by Aimee Carter
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 c
loser 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.”