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 closer to me, but thought better of it. “I did it for you, you know. For us.”