by Aimée Carter
At last I faced her again, unable to help my grin. “Unless I trick him. Unless I play him like a fool the same way he’s played me.”
She frowned. “You’re miserable enough as it is. Why put yourself in the line of fire all over again?”
“Because when he takes another mistress—and he will, we both know he will—I’m going to make sure it’s me.”
* * *
I roamed the beaches every night for a season. Demeter watched Ares for me, and though we planned an elaborate story if Zeus ever checked in on me, he never did.
I didn’t expect it to work. I hoped, and I used my abilities as much as I dared to entice him to come to me, but in all my planning, I never truly thought I would win.
But at last, as the full moon shone down on my changed form, I saw him. He stood framed by the trees in the distance, his hair tickling his shoulders in the breeze, and for a moment I nearly forgot why I hated him. Whether he recognized me or not, I couldn’t tell, and I held my breath as he slowly made his way across the sand toward me.
“Hello,” he murmured in a voice he’d never used with me. “What’s your name?”
Relief swept through me, as palpable as the golden ichor in my veins. He didn’t know me. And at last, for the first time in months, I smiled at him.
“Hephaesta,” I murmured. “My name is Hephaesta.”
* * *
Our affair lasted one night, but that was all I needed. I never returned to the beach, and whether or not he came looking for his new mistress, I didn’t know. He never showed any signs of distress in Olympus. Then again, I’d been nothing more than a fling to him, and if he truly fell in love with my disguise, then he was a greater fool than even I’d suspected.
My belly grew round as time passed. I made no effort to hide it, and though Demeter reported whisperings and gossip from the other gods, I didn’t care. Whether they knew it or not, this was a legitimate child. What they thought didn’t matter.
At last, on the morning I gave birth to my second son, Zeus confronted me. I rested with the baby in my bedroom, and he stormed in, startling my peacock into flight.
“What did you do that for?” I said, sighing as the bird took off from my balcony. “We were having a nice chat.”
“I’m sure you were.” He slammed his fist on the wall so hard that they must’ve heard it on the other side of Olympus. “Who is he?”
“Who is who?” I said innocently, turning my attention back to the baby sleeping soundly in my arms. “You mean him? This is my son.”
“I do not mean the baby,” he said through clenched teeth. “Tell me who your consort is.”
“My consort?” I tilted my head in what must have been an infuriating show of ignorance. “You’re my consort, dear husband. Or have you forgotten? It certainly would explain quite a lot, wouldn’t it?”
“Enough,” he thundered, and before I could blink, he snatched my son from my arms and stormed to the balcony. The baby started to sob. “I will not be treated this way. I will not be disrespected by my own wife. I will not be played a fool in front of my subjects and my council—”
“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.