my sisters, I think you would be best suited to stand at my side.”
I shook my head. “You have enough women to keep you company,
Zeus. I won’t be another horse in your stable.”
“You wouldn’t be. I would devote myself to you and your power.
To you and your brilliance. I will forsake the others if you insist I must, but
I want to marry you.”
For a long moment, I was silent. Any lingering exhaustion I’d
felt had vanished, leaving me with bewilderment coursing through my veins. He
wanted to marry me? He could barely speak to me as an equal, and he wanted me to
devote my life to him? “No.”
Zeus recoiled as if I’d slapped him. “What?”
“I said no.”
“But—I’m King of the Skies,” he said, stunned. Clearly he
hadn’t expected anything short of a yes. “You could be my queen. You could have
absolute power—”
“I don’t want to be your queen,” I snapped. “And we both know
that your definition of ‘absolute power’ is really absolute power second to
yours. I won’t be second to anyone, and I will not marry someone who looks down
on me for my sex. Now leave.”
Silence. Zeus gaped at me, and I stared back. He wouldn’t win
this one. I would not allow him to put a collar on me and parade me around as an
ornament. I was the daughter of Cronus. I should have been a queen, but not
his
queen. A queen in my own right.
At last he left without a word. It wouldn’t be the end of
it—when Zeus set his mind to something, nothing would dissuade him, as the Titan
War had proven—but for now, I needed to rest. We’d only just seen the end of one
battle. I wasn’t prepared to start another.
* * *
On the morning the council gathered for the first time,
I spent ages in front of my mirror, searching for any flaws in my reflection.
It’d been nearly a month since the end of the war, giving us all time to assess
the damage and do what we could to heal it. While our brothers tried to form
some semblance of order within their new domains, my sisters and I had roamed
the earth, observing humanity and discovering the natural passages between the
three realms. Every time we’d found a cave that led into the Underworld, I’d
been tempted to go down and visit Hades, but my sisters had insisted he’d be far
too busy. I wasn’t so sure, but the last thing I wanted to do was burden him
further.
Technically Zeus should have come with us, but I suspected part
of the reason my sisters had dragged me out of Olympus was to get away from him.
He and I had barely spoken a word to each other since his proposal, and for all
intents and purposes, he seemed to have dropped it. Unlikely as it was, perhaps
he wasn’t as thickheaded as I’d thought.
At last, as the weeks had passed, I’d begun to feel at peace
with everything. I didn’t have to have a title in order to have power. I was who
I was; no one, not Cronus, not Zeus, could take that from me.
But now that we were all to gather again, I couldn’t shake the
giddiness inside me. Maybe it was the idea of our family once again reuniting.
We were never as powerful apart as we were together, after all. Whenever I
envisioned what the morning would bring, however, all I could picture was one
face: Hades’s.
At last it was time, and I pushed aside my curtain to leave.
Instead of an empty hallway, however, a peacock sat on a satin pillow in front
of my rooms, blocking my exit. A gift?
The bird stood, revealing its magnificent plumage of blue,
green and gold, and it walked directly into my chambers as if it had been
waiting for me. Yes, a gift. But from whom?
I picked up a stray tail feather that remained on the pillow,
tickling my nose with its soft ends, and I smiled. Zeus would never get me
something so thoughtful. He would try to win me over with jewels and other cold,
meaningless things. And that left only one person who would gift me something so
extravagant.
Hades.
Was it possible he was as excited about seeing me as I was him?
Maybe after a month alone in the Underworld, he’d come to his senses and decided
to ask me to be his wife, after all. My excitement increased tenfold, and I all
but skipped down the sky-blue and sunset corridor, still holding the feather. At
last, a chance to escape. A chance to choose my own destiny. And I had no doubt
about it—I would have chosen Hades again and again, until the end of time.
Especially over Zeus.
The throne room was set in the center of Olympus, laid out in a
circle with over a dozen hallways leading from it, in the shape of the sun and
her rays. It had been the seat of our power during the war, untouchable even to
Cronus, and it was the one place where we’d all been safe. Now that it was
Zeus’s domain, somehow the sun seemed darker. But that day, nothing, not even
Zeus, could’ve brought me down.
No, not nothing. The moment I stepped into the throne room, my
heart sank. Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter and Hestia were already there, waiting for
me, but Hades’s throne was empty.
“Good morning,” I said, keeping the disappointment out of my
voice. He was late, that was all. He had a much longer way to travel than the
rest of us.
“Good morning,” said Zeus. He’d aged himself a few years, but
not even a beard could make him look like a king. “Now that we are all here, I
will call this meeting to—”
“What about Hades?” I said. “Shouldn’t we wait for him?”
“Hades won’t be coming,” said Zeus, sounding annoyed.
I lowered the tip of the feather from my nose. “Oh.”
Across the circle, Demeter gave me a sympathetic smile. So
everyone knew then, even Zeus. Enough to realize that Hades was at least part of
the reason I’d refused his proposal. One of our sisters must have told him,
then,
I frowned. Hades felt like a secret, something I opened up when
no one was there, and the thought of my sisters discussing Hades and me with
Zeus made my skin crawl.
Zeus cleared his throat, and he gestured toward me. “I see you
got my gift. Consider it an apology for how I’ve treated you. I would give you
the heavens if I could, but Demeter insisted something simpler would be
better.”
I nearly dropped the feather. His gift? One Demeter had helped
pick out? “Thank you,” I mumbled, glaring at my sister. She knew how I felt
about Zeus, and encouraging him like that wasn’t only cruel to him. It was cruel
to me, as well.
The meeting began, a mostly neutral affair with no one raising
their voices. Poseidon and Zeus talked about the progress they’d made,
protecting their subjects from predators and showing them how best to care for
themselves now that they no longer had the threat of the Titans hanging over
their heads, while my sisters spoke of what we’d discovered on earth. I remained
quiet, however, my gaze focused on Hades’s empty throne. His realm was the
largest; and after a war, of course he wouldn’t have time to spare.
He would come next time, though. He wouldn’t break his promise.
Not to me.
* * *
Hades didn’t come the next time, or the next, or the
time after that. Finally, nearly a year after the war ended, his throne wasn’t
there at all.
“Hades has decided to become an honorary member of the
council,” said Zeus that day. “He will join us when it is important, but
otherwise he will defer to our judgment when it comes to matters above his
realm.”
In other words, he’d separated himself from us, breaking our
unity. That pain sliced through me, hot and unyielding, and I had to blink
rapidly to keep myself from letting it show. Fine. If he didn’t think we were
worth it—if he didn’t think
I
was worth it, then so
be it. We didn’t need him. I didn’t need him.
But I did, and that empty space inside my chest where hope for
a happy life had once been ate away at me. He’d represented everything I’d
wanted—respect, compassion, honesty and maturity that Zeus could never hope to
obtain. The possibility of life as an equal to my partner. And with one single
decision, he’d destroyed all of those dreams.
As soon as the meeting ended, I fled to the earth. It was
summertime, and the forest was lush with colors. Green leaves, red and purple
flowers, the blue sky and the brown soil—it should’ve been beautiful, but I was
blind to all except Hades’s betrayal.
I sat on the shore of a lake and sobbed. My cries echoed
amongst the trees, but I was alone. Always alone. My sisters were content with
their lots. My brothers each had their own kingdoms to rule. When would it be my
turn to have a happy ending? When would I have a chance to live the life I
wanted?
The Titan War hadn’t been waged just to save humanity. We’d
fought to save ourselves, too. I’d fought for my freedom, but what good was
freedom when I found no joy in life alone? I wanted to share it with someone, to
share the bonds of respect and fidelity, to know that to someone in the world, I
was their life. But I would never have that now. Not with someone who could ever
hope to be my equal, and I could never be with someone who looked down on me as
something less. Hades had been my only hope.
A pitiful cry caught my attention, and I stopped weeping. Only
a few feet away, crumpled on the ground, lay a tiny bird no bigger than an
acorn. His wing was crooked, and as I peered down at him, he cheeped
helplessly.
“You poor thing.” Gently lifting the bird into my hand, I
stroked his back. Next to the peacock that had become my constant companion in
Olympus, this was the tamest creature I’d ever seen.
I touched the broken wing, willing it to heal. The bones eased
back into place, and at last the bird righted himself. He seemed to doubt that
his wing was fixed; he kept it close as he expanded the other, as if readying
himself for takeoff. But instead he remained in my palm, and he cocked his head
as he chirped up at me once more.
Despite the heartbreak of the morning, I smiled. “You can fly
now, you know. You don’t have to stay with me.”
He hopped from my palm to the tips of my fingers, and at last
he spread both of his wings. As he took off, I felt that same keen wrench in my
chest, and it only brought on another fresh wave of tears. Everyone would leave
me eventually, given enough time.
But even as I thought it, I felt a featherlight touch on my
shoulder, and the bird chirped beside my ear. I wiped my cheeks. “You’re back,”
I said thickly.
Another chirp, and he took a few strands of my hair in his
beak. I managed a small smile.
“I wouldn’t eat that if I were you. Let’s find you some
seeds.”
The bird and I spent the rest of the day together, exploring
the woods around the lake as I tried to find his home. But no matter how hard I
searched the trees, I saw no evidence of a nest. He couldn’t have been very old,
certainly not on his own yet, but I heard no cries of his mother or siblings. So
he’d been abandoned, after all.
“We aren’t so different, you and I,” I said as he perched on my
finger. We sat on a rock, sunbathing in the warm afternoon glow. “I’m on my own,
as well.”
He gave a questioning chirp, as if he understood me. Maybe he
did.
“My brother—my friend, he abandoned me, as well.” It was silly,
talking to a bird, spilling my secrets, but I had no one else. Not even my
sisters were trustworthy anymore. “He promised to come see me, but it’s been a
year. Not very long in the scheme of things, despite what you may think, but it
still hurts.”
Nearby, a tree rustled in the breeze, and the bird danced from
one end of my finger to the other. He knew he could fly, and that he remained
here healed something inside me. At last, someone was choosing to be with
me.
“My brother—my other brother, he wants to marry me,” I said.
The bird tilted his head again, and I smiled. “He’s King of the Skies—your king,
even if you don’t know it. I doubted he could do it at first, you know. We all
did, and he proved us wrong, which only makes it hurt even more. Have you ever
wanted to be needed so badly that you felt as if your heart would burst?”
He hopped up my arm, climbing until he sat on my shoulder
again. I offered him my finger, but he remained.
“Of course you haven’t. But my brother Zeus, he only wants me
as an ornament. Something to make him look stronger. He doesn’t see me—he
doesn’t love me. He loves my power. And even if I did agree to marry him, he
would never be faithful to me. I would never be his equal, and he would insist I
bow down to him. That isn’t the life I want.”
Another chirp, and his warm little body brushed up against the
crook of my neck.