The Heavens seemed eerily unchanged when I returned. There was a great celebration at first. Zeus had recovered. With the help of Hestia, Hecate, and Apollo, he’d put a stop to any talk of rebellion. It didn’t take much to bring Ares to heel. And Poseidon and Hades seemed almost relieved not to have to contend with each other for power.
No one spoke of Athena--at least, not in my hearing. But they all blamed me. It was easy to blame me. I blamed me.
Just like the Heavens, I was the same on the surface . . . but, in reality, so different.
Athena was gone, and without her wise counsel and diplomacy, decision-making became impossible. Tempers flared. Resentments festered. Old wounds opened. New wounds appeared. Hephaestus’s betrayal meant that all trust between gods was gone. Everyone was paranoid. No one could relax. No one could be happy.
And the worlds suffered.
Hades sealed off the world of the dead from the Heavens. I couldn’t even search for Justin there--not that there’d be anything to find.
In the end, the only thing keeping the Heavens united at all was Ekhidna. Her escape had proven, in the long run, perhaps even more devastating than Hephaestus’s betrayal, because Ekhidna took her knowledge of the spell to block out the Heavens and used it to catastrophic effect. Huge swathes of the mortal world were masked now. Looking down from the Heavens, the mortal world was permanently clouded in a vast, roiling storm. We caught brief glimpses, but not enough to intervene.
There was only one solution. We had to go back--back to the mortal world, back to how things used to be in ancient times. We had no choice. If we didn’t, Ekhidna and her endless spawn of monsters would overrun the earth like a plague of locusts, destroying everything and everyone until the world was pure chaos.
So we had to go back. But who would go? Could they be trusted? What if things went wrong, as they had before? And what god would ever agree to go when they could die?
And that was why I volunteered. And that was why, against his better judgment, Zeus agreed.
I would go back. I would take the risk. Me. Zeus’s beloved. The Queen of Gods.
I’d worried at first that the others would never accept that. We’d come so close to oblivion during my last mission to the mortal world; we’d lost Athena, and almost lost Zeus.
But, to my surprise, the others agreed--on one condition. All of the other gods would take turns going to the mortal world. They would share the risk. But I, I would remain. Permanently. It was a particularly fitting punishment for my failure to save Athena. I appreciated that. It’s what I would have done if I were them. Exile to the very site of my shame.
Zeus had almost shattered his throne when they demanded it. And I knew, if I fought, I would’ve won the right to rotate, just like the others. I always won.
But I didn’t fight.
Without my fire, my fury, Zeus capitulated. Maybe he thought it was what I wanted. Maybe it was. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I didn’t know myself anymore. And the time away, away from the others and their expectations, their memories of who I was . . . I needed that. Time and distance to sort myself out, to make sense of it all. And to mourn.
I’d go. The others would come in time--one by one, drawn by lots. I’d prepare for their arrival. I’d lure mortals into taking the oath, and I’d find and train other mortals, special mortals, to join us on their own.
The Age of Heroes had returned.
EPILOGUE
“You didn’t have to come with me,” I told her, as I opened the door of our one-bedroom apartment.
I was shivering and wet from the rain. Not a great omen for our arrival. I’d forgotten how uncomfortable mortal bodies could be. But the cold rain was a fast and necessary reminder that I wasn’t myself anymore. Not that I’d really been myself in the Heavens anyway.
“Don’t be stupid,” Demeter said lightly. “I’m not going to let you waste away alone in exile for something that isn’t even your fault.”
I stiffened as I walked inside. “I chose this.”
“I know,” Demeter said quickly.
She was trying to placate me. But I couldn’t bring myself to fight with her. That part of me was still there, of course. I didn’t think it’d ever fully die. But it was exhausted. Like the rest of me.
“I just meant that I didn’t want you to be alone,” Demeter said.
I knew that was why she’d come. But I didn’t know how to tell her that being alone was exactly what I wanted.
Demeter closed the door behind her. “So, where do we start?”
“My new power will help me find the mortals who can become Heroes,” I said. “But let’s get some rest first. We can start in the morning. When we’re rested. And dry.”
Demeter nodded. “Do you want to take a hot bath?”
I could tell by her tone that she was hoping for a no. She was shivering even worse than I was.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I can wait. I’ll make myself some tea and think about our next move.”
Demeter smiled gratefully.
“Are you sure?” she pressed.
“I’m sure,” I said. “Now go. Before I change my mind.”
Demeter hesitated. But when I made a move in the direction of the bathroom door, she rushed inside, slamming the door behind her.
I sighed. Solitude. At last.
I started to make tea. I filled the kettle. I opened the cupboard and picked out a box. But as soon as I touched it, I closed the cabinet door.
I didn’t want tea. What I really wanted was sleep. All this time alone, to think and to find myself, and all I really wanted was to forget.
I lay down on the couch and closed my eyes. Every time I’d slept before as a mortal, it’d been out of sheer exhaustion. I’d lost consciousness the moment my head touched the pillow.
Now, for some reason, I couldn’t seem to fall asleep. My mind was too full, worries and thoughts streaking across it like shooting stars, exploding like fireworks. How could anyone sleep when it was so bright?
But it gradually grew dimmer. The quiet set in. I drifted in this blissful state for a while.
Gradually, my mind brightened. But there were no fireworks, no streaking lights. Instead, the light came from all around me at once. It was blinding. I had to shield my eyes with my hands.
My hands.
I looked at my hands. And then I looked around.
Enormous waves crashed all around me, rising out of an endless grey sea. A cold, fresh, salty wind whipped around me. I had to pull my hair from my eyes.
I stood atop a familiar, rocky spire. And I wasn’t alone.
“Justin?”
Hera, Queen of Gods (Goddess Unbound) Page 38