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LANTERNS SPRING TO life. The glow casts shadow onto the walls in grotesque silhouettes. Statues loom, lingering darkness warping their beautiful faces.
I shiver, stepping closer to the center of the hallway. Hunch my shoulders more with each step. Dread twists my stomach and weighs heavy on my back.
When we reach the hall of blank doors, the guards don’t glance away from their posts. They’re spread out across each wall, one to each door. The tips of their spears gleam in the wane light.
“Desma—”
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Scraping against stone. Nails? My heart leaps into my throat. Are there more like Molpe trapped in these rooms?
Lanterns spark at the other end of the hall. A cloaked figure scrapes at the bottom edge of one of the doors. They wiggle a thin dagger beneath the two lines of stone. The dagger hilt sparkles with jewels.
The lantern light spreads closer. They bolt upright. The dagger clatters to the floor.
They turn back. Bounce on their toes, indecision in every line of their cloaked body. Then pivot, shifting into a run.
They’re halfway toward the other end when a hand grabs them around the waist. The new figure grunts, staggering back from a solid kick to their kneecap. He stops in a pool of light. Zeus.
The cloaked figure shrieks, frustration in each line of their tense body. Their voice goes shrill, then cracks. They launch themselves around Zeus.
He lunges, catching them around the waist again. Twists until he can grab both their wrists in one of his hands. He uses the other to pull back the hood low over their face.
Mussed waves of hair spill loose. A woman. She snarls, pulling against his hold. They struggle until she faces our end of the hall.
It’s Hera.
“Stop,” Zeus says.
She pulls, twisting her wrists in his hand with an enraged, wordless yell.
“Stop!” he says, an edge to his voice.
She grunts. Lifts her legs and kicks at his knees. He’s forced against the wall. A crack of bone when another kick lands against his knee. He snarls, hobbling forward on one leg to push her back. His knee cracks again. The bones fuse back together.
The guards remain motionless. Their stares focus on the wall across from them.
“I know they’re here,” Hera says.
She pulls first to one side. Then the other. His grip doesn’t budge.
He bares his teeth, snarling. “Who?”
“Your whores!”
He pulls her close. “There are no whores.”
Desma’s gasp is quiet. Quiet enough only I hear. Molpe’s name is at the tip of her tongue the same way it is on mine. Would it be so bad if Hera knew the truth?
Cosmas’ head. Blood pooling on white marble.
If Hera knows the truth, Desma will be killed. I’ll be killed.
And Zeus? He’ll be the one to kill us.
“Don’t lie to me,” Hera says.
Zeus twists her around, her back to his front. She screams. Her wrists grind, close to cracking. She tugs against his grip.
Footsteps begin in the distance. From behind us. I can’t be sure how many sets.
Hera bares her teeth, snapping at Zeus’ chin. Bringing her head down, she finally spots us. Her gaze focuses on me.
“You,” she says, seething.
I back away. Desma follows. She puts herself between me and the enraged goddess. The swell of affection is almost enough to quell my unease. Almost but not quite.
Ducking my head, I look away from Hera’s burning stare.
Murmuring voices come closer. How many? I count six but lose track of the footsteps.
Lanterns kick on. The corner leading to the next hall radiates light. The group rounds the corner.
The entirety of the Olympian court spills into the hall.
Hera’s gaze sears against the crown of my head. “You dare come to my palace, my home.”
I peek through my eyelashes.
She stops struggling. Dangles from his grip, feet off the ground no matter how far she stretches her toes. Her face flushes a livid red.
Zeus sighs. He readjusts his hand around her wrists for a fraction of a second.
Hera bursts into action, using her feet against his thighs to lift herself. She slams herself back. His nose breaks with a crunch.
Blood spills from his nose, spilling across the back of her neck. She doesn’t notice, too busy breaking from his grip. Stumbling forward, she lands on her knees in a heap of cloth and curls.
Within seconds, she lurches to her feet. Takes an unsteady step.
Toward me.
I duck under Desma’s raised hands, stopping in front of her. When she tries to edge forward, I push her back. If Hera kills one of us, it won’t be Desma.
Zeus groans, a noise of irritation rather than pain. He covers his nose with a bloody hand. Another crack of bone and the bleeding trickles to a stop. Beyond the blood, his nose is as normal as ever.
“Restrain her.” His voice is wet with blood.
Hera takes another step forward. The guards stomp into action. The musky scent of leather permeates the hall.
But she’s quick. Quicker than I thought possible in her heavy layers. Within a blink, she’s a breath from where I stand.
I inhale. Brace myself.
The guards grab her, one at each arm.
She leans forward until our faces are a hair apart. “Whatever he promised you? He lied.” Spittle lands on my face. “You’ll be used and forgotten like all the rest.”
I don’t glance away.
“Agathe,” Persephone says.
Hera’s stare focuses behind me. A blank mask settles over her flushed face.
I glance over my shoulder. Fast, in case she fights free of the guards.
Persephone’s at the front of the court, panting like she’s run the whole way. She tries to rush forward. Demeter grabs her wrist, pulling her back with strength and a murmur.
Hermes darts around the corner, sliding to a stop at the back of the group with Hades close behind. They push their way to the front.
“Your child won’t last,” Hera says, tone ice itself.
I turn to face her. Try to shove Desma farther away. Pointless—she presses close to my back. Something monstrous echoes in Hera’s voice. Something sharper than a dagger. She thinks I’m with child by Zeus? I’d laugh at the thought if she wouldn’t kill me for daring to do so.
“I kill most of them, you know.” She leans forward, dropping into a taunting whisper. “For each one who lives, five more die.”
The guards drag her back. Triumph shines bright on her face.
I’m upset, but not for the reason she thinks. All those children killed. For each hero of Zeus’ blood etched into history, legions more are lost to her wrath. Countless innocent children killed for the crime of their parentage.
Blood boils in my veins. My vision bleeds red.
The court is still, quiet chatter forgotten. Not one will meet my eyes. Not one. They knew. Each one of them knew and did nothing.
Gritting my teeth, I snap my head back around.
“Off with you.” Zeus pulls her back, uncaring of the guards attached to each of her arms.
Her feet scrabble for purchase against the polished marble. He lifts her free of the ground entirely. The guards hold her arms, being dragged along themselves. It would be comical in any other situation.
Hera stills.
Part of me wants to warn Zeus. I stumble back, pushing Desma, and keep my mouth shut.
Hera surges back, throwing him off balance. While he stumbles for footing, she bursts forward. The guards fly to each side, skidding to a stop against the far sides of the hall. Ear-splitting cracks of metal helmet against stone. They groan, then still.
She turns, only her cloaked back facing the court. Only Zeus can see her face. He crosses his thick arms. Yet he can’t conceal how his face drains of color. His fingers twitch.
“One more and I’ll leave, husband. Just one more of your conquests, and this court will split.”
He scoffs, turning his head away, but not before I glimpse his fear.
The court bursts into whispers. Fabric rustles when they shift on their feet. Zeus lifts his head, staring at them one by one.
He sneers, confidence falling back into place. “Cowards.”
This entire time I thought his confidence unshakable. Untouchable. All of us wear masks but never Zeus, the god-king. What reason would he have to wear one? He can do whatever he wants. Be whoever he wants.
Even the god-king has limits, has a mask. Only Hera knows how to push him to the edge. Part of me admires her. Another part shoves the admiration deep into the recesses of my mind where I won’t find it again.
“Come on,” Zeus says, motioning to the remaining guards. “Lock her away.”
The two fallen roll, grunting, but don’t stand. Ten more take their place. They grab Hera’s arms, then legs, and lift her clear off the ground.
All her fierceness—all her fight—drains. She sags and says nothing.
More guards peel from the shadows to follow in a neat line. They turn around the far corner. A last glimpse of Hera’s face. Her eyes glisten with tears. Then she’s gone.
All the stories Aunt tells, yet never the one of Hera and Zeus.
Each time one of us asked, her face would turn sad. She’d change to another story. The hero Heracles or the snake-haired Gorgon sisters. What was Aunt hiding?
I picture Molpe locked in her room, only the filtered sunbeams for company. Molpe’s face shifts to Hera’s. Locked away. Forgotten. Used. Both endured all these things. Molpe for two centuries. Hera for the eternity before.
Hestia rushes past. “Sister!”
Demeter follows, tripping over Hestia’s trailing dress.
Zeus thrusts an arm out, forcing them to stop or be smashed against him. “Be careful where you place your loyalty. Don’t forget who truly rid us of the Titans.”
Demeter pushes past his arm. In a blink, his entire arm is swathed in a thin coat of ice. The ice spreads down his side, leg, then reaches the floor. From there it spreads to one side, leaving a trail of frost and death in its wake. Flowers wither in vases. The court staggers backward and I follow.
Hestia sighs, pushing Demeter forward by her shoulders. The ice vanishes as quickly as it appeared, the wall steaming in its wake. Frostbite covers Zeus’ arm in patches of blackened skin. Other parts ooze, layers of skin burned away. The flowers remain wilted to brown stems.
Demeter has her power over the season. But Hestia? I assumed her a goddess in name alone. Yet she melted the ice effortlessly, using her power over the heat of a hearth.
“We must go to her,” Hestia says.
Demeter nods, breaking her glare locked on Zeus. They pivot around the corner.
Zeus shakes out his arm, burns and frostbite healed. He grins. Blood flakes off his lips and beard. “Go back to your feasting, my friends. Everything is settled.”
My friends. Does he truly believe the entire court will stay loyal to him if Hera leaves? Even now they squirm beneath his gaze.
He approaches. My muscles tighten, then freeze.
He strides past with the scent of copper and ozone. I turn, watching. He throws an arm first over Hades’ shoulder, then his other over a man I don’t recognize. His dark hair is similar to Hades’ black locks but his barrel chest is all Zeus.
Poseidon, the third brother, and god of the ocean. Husband of Amphitrite, our missing patron goddess.
Zeus leads them away, one tucked under each of his arms. The court follows without a word. Persephone lingers behind, throwing one last look at Hades’ back.
“Can we talk?” she asks.
I turn to Desma. Shoulders tense, I try to convey my uncertainty with a frown.
“Give her a chance,” she says in mind-speak. “If nothing else, you’ll have some answers.”
I glance back twice before leaving the hall. Once at Molpe’s door, the location seared into my mind no matter how blank Zeus keeps the carvings.
Again at Desma. Hermes loiters beside her, his head ducked low, and offers her a half-eaten apple. He realizes there are bites taken from it moments later. He lifts his head to grimace first at the fruit, then Desma.
Her mouth pinches into a tight line. She gusts a sigh but takes his offered arm, ignoring the apple entirely. They follow us. Hermes throws his apple behind them, letting it splatter against the floor, and grins.
They’re gone through a servant offshoot between one turn and the next. In the silence left behind, I don’t speak or do anything but offer Persephone my tense back.
She says nothing no matter how many unnecessary turns I take or how I lead us toward my room, not hers. Demeter won’t have a chance to listen. Not again.
When we’re in my room, the door closed behind us, my muscles relax. I settle in a chair at the table against one wall, close to the low-burning fire in the hearth.
Persephone follows. She doesn’t sit, instead inspecting each line of grout on the mosaic table. I sigh, drawing her attention, and wave her toward the seat across from me. She sits, albeit on the edge of her seat.
She bites her bottom lip. The longer I watch, the more her hands twitch against the tabletop until they clasp together. She wrings them until the skin reddens.
“Well, this has been delightful,” I say. “Are we done?”
She huffs, fire returning to her expression. There’s the formidable Queen of Nekros. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t startle, not exactly, but my shoulders jump. My hands move in an aborted flail. Words fail me.
“The sirens.” She shakes her head. “Molpe, Aglaope, and Thelxiope—they were my friends. The only ones I had. And when they fell because they let me leave with Hades, I did so little to find them.”
Her face goes slack. “First I was settling into my marriage and new realm. Then my mother froze Prasinos, giving Zeus her ultimatum of me returned to her or the realm left a wasteland for eternity. I should have wondered where my friends had gone, where they ended up, but instead I schemed to stay in Nekros.”
“Persephone,” I say, trailing off.
“No, let me finish.” She scratches at one knuckle with a fingernail until it bleeds. “Even after I found a loophole through a Titan law, eating Hades’ enchanted pomegranate and being allowed to stay for half of each year—even then I didn’t look for them.”
“Why?” I ask.
Her smile trembles. “It’d been years by then. I assumed them settled. I assumed they’d forgotten about me in their new lives. I never thought they would’ve been rendered mortal, not until I met you. No one in this court tells me anything for fear of my mother’s wrath.”
She swallows. “And I never thought Zeus would keep one here. I let myself be distracted and by the time loss had settled in, my dearest friends were forgotten by everyone else.”
“You should’ve done something.”
But with how many times my mother, Eudora, then Cosmas, were forgotten in the face of something or someone new, I have no anger left. How easy it is to push aside our grief. How easy it is to find some shinier or newer thing to focus on. Nekros’ shadowed halls and Athansi’s gilded fields of wheat—even my love for Charon and Desma.
Persephone is no untouchable goddess. Not truly. She is as wretchedly human as any of us. As human as the original sirens and their choice to look the other way for the sake of her happiness.
Now two of them are lost to time and death. Doesn’t death come to all creatures, even the Titans and gods, eventually? Death lacks judgement. Lacks the deferential attitude toward power or wealth and strikes regardless of both.
Thanatos suits his title. He is as neutral as the force he has power over.
“No apology for my ruined bargain? It was your mother listening in, after all.”
She scowls. “I can if you’d like. But honestly, is there anything I could’ve done differently? I had no idea she’d stoop to spying on me.”
She spits out each word so vehemently, I can’t help but think her sincere.
I muster a smile. “What became of the third siren, Aglaope?”
“I don’t know.” She smolders with determination. Her mouth firms into a tense line. “But I intend to find out.”
Zeus’ hallway of blank doors.
“Do you think...” I stop, swallowing around a suddenly tight throat. “Do you think Zeus has her hidden away here?”
Her jaw works in wordless rage. “If he does, he’ll have the entirety of Nekros’ power rained down on him.”
Reaching across the table, I grab her hands. Still her twitching fingers from picking at her skin.
“I was determined to hate you at the start. The first time I saw you, I hated you.”
She flinches backward, tugging her hands, but I only tighten my hold until she stills again. Maybe I’ll never forgive her. Not fully. But I can start right now, her hands pressed against mine.
“But I couldn’t for long. You and Hades—you love each other, don’t you?”
She nods slowly. “Yes. Completely.”
I mirror her nod. “If there’s any cause worthy of the sirens’ fall, I suppose you two being disgustingly in love is as worthy as it gets.” I huff, a smile twitching at the corner of my mouth. “I’d do the same for Desma or Charon.”
She tilts her head, smile blossoming even as it turns sly. “So, you and Charon.”
Heat creeps across my cheeks.
She leans back, laughing until her breaths come in heaving gasps. By the time she settles, laugh trailing into helpless giggles, I’m outright grinning. Oh, there’s still the gnawing doubts and fears, but for now I forget them.
“You and Hades.” I smirk. “Isn’t he your uncle?”
She grimaces. “Sometimes I wonder how the Prasinos stories can relate us all to Zeus. Demeter, Hestia, and Hera are in no way Zeus’ sisters. Hades isn’t my uncle.” Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh.”
“They treat the Titans much the same.” I shrug, letting go of her hands to lean back. Cosmas wasn’t the only storyteller in Kyma but certainly the kindest in his renditions. “And Hades is the most foul of the three brothers according to the stories.”
“Not your stories?”
I shake my head. “My aunt remembers true history, not some convoluted family tree created by those with overactive imaginations.”
“What are your stories about him?”
“There’s only a handful of mentions.”
Her smile dims.
“You miss him,” I wonder aloud. “Why? He’s in the palace.”
She sighs. “Zeus is sequestering Poseidon and my husband away. Scheming something, no doubt.”
Of course he is; he has to know I won’t quit despite my ruined bargain. For all his gregarious, booming veneer, he’s clever beneath. Besides, I’m still here. This alone tells him I have a plan of my own.
“Any idea what?” I ask.
“No.” She frowns. “Between Zeus and my mother interfering, we're never alone together.”
The gods play tricks. Charon’s words from our time on the river Styx.
She frowns at my sudden grin. “What?”
“How do you feel about a bargain between us?” I lean closer, voice dropping to a whisper. “Just us.”
She squints. “You have a plan.”
One Zeus can’t interfere with, not with bargains out of his rule per Titan law.
I nod, settling into a smirk.
The gods may play tricks.
But they forget creatures can too.