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.”