Authors: Aimée Carter
“
Your
council?” I scrambled to
follow, but my empty body was too exhausted and sore to move as quickly as my
son’s cries demanded. “It is
our
council, or have
you forgotten that, too?”
“Do not toy with me,” he snarled, and he stood on the edge of
the balcony, balancing my crying son precariously in one arm.
“Give him back.” I reached for him, but Zeus sidestepped me.
“Zeus, he’s a baby, he needs me, give him
back
—”
“Artemis and Apollo were babies, too, when you sent a serpent
to kill them.” Zeus shifted until the baby was over the edge with nothing but
sky below him. “Shall we discover if you whored yourself out to a mortal?”
Icy terror filled me, extinguishing the blaze of my burning
anger. “Zeus, no—you can’t—”
“You are my wife. You swore fidelity to me. You are the goddess
of marriage, and yet you stain the institution with—with this
abomination
.”
“He’s not an abomination—”
“I will not have him in Olympus as a constant reminder of your
infidelity.”
My face grew hot. “What about your infidelity? Your lies, your
cheating, your whores—why should you be spared the anguish of having to see my
son when I must look into the eyes of your bastards for the rest of
eternity?”
The breeze that blew in from the balcony shifted into a
chilling wind, and lightning crackled. “Is that what you think of our
family?”
“
Your
family,” I spat. “Not mine.
They will never be mine.”
“And this—
thing
is?” He glanced at
the baby, who was now crying so hard that his face was turning purple.
I rose to my full height. My son was not a thing. He was a
person who deserved Zeus’s respect and love, though I’d long since discovered he
wasn’t capable of giving, either. “He’s more of a family to me than you will
ever be.”
I didn’t think he would really do it. Zeus may have been a
cheater, he may have been a liar, but he’d never physically harmed someone who
hadn’t wronged him first. But as I watched, helpless to stop it, the baby
slipped from his arms and plummeted to the earth.
The edges of my vision turned red, and any lingering affection
I had for Zeus vanished. “You will pay,” I whispered in a murderous voice. “I
cannot kill you, but I will find a way to destroy you. You have my word.”
Zeus scoffed, though for the briefest of moments, I thought I
saw a flicker of doubt hidden underneath his arrogance and pride. “You brought
it on yourself, bearing a bastard in my palace.”
“He isn’t a bastard.” Stepping back, I shed my normal
appearance and turned into the girl he’d found on that moonlit beach. “His name
is Hephaestus, and he would have been your son.”
In the space of a single heartbeat, recognition flickered in
Zeus’s eyes, and far too late, he reached into the empty sky. “But—”
“Now he will have no father. Not when the one he has tries to
murder him. When I return, the entire council will know what you did, I promise
you that. And unlike you, Zeus, I keep my word.”
Before he could respond, I disappeared. I had to find my son
before he did.
Landing on the side of a mountain, so high up that I could see
the sea in the distance, I listened. The wail of the wind nearly covered his
cries, but nothing in the world, not even Zeus himself, could keep me from my
son.
I found him among a bed of sharp rocks, sobbing and squirming
against the bitter cold. Though he was immortal, his legs stuck out at an odd
angle, and he sobbed as if he were in real pain.
“Oh, baby,” I murmured, and I gently gathered him up, healing
his legs as best I could. It wasn’t my specialty, but Zeus must have cursed
him—that was the only explanation. More reason to hate my dear husband. My hate
wouldn’t do any good unless I channeled it properly, though.
I would find a way to destroy him, to usurp his power and make
sure he couldn’t hurt anyone again. Not me, not our children, and certainly not
everything the council had worked for. In his thirst for power and control, Zeus
had created a rift unlike anything we’d seen since the Titan War. And at this
rate, it would only be a matter of time before another one began.
I couldn’t let that happen.
* * *
I waited. And I watched. And I listened.
Time passed, though I hardly noticed. We grew no older, and
Zeus certainly grew no wiser, but I drank in every detail that could be helpful
to successfully overthrowing him. He didn’t speak to me after the balcony
incident, but to my relief, he ignored Hephaestus, as well. Not out of anger or
pride—the few times I caught him watching our son toddle around on his lame legs
or challenge Ares to an arm-wrestling match, I saw guilt and regret in his
eyes.
Good. But no matter how much he longed to be a part of our
son’s life, I wouldn’t let him. And I’d long since poisoned Hephaestus against
him, making sure he knew exactly what his father was capable of.
But despite the truth of the matter, in the time I’d been gone
to fetch Hephaestus from the earth, Zeus had told the council that I was the one
who had dropped him. Out of panic, out of a need to keep his iron grip on the
council, out of desire to see me bleed for something I didn’t do—whatever his
intentions were, Poseidon and his children believed him. And from then on, none
of them tried to call me Mother or came to me with their problems. Just as I’d
banished Zeus from my life, he’d successfully banished me from his.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t need him. I was still Queen of the
Skies, and that was something he would never take from me.
I spent most of my time with Demeter. Despite our differences,
I trusted her, and she knew as well as I did how dire it was that we put an end
to his reign of terror as soon as possible. Though at first we plotted together,
she grew more and more distant as the seasons passed, until one morning I
couldn’t take it anymore. It was one thing if she was growing tired of waiting,
but she was my only ally. I couldn’t lose her support.
“Demeter.” I burst into her bedroom. “Sister, I must
speak—”
I stopped dead in my tracks. Demeter sat on the edge of her
bed, tears flowing freely down her cheeks, and Zeus kneeled in front of her. He
clasped her hands in his, and I’d never seen such pain on his face before.
Silence. Demeter looked at me as if she were staring into the
eyes of the Fates, but Zeus was the one I focused on. Whatever he was saying to
hurt her, I would have his head for it. “Get out,” I growled, sounding as feral
as any of the wild creatures that roamed the earth.
I didn’t need to tell him twice. He stood and hurried past me,
and as soon as he was gone, I sank down at my sister’s side. “What happened?
What did he say? Are you all right?”
That only made her cry harder. She hid her face in her hands,
her shoulders shaking with each sob. I rubbed her back, but nothing I said
calmed her. Zeus would burn for whatever he’d done to her.
“I’m s-sorry,” she managed to choke out several minutes later.
“I’m s-so sorry.”
“For what?” I said, stunned. What did she have to be sorry
for?
But she shook her head again. “I did something terrible. It was
thoughtless and horrible and—I don’t know what came over me. Just seeing you
with your sons, seeing how happy you were—”
“Demeter.” I was anything but happy, and she of all people
should’ve known it. “What are you trying to say?”
She pulled her hands away from her face long enough for me to
see her expression crumble. “I wanted a baby,” she whispered. “I wanted a family
the way you had a family. I wanted to be happy—I want someone to share my life
with.”
The way Zeus had spoken to her. The way he’d held her hands. My
insides twisted with dread. “What did you do, Demeter?” I whispered.
She reached for me, but I pulled away, and she broke down once
more. “I’m so sorry, Hera. I wasn’t thinking. He offered, and—”
“And you thought that instead of refusing him like you should
have, instead of finding someone else, you’d rather betray me by having his
child.”
Her whole body shook, and she once again buried her face in her
palms. For a long time, neither of us said anything. She didn’t refute it, and I
didn’t ask her to. The cold truth settled over my shoulders, icing over what was
left of my love for my siblings.
I was alone. I was completely and utterly alone. Even my sister
had abandoned me for that fool. Even my sons still called him Father.
I had nothing that was mine and mine alone to love. Zeus
tainted everything in my life that had once been good, stealing it away from me
like a common thief. Did he hate me so much for challenging him on the island
long ago that he was determined to tear me apart, piece by piece? Was this his
plan? Marry me, pretend to love me, pretend to respect me, pretend to give me
everything I’d ever wanted and then rip it all away?
I couldn’t know for sure, but it didn’t matter. Whether he’d
planned it or not, that was exactly what Zeus had done to me. Though the Titan
War had ended long ago, in its place, a new one had been born without my
knowing. Maybe without any of us knowing. But it’d been there from the
beginning, and now there was no denying it.
Zeus against me. King against Queen. And Zeus thought he’d won,
with his control over the council, with his seduction of my sister, the one
person I had still trusted.
But he was forgetting one thing: I was more powerful than he
was. I’d been the one to win the Titan War. And I was the one who was going to
destroy him.
I stood shakily, fighting to keep any signs of my distress from
Demeter. “You are never to speak to me again,” I said quietly. “You will not
look at me. You will not come to me. You will not call me sister. From this
moment on, we are through.”
“Hera,” she sobbed, but I ignored her. She’d had her chance,
and though she’d known what the consequences would bring, this was the path
she’d chosen. I would not show her mercy for it.
“Goodbye,” I said, and without looking back, I walked through
the curtains and out of her life forever.
Part Three
The Underworld was colder than I’d expected. Not
unbearably so, but I wasn’t used to a world without the sun. Walking down the
path to the entrance of Hades’s obsidian palace, I clasped my hands together,
partially for warmth and partially to keep them from shaking.
Hades was waiting for me in the throne room, hunched over in
his black-diamond throne, as if he were carrying an unbearable load. Hundreds of
people—dead souls—sat in the pews before him, each watching him expectantly. For
what?
“Brother,” I said, hating the slight tremble in my voice. I
stopped in front of his throne. Though he was the one person I would bow to if
he asked, I knew he never would. He was not Zeus.
“Hera.” He cracked a faint smile and stood, drawing me into an
embrace. It was like coming home. Forget the sun—the coldest pit in the universe
would be warm as long as Hades was there with me. I hugged him tightly, only
dimly aware of the eyes on us. Let the dead stare.
“I missed you.” To my horror, my voice caught in my throat, and
he pulled away enough to look at me.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
One look at the concern on his face—genuine, sincere, not born
out of manipulation or a need for something else—and the dam inside me burst. As
I cried into his shoulder, Hades gestured for his subjects to leave, and they
all stood and exited the throne room without a fuss. Where they went or why
they’d been here in the first place, I wasn’t sure, but I’d never been so
grateful to anyone in my life.
At last he eased back onto his throne, taking me with him. I
curled up in his lap, not caring that it wasn’t proper or that I was married or
anyone who came in would assume the worst. Let them. I needed Hades. I needed a
friend.
He rubbed my back, not saying a word. Finally, once I’d cried
myself out, I rested against him and took several deep breaths. “Demeter’s
pregnant.”
His hand stilled between my shoulder blades, and confusion
radiated from him. “Oh?”
“Zeus is the father.”
“Oh.”
His arms tightened around me.
“Hera, I’m so sorry.”
“Could I stay down here with you?” For the first time in all my
eternal years, I sounded like a child. But Hades was the only person I trusted
anymore, and unlike the other members of the council, he would never take
advantage of my vulnerability. Zeus and Poseidon would have reveled in it; my
sisters and the younger generation would have seen weakness. But Hades
understood.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Of course. As long as you need.”
“Thank you.” I rested against him, my face buried in the crook
of his neck as I inhaled his scent—winter and stone, with hints of a burning
fire. It may have taken much longer than I’d anticipated for him to fill his
promise, but he finally had. I wasn’t alone, after all.
* * *
I remained in the Underworld for so long that I lost
track of the seasons. News came from Zeus’s messenger when Demeter’s daughter,
Persephone, was born, and while Hades went up to visit, I couldn’t find it in
myself to bother.
Occasionally I met my sons on the surface, sometimes for an
afternoon swimming in the ocean, sometimes for an entire week living amongst the
trees as we talked. That was the one part about the current arrangement that I
hated—missing them. Ares was fully grown now and had taken his place on the
council, defending what he thought were my wishes. But I could see Zeus in him,
in every step he took, in every word he said, and it was agony.
Hephaestus was quieter, much more reserved, and his limp was a
constant reminder of what his father had done to him. I never had to worry about
seeing Zeus in him—he couldn’t have been more different from that arrogant,
insufferable liar. But his limp never went away, and despite my best efforts,
Zeus had claimed a stake in his life, as well.
The more time I spent with Hades, the more I grew to appreciate
what he did. Day in and day out, often without rest, he listened to the souls
who awaited his judgment. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, and on one
memorable occasion, for well over a day. Usually they talked about their
mistakes and regrets, but the more I listened, the more I realized that those
weren’t the parts of their lives the dead lingered on. The happy times—family,
love, the moments in the sunshine that didn’t seem extraordinary at the time,
but remained with them even after death—those were the parts that made them
smile. Those were the parts they seemed eager to tell Hades about. Those were
the parts of their lives that validated them, that made them feel whole, that
gave their life purpose.
I envied them. Even when I was with my sons, Zeus remained with
us, tainting everything. My only time away from him completely was with Hades in
the Underworld, and I relished it. I remained by his side, leaving only to meet
my sons or fulfill my duties to humanity, and there was nowhere else I would’ve
rather been.
Occasionally he asked my opinion on exceptionally difficult
cases. With him, I wanted to be gracious. I wanted to show him the compassionate
side of me that Zeus had so maliciously ripped to shreds. I wanted to show him I
wasn’t the ice queen everyone else seemed to think I was. I wanted to be my
best.
One day, as I explored the outer edge of the Underworld, I
heard footsteps behind me. This was the area where the dead spent all of
eternity, and it wasn’t unusual to run across them. Each time I stepped through
the rock barrier, the world around me was different, and this time I walked
along the edge of an island much like the one where we’d defeated Cronus.
“Hera?”
I stilled. I would have recognized that voice anywhere, and it
was the last one I wanted to hear again.
Demeter.
“I have nothing to say to you.” I could’ve disappeared and
returned to Hades’s palace, but I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of
seeing me run from her. This was my home now. She would be the one to leave.
“Hera, I need to talk to you.” She touched my wrist, and I
jerked away. “Please. It’s important.”
“Our definitions of
important
are
vastly different now, I suspect.” I moved away from her, heading toward the
ocean.
“Zeus wants to marry off the children,” she said. “Including
Ares and Hephaestus.”
I stopped at the edge of the water, and the waves lapped at my
feet. “Excuse me?”
“Zeus—he’s decided that Apollo, Hephaestus and Ares will marry
Persephone, Aphrodite and Athena.”
That bastard. He wanted to do to his own children what he’d
done to me. “Tell him I will never allow it.”
“He insists he doesn’t need your permission—”
“I am the goddess of marriage,” I thundered, turning on my heel
to look at her for the first time in years. “Any marriage I do not bless will
fail.”
Demeter stood there trembling, more frightened than I’d ever
seen her before. She seemed older now, more like our mother, and for a split
second I nearly didn’t recognize her. Her skin was paler than before, and she
looked as if she hadn’t smiled in a decade.
This wasn’t my sister. Zeus had ruined her as well, just as
he’d ruined me.
In that moment, I felt a spark of sympathy, but I squelched it
before it could grow into a flame. She’d watched him do the same thing to me.
She should’ve known.
“Please, Hera,” she whispered. “Come back. You can stop
this—he’ll listen to you. He misses you, even though he doesn’t want to admit
it.”
“Why do you care?” I snapped.
She swallowed. “Because when Persephone comes of age, he wants
to marry her to Ares.”
The thought of my son marrying her daughter made my stomach
turn, as I’m sure it made hers, though for entirely different reasons. Ares
wasn’t known for his gentleness. “And who would you prefer she marry?”
“Someone she chooses,” said Demeter quietly. “Someone she
loves.”
I took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of the fake ocean. “I
will speak with Ares and Hephaestus, and in the meantime, tell Zeus I will never
return. I’m happy here, and nothing he offers me will ever change my mind.”
Demeter hesitated. “He knows,” she said quietly. “And it hurts
him.”
“Good.” The more pain he was in, the better. “I will meet with
my sons immediately. Now go.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She didn’t disappear yet, though.
Instead Demeter hesitated, shifting her weight as if she wanted to move closer
to me, but thought better of it. “I did it for you, you know. For us.”
I scoffed. “You had my husband’s bastard for me?”
“To even our numbers. To stop Zeus from taking over—”
“He’s already taken over,” I said, not bothering to hide my
bitterness. “We lost a very long time ago, and I won’t listen to your lies. If
you’d really wanted to help by having a child, you would’ve had one with
Poseidon.”
“Zeus would’ve never allowed her onto the council then,” said
Demeter, and though I knew she was telling the truth, it wasn’t the excuse she
wanted it to be. It was simply another example of how he’d already won.
“I would have fought for her place,” I said. “I would’ve fought
for you. Now I have no one left to fight for but myself. I hope you’re
proud.”
An unbearable sadness settled over her expression, and she
exhaled, as if breathing out any last hope she had. Good. “Proud is the last
thing I am. You of all people should recognize that.” She nodded to me once.
“Goodbye, Hera. For what it’s worth, I will forever be sorry for what I did to
you.”
I sniffed. “As you should be.”
Demeter turned and walked back toward the stone wall. For a
moment, something inside me, something I’d buried so long ago that it had nearly
suffocated underneath my resentment and quiet rage, wiggled free. And I wanted
nothing more than for her to turn around and come back to me.
But she’d made up her mind long ago, as had I. That path was
gone now, and no matter how badly I ached to be sisters again, circumstances
would never allow it. Not anymore.
As soon as she was gone, I wasted no time. Less than an hour
later, I met Ares and Hephaestus on the island scarred by Cronus’s imprisonment.
“What do you two want?”
Ares scoffed. He was so much taller than me now, and he’d
cropped his dark curls short. “I’d rather never marry. I see no point. Unless,
of course, it was Aphrodite.” He grinned, and Hephaestus scowled. Apparently
Ares wasn’t the only one who had fallen under her spell. “Wouldn’t mind having a
go with her.”
Yes, Ares was every bit his father’s son. “And you,
Hephaestus?”
“I wouldn’t mind marrying,” he said quietly as he watched the
waves wash away his uneven footprints. “But I would rather choose my
partner.”
And Hephaestus was every bit mine. “I’ll take care of it,” I
said, touching his hand. “Zeus is a tyrant, and you both deserve better than
this.” I wouldn’t let what had happened to me happen to them. Even Zeus’s
daughters didn’t deserve it, though my sons had both apparently taken a liking
to Aphrodite. But she was not their property, and they had no right to choose
for her.
For the first time in years, I arrived in Olympus. After so
long in the Underworld, the intense sunlight in the throne room nearly blinded
me, but I forced myself to adjust quickly. I would not show weakness.
“Zeus!” I called, my voice echoing down the hallways, reaching
every inch of Olympus.
Seconds later, he appeared in front of me. He too looked older
now, as if he and Demeter had chosen to age together. I’d kept my appearance
young to match Hades’s, and now that I saw Zeus in front of me, the differences
between them—both inside and out—became painfully clear. I’d made the wrong
decision. And despite the few golden moments my marriage to Zeus had brought me,
our sons included, I would have given anything to go back to those minutes in
the antechamber before my wedding. I would have given anything to marry Hades
instead.
“Hera.” His voice had a mixture of caution and relief. “To what
do I owe this long-awaited honor?”
“You know why I’m here.” Despite his considerable height, I
stood toe-to-toe with him, refusing to flinch as he stared down at me. He may
have sounded kind and genial, but lightning flashed in his eyes. He hadn’t
forgiven me, just as I would never forgive him. “You will not have my blessing
for any marriage you arrange for your children that they do not consent to,” I
said. “Nor will any of their marriages produce legitimate offspring.”
He tilted his head, as if I were a curious creature he’d never
seen before. “You would neglect your duties in such a way?”
“My duty is to bless unions taken on willingly,” I said. “Not
to condone slavery.”
“Is that what you think of our marriage?” He reached out to
touch my cheek, and I slapped his hand away. “Do you think of yourself as a
slave?”
“Our marriage is nothing now. It clearly never meant anything
to you, and it no longer means anything to me. But I will hold you to your vows,
and I will not grant you a divorce. You may not marry another woman.”
“And you may not marry another man.” Though he forced his voice
to remain steady, his face slowly turned red, and his fists were clenched so
tightly that his knuckles were white. “Is that what you wish? An eternity of
loneliness?”
“Is that what you call sharing my sister’s bed?
Loneliness?”
“No,” he said. “And I would imagine you’re just as
lonely
as I am.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. Zeus had no way of knowing the
nature of my relationship with Hades, and I was more than happy to allow his
imagination to run wild.
“Is this your endgame?” said Zeus. “Marry Hades and become his
queen?”
“I will never be anyone’s queen again,” I said. “I am a queen
in my own right, and neither you nor anyone else on this damn council can take
that from me.”