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“Great party as always.” Apollo, the god of truth and light, raised his glass in a celebratory salute to the lord of the underworld.
It was not a compliment to be taken lightly, coming from the god who had perfected the art of throwing parties, and Hades knew this. He raised his glass in return and inclined his head in acknowledgment. “The compliment is appreciated.”
“I foresee good business for the triplets,” Hermes, Mercury’s god, declared as he joined the two.
“That is impossible,” Apollo drawled with a mock frown, “when oracles are not within the realm of your power.” Hades laughed, and Hermes, despite rolling his eyes, was also grinning. It was a common pastime between the Olympians to challenge each other on who had the most useful powers and dominions.
“How did you find this temple?” Hermes asked the lord of the underworld. “I thought this was lost to civilization.”
“Apologies, my young brother,” Hades said with a grin. “But those are trade secrets only the Three Graces have the right to reveal.”
So it was true then, Apollo thought. Although Hermes had mentioned of the triplets’ involvement and the grapevine had pretty said as much, it was the first time for Apollo to hear Hades confirming the rumors.
He glanced at the trio, who was now understandably surrounded by a throng of immortals inquiring about their services. For so long, Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia had been disregarded by other immortals as minor deities whose only claim to fame were being the daughters of Aphrodite.
Casting a look at his admittedly remarkable surroundings, from which an abandoned and long-buried temple had been turned into a land of crystal winter, Apollo knew Hermes’ words would come true. From here on, the triplets’ efforts would be recognized and it would only be a matter of time before Zeus himself rewarded with more assignments.
“Why did you choose them?” Apollo asked curiously. “Most of our kind usually ask for this kind of help from one of the Muses.”
“They were busy,” Hades said with a shrug.
Apollo raised a brow. “Too busy for one of the most powerful Olympians?”
Hades grimaced. “Stop making a big deal out of this.”
“Then stop lying to the god of truth,” he retorted.
“This is why I avoid talking to you.”
“Actually,” Hermes intruded with a sardonic smile, “this is why most immortals avoid talking to him.”
Apollo only laughed, knowing it was the truth and not at all bothered by it. “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo,” he quoted, “but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”
Hades and Hermes looked at each other.
Finally, Hades said, “I give up. Who said that?”
Apollo bared his teeth in a smile. “Oprah Winfrey.”
The two other Olympians shuddered.
“It is simply not done, Apollo,” Hermes said with mock despair, “for a god to quote a human who is still alive. It is just not done.”
“I fear I shall make my leave before your closeness to humanity rubs off on me,” Hades said and after bidding the two with a deep bow, the lord of the Underworld walked away to greet the latest guests to have arrived.
Hermes and Apollo stared after the older Olympian.
“How old do you think he is?” Hermes asked.
“Old enough he probably would have forgotten his age,” Apollo guessed. “Zeus has.”
“He only says he has,” Hermes said with a snort, “to save face, since we all know Hera’s much, much younger than he is.”
“True.” Apollo glanced at the other god, who was the closest to him among the other Olympians. “Why do you care to know anyway?”
“It just makes me wonder, I suppose,” Hermes murmured. “Like how old you need to be in order to realize certain truths about life.”
Apollo said flatly, “Don’t even think of saying her name. He may seem like a changed man now, but do not be fooled by his smiles and newfound charm. Hades is still the king of the Underworld, and the reason why he is called the Prince of Darkness remains true.”
The god of light fell silent, and Hermes knew even without Apollo saying a word what the other god was thinking.
Of all the Olympians, Apollo was the one who held the humans most dearly to him. However, he was also the god of plague, and when the time came that the Crones decreed the need for massive deaths to take place—-
It was Hades who had struck the final blow, Hades who had willingly spared Apollo from the weight of those deaths.
“Sometimes,” Apollo admitted under his breath, “I think what happened to him is all my fault.”
“Preposterous,” Hermes dismissed with a rare note of practicality injected in his normally mischievous voice. “You are not one of the Erotes to have manipulated his emotions and make him fall the way he did for Persephone.”
“But I was the one who made him blind to the faults of mortals, and she is more mortal than she would ever care to admit. For most of us, our word is our bond but it is not so for her. She has spent most of her childhood surrounded by mortals, and it has made her as...duplicitous. That humans are flawed I already know, and I care for them despite it. But Hades – the only times he knew of them was in the times when they were most cruel and selfish, sickeningly in need of purging. It had made him shun the human race and this had blinded him how they have the power to fool even immortals like us.”
They looked at the Lord of the Underworld. Tallest and second most powerful among the Olympians, Hades was every inch the warrior, and he wore his strength and authority like second skin. He drew gazes everywhere he went, with young and old goddesses falling all over themselves to catch his attention, never mind if they all secretly thought the same thing.
Hades was still in love with the former Queen of the Underworld, and it might never change.
Might being the operative word, Hermes thought. After all, Hades had never said anything to affirm or deny it, and since the Prince of Darkness had just about the world’s best poker face, there was no way to know if it was a lie—-
Or could they?
He looked at Apollo. “Does he still love her?”
The other god slowly nodded.
****
“CONGRATULATIONS, MILORD. Your party is once again a success.” Hypnos, the wickedly playful god of sleep with his telltale drooping eyes, spoke with a yawn.
Hades rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to act with me, Hypnos.” Hidden from the mortal world was the fact that Hypnos, despite his ability to send others to sleep, was actually immune to the attraction of sleep himself. He only pretended to and never hesitated to exploit this little-known advantage to eavesdrop on mortals and immortals alike.
Hypnos yawned again. “I do not understand you at all, milord.” But his gray, slumberous gaze held a wicked gleam that belied his words.
“Of course you don’t.”
Hypnos leaned against the wall, his casual stance deceptive for his senses were always on the alert for any kind of threat. “Shall we leave, sir?”
“Are you not enjoying the party?”
“I am,” he said easily, and it was true. In fact, it was precisely that reason why he had also been chosen to act as the king’s bodyguard. His other brothers, most especially Agon, the god of agony, despised all sorts of gatherings and more so when they took place outside the Underworld.
“On the other hand, milord—-” Hypnos glanced at his king with hooded lids. “You are not.”
A moment passed before his king said finally, “I should have brought the god of grief with me. At least I could count on him being silent all time.”
“And boring,” Hypnos countered. “You must not forget the strong and silent types like my older brother are also the boring types.” He paused. “They also have shorter tempers, and they would have turned your celebration into a complete disaster.”
“You have a point,” Hades acknowledged with a grimace.
“I serve to please,” Hypnos said, straightening off the wall to bow at his king.
“Stop that,” Hades growled irritably. “It makes you seem more like a damn fop than a warrior.”
“But my king...” Hypnos’ gaze was of sham innocence. “I am only taking my cue from your continued insistence to pretend as well.” Hade’s murderous gaze sliced into him, but Hypnos pretended ignorance. He knew he was treading on dangerous ground, but he also knew, like all the other subjects of the Underworld, the way things were for the past two millennia could not continue.
Since the former queen had left, the king had changed into someone almost completely unrecognizable.
Once, the king had been a too-serious man, and it had been a common pastime for the kingdom’s children to see who could win a smile from their ruler.
When the queen came to his life, he had started to smile more. Talk more. Love more.
When the queen left, everyone had thought the king would change, and everyone had been prepared to aid him.
But instead the opposite had come true.
The king had continued to smile. The king had even continued to throw the most magnificent parties on his birthday. And for a while, they had been fooled, thinking that the king had not been as hurt as they had feared.
Until that day.
Remembering made Hypnos clench his fists with an impotent need to fight for his king. It was not right, he thought. It was not right at all that his king would suffer so while that woman—-
“I can feel you radiating anger,” Hades warned quietly, “and that is not good.” After all, the demons that carried out dreams and nightmares answered to the god of sleep. More of this vibration, and even the immortals around them would have trouble sleeping.
Hypnos sought control over himself. “I apologize, milord.”
“It is not of consequence, but be sure not to let it happen again.”
“Yes, milord.”
Hades shook his head. “Shake off that seriousness from your shoulders, Hypnos. You are the youngest of my Underworld’s guards, supposedly the only one who knows how to have fun.”
He gestured to the ongoing festivities behind them. With Dionysus’ powerful and vaunted wines flowing in their bloods, most of the immortals were now celebrating with passionate abandon. Restraint was all but forgotten, more so with the nymphs and fauns dancing and seducing about them and a siren was humming, the music just enough to overwhelm the senses and allow their most basic instincts to rise.
“Go and have fun, Hypnos.”
The command in the king’s tone could not be ignored, and the younger god bowed. “Yes, my king.”
Hades watched the warrior god join the crowd. Nymphs flocked around him immediately. It was a rare instance for someone belonging to the Underworld to make an appearance outside it, and bedding someone from the Underworld would add a much-envied feather to one’s cap.
Turning around, he strode out into the balcony and glanced up at skies that were unfamiliar only to him and his subjects.
They thought his world was dark, Hades mused, and yet it was this human world that was blacker, this human world that was so flawed and so steep in sin that it made the air smell rotten.
“Milord!”
It was Thanatos, and Hades immediately turned, alerted by the ominous note in his second-in-command’s voice. “What is it?”
“Something inexplicable has shown up at the entrance of our world.”
“Show me.”
“Yes, milord.” Thanatos ripped the air around him like it was a piece of canvas, and a moment later Hades saw the entrance to his world, where the rest of his powerful sentries still stood guard.
“Above the gates, my king. Do you see it?”
Following Thanatos’ line of gaze, Hades started when he saw a doorway of some kind blazing above the gates of the Underworld. “I have not seen anything like this in my life.” He stretched his arm and with a wave of his hand, he drew the scene closer to him so that this time the doorway would be right above his head.
“Could it be human sorcery?” Thanatos asked grimly.
“Perhaps, but somehow this door feels much...stronger than anything a mere mortal could make.”
Before Thanatos could speak, Hypnos had come to join them in the balcony. “What’s happening?” Having sensed the winged demon’s presence, Hypnos knew that only the direst of circumstances could have compelled Thanatos to leave the Underworld.
Looking up, Hypnos almost took a step back when he saw the doorway right above the king’s head. “What is that?” Immortals moved freely from one world to another, but they did so without the use of portals—-
And that door looked exactly like what a portal would be, Hypnos thought with a frown, if such a thing existed.
Then he noticed something else.
“Milord, the door is opening!”
Hades stiffened.
“Stay back, milord!” Thanatos growled.
But it was too late.
The door was opened, and the sound of a feminine cry reached them.
Hades tensed.
Did that woman truly need his help or was she but a bait for a trap devised by powerful humans?
The answer to this fell on the Lord of the Underworld, literally, as the next thing Hades knew, a woman was thrown out of the door in the sky—-
Her ear-splitting cry made them wince and had everyone inside the temple running to the balcony.
Hades fell into the floor as she landed atop of him with enough force to make him suck his breath.
The woman quickly pushed herself up, her hands planted on his chest, and a dazed look on her pale face.
In the fraction of a second, two swords were pointed straight at her throat, with neither Hypnos nor Thanatos willing to underestimate any threat to their king.
Hades looked up into the bright blue eyes staring down at him with seemingly innocent confusion.
Who the fuck was she?
But before he could ask the pertinent questions, someone in the crowd started to clap.
“What are you doing,” Hades heard the god of light hiss under his breath.
“I can’t believe none of you are thinking what I’m thinking.” Hermes’ answering laughter held the usual note of amiable malice that was expected from the god of mischief.
“Stop speaking in riddles—-”
“I will, if you start thinking in them,” Hermes returned with laconic ease. Pointing to the girl still lying frozen atop the lord of the world, he quoted, “The lord would fall because of her.”
The crowd gasped, having recognized the words.
The two guards drew their swords back.
Hades whitened. Impossible. It was impossible. When had a prophecy ever been so literal?
And yet—-
He, the Lord of the Underworld, had fallen because of her.
When Thanatos and Hypnos saw the look in their lord’s eyes, the two sentries immediately dropped down on one knee as a sign of respect for their prophesied queen.
At this, the lower-ranking immortals in their midst fell on one knee as well, hoping to gain favor with the Lord of the Underworld.
When the girl saw everyone kneeling, she quickly scrambled off him—-
Hades’ jaw clenched when she squirmed against his erection. Dammit, was this girl trying to seduce him in public? Feeling his erection press noticeably against his pants, Hades bit back a curse and swiftly rose to his feet. He turned his back on the crowd, hoping no one had caught sight of it.
Hermes and Apollo glanced at each other, both of them having noticed the Lord of the Underworld’s reaction to the girl.
Hermes had only meant to joke about the prophecy but maybe there was more truth to it than he had originally seen.
When Hades turned to face the girl again, he was stunned to find her on bended knee as well. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked in exasperation.
“B-because they knelt down, so I thought—-” She gazed up at him, bewildered. “Shouldn’t I?”
Not when you’re the reason they’re kneeling, Hades thought. He said finally, “Stand up, milady.” He offered his hand to assist her, but she had already gotten to her feet. He waved a hand to his sentries and the other immortals, and the rest stood up as well.
He addressed the crowd, saying politely, “I would appreciate a moment of privacy with my brothers, if you please.” Although it was phrased as a request, everyone knew they didn’t really have much of a choice where an Olympian was concerned.
Recognizing that they had also been given their orders, Thanatos and Hypnos did quick work at ushering the guests back inside before pulling the doors of the balcony shut. The two then took position next to the doors, ensuring that the Olympians and their prophesied queen would not be disturbed.
“Do you really think it’s her?” Hypnos could not help but ask his companion.
The winged demon took his time replying, and when he did his voice was carefully neutral. “Unless it has been proven otherwise, I shall treat her as our prophesied queen.”