Gods and Monsters, Volume I

Gods and Monsters
by shana storyteller
volume i
Gods and Monsters
Volume I
gods
and
monsters
volume i
by shana storyteller
Cover art by Noah Jay
Interior art by Vanesa Borisova

More of her work can be found on
Instagram under the handle @nesynkoy
Text © 2018 Shana Storyteller. All rights reserved.

Dedicated to all my lovely readers over the
years.
A story needs an audience, and I’m so

grateful for mine.
How To Read This Book
The stories in this volume are not listed in chronological
order. They are in the order in which they were written,
and I personally believe reading them in the order they’re
presented is a better and more fulfilling storytelling
experience.
However, if you would like to read these stories in the

order in which they happen, the chronological order has
been listed after the contents for your convenience.
Please note that the myths presented in this book are not
the original Greek myths. Rather, I have taken the classic
myths, and used them to create a new world and
characters.
Details and aspects of the original Greek myths are not

present in this collection.
Contents
Part I: Icarus …………………………………………. 1
Part II: Arachne ……………………………………… 7
Part III: Pandora and Hermes ………………………. 17
Part IV: Artemis the Virgin …………………………. 29
Part V: Hestia and Prometheus ……………………... 37
Part VI: They Call Her Kore …………………...…… 45
Part VII: Athena and Medusa …………………..…… 51
Part VIII: Hades, an Interlude ……………….……… 63
Part IX: Poseidon & Caeneus ……………………….. 69
Part X: Orpheus & Eurydice and Ares & Hades …..… 79
Part XI: The Minotaur ………………………………. 87
Part XII: Amphitrite and Caeneus ………….……….. 93
Part XIII: The Gods are Dead ………………...…… 103
Part XIV: Hera and Hephaestus …………………… 111
Part XV: Poseidon & Glaucus ………………...…… 119
Part XVI: Hera and Ares ………………………...… 127

Part XVII: Ares, God of War ……………………… 139
Part XVIII: Eros and Psyche ………………………. 149
Part XIX: Hera Leaves Olympus …………………... 171
Part XX: The Daughters of Apollo ………………… 179
Part XXI: Hephaestus and Styx ……………………. 193
Part XXII: She is Persephone ……………………… 199

Stories in Chronological Order
1. Part IX - Poseidon & Caeneus

2. Part XII - Amphitrite & Caeneus
3. Part V- Hestia and Prometheus
4. Part XIV - Hera and Hephaestus
5. Part XXI - Hephaestus and Styx
6. Part XVI - Hera and Ares
7. Part III - Pandora and Hermes
8. Part IV - Artemis the Virgin
9. Part VI - They Call Her Kore
10. Part VIII - Hades, an Interlude
11. Part XXII - She is Persephone
12. Part VII - Athena and Medusa
13. Part XVII - Ares, God of War
14. Part XI - The Minotaur
15. Part I - Icarus
16. Part X - Orpheus & Eurydice and Ares & Hades
17. Part XX - Apollo and His Daughters
18. Part II - Arachne
19. Part XVIII - Eros & Psyche
20. Part XIX - Hera Leaves Olympus
21. Part XV - Poseidon & Glaucus
22. Part XIII - The Gods Are Dead
Icarus
Part I:
Icarus
His father told him: “Do not fly too high, because
the sun will melt your wings, and you will fall. Do not fly
too low because the salt water will soften the wax, and you
will fall.”
He didn’t listen, because he never listened. He
didn’t listen.
If he had - he would have realized. No matter what,
he falls.
He falls.
Apollo was very pretty. He kissed Icarus’s skin and

called him a darling boy, and soon every time sunlight hit
his skin it felt like a lover’s touch. He said come to me,
come to me, and I will worship you, my days are full and
busy and I will not have much time for you - but my nights
are yours.
Who could refuse a god? Who could have god
offer to worship them when they are nothing more than an
aging inventor’s child, and say no?
If he’d listened to his father, he would have known
- the sun never truly sets, there is no night, only places
where the sun is absent.
Maybe if he’d listened to his father he could have
refused Apollo, could have told the golden god of sunlight
that he was happy where he was.
(He wasn’t, but if Apollo was going to lie to him it
only seemed fair that Icarus did the same in return.)
But he never listens.
Icarus flies too high, leaving his father behind. He

thinks if he can fly high enough fast enough then Apollo
1
Gods and Monsters, Volume I
will be able to catch him and pluck him from the struggles
of this mortal world.
But Apollo doesn’t come for him, and his wings
melt. He goes crashing into the sea and doesn’t even have
time to tell his father that he’s sorry.
He would have told his father he was sorry.
He doesn’t die.
Poseidon is powerful and curious and considers
Icarus to be a beautiful, curious thing.
Icarus did not know he was beautiful. Poseidon
runs powerful hands over his hips, and Icarus doesn’t think
Poseidon and Apollo know the same definition of beauty
that he does.
When he thinks of beauty, he thinks of his father’s
machines, of stone walls that have been smoothed down
so perfectly that they almost shine silver, of shadows
dancing elegantly from a fire’s grasp.
He doesn’t think he’s any of these things. He
doesn’t know what they mean when they call him beautiful,
but he doesn’t think he likes it.
He is tired. Poseidon is very demanding, and every

time the god comes to his bed Icarus feels likes he’s dying.
It would be easier if Poseidon were a worse man, but he’s
kind and thorough and Icarus always ends up having been
satisfied but never really feeling satisfied.
He expects Poseidon’s wife to be angry with him,
to hate him. He bumps into Amphitrite in the hall once.
He immediately bows low at the waist and says, “I’m
deeply sorry, my lady.” He wonders if she’ll kill him. He
wonders if he’ll care.
She laughs, and it sounds like calm waves lapping
at the shore. She presses two fingers underneath his chin
and forces him to rise, then gently tilts his head to the side
so she can see the trail of bite marks her husband has left
down his neck. “Better you than me, my dear.” She pats
his cheek twice and walks away. What on earth?
2
Icarus
3
He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. No

more than a decade, he thinks, though he hasn’t aged.
Nothing ever changes. The bite marks never
manage to fade before Poseidon adds more.
Icarus waits for Poseidon to be slumbering beside
him one night before wrapping the sheet around his hips
and tip toeing out of the room. He doesn’t hesitate before
stepping outside of the palace walls. In the next second,
he’s drowning. He’s so deep in the sea that it’s a toss up
about what kills him first – the pressure on his tender
organs, or the lack of air in his lungs.
Not that it truly matters. No matter the cause, the
result is the same.
Icarus dies.
He wakes up. Again.

“My lady,” he greets, bowing before a goddess with
skin the color of potting soil and hair the richest red, like
rubies, or - “Pomegranates,” he finishes, and Persephone,
queen of the underworld, smiles.
She says, “I’ve had my eye on you.”
She says, “Amphitrite speaks well of you.”
She says, “I am gone six months out the year. My
husband gets lonely.”
He’s dead. There’s nowhere else for him to go.
“Okay,” he says.
The snow begins to melt in the mortal world

above. Persephone leaves, and the underworld itself seems
to mourn her absence. He waits, tense in his room that first
night, but no one comes.
Nor the second night.
Nor the third.
He can think of nothing more unpleasant than
Persephone’s wrath, so on the fourth night he goes to
Hades’s room. When the god answers, he bows low and
says, “Your wife the Lady Persephone sent me.”
4
Icarus
Icarus doesn’t dare look up when Hades says, “My

brother is quite cross with me. He came demanding you
back. I was willing to hand you over, but my wife said she
had use of you.”
He can’t return to Poseidon. It’s cold and dark and
makes him feel worthless. Even if Hades is a harsh lover,
he’s better than his brother. He has to be. “She wishes me
to provide you company. She says you get lonely.”
“Does she,” Hades drawls, and Icarus cringes.
“Boy, look at me when I’m speaking to you.”
So Icarus does. Hades has nothing to the perfect
symmetrical beauty of Apollo, nor the wild strength and
power of Poseidon. Hades has skin like bleached wood and
hair the color of machine oil, with dark, expressive eyes
and a nose a little too strong for his face.
He looks like a person. Like Icarus’s father might
have looked as a younger man. Like Icarus might have
looked if he was allowed to grow old. He looks beautiful.
“Come with me,” Hades sighs, “If my wife wants
you to keep me company, then you shall.”
He follows Hades around every day. As he

maintains the circles of the underworld, the lost souls,
attends to the gods and other non-dead things that make
their home in his domain.
Icarus starts helping. Hades is without his queen,
and what he would normally do with her he now does
alone. So Icarus looks over the passenger logs for the ferry
over the River Styx, addresses the complaints that are grave
enough to filter their way through the palace, and when
Hades looks particularly tense and lost Icarus brings him
pomegranates.
Hades still doesn’t sleep with him.
Icarus doesn’t know if he’s disappointed by that or
not, but he thinks he’s happy here.
“You know,” Hades says one day while they’re

looking over reports, “they call you Thanatos.”
5
Death god. “Why?” he demands. He’s not afraid of

Hades anymore. When Hades is upset, he screams and
yells, and then he goes and sits in the garden Persephone
made for him. He doesn’t lash out to hurt.
Hades smiles and doesn’t answer.
Icarus is there to help Persephone off the ferry.

“He’s missed you,” he says, holding out his arm for her to
balance herself with while she steps onto the shore.
She raises an eyebrow, “You know, they used to
call me Kore.” She stands on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek,
“Thank you, Thanatos.”
Two hundred years later, in the midst of summer,

Icarus gathers his courage and kisses Hades. Both their
hands are stained with ink and another war has made the
lower levels of the underworld smell like corpse rot.
Hades kisses him back.
In two months, Persephone will kiss him for the
first time as he helps her out of the ferry. Sometimes, when
things get stressful or Hades is upset, Icarus will climb into
his lap and kiss him slowly, more to feel the warmth and
strength of him than anything else.
They never sleep together.
Icarus is happy here.
6
Arachne
Part II:
Arachne
“Your tapestries are so fine,” the merchant says in

wonder, “that you must be blessed by the goddess
Athena.”
Arachne tosses her head, braided hair falling over
her shoulder like an obsidian waterfall. “What’s Athena got
to do with it? My hands wove these, not hers.”
The merchant blanches and looks to the sky, as if
expecting Zeus himself to smite them for blasphemy.
Personally, she thinks the king of the gods has better things
to do with his time. “Ah,” he says weakly, “I suppose.”
He pays her for her wares and she leaves, almost
immediately bumping into a hunched old woman with grey
eyes. “Do you not owe Athena thanks for your talent?” she
croaks, gnarled hands curled over a cane.
Arachne is not stupid, but she is foolish. She looks
into those grey eyes and declares, “Athena should thank
me, since my talents earn her so much praise.” She pushes
past her and keeps walking, ignoring the goddess in human
skin as she disappears into the crowd.
They will tell tales of her hubris. They will all be
true.
The next day she bumps into the same old woman
at the market. Everything goes downhill from there.
“Know your place, mortal,” Athena says, grey eyes
narrowed. There is a crowd around them, and Arachne
could save herself, could walk away unscathed, and all she
has to do is say that her weaving is inferior to that of a
goddess.
She will not lie.
7
“I do,” she says coolly, “and in this matter, it is

above you.”
She is not honest as a virtue, but as a vice.
Athena challengers her to a weaving contest. She
accepts.
Gods are not so hard to find, if you know where

to look.
8
Arachne
“It’s a volcano,” the baker repeats, looking down

at her coins, as if he feels guilty for taking money from
someone who’s clearly not all there.
She grabs the bag of sweet bread and adds it to her
pack before swinging it over her shoulders, “Yes, I know.
Half a day’s walk, you said?”
“A volcano,” he insists, as if she did not hear him
perfectly well the first dozen times.
“Thank you for your help,” she says. He’s shaking
his head at her, but she knows what she’s doing.
She walks. She grows hungry, but does not touch
the bread she paid for, and walks some more. The sun’s
begun to set by the time she makes it to the base of the
volcano. It’s tall, impossibly large, and for a moment the
promise of defeat threatens to overwhelm her.
But Arachne does not believe in defeat, in loss.
They will tell tales of her hubris. Those tales will be true.
She ties a scarf around her braids, then hikes her
skirt up and ties it so that it falls only to her thighs. She fits
work roughened hands into the divots of cooled magma
and begins her slow ascent.
The muscles of her legs and arms shake, and her

hunger pains are almost as distracting. Her once white
dress is dirt smeared and torn, and droplets of sweat make
her itch as they cover her body and drips down her back.
“What are you doing?”
Arachne turns her head and bites back a scream,
looking into one giant eye. The cyclops holds easily to the
volcano’s edges, even though her own hands are torn and
bleeding. She swallows and says, “I heard you like honeyed
bread. Is it true?”
The creature tilts his head to the side, baring his
long, fanged teeth at her. She thinks he might be smiling.
“You’ve been climbing for hours. What do you want?”
“Is it true?” she repeats, refusing to flinch.
“Yes.” He’s looking at her the same way the baker
had. “It’s true.”
9
“There’s some sweet bread in my pack, baked this

morning,” she says, “It should still be soft.”
His hands are big enough and strong enough that
he could squeeze her head until it burst like a grape.
Instead, he gently undoes her pack and reaches inside. The
honey rolls look comically small in his large hands, and he
swallows half of them in one bite. He licks his fingers clean
when he’s done, and his smile is just as terrifying the
second time around. “I am Brontes. Why are you climbing
my master’s volcano?”
“I’m the weaver Arachne.” She takes a deep
breath, “I need your master’s help.”
They tell tales of Hephaestus’s ugliness.

They are not true.
He’s got a broad, angular face and short brown
hair, and his eyes are like amber set into his face. His arms
are huge, and he’s rippling muscle from the waist up. He
has legs only to his knees. From there down, his legs are
bronze gears and golden wire, replacements for the limbs
that were destroyed when Hera threw him from Mount
Olympus.
“Had your look, girl?” he asks, voice rough like
he’s always a moment away from breaking into a coughing
fit.
“Yes,” she says, and doesn’t turn away, keeps
looking.
His lips quirk up at the corners, so it was the right
move. The heat is even more oppressive inside the
volcano. All around him, cyclopes work, forging oddly
shaped metal that she can’t hope to understand. “You’ve
gone to an awful lot of trouble to find me, girl. What do
you want?”
She slides her pack off her shoulders and holds it
out to the god. “I have a gift for your wife. I have woven
her a cloak.”
10
Arachne
He raises an eyebrow and doesn’t reach for the

bag, “You believe something made with mortal hands
could be worthy of the goddess of beauty?”
They will tell tales of her hubris.
“Yes.”
They will all be true.
With a gust of wind, the oppressive heat of the
volcano is swept away, leaving her chilled. In its place
stands a woman – more than a woman. Aphrodite has skin
like the copper of her husband’s machines and hair that’s
dark and thick and long. Her eyes are the deepest, richest
brown, piercing in their intelligence. People don’t tell tales
of Aphrodite’s cleverness. That is because people are
stupid.
“Let’s see it then,” she says, reaching inside the
pack and pulling the cloak from its depths.
It unrolls beautifully. It’s made from the finest
silks, and it shimmers in the light from the forges. The hem
of the cloak is sea foam, speaking of Aphrodite’s
beginning, and up along the cloak in intricate patterns it
tells of her life, of her marriage and her worshippers and
escapades, all with the detail of the most experienced artist
and the reverence of her most devoted followers.
Her lips part in surprise and she slides it on,
twirling like a child. “Gorgeous,” Hephaestus says, though
Arachne knows he does not speak of the cloak. She doesn’t
take offense.
The goddess smiles and Arachne’s heart pounds in
her chest. She does her best to ignore it – Aphrodite is the
goddess of love, after all. It is only expected. “Very well,”
the goddess says, “you have my attention.”
Arachne swallows. Aphrodite’s attention is a heavy
thing. “I have offended Athena,” she says. “She has
challenged me to a weaving contest.”
Their faces somber. Hephaestus rubs the edge of a
sleeve between his fingers and says, “Athena will lose such
a contest, if judged fairly. She does not take loss well.”
11
“I know,” she says. “You are friendly with Hades,

are you not?”
There are no tales of their friendship. But she’s
staking her life on its existence, because why wouldn’t it
exist – both of them even tempered, both shunned by
Olympus, both happily married.
Gods hate being made to feel lesser. It is why they
say Persephone was kidnapped, why they say Aphrodite
cheats with Ares. It is why Athena will crush her when
Arachne wins the weaving contest.
“Clever girl,” Hephaestus says, smiling.
Aphrodite stares at her reflection in a convenient
piece of polished silver. Arachne assumes Hephaestus left
if lying there for that express purpose. “Very well,” the
goddess says, not looking at her, “When Athena sends you
to the underworld, we will entrench upon our uncle for
your release.” She turns on her heels and points a finger at
her. Arachne blushes for no reason she can think of. “In
return, you will weave me a gown, one equal to my own
beauty.”
A gown as exquisite as the goddess of beauty. An
impossible task.
They will tell tales of her hubris.
“I accept.”
They will all be true.
The contest goes as expected. Athena’s tapestry is

lovely, but Arachne’s is lovelier.
The goddess’s face goes red in rage, and her grey
eyes narrow. Arachne stands tall, ready to accept the death
blow coming for her.
The blow comes.
Death does not.
She is a bug. Even if she can make it back to

Hephaestus’s volcano, even if they can help her, they will
not know her. She has no hope left, no course of action,
she should just give up. But –
12
Arachne
She doesn’t believe in defeat, in loss.

It was a terribly long journey on foot, that first
time. It is even longer this time, although now she has eight
feet instead of two. She makes it to the volcano, and creeps
in between crevices, until she finds out a hollowed room,
one with a sliver of sunlight and plenty of other bugs to
keep her fed.
Athena’s cruel joke of allowing her to weave will
be her downfall. Her silk comes out a golden yellow color
– it will look exquisite against Aphrodite’s copper skin.
It takes seven years for her to complete it. She

hasn’t left this room in the volcano in all that time, and as
soon as it’s done she scurries out back towards the village.
She’s a large bug, but not that large.
She arrives just as the sun begins to rise, and leaves
before the first rays have even touched the earth, her prize
tied to her back with her own silk.
Arachne doesn’t return to her room. Instead, she
goes to the more popular parts of the volcano, hurries and
runs around terrifying stomping feet until she finds who
she’s looking for and scurries up his leg and onto his
shoulder.
“Huh,” Brontes looks at her and blinks. “What on
earth are you?” She cautiously skitters down his arm,
waiting. He bends closer and lightly touches her back. “Is
– is that a piece of a honey roll?”
She looks up at him, waiting. It’s her only chance.
If he doesn’t remember, if he doesn’t understand –
His face slowly fills with a cautious kind of wonder.
“Arachne?” She jumps in place, since she is unable to nod.
Brontes cautiously cradles her in his massive hands. “We
must find my master immediately!”
She jumps down, landing in front of him and
running forward. “Wait!” he calls out, and she makes sure
he’s chasing her before skittering back to her corner of the
volcano. It’s almost too small for him to enter, but he
squeezes inside and breathes, “Oh.” He stares for several
13
moments, and Arachne climbs onto her web and waits.

Brontes shakes himself out of his reverie and uses his
powerful lungs to bellow, “MISTRESS APHRODITE!”
There’s that same breeze, and in the next moment
she’s in the crevice with them. “What was so important,
Brontes, that you had to yell?”
Arachne sees the exact moment that the goddess
sees the gown, golden yellow and glimmering, made
entirely of her silk. “Beautiful,” she says, reaching out a
hand to brush down the bodice. Her head snaps up,
“Brontes, where’s Arachne?”
She warms at that, that Aphrodite knew it was her
weaving even though she hasn’t been seen in seven years.
They’ve told tales of her hubris.
They are all true.
Brontes points at the web, and Aphrodite steps
over and holds out her hand. Arachne crawls onto the
goddess’s palms. “Athena is more powerful than I am. I
cannot undo her work,” she says, “but I know someone
who can.”
Then they are in front of a river. A handsome
young man stands there waiting with a boat. “Goddess
Aphrodite,” he says, “we weren’t expecting you.”
This is clearly a lie. There is a boat.
“Thanatos,” she returns, “I need to see
Persephone.”
The man’s face stays cool, and for a moment
Arachne fears they will be refused and she will be stuck in
this form forever.
Then he smiles and says, “My lady is of course
available for her favored niece.” He holds out a hand to
help her onto the boat, “Please come with me.”
Arachne weaves a dress for Hades’s wife as a thank

you, and returns to her volcano.
“I can take you somewhere else,” Aphrodite says,
“you don’t have to hide here.”
14
Arachne
Arachne pauses at her loom. She has lived in this

volcano for seven years. It’s her home. “Would you like
me to leave?” she asks.
Aphrodite scoffs. “Of course not! How could I
dress myself without you here?” She’s wearing the spider
silk dress Arachne spun for her, and she’s working on
another for the goddess now. Aphrodite runs a gentle
finger down Arachne’s cheek, and for a moment she
forgets to breathe. “You are the finest weaver to ever
exist.”
She looks up at the goddess. “Then as the god of
crafts and the goddess of beautiful things, where else
would I belong besides with you and Hephaestus?”
To declare your company equal to that of gods is
the height of arrogance and blasphemy.
They tell tales of her hubris.
“An excellent point,” Aphrodite murmurs, and
tucks a stray braid behind Arachne’s ear.
They are all true.
15
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Pandora and Hermes
Part III:
Pandora and Hermes
Pandora is made from earth, shaped by the hands

of Hephaestus and made in the image of his beloved wife.
Aphrodite gifts her with grace and charisma. Athena
teaches her to weave and bestows cleverness upon her.
She stands in front of Hermes, and the god frowns
and touches her with a single fingertip upon her chin,
moving her head one way, then the other. “They’ll eat you
alive,” he says, and she doesn’t understand.
She tilts her head to the side and smiles a vacant
smile. All the cleverness in the world will do her no good
without context. “We are the same,” she says, pressing a
hand to Hermes’s chest. She is made from earth and has
the skin to mach. He is a celestial god, and his skin is the
same rich shade of brown.
He did not ask to be born any more than his
mother asked to bear him. His creation, just like hers, is at
the whims of Zeus. All for some little lost fire, all because
Prometheus wanted his people to be warm, and, well, he is
the god of the thieves after all –
So he gifts her with deceit, with selfishness, with
cunning. Her smile leaves her face all at once as she’s filled
with self-awareness, with a cursed, double-edged
understanding. “He’ll be angry with you,” she says, “I am
not what you were supposed to make.”
“Gods have short memories,” he answers, and
doesn’t bother to hide the contempt in his voice. “Do not
worry about me, gifted child. Worry about yourself.”
He has turned her from something pure into –
something more like him. Her face darkens even further as
her perfectly crafted mind slots all the pieces together, and
he can’t help but find her lovely. It’s how she was made,
17
after all. “I can’t stop it, can I? Whatever they’re planning

for me to do?”
“No,” Hermes says, “but now you might be able
to survive it.”
“Will I want to?” she asks, and he doesn’t answer.
She doesn’t expect him too.
She hides from everyone, lives in a cave at the edge

of the city. The gods had called her the first woman, but
that’s not true, she can see.
There are women. They smile, and laugh, and have
work roughened hands. She aches to join them, but she
has the beauty of a goddess. They will know. If she joins
them, they will know she is not of them, and it will set into
motion whatever trap Zeus has planned.
She is not human, not in the same way, molded
from clay by a god’s hands. But she is of humans, and
reluctant to bestow upon them the harm she’s destined to
bring. She bathes in streams where only nymphs reside,
steals into the city in the cloak of night and pilfers from
the baker’s trash.
“When they said they sent my brother a wife,” a
low, amused voice says too close behind her one night, “I
had not expected a beggar.”
She whirls around, hard bread clenched tightly in
front of her, an incredibly inefficient shield. Her breath
catches when she sees him, dark and tall and eyes like the
night sky. He looks like Hermes. Like her. “Who are you
to judge me?” she demands. “I beg for nothing.” They’re
in an alley corner, and of her gifts, flight is not among
them. She’ll have to fight him to get away.
She’s not afraid of him. Maybe another woman
would be, cornered in the middle of the night by a man she
doesn’t know. But she’s no normal mortal woman, and
besides – he has something comforting about him, like the
hearth fire attended by Hestia. Something warm.
“I am Prometheus,” says the man, and no wonder
he reminds her of fire. “What do they call you?”
18
Pandora and Hermes
“You are meant to be in the deepest pits of Hades’s

realm,” she snaps, and shifts her grip on the stale bread so
that she can throw it at him. He’s the whole reason she’s
here to begin with, him and his thievery.
He shrugs and walks closer, watching her like one
would watch a wild animal. Good. Here, in this dark alley
where no one would find a cooling body until morning, it
is he that should be afraid. “Gods forget,” he says, “and
Hades had grown cold in his place beneath the earth.”
She pauses, considering. “You stole the fire for
Hades?”
“No,” he corrects, “I stole fire for the people. But
Hades benefited as well. Enough that he was willing to
forget the terms of my punishment.”
“What do you want?” she asks for a second time.
“Why are you here?”
He’s too close to her. “The question is why are you
here?”
She steps into his space now, following him as he
backs away from her. “I am here because of you, fire-
stealer, because gods may forget but they do not forgive,
and I am the punishment they have unleashed upon the
world.”
“What a punishment you are,” he says, looking at
her lips, and she forgets to hate him only long enough to
kiss him.
Hermes watches her, watches them. He doesn’t

know Zeus’s plan, if this is part of it or not, but he watches
her, and he worries. He thinks it is, he can see Aphrodite’s
magic clinging to Pandora, but he doesn’t know why.
He would go to his mother, but she’s always
difficult to find, Gaea preferring to live in streams and
rivers rather than face the man she bore a son for. But his
mother’s father, on the other hand, is always in the same
place.
“Grandfather,” Hermes greets, lightly touching
down onto the earth, “How are you?”
19
“How am I always, boy?” Atlas grunts out, legs and

arms straining as he holds up the sky above the earth.
“Tired.”
Hermes smiles. Some days, he thinks he’s more of
Atlas’s blood than he is Zeus’s. “I need some advice,
Grandfather.”
Atlas raises an eyebrow, “I’m listening.”
So Hermes tells him everything, from beginning to
end, because he can’t figure out what his father’s plan is,
but Atlas might. He’s known the man for longer, at least.
Atlas nods slowly and says, “A bride of gods, a
gifted child. I can think of only one reason to create such
a being.” Hermes waits. Atlas sighs and says, “There is a
jar kept within Olympus that becomes sealed when it
leaves the realm of the gods. After that, only a being
neither mortal nor celestial may open it.”
“What are they planning to put inside?” Hermes
demands, heart spiking. What are they planning to unleash
upon the unsuspecting mortals?
His grandfather smirks, “It doesn’t matter. What
matters is this – what are you planning to put inside?”
Prometheus goes by Epimetheus, masquerading as

his own brother.
“We shouldn’t do this,” Pandora says, even as she
steps inside his home, even as he slides off her dress. His
hands are covered with shiny burn scars, and she wonders
if he holds that fire still. Every place he touches her is white
hot, every bit of her skin that touches his skin feels
branded.
She should run. That would be the smart thing to
do, and thanks to Hermes she’s a smart woman. But she
was made for him, she knows that now, made to complete
him, and she feels a pull to him that she can’t deny.
She’s a smart woman, and she should run. She
completes him, but he won’t complete her, because she
doesn’t have any missing pieces for him to fill.
20
Pandora and Hermes
“You’re meant to be my wife,” he reminds, greedy

eyes and greedy hands roaming over her, and this is why
Hephaestus sculpted her, why Aphrodite taught her.
Prometheus is not a foolish man. He should know
better than to trust her, than to believe she is a gift that
comes freely. But he is still a man, and she has the beauty
of a goddess. He will not turn her away, and she can’t bring
herself to make him.
He is soft and hard and wonderful, and Pandora
curses both of them for their selfishness even as she pulls
him closer.
Hermes goes to Nyx, to the young woman hiding

behind the skirts of the goddess of darkness, and says,
“Please. I need her.”
“She’s my daughter,” Nyx says, arms spread as she
plants herself firmly in front of him, eyes wide and
pleading. “I need her.”
Nyx can’t stop him, and knows it, but Hermes only
smiles before flying away.
That night he steals her away, and Elpis clutches
his shoulders but doesn’t scream or cry. Holding her feels
like holding sunlight, like the wind on his face when he’s
flying, and she’s exactly what he needs. “I’m sorry,” he
says, because he’s the god of thieves, but she isn’t
something he wanted to have to steal.
She’s not quite a child and not quite grown, has
skin and hair the color of honey. “It’s okay,” she says, voice
older than the rest of her, “Mother was being selfish. I have
important work to do.”
He blinks, opens his mouth, then closes it. “You
know what I need you to do?”
“No,” she says, “but I know what I am. That is
enough.”
They have a wedding. Pandora tries to talk him out

of it, tries to say that it doesn’t matter what people say,
21
what they do, that it doesn’t matter how many men come
asking for her, she is his and his alone.
Prometheus will not listen, insists that she is his love
and his life and that she deserves the title of his wife. She’d
be flattered if she wasn’t furious. He loves her but he does
not listen to her, and it grates.
It’s a lovely wedding. She’s the most beautiful
bride, because she is the most beautiful woman, and
Prometheus looks at her like she is the fire he once stole.
It worries her, because that fire burned him, and she
doesn’t want to burn him. It worries her, because she’s not
a fire, she’s a woman, his now wife.
Some days she asks herself what she’s doing, here
with this man. She loves him, she thinks, and he loves her,
she thinks, but it never feels completely right.
They receive many gifts. The oddest is a large
marble jar rimmed in gold. Prometheus tries to open it and
fails, muscles straining and fingers slipping. “Here,” he
says, frustrated, and shoves the jar into her hands.
She sighs, “If you cannot open it, I don’t know why
you expect me to able to,” she scolds, but to her surprise
the lid comes off at her lightest touch.
Her surprise turns to horror.
Ugly, terrible things leap from the jar. Monstrous,
horrifying things move past and around her and leap to
infect everyone and everything they can find.
She’s too late, she knows she’s too late, but she
slams the lid back onto the jar. Something knocks against
it, straining to get out, but whatever thing was at the
bottom of the jar remains there still.
She turns to her husband, cold and afraid and
wishing for that fire that he seems to always carry.
Prometheus is thin and weak and blood drips out
of the corners of his mouth. Disease has ravaged him, and
as a being crafted by godly hands she is safe from the
horrors of the jar, but he is not.
22
Pandora and Hermes
He lifts a hand, reaching for her. She leaps towards

him, but she’s too late.
He’s dead, and his body hits the ground with a
tremendous crash and crumbles to dust.
By the time Hermes get to their home, Pandora is

long gone. The jar remains, and she had closed it too soon.
23
He pulls and tugs, going so far as attempting to break it,

but it’s no use. He’s a celestial being, and his hands cannot
open it.
He must find her. Hermes goes hurtling into the
air, determined to track her down, but there’s so much
suffering, so much death and despair. He must find
Pandora, but people are hurting. He strikes his caduceus
into the ground and both of his familiars come to life, two
massive hissing snakes. “Help them,” he orders before
continuing his search.
He’s no god of healing, but it seems as if he’s about
to become one.
Pandora stands at the cliff’s edge, beautiful face

twisted in grief. People are suffering, dying, the world has
become a horrid, ugly thing, her husband is dead, all
because of her –
Stepping off the cliff is the easiest thing she’s ever
done.
Then Hermes comes swooping up under her,
catching her in his arms and flying her to safely.
“Let me go!” she howls, tears streaming down her
face, “Let me go! I want to join Prometheus!” Something
feels different, her love for him seems more like a dream
than her reality, but she wants it back none the less.
Hermes dumps her on the ground, and she’s never
seen a god angry before. If she was planning to live long
enough to have nightmares, she’s sure this would make an
appearance. “If you must,” he hisses, “then you shall. But
not before you open this.”
He drops the jar at her feet, and she scrambles
away from it. “No! No, please, don’t make me do more,
I’ve ruined so much already –”
“You’ve ruined nothing,” he says firmly, “Open
the jar.”
“I refuse,” she says, tilting up her chin and meeting
his gaze even as her body is wracked with sobs, “I am not
24
Pandora and Hermes
one of them, not human, but I love them. I won’t hurt

them.”
Hermes snarls as he pushes her to the ground and
cages her body beneath his own, “Trust me!”
“Trust you?” she spits, then flips them over so it’s
her pinning him to the ground. “It was you who’s cursed
me most of all, I should kill you!”
“You’re not that powerful,” he says dryly,
“Pandora, please. Open the jar, and if you still wish it I will
deliver you to Hades and Prometheus myself. I promise
you, gifted child. Just open the jar.”
Pandora hesitates, looking at him for signs of
deceit and finding none. She reaches for the jar.
Elpis is clawing against the lid. This isn’t what was

supposed to happen, she can’t help anyone from inside
here. Without her, humanity is doomed –
The jar containing her opens, and she pushes
herself out and into the world.
The first thing she sees is the famed Pandora, as
beautiful as Hermes said she would be, and as miserable as
Elpis had feared.
“Don’t cry,” she says, and out from under her
mother’s darkness she’s grown, is more woman than child.
She presses her forehead to Pandora’s and cups her face in
her hands. “Do not cry, gifted child, child of the gods. I
am here.”
She is shining, here on this cliff, as bright and
powerful as she could not be while with the goddess of
darkness. She is here, but also everywhere, stretching as far
as all those terrible things from the jar, filling up the world
until more of her exists than all those horrible things
combined.
Pandora stops crying and says, “Oh – oh, you were
what I was missing. I didn’t know.”
“Neither of us are missing anything,” Elpis,
goddess of hope, says. It would be so easy to shift closer
and press her lips to Pandora’s lips, this perfect woman
25
sculpted by gods, and she can’t blame Prometheus. He

should have known better, but who could look at this
woman and not want her?
Pandora tries not to feel like a dishonest woman,

because she loves her husband, or she did before she
opened the jar, but Prometheus, as good as he was, treated
her like a possession, a prize, it’s why he insisted on a
wedding they didn’t need.
Looking at Elpis, all she feels is possessed, more
thoroughly than she ever did under Prometheus’s hands.
“I should go to my husband,” she says, because
although despair no longer threatens to overwhelm her,
she should still go to him, go to Hades and bargain and
argue until she gets Prometheus back. She does love him.
She was made to love him.
“Aphrodite’s magic clings to you no more,”
Hermes says. “I’m sure you could love him, he is a good
enough man. But you do not have to. Besides, you know
where he is. Hades won’t let him go free a second time.”
Elpis smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “I am
here by the grace of Hermes, Pandora. I – I would follow
in his footsteps, if you would let me.” Pandora blinks,
uncomprehending. “I would steal you for my very own, if
you would let me. You love humanity, and you can help
them by my side. If you want.”
Pandora closes the remaining space between them,
kissing Elpis with a gentleness she didn’t know herself
capable of, a gentleness she and Prometheus had never
shared. “I love my husband,” she says, but it sounds
wrong, sounds fake, and it shouldn’t, because she lived
with him and she loved him. Didn’t she?
But Elpis feels like the home she’s never had.
Touching her feels like safety, and Prometheus has always
felt like danger – in the best ways, in the most thrilling
ways, but he never felt like a place for her to return to, a
place she belonged.
26
Pandora and Hermes
“Give me a chance,” Elpis says, settling her hands

on Pandora’s hips. “You can always leave to find your
husband. But just not now, not yet. Give me some time.”
Pandora hesitates, but – her purpose is fulfilled,
she’s done what she was created to do. The gods of
Olympus have no more use for her, and her life from this
point on is her own. She was made to be Prometheus’s
wife. But that’s not what she has to be.
“Okay,” she says, and can think of nothing else to
offer, has nothing else to offer.
Luckily, it seems that’s all Elpis needs. She eagerly
pulls them together again. Elpis is soft and gorgeous, and
this feels completely different from the all the times she’s
kissed Prometheus, feels larger and scarier and more
beautiful.
Elpis’s skin on her skin doesn’t feel like a brand –
it feels like freedom.
27
28
Artemis the Virgin
Part IV:
Artemis the Virgin
Artemis is born first. She’s a babe for only

moments, springing into gangly-limbed childhood
between one breath and the next.
Her mother is red faced and sobbing, prostrate on
the ground as she reaches for her. “He’s too big,” she sobs,
“He won’t come out – I’ve failed! Hera has won and I have
failed!”
There’s blood, too much blood, blood that she
herself is still slick with. “No,” she says firmly, kneeling in
between her mother’s legs, “We have not failed.”
It takes too long, too much blood and screaming,
but hours later Leto sleeps, exhausted and pained, but
alive.
Her brother does not grow as she did, and she
cleans him and swaddles him and holds him against her
chest. There is too much intelligence for a freshly born-
babe in his eyes. She pets the soft golden curls on top of
his head.
She looks to Leto, bloody and torn and nearly
forced to die with her son inside of her, and decides that
her mother’s fate will never be her own.
The only man she’ll ever love is the one currently
in her arms.
Apollo grows. Faster than he should, but slower

than she had. He grows until they match, until they are not-
quite adults, beautiful adolescents in a godly package.
Her brother worries her; sometimes he reminds
her too much of their father and she fears for him. She’s
never afraid of him, her golden twin brother, but in that
29
regard she thinks she may be alone. He’s too smart and not
careful and feels as if every beautiful thing is his to possess.
The first time he forces himself on a mortal
woman, she shoots a silver arrow through his shoulder. It
bleeds, a wound from an arrow shot by her, more than it
would if any other goddess had done it. “They are mine,”
she declares, standing in front of the scared girl with her
torn clothes, “You will not touch what is mine.”
Apollo says, “Very well, sister,” slick with blood,
and she wants to go to him, to heal him and take care of
him as she has their whole lives, but she stands her ground.
In this she will not be moved.
He leaves. When she turns to comfort the girl,
she’s already gone.
Her brother doesn’t touch any other unwilling

women after that, although there are still plenty of willing
women. And why shouldn’t there be? Apollo is gorgeous
and strong, brave and just when he forgets to be selfish
and petty.
There are men, however, that are not always so
willing. Nothing so harsh as that first time with that girl,
nothing that dramatic – but enough that it pains her to see
the callous way her brother treats them. Artemis stays
silent on that. She is not the patron god of all of humanity,
and she can’t hoard them all.
Her brother is a warrior and a poet. He harnesses
his chariot to the sun so that he may bring light to all the
world. She loves him, but sometimes – sometimes she hates
him. She is a midwife and a huntress, a bringer of life and
a taker of it. There is something terrible in her power. She
thinks this is what Persephone must feel like, as the
goddess of spring and queen of the underworld. It’s
intoxicating. But it is a quiet sort of power, a harder one.
He is the sun and she is the moon, and there are
times she fears that is all she is – a reflection of her younger
brother’s brightness, cursed to be nothing more than a
poor imitation.
30
Artemis the Virgin
She’s fully grown the first time it happens, older

than many cities and twice as beautiful as her brother’s
sunrises.
She’s sweat soaked and blood covered, but the
mother and her sons sleep soundly and safely after the
difficult birth. If she were to tell the other gods this they
would not believe her, but being the goddess of childbirth
is her hardest job by far.
“Come,” the sister of the mother says, a pretty
young thing with large eyes and a wide mouth, “Let’s get
you cleaned up.”
Artemis could clean herself up just fine, but allows
the young woman to lead her to her room, to remove her
blood stained clothes and run a warm cloth over limbs that
are sticky with dried sweat. The woman goes to her knees
before Artemis, running the cloth over her legs. Then the
woman touches a place no one has ever touched.
Artemis jerks with surprise, looking down, her
mouth agape. “My lady goddess,” the woman murmurs,
parting her wide mouth and licking her lips, “I would thank
you for aiding my sister, if you be willing.”
There’s a low curling heat in the pit of her stomach
and something fluttering high in her chest. It’s something
she hasn’t experienced before. “I am to remain a virgin,”
she says, blank, because many men have looked at her like
this woman and she was revolted by all of them. She’s not
revolted now.
“Virginity is a man’s invention and a man’s
concern, my lady,” the woman says dismissively, beginning
to move her hands in way that makes Artemis flush all
over, “There are no men here.”
That’s the last bit of talking they do until morning.
Artemis has many more eager women coming to

her, offering to worship her. She accepts, again and again,
and there’s never anything more than temporary sparks of
31
desire, yet she enjoys all the women who seek her out, is
delighted by them and seeks to delight them in return.
She is bathing in a lake one evening, golden hair
having grown longer than she usually keeps it, just
brushing past her shoulders. She’ll have to cut it soon. She
ducks beneath the serene, smooth lake, and when she
surfaces there’s the sound of rustling and footsteps, then
clothing being shed.
There’s a man dipping his toes into the lake, and
Artemis rises, ready to kill him for his insolence.
Then she meets his scared eyes, and she’s done
nothing to provoke his fear, not yet. She has to look again,
eyes raking over his naked body, and this person certainly
looks like a man. Yet –
“Who are you?” she demands, hands on her hips.
“Sipriotes, miss,” the person says, and bends to
pick up the discarded clothes. “Apologies, I did not expect
anyone to be here. I’ll go.”
“Why?” Artemis asks, taking a guess. “There’s
plenty of water for two women to share.”
She knows she’s guessed right when Sipriotes’s
mouth parts in surprise, and then widens in a pleased grin.
“Thank you, lady,” she says, dropping her dress
back at the lake’s edge and stepping into the water.
“Your hair is a mess,” Artemis says, looking at the
tangled bun on top of Sipriotes’s head, “Let me help you
with that.”
“It’s okay, miss,” she demurs.
This woman hasn’t figured out she’s a goddess yet.
Artemis is in no rush to tell her – she’s scared enough of
her as it is. “I insist,” she says, swimming over and twisting
Sipriotes around so her back is to Artemis. The woman’s
muscles are tense, and Artemis runs light fingers over the
pale, crisscrossed lashing scares. Artemis is smart, so she
doesn’t ask the obvious, stupid question as she undoes
Sipriotes’s bun. Her long tangled black hair tumbles down
to her hips. “What a mess,” Artemis says quietly, not
explaining whether she’s talking about her hair or her back.
32
Artemis the Virgin
Sipriotes relaxes, tilting her head forward as

Artemis gently finger combs her hair until it lies smooth.
Artemis tries, but she can’t get the woman from

the lake out of her head. Sipriotes lives alone at the edge
of the village, doesn’t bathe with the other women because
they don’t welcome her. They don’t shun her, but they
don’t wash her hair or her back, and it makes Artemis’s
blood boil.
She expects better from those that she has claimed
as her own.
The sun’s just setting when her brother appears at
her side, watching her watch Sipriotes gather water from
the well. “He’s not your usual type, is he?” he asks, leaning
against her and tangling his fingers in hers.
“Yes,” Artemis says, “she is.”
For the first time in her life, Artemis feels

uncertain, but kicks at the door anyway. Her hands are full,
otherwise she would knock.
It opens. The wariness on Sipriotes’s face is
replaced by confusion. “Hi,” Artemis says, “Do you like
bear?”
33
The creature is slung over her shoulders. She’s just

killed it, and it occurs to her too late that a normal woman
wouldn’t be able to casually hold a fully grown bear across
her back. “I like you,” Sipriotes says, stepping aside to let
her in, “you may bring the bear if you like.”
She offers Artemis warm wine and insists that she
sits as Sipriotes skins the bear, sticking chunks of it on a
spit and salting the rest. This time she keeps up a steady
stream of conversation, eyes warm and smile soft. Artemis
wishes she could blame the wine for the heat on her
cheeks.
“I like your shoulders,” Artemis says, watching her
finish preparing the bear’s meat.
Sipriotes pauses and turns to Artemis, eyebrow
raised. Her dress is stained red with the bear’s blood and
her silky black hair is braided to the side. Artemis wants to
run her fingers through it. “You do?”
She stands, moves slowly in case this isn’t what
Sipriotes wants, and presses her hands to her back the
same way she had in the lake. “Yes, they’re broad. Strong.
Like mine.”
Sipriotes turns, and Artemis trails her hands from
her shoulders to her face, pressing her thumb against
Sipriotes’s bottom lip. “The bear will burn,” she says, eyes
dark.
“I’ll bring you another one,” Artemis promises,
walking her backwards until they reach the bed, until the
back of Sipriotes’s knees hit the edge so she falls and
Artemis can climb on top of her, can bracket her waist with
her thighs.
Sipriotes holds up a hand. Artemis captures it in
her own, and turns it so she can leave a butterfly kiss on
each knuckle. “I know who you are, Artemis,” she
whispers. “Are you – are you sure? No man can touch
you.”
Artemis leans down, pressing more kisses across
Sipriotes’s collar bone, and says, “There are no men here.”
34
Artemis the Virgin
That’s the last bit of talking they do until morning
35
36
Hestia and Prometheus
Part V:
By her very nature, Hestia is not supposed to have

favorites, but Hades has always been hers.
She is the eldest sister, and he the eldest brother.
She wonders if that is why they end up being the
responsible ones.
“I like it down here,” she says, curled up in his
throne. “It’s quiet.”
He snorts, head bent over the reams of paper,
endless lists of the dead. Somehow, she never sees Zeus
with any paperwork. “It’s dark, and cold.”
The only light comes from the softly glowing
moonstones, from the bioluminescent designs etched into
the walls. She extends a hand, “I can–”
A cheerful fire crackles to life in the center of the
room, warm and sweet and smelling of cedar even though
there’s no smoke. “Sister!” he snaps, “Return that to
Olympus immediately!”
She pouts, holding the fire steady, “Why? It’s my
fire, I am its keeper, am I not? I can give it to whoever I
choose.”
“Zeus has decreed it is a privilege of those that
reside in the heavens,” he glares, “I will not see his wrath
turned upon you. Put it back.”
Hestia closes her palm and the fire snuffs out,
returning to its home on Mount Olympus. “Little brother
Zeus would do well to remember his place.”
“I’m sure he would say the same of us,” Hades says
wryly, eyes dropping back down to his desk.
She is the keeper of the hearth, the bringer of fire,
the guardian of the home. The spirit of Mother Gaia pulses
37
in her stronger than the others, no matter the claims Hera

likes to make.
Zeus is a little boy. A powerful little boy, but a child
none the less. She and Hades grew in their father’s stomach
together, his is the hand she grasped through their years in
that horrid prison.
She dislikes little boys telling her how to govern
her realm of hearth and home.
Prometheus is not a smart man, but he is a brave

man, an ambitious man.
So when a goddess appears before him, offering
him an opportunity for glory, he does not refuse. He grins
with eyes too bright and says, “Fire? The tool of gods back
in mortal hands? We could do much with that.”
“Yes,” the goddess agrees, “but it will not come
free. If you succeed, you will be sent to Hades’s realm, of
this I am certain. When you are, you must bring fire to him
as well. That is the price of our bargain.”
“Agreed,” he says instantly, and does not question
why a god needs a human to get him fire. His is not the
place to question gods.
Myths will say that he was a Titan, a god among
gods, but that is not true.
He was a lone, ambitious man. The act of a single
person can often be mistaken for the work of a god.
Hestia’s throne sits unused on Olympus, more

concerned with tending her hearth than sitting high above
mortals.
Any being which must assert their authority
through status symbols likely has very little authority to
begin with. “You’re planning trouble,” Hera accuses one
day, her clothing purposefully plain next to her husband’s,
and her hair piled atop her head in an exhaustingly
elaborate fashion.
38
Hera did not become wife of Zeus, Queen of the

Gods, by being naïve. She can be accused of many things,
but that is not among them.
“Whatever do you mean, little sister?” Hestia asks,
reaching a hand into the fire and watching the flames dance
harmlessly over her skin. None of her siblings would be so
fortunate if they tried to do the same.
Hera crosses her arms, lower lip jutting out, and
Hestia’s mouth twitches. They are all so painfully young.
Hera is little more than a girl, and Hestia thinks she would
be fond of her if she were not so clearly hiding fangs
behind her pretty lips.
Loving your family didn’t mean having to like
them.
“You won’t get away with it, whatever it is,” Hera
declares before turning and striding off.
Hestia cups a ball of flame in her hand, the warmth
of it seeping down to her bones. “Whatever you say, little
sister.”
The climb up Mount Olympus takes him weeks.

He’s exhausted and hungry by the time he reaches the top,
having run out of food days ago. But he makes it, he climbs
to the top of Mount Olympus – something that no other
human can claim.
He follows the goddess’s instructions to the letter,
waits until the moon is high before creeping into the
palace. He doesn’t touch any of the statues, the tapestries,
the golden goblets or silver plates. He doesn’t even let his
gaze linger on them, for he is after a prize far more valuable
than wealth.
Fame. Notoriety. His name written in the heavens,
never to be forgotten.
The hearth is in the center of the throne room,
larger than twice his size and more golden than red. He
takes a trembling step forward, eager and terrified all in
one.
39
The goddess appears in front of him, more

silhouette than anything else. “This fire will burn you,” she
warns, eyes fever bright and sparking just like the inferno
behind her, “It will kill you. It is only a matter of when –
not if.”
“I understand,” he says, because it doesn’t matter,
death does not matter. Death comes for all men. If he
succeeds in returning fire to humankind, he will be more
than a man – he will be a legend.
“Very well.” She spicks up a handful of fire.
Prometheus reaches for it, but she does not hand it to him.
Instead, she opens her mouth impossibly wide and puts it
on her tongue, lips closing around it. Her whole face turns
red from the heat.
She grabs him by the front of his shirt and jerks
him forward, placing her mouth to his mouth and pushing
the ball of celestial fire onto his tongue.
“There,” she says, leaning back. “That will dampen
it enough for you to make it back to the land of mortal
men, but you must not open your mouth until you are
ready – as soon as it’s exposed to the air, it will consume
you. If you are not back in the mortal realm by then, your
death will be for nothing.”
It burns, it’s complete agony. He can already feel
the fire eating its way through the soft, wet muscles of his
cheeks. But he gives the goddess one sharp nod, and then
he’s sprinting his way out of Olympus.
He doesn’t have much time.
Prometheus is long gone by the time Hera drags

herself to the throne room, sleeping robe askew and Zeus’s
teeth marks on her collarbone. She’s older than her
husband, but still so terribly young, and for a moment
Hestia pities her.
“What did you do?” Hera demands, voice coming
out rough. Hestia can’t see any bruising on her throat, but
that doesn’t mean there isn’t any. “I know you did
something!”
40
She knows the woman Hera will grow into, has

seen many girls become that same woman, and as the wife
of Zeus it’s nearly inevitable. But she’s not a woman yet,
just a girl who’s gambled everything for a play at power,
and hasn’t yet figured out if she’s won or lost.
“It’s cold in Zeus’s chambers,” Hestia pats the
empty space beside her, “Won’t you sit with me, little
sister?”
41
Hera stares, mistrust heavy in the air and plain on

her face. She will learn to hide her thoughts better one day.
“It’s not cold in there.”
“Isn’t it?” she asks simply, and for a split second
Hera’s face crumples. “Come, little sister.”
Hera takes one hesitant step closer, then another,
eventually stumbling to her knees beside her. She stares
into the fire, Hestia is sure, so she has an excuse for her
eyes to water.
“None of that now,” she adjusts Hera’s robe and
pulls her hair from her face, the normally immaculate locks
frizzy and tangled. She summons a brush and runs it
through her sister’s hair, careful and steady.
The tension leaves Hera’s body by degrees until
she chokes out, “It’s warm here.”
“As it always will be, when you are beside me,” she
says, because she can promise that at least. Whether Hera
will choose to sit at her side in the future is another matter
entirely.
Burns have surfaced all across his body, blistering

lesions turning into bloody caverns of ash where he once
had flesh.
Most of his lower face is gone, his jaw open and
gaping and only bone. The ball of celestial fire is nestled at
the bottom of his throat; it’s burned through until only a
thin layer of skin separates it from the open air. He has to
hurry. Every step is agony, he hasn’t been able to take a
breath for several minutes, and at this point death can only
be a relief.
He will not die in vain.
Prometheus finally, finally steps upon mortal soil,
but he does not stop there. He runs home, to his city, to
the center of the square. People recognize him, even with
half his face burned away, and there are screams.
He collapses in the city square. He reaches into
what’s left of his throat and pulls all but a spark of the
42
celestial fire free, can feel it searing into his palm. He opens
his hand.
He’s consumed in an instant, and his last sight is of
fire flying – into stoves, lighting hearths, candles twinkling
to life.
They will carve his name into the skies for this. He
dies satisfied.
“How could this have happened?” Zeus rages,

“How dare he steal from the gods? I will have Hades destroy
him in every possible manner!”
“Yes, my king,” Hestia murmurs. She doubts he’ll
ever make note of the contempt in her voice when she uses
his title.
King of the Gods. As if gods have ever cared for
kings.
Hera remains remarkably, carefully silent at her
husband’s side, hair neatly coiled the exact circumference
of Hestia’s fingers.
It wasn’t something Hestia asked of her, nor what
she was expecting. It is, however, a very pleasant surprise.
Perhaps there’s hope for her yet.
Prometheus opens his eyes, which isn’t something

he thought he’d be able to do again. Everything still feels
like it’s burning, but his body is back in more or less one
piece.
He’s in a place both dark and cold, and when his
eyes adjust, he realizes Hades, god of the dead, stands
before him.
“You’ve angered my brother greatly,” the god says,
but he doesn’t sound all that upset himself. “I’m to give
you the worst punishment imaginable for your
transgressions.”
Prometheus opens his mouth, and out drops the
smallest flicker of a flame. “From the goddess,” he says,
and the spark goes twirling, dancing across torches and
leaving them lit, then passing by a hearth so it roars to life.
43
Hades eyes widen as he watches the spark’s

progress, until it disappears down the hallway to light the
rest of his realm. “Foolish older sister,” he says, softer and
kinder than Prometheus thinks the god of the underworld
is supposed to look.
The whole place looks brighter with the fire, it goes
from ominous to nearly – homey, a place not only to arrive
at but one to return to.
Hades slides his gaze back over to him, “Those
burns are from celestial fire. I cannot heal them. You must
live with them.”
“I understand,” Prometheus says, even though he
doesn’t. If he’s to be subjected to the worst punishment
imaginable, what does it matter if he’s burned or not?
The god smiles, as if he’s reading his thoughts, and
says, “Until we meet again.”
The next thing Prometheus knows, he’s back in the
lands of mortal men. Different, perhaps, but alive.
Fires are lit in her name, each home’s hearth

dedicated to her, and Hestia smiles.
Hers is not a domain so easily extinguished
44
They Call Her Kore
Part VI:
They Call Her Kore
Apollo comes to her, warm and smiling. He likes

her body, its gentle curves, the flawless skin, how it shines
with the youth and strength of spring. He is the sun and
she is the earth, and it is from his rays that she gains her
strength. It would make sense for them to love each other.
He’s golden, from his skin to his hair to his mischievous
eyes, and every inch of him is as lovely as the first rays of
sunlight shining through the leaves.
Kore is not stupid. She knows Apollo does not
linger, that she will be a wife in name and little else; he will
lie with her and worship her and then grow bored of her.
Hermes comes to her, eyes sharp and hands gentle.
He likes her mind, her acuteness, the way she views the
world as a gem cutter would a raw emerald. He is wings
and air and she is firmly rooted in the earth, she is as far
from him as one can be, but his skin and hers are the exact
same shade and she finds the shape of his mouth pleasing.
She likes the way he considers her his equal.
But Hermes is meant to fly, spends his time
carrying messages for Zeus and meddling in things that
ought not to be meddled in. He may be a fine enough man,
but he’s no husband.
She has two offers – each from powerful gods,
each of them attractive and clever. There’s no reason she
should find them both as unappealing as swallowing
congealed chicken fat, yet she does.
“I do not often find you alone,” a deep, feminine
voice says, and Kore suppresses a sigh as she turns to greet
the approaching woman. She sits deep in the forest under
a blossoming apple tree, but this is not only her dominion.
45
“I am not often alone,” she concedes, observing

the blood soaked goddess. “I’m assuming none of that is
yours?”
Artemis doesn’t have enough hair to toss it over
her shoulder, but she runs a hand through it to push it out
of her face, streaking it copper with blood. “Of course not.
I hope you weren’t too attached to the bucks of this
forest.”
“Animals are not my concern,” she answers,
“Besides, I am the goddess of spring, and therefore am
born from death. It would be foolish of me to reject that
which bore me.”
“Funny you should say that,” she says, “since all of
Olympus is gossiping about how desperately you seek to
leave the sanctuary of what bore you.”
Kore raises an eyebrow. Artemis is clumsy with her
words, but she supposes the woman has never needed to
be otherwise. There are few as transparent and
straightforward as the huntress. “Perhaps it is more funny,
dear cousin, how easily the words prison and sanctuary
become entangled.”
Artemis crosses her arms and sucks her lower lip
between her teeth. “No,” she says finally, sobering, “I
don’t think that’s very funny at all.”
Kore arranges her skirts around her, the green of
the thread and that of the grass nearly identical. “If you’re
here to plead your brother’s case for my hand, I’m willing
to listen.”
The huntress gives a derisive snort. Persephone
blinks, taken aback. “I would not recommend my brother’s
hand,” Artemis says. “There are other parts of his anatomy
which leave many satisfied, however, if that falls within
your interests.”
“I am a more desirable bride as a virgin,” she
answers, instead of saying that the thought of touching a
man she does not love makes her skin crawl. Artemis
laughs as if she’s just told a joke, but if so Kore is ignorant
of the punchline.
46
They Call Her Kore
She does not know if she could love either Hermes

or Apollo, at least not for the eternity that marks a god’s
impossibly long life. It would result in a rather lackluster
lovemaking, which is presumably their main goal in
pursuing her.
She dislikes her options. Behind her is the gilded
cage of her mother’s overprotectiveness, and ahead of her
lies the gilded cage of a loveless marriage.
“Kore,” Artemis says, frowning, “if – if you are to
defy Demeter, you must go someplace that she cannot
enter, a place where her magic cannot reach you.”
“Where might that be?” Kore asks dryly, “She is as
I am – all that grows from this earth is our domain. Perhaps
in the sea I could hide from her, but Poseidon is no friend
of mine and has no reason to grant me asylum.”
Artemis shrugs, a wry twist to her lips. She cracks
her neck on either side, then walks back to where she came
from. She calls out over her shoulder, “I guess there is no
such place Kore, goddess of spring, born of death and
Demeter.”
Kore is still for a long time, staring at the place
where Artemis stood.
Perhaps she is not so clumsy with her words after
all.
Slipping away from her mother’s watchful eye is

always a monstrous task, even more so since the rumors of
her proposals, but she manages. She finds the River Styx
and follows it against its current, walking past and through
all the warning signs that she’s gone too far, ignores the
prickle along her skin as she crosses the threshold from
this world to the next.
Almost immediately she comes across a hooded
figure standing beside a small boat. “Charon,” she greets
confidently. She tries to catch a peek under his hood, but
he tilts his head away from her. He manages to give the
impression that he’s frowning at her even though she can’t
see his face. “I need passage across the river.”
47
“You are not dead, lady goddess,” he says.

She holds out a shiny gold coin. “I can pay.”
“You are not dead,” he repeats, “You may not be
ferried across.”
She nearly snaps at him, but instead takes a firm
hold on her temper and thinks. Charon did not say that she
was not permitted to enter the underworld, only that he
may not ferry her across to the other side. She peeks into
the rushing river. It’s so powerful and fast that it churns
grey foam and the water itself looks black, or perhaps that
is simply whatever lies beneath. She skims her hand across
the surface and the skin of her fingertips comes away
burned and blistering.
“May I swim?” she asks.
“There are no rules preventing the impossible,” he
tells her, but his shoulders stiffen as if he’s grown nervous.
Kore is not nervous. Either she survives and
manages to enter the underworld, or she dies and Charon
will have no choice but to ferry her across.
She sheds her gown, as it will only weigh her down
and get in her way. “My lady goddess,” Charon says, and
Kore would almost say he sounds panicked. “Please do not
–”
She jumps into the river.
It burns all over, white hot pain that makes her
want to scream, but she has no interest in discovering what
would happen if she were to swallow any of this supposed
water. The current fights against her at every turn, and her
muscles bunch and strain to not be swept away. It’s
improbably difficult, the most difficult thing she’s ever
done, but she grasps the edge of the shore with peeling
hands and heaves her bloody body onto the ground.
Her entire body is one throbbing wound. Perhaps
she should have listened to Charon before diving headfirst
into the river, but it’s too late for regrets.
“Are you insane?” a thunderous voice demands,
and then she’s being lifted by strong arms and then settled
against a muscular chest.
48
They Call Her Kore
She forces her eyes open, and the man glaring

down at her has hair the color of the night sky and skin as
pale as bone. His nose is long and sharp, his mouth wide
and thin. The only bits of colors are his eyes, a green so
dark that at first glance they look black. She raises a hand
and cups his face. The water clinging to her skin doesn’t
seem to hurt him. “Hades,” she says, and everything pains
her just as much as before but his skin soothes hers. The
skin on her palms comes away healed.
49
He’s angry with her, but his touch is gentle. There’s

not a stitch of clothing on her, but he doesn’t glance or
grope, only pulls her against him and uses the sleeve of his
robe to clear the burning water from her face. “Yes, insane
goddess, I am Hades.”
She had not meant to meet him, only to hide
among his realm until she could think of a better plan. But
she likes him already, an instantaneous and childish feeling,
one she’s never before experienced.
She turns into his chest and lets out a pleased sigh,
content to go wherever he brings her.
“They call me Kore.”
50
Athena and Medusa
Part VII:
Athena and Medusa
She believes that she was born without the ability

to feel love, that she is destined by the circumstances of
her birth to be cold and emotionless and alone.
Bursting from the skull of Zeus, she was born
neither from passion nor love. Neither conceived her, and
so she can conceive neither. Athena is born fully grown,
steel-eyed and iron strong. Pallas Athena is born, and no
one weeps.
She has little patience and little love for the rest of
her family. Those she is not constantly exasperated by –
such as the exuberant twins, Apollo and Artemis’s smiles
are bright enough to blind – she cannot bear to be around.
She values intelligence. Hermes is wise, but greedy,
and she won’t stand his avarice. Hephaestus – he’s
different, he doesn’t smile often but he has kindness in his
eyes and cleverness in his hands. Athena sits beside him in
his forge, and he neither avoids her nor grows tired of her
constant corrections. He takes her criticisms of his work
silently, either accepting them and reforming his works or
ignoring them without giving any sort of explanation as to
why. She likes his silences, his large dark eyes, likes the way
he built himself better legs instead of trying to get new ones
fashioned for him. Zeus could have done it, as could his
brothers, but Hephaestus did not ask.
Aphrodite is born as she was, and for a moment
Athena thinks she will no longer be alone, that she will
have a sister of her heart. But Aphrodite is the
personification of love and passion, and does not struggle
with their absence as Athena does.
51
Her new sister’s coming is a double blow. The

goddess is beloved by all, coveted by all, pursued by all –
including Hephaestus. Athena doesn’t believe the loveliest
woman in existence will choose a malformed god that does
not even have a throne on Olympus, but she is wrong.
The gods compete for her, offer her castles and
servants and all manner of extravagant gifts. Ares
campaigns the most aggressively for her hand, promising
all sorts of things that no sane man would barter.
Hephaestus offers a single copper rose fashioned
from his own two hands.
Aphrodite goes home with him. Her throne on
Olympus, empty more often than not, becomes adorned
with simple copper flowers.
Athena tells herself she did not want him anyway,
and forces what’s left of her heart to turn to stone.
Medusa is a simple village girl. She has thick black

hair she wears in braids, dark skin, and startling green eyes.
Many call her beautiful, but she does her best to hide it,
wearing simple grey dresses and letting no makeup adorn
her face, allows not a single glittering necklace around her
neck.
She is clever. Her father is a farmer, her mother a
midwife, but she thinks she could be more. She becomes a
priestess of the goddess Athena and she’s educated by the
other priestesses, her now-sisters, Stheno and Euryale.
Her attempts to be plain are not successful for
long. She catches the eye of Poseidon, a god so
tremendously powerful that her knees shake whenever he
looks at her. Medusa does not leave the temple often,
terror clutching her heart whenever she catches sight of
Poseidon waiting for her at the edge of the village.
She does not go to him. She hopes he will stop
waiting.
One day a man comes to the temple, sweat soaked
and wide eyed. “Priestess Medusa,” he gasps, “please,
52
Athena and Medusa
come with me! My wife – she’s having a difficult birth, the

midwife said to come to you. You must help us!”
Medusa wavers. She is not a disciple of Artemis,
but her mother trained her well. Theirs is not a large village.
If she refuses to help, if she places her fear over this
almost-mother’s needs, she is not fit to call herself the
priestess of any goddess. “Lead the way,” she says. She
swallows down her dread and lifts her skirts to follow the
man out of the safety of the temple and into the village.
The birth is long and hard. She and the midwife are
only partially successful. The mother is saved, but of the
two children who grew in her womb, only one still
breathes. The father thanks her even as he touches the
cheek of the babe they could not save, and Medusa tries
not to wonder if both would have lived if she had not
hesitated. She does not think so, but knows the possibility
will haunt her.
He offers to walk her back, but she declines,
unwilling to separate him from his new family, and makes
the long walk back to the temple alone.
She’s almost there when a man appears, suddenly
walking besides her. His eyes are sea-storm blue and his
skin tanned. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he says, mouth
tilted up at the corners.
Medusa stares, heart in her throat, and can think of
nothing to say. So she runs.
She’s on the steps of the temple when a thick arm
catches her around the waist. “Not so fast,” Poseidon
murmurs, lips dragging against her neck. “We’ve hardly
had the opportunity to become acquainted.”
“We can’t,” she says desperately, unwilling to
struggle and risk angering him. “We are at a temple of the
virgin Athena!”
“Only the steps.” He reaches beneath her skirt,
“She won’t mind. You don’t mind either, do you? You’re
such a pretty thing.”
She bites her lip to keep from crying. Poseidon is
the god of the sea, and she is merely a mortal woman.
53
“No,” she whispers, sending up one last plea to her patron

goddess. “No, I don’t mind.”
Athena is furious. She has no patience for

Poseidon’s misdeeds on the best of days, but her priestess,
in her temple – she doesn’t have the power to kill the god,
but she’s eager to teach him a lesson.
She goes storming into his palace, and all his
servants go scurrying when they see her.
“Lady Athena,” a soft, amused voice greets, “what
a pleasant surprise.”
She turns and glares at the smiling Amphitrite. She
never knows what to make of this woman. She’s the
personification of the sea itself, is closer to a being like the
great Mother Gaia than she is to a goddess. Yet she’s
content to be the wife of Poseidon, to be the sea he
commands.
“Do you know where your husband is?” she
demands.
“Always,” she responds, still with that same
pleasant smile, and Athena feels a chill she can’t explain go
down her spine. “How might I help you, Lady Goddess?”
“He owes me recompense,” she snaps, “He’s
raped one of my priestesses in my temple. I demand
satisfaction.”
Amphitrite smiles, and there is nothing pleasant
about the action. Athena is reminded all at once that she’s
in the middle of the sea, in the middle of Amphitrite’s
domain. This is not the place to cross her. “If it is
satisfaction you seek, it is not my husband you should be
looking for.” Athena opens her mouth, but Amphitrite
cuts her off. “Tend to your priestess, Lady Goddess.
Nothing you seek is here to find.”
Athena is too wise to fight a battle already lost. She
leaves the palace empty handed.
Medusa sits in a hot spring, legs pulled to her chest

and her chin resting on her knees. She has not told Stheno
54
Athena and Medusa
and Euryale of the events of last night. How can she, when
they will surely toss her out if she reveals she’s no longer
fit to serve in a temple of Athena the Virgin.
“Did you bleed?”
Her head snaps up and she’s staring into cool grey
eyes. “My lady!” she gasps, and hurries to press her
forehead to the rock, prostrating herself as best she can in
the hot spring.
“I asked you a question,” Pallas Athena says.
Tears gathers in her eyes, but Medusa blinks them
away. “No, my lady. He was gentle.”
The words feel sour in her throat, but they are true.
He was not rough with her, did not bruise her as the tales
say he likes to do, did not leave her bleeding, only with a
vague soreness that would be easy to ignore if it had any
other cause.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Athena says harshly,
grabbing her chin and forcing Medusa to look her in the
eye. “There is nothing gentle about what he did. Be still. I
will make it so that neither he nor any other man will ever
touch you again.”
Dread settles in the pit of her stomach. Medusa
had not liked Poseidon’s hands on her. Much of her skin
is rubbed raw from where she tried to scrub away the
phantom sensation of his touch. But she had not planned
to remain a priestess forever. She had one day wanted a
husband and children of her own, and that desire was not
something Poseidon’s actions had managed to change.
But Athena is a goddess, and she is merely a mortal
woman.
“Thank you, my lady,” she says, and closes her
eyes.
Whatever she does, Medusa hopes it will not hurt,
at least.
Athena is in one of her great libraries when

Aphrodite settles beside her. She forces down the
instinctual swell of bitterness at the sight of the goddess
55
and says, “Aphrodite. You should have told me you were

coming.”
“If I had, you wouldn’t be here,” the other goddess
retorts, and Athena keeps her face blank against the
truthful accusation. “I know you have a temper, sister, but
wasn’t your treatment of your priestess a little harsh? It’s
hardly her own fault that she caught the eye of Poseidon.”
It takes a moment for Athena to realize who she’s
talking about. “My transformation of Medusa was not a
punishment, but a gift.”
Aphrodite snorts, “Some gift. I wouldn’t normally
interfere with your affairs, but the girl has been praying at
my temple for months. Turn her back.”
“So that another man may make prey of her?”
Athena snaps, stung in way she refuses to show at
Aphrodite’s chastising. “I think not.”
“The way she is now, no man will love her either,”
she says. “Why do you deny the girl her happiness?”
Athena slams her book shut, thoroughly incensed.
“You stupid girl, why would she ever want a man’s love
after what Poseidon did to her?”
“Not everyone is you, Pallas Athena,” Aphrodite
says, something cruel in the curl of her mouth. “Not
everyone is so willing to turn all capable of causing them
pain into stone.”
She knows. Athena supposes it was inevitable, that
the goddess of love would know what used to lie in
Athena’s heart, but her fists clench anyway. “Did you tell
him?”
“My husband remains as oblivious to all but his
machines as ever,” she says. “Return Medusa to her former
form.”
Athena is not willing to be pushed around by a
flowery, half rate goddess who wages no wars and wins no
victories. “I refuse. I did right by my priestess.”
Aphrodite shakes her head, but leaves her at long
last.
56
Athena and Medusa
Medusa doesn’t stop praying to Aphrodite, no

matter the long years that her prayers go unanswered.
She keeps her snakes covered in a tight headwrap,
and they sleep willingly on top of her head.
In the temple, her gaze is of no concern, for her
sisters are not men and therefore cannot be turned to
stone. But every time someone comes calling to the
temple, she hides in her room and refuses to come out,
terrified of turning some well-meaning traveler to stone on
accident.
A wounded man stays at the temple – a hero, with
the mark of the gods upon him.
Stheno demands Medusa tends to him, saying that
she’s the best healer out of the three of them. “He’s out
cold, and god-touched besides,” Stheno says impatiently,
dragging Medusa from her room. “You won’t turn this one
to stone.” Medusa gives in and tends to his wounds, careful
to keep her eyes downcast in case he awakens.
He’s a beautiful man, the only one she’s seen in a
long time. He has rich bronze skin, thick black hair, and
high cheekbones. Medusa discovers his full lips are soft
when she carefully skims her fingers over them. “His name
is Perseus,” Euryale tells her.
“Perseus,” she repeats, and flushes all over.
She goes to him at night and sits beside him. At
first she only watches him, waiting for his wounds to heal
and for him to awaken and leave. But days pass, and he
heals, but slowly. She starts talking to him, describing her
days as a child. She tells him of her parents, of training to
be a midwife, of how she eventually rejected that training
to become a priestess of Athena. Days pass to weeks, and
she speaks of Poseidon, of the gift (curse, her sisters say,
when they think she cannot hear them) Athena gave her,
of the future she coveted and has now lost forever.
She holds his hand as she talks, traces the lines on
his palms, and both dreads and hopes for the day that he
will awaken.
57
That day comes. She hides in her room and sits

with her legs to her chest, just like on the day that Athena
came to her.
There’s footsteps and then a knocking on her door.
“Medusa?” a deep voice calls, “Are you in there? It’s
Perseus.”
She slowly uncurls and walks to her door. She can’t
bring herself to open it, but she does press her forehead
against it. She wishes she knew the color of his eyes.
“If – if you’re in there, I just – I just wanted. I –
Thank you, Medusa. For tending to me. I would not be
alive if not for you. I can never repay you for your
kindness.”
He stands there, waiting, but she cannot bring
herself to speak to him.
“Okay,” he says, softer this time, “It’s okay, you
don’t need to say anything. I hope we meet again, Priestess
Medusa.”
She hasn’t cried in a long time. She’s not surprised
to realize she’s crying now.
Days turns to weeks turn to months. She does her

best forget the man she never truly met.
Then he returns.
She’s sitting in the library when Euryale comes for
her, telling her she’s needed in the main room.
She barely catches sight of him before she bolts,
hurrying to leave before she accidentally kills him. Euryale
blocks her way, glaring. “You will not turn him to stone,
Medusa. Go.”
“Priestess Medusa,” he calls out with that same
rich voice, “I’m wearing a blindfold. Our gazes will not
meet. Please, do not run from me.”
She takes a deep breath, forcing her heart to calm
and her limbs to stop trembling before she can make
herself turn and face him. She takes lead-laden steps until
she stands in front him. He has new, fresh scars since she
saw him last, and she aches to touch them.
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Athena and Medusa
He holds out a small box to her. “Please know

these are yours no matter your answer, Priestess Medusa.
They are not bargaining chips. They are a gift.”
“Thank you,” she says automatically, confused.
“My answer to what?”
He smiles at her. His lips look even nicer like that.
“Lady Medusa, I heard you all those nights you were by my
side, all those long hours when your voice guided me back
to the mortal realm. I have traveled the world, and I have
yet to meet a woman as extraordinary as you. I would take
you for my wife, Lady Medusa, if you are willing.”
Her knees buckle, and his hands wrap around her
elbows, holding her upright. “I can’t,” she chokes out. “I
can’t, I’ll kill you.”
“The box in your hands holds a pair of eyes,” he
says softly. “Take off my blindfold.”
It can’t be. He can’t be saying what she thinks he
is. She raises a trembling hand and removes the blindfold.
Where his eyes should be there is only emptiness.
There’s minimal scarring, meaning they were removed
with intentional precision. “If you take my eyes for you
own, you will no longer have to worry about turning
people to stone. I doubt they are as lovely as yours must
be, but I wish for you to have them none the less. I wish
for you to have the choices they provide whether you are
my wife or not.”
Medusa carefully transfers the precious, precious
box to one hand and grabs the back of Perseus’s neck with
the other, pulling him down and pressing their lips
together. He wraps a careful arm around her waist, then
pulls her flush against him. He’s warm and solid, and his
mouth is soft and pliant. He’s everything she ever hoped
being held by a man would be.
Her hair covering falls off, and when they break
apart he’s laughing. The snakes are unbound and fully
grown, and drape nearly to her waist. They reach out and
brush against him. “Friendly, aren’t they?” he asks, holding
59
up a hand for their inspection. “Can I take that as a yes,

Lady Medusa?”
“Yes,” she says, and kisses him again, just because
she can.
Athena sits high on a roof, watching Medusa hang

laundry in the baking summer sun. Perseus’s brown eyes
fit perfectly in her face, and Athena’s eyes are drawn to the
swell of the woman’s stomach.
There’s a shift in the air besides her. “Come to rub
my ignorance in my face?”
Aphrodite sighs and leans so they’re shoulder to
shoulder. “Dear sister, I would never.”
They sit in silence for a moment, until Athena can
stand it no longer. “I know you must think me cold–”
Aphrodite bursts into laughter, and Athena is
startled into silence. “Your temper runs hot enough to
burn all of Olympus to ashes,” she says cheerfully. “Cold
has never been a word I would use to describe you.
Stubborn, of course. Petty, most certainly. But never cold.”
“I am the only goddess without a lover,” she says
blankly, because all know of Artemis and her women, of
how Hestia uses her vow of chastity to deter suitors and
not much else.
“So?” Aphrodite asks. “I do not see why that
matters. Poseidon beds more people than any of us, and
yet he runs as cold as the ocean depths he lives in.”
Athena stares, wide eyed, and admits something to
her that she’s never admitted to anyone, “I don’t think I
was born with the capacity to love anyone.”
Her sister smiles, soft, and says, “Often, love is
sacrifice.” Neither of them look to where Medusa takes her
blind husband’s hand and places it against her stomach.
His laughter is bright and cuts across the air when he feels
his child move. “That is an art you know well, sister.”
For a single moment, Aphrodite’s fingers tangle
with hers. There’s warm lips pressed against her forehead,
then she is alone once more.
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Athena and Medusa
61
62
Hades, an Interlude
Part VIII:
Hades, an Interlude
Hades rubs at his temples. As a nearly all-powerful

being, he should be immune to headaches, yet he finds
himself in constant suffering. If Hermes were not so
irritating, he would ask him for a cure, but dealing with his
nephew always causes more pain than it relieves.
“I did not know she was a goddess,” a light voice
says, petulant and apologetic all at once, “I would not have
tried to kill her if I had known.”
He looks down. The river child-goddess Styx stares
up at him, big liquid eyes and trembling bottom lip. “I’m
not mad at you,” he says, “You did just as you should.”
“I know,” she says imperiously, but he does not
miss the way her shoulders droop. She inches closer and
fists her hands in his robes, “She’s pretty.”
Kore lies in his bed, curled under his sheets and
sleeping soundly. He’d rinsed her in a waterfall that flows
from the edge of the earth into his domain, cleansing her
off the corrosive water of the River Styx. Her skin is as
dark as the richest earth, but her hair has been bleached
white by the river. Her light snoring breaths make him
smile, and he admits, “She is that.”
Styx tugs at him, biting her lip. He does not have
the time to indulge her, but she still believes that he’s cross
with her.
He bends enough so that her arms can encircle his
neck and he lifts her, easily balancing the small child on his
hip. “Accompany me as I patrol the edge of realm. She
should not have been able to get to the underworld in the
first place.”
63
She rests her head on his shoulder and tucks her

thumb in her mouth. It’s a good thing he doesn’t take
much stock in dignity. “If I must.”
“You must,” he commands, smiling since she
cannot see him.
She falls asleep by the time he’s halfway through
checking the edges of his realm. “Hecate,” he sighs.
“Poor thing,” the disembodied voice of the
goddess of magic and other inexplicable things coos. She
slips out of the darkness and pulls Styx from Hades’s hip
into her arms. “She was so worried that you would be upset
with her that she tired herself out.”
“Why would I be upset with her,” Hades asks,
“when it is you who eroded the barrier so an insane
goddess could pass through?”
Hecate grins, wicked and unapologetic.
“Demeter’s daughter is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Demeter’s daughter,” he repeats, lead pooling in
his stomach. “I must return her before my sister kills me.”
“Don’t be silly,” Hecate scolds, shifting the still
sleeping Styx to a more comfortable position in her arms.
“The girl came to you for sanctuary, how can you deny
her? You’ve never claimed cruelty as a trait before. Best
not to start now.”
Hades scowls, “Perhaps you should stop meddling
in affairs that don’t concern you, before I expel you from
my realm and leave you to my brothers’ tender mercy.”
Hecate’s grin softens, and she goes on her tiptoes
to kiss his cheek. “You’ve never claimed cruelty as a trait
before, Lord Hades. Best not to start now.”
She fades back into the shadows. Hades forces a
frown onto his face in case she’s still watching, but he
knows he’s not fooling anyone, least of all himself.
The fabric of reality dividing his realm from the

mortal one is worn thin where Hecate meddled. Hades
could repair it on his own, but it’s hardly his specialty.
“Sister,” he says, pitching his voice just right so it will reach
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Hades, an Interlude
the ears it’s intended for, “if you’re not too busy, I could
use some assistance.”
There’s a pressure in the air beside him, and he
reaches out, pushing through the layers of his own magic
to grab her hand and guide her from Olympus to his side.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” his grey-
eyed sister says, “so warm and welcoming.”
Hestia’s fire burns happily within his domain, but
hall torches and bioluminescent rock can only get him so
fair. In the center, where his palace resides and homes and
people unfurl around him like a rose, the fire is enough. It
is soft and steady in his cities.
But here, at the neglected and empty edges of his
realm, it’s gloomy at best.
“You still do not allow Apollo to fly his chariot
through your realm?” Athena doesn’t ask him why he’s
called, a loom appearing in front of her as she pulls his
robe from his back with brisk, impersonal movements.
“Apollo would not fly through my realm if I
personally invited him, and so we remain without sun. We
do well enough.” He only wears a knee-length chiton, and
sits on the ground next to the loom. Athena relaxes, the
changes so subtle that he doubts few would notice them.
She doesn’t like people looking down at her, and Hades
stands at least a head above her, even when he slouches.
Sitting is easier. “I liked that robe.”
She’s already half unraveled it, the thread white
even though his robe was black. “I know. It’s soaked in
your magic, in your aura, in your scent. It’s exactly what is
needed to repair the fabric of your realm, Hades.” She
weaves faster than is possible for any human. Already he
can see the block of glittering white fabric beginning to
take shape. “You should punish Hecate severely for her
transgressions.”
He doesn’t bother to hide his grin from her.
Athena knows the flavor of all their magic, and it doesn’t
surprise him that she knows this was the other goddess’s
work. “She had fine intentions, I’m sure.”
65
Athena scoffs, pressing the loom down and up and

more inches of fabric are revealed. “She’s arrogant and
meddling and more trouble than she’s worth. She’s already
crossed Zeus and Poseidon. One day your goodwill will
run out and she’ll have no one left to turn to.”
“Perhaps,” he says, resting his chin in his hand.
“Many of the magical wards around my home are her
design, you know. Tricky, dark magic is her specialty.”
“Which is why she was able to create a weak spot,”
she snaps, “You should be more careful.”
Hades likes Hecate. Once, she spent a whole week
arranging thousands of frozen fireflies like constellations
high in the air above them so that the residents of the
underworld could pretend they were under a mortal sky.
She may capable of terrible things, but so is he. “I will,
sister.”
Athena glares at him like she can tell he’s lying to
her. “Here,” she says, handing him the improbably large
piece of cloth, “you must do the next part on your own. I
can do no more for you.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” he praises, and
neatly cuts a doorway for her to leave though. “Thank you,
Pallas Athena.”
Her steel grey eyes appear to soften, but it’s hard
to tell when he can barely see her in the weak light. “Be
careful, Hades. I mean it.”
She leaves before he can respond, which is likely
for the best since he isn’t sure what he would say. He
begins the painstaking process of stitching the cloth into
the fabric separating his world from the mortal’s. Each
stitch must be tiny and perfect, and sewing is not among
his strengths. It will take him the rest of the night to
complete it.
He’s just sewing the last stitch when there’s a

whisper of wings and a presence beside him. There is a
single god who can enter his realm without his permission.
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Hades, an Interlude
“Hermes,” he greets, already resigned to his headache.

“Do you have a message for me?”
“Demeter is on the war path,” he says. “She
demands her daughter’s return.”
Hades steps back to admire his handiwork. Hardly
pretty, but functional. “As always, if Demeter wishes to
speak to me, she’s more than welcome to step into my
realm and do so.”
“She’s powerless in your domain,” Hermes says,
crossing his arms, “She will never expose herself that way.
She won’t come.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do for her,” he
answers, beginning his walk back to his palace.
Hermes falls in place beside him. “She’s a
dangerous enemy to have, Uncle.”
“Don’t I know it,” he grumbles, “Every time she’s
cross with me another city starves, and I have a rush of
new people who must cross my river and enter my realm.”
“Kore does not belong here,” Hermes argues, “Let
Demeter take her back.”
Hades dares not ask why Hermes cares so much
about this when for everything else he cares so little. He
doubts he’d like the answer. “Kore crossed the Styx,” he
says, and curses Hecate for putting thoughts into his head.
He should just send Kore back to her mother, but Hecate
is right. Anyone desperate enough to come to him for
protection is someone too desperate for him to turn away.
“She may stay as long as she likes.”
Hermes stares at him. His eyes are as dark as
Hades’s own, but so startlingly different in every other
way. “You will regret standing against her,” he warns one
final time before flying into the air and out of his realm.
Hades rubs at the bridge of his nose. As expected,
his dear nephew brings him more problems and no
solutions.
67
68
Poseidon & Caeneus
Part IX:
Poseidon & Caeneus
Zeus claims the sky as his domain, free and open

and pure, and his it becomes.
Hades goes to the underworld, and it’s messy and
horrible and heartbreaking, but he claims it uncontested,
and his it becomes.
Poseidon goes to the sea, but it already has a
sovereign.
His first thought is that she’s beautiful. Skin the

color of pearls and hair the dark, rich green of seaweed.
She’s tall with the type of aristocratic bone structure that
would make him think her delicate if not every other aspect
of her was as fearsome as Hera at her most irritable.
“You come to my land seeking to make it your
own,” she says, and she’s not quite walking and not quite
swimming as she circles him. “Who are you to rule the
sea?”
He clears his throat. He’s a powerful god. He and
his brothers are the most powerful gods that still exist on
this earth, but his knees shake before her. It’s not a good
feeling. It’s not infatuation – it’s fear. “I am Poseidon.”
She tilts her head to the side, and her pretty blue
eyes are as cold as sea floor they stand on. “Goodbye,
Poseidon. Perhaps your brother will be able to find what’s
left of your corpse in his underworld.”
The water whips around him, doing its best to rip
him apart, forcing itself into his lungs and suffocating him.
He didn’t think he could drown, but he might be about to
be proven wrong.
69
Then a net closes around him, pulling him up so

he breaks through the surface. He takes a large, grateful
gulp of air. He’s hauled over the side of a boat and dumped
on its floor, the person who saved him wildly fighting the
angry waves. “You must have really pissed the Lady off,”
a light, teasing voice says. Poseidon is still coughing, his
eyes watering and lungs screaming. This boat is going to
capsize and they’ll both die, so he doesn’t get how this
person can sound so lighthearted.
Except they’re not. Their little boat is being
expertly handled against the thrashing waves. Poseidon
blinks, and he’s inclined to say the person sailing is a
woman, considering the budding breasts and hips. But the
hair is cut short, and the chiton is designed for a man.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Caeneus,” his unexpected rescuer answers.
That’s a man’s name, and Poseidon opens his
mouth to question it – then closes it again. “Thank you,”
he settles on, “You saved my life.”
Caeneus finally steers them to land, and Poseidon
gets out to help him pull and anchor his boat to shore.
“Anytime,” he says cheerfully, “What did you do to make
the Lady so mad, anyway?”
“You know her?” he asks, staring. This man
appears to be a mere mortal, yet how could a human know
that woman?
He grins at Poseidon and points out to the
glittering sea. “We all do. She is the ocean itself, and just as
powerful and unknowable. You better be careful not to
anger her again – I don’t know anyone who’s survived her
wrath twice.”
“Right,” he says blankly, even though that’s
unavoidable. He’s to be the god of the sea, and if he has to
wrest the mantle of monarch from her corpse then so be
it.
Caeneus claps him on the shoulder, his work-
roughed palm more comforting than anything else
Poseidon has known since escaping his father’s stomach.
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Poseidon & Caeneus
“Come to mine, you look half dead. I’ll make you

something warm.”
He takes a long look at his savior. He has skin a
dark shade of brown, and his eyes are amber in the setting
sun. His short black hair frames his face, and the muscles
of his arms and legs shift with each moment. “Very well,”
he answers, and is inordinately grateful that he’s too cold
to blush.
Caeneus takes him to his home, a hastily

constructed shack on the beach’s edge. The wind whips
through the cracks in the wood so that no matter where
you stand you’re always chilled. “This is the worst
woodwork I’ve ever seen,” he says. He slides his hand
across the wall and is completely unsurprised when it
comes away with splinters.
“I’m a sailor, not a carpenter,” Caeneus answers,
intent on mixing together a bunch of ingredients Poseidon
only half recognizes. “It stays upright.”
“Barely,” he returns, cupping his hands around the
cup that’s shoved at him.
Caeneus doesn’t ask him to leave. Instead, they
squeeze onto Caeneus’s too small bed. Poseidon curls
around the smaller man, tangling their legs and tucking
Caeneus’s head under his chin. “You’re so warm,” Caeneus
murmurs, only half awake, and Poseidon’s heart clenches.
He makes sure Caeneus is asleep when he carefully,
so carefully, lowers his head and brushes his lips against
Caeneus’s cheek.
When Poseidon wakes up, the sun is bright and

Caeneus is gone.
He should go marching back to the ocean, but first
he has something important to do. He’s just not sure how
to go about it.
He can’t ask Zeus, his younger brother knows
plenty of war and not much else. Which leaves –
71
It’s easy enough to slip into the underworld,

although he regrets doing so the second he arrives. It’s
almost completely dark. Lost souls immediately reach for
him, cold hands brushing against his skin.
“What are you doing?” a familiar voice demands,
and Poseidon nearly wilts in relief when Hades appears at
his side and guides him away from the wailing souls. “It’s
not safe here yet.”
“What’s wrong with them?” he asks, glancing back,
his chest clenching in sympathy at their cries, even though
he knows there’s nothing he can do for them.
They slip through the realm, and land in front of a
partially built stone castle. The goddess Hecate guides the
construction with her magic, her visage that of a young
child since it’s still morning in the mortal realm.
Hades sits on the ground, and the skin beneath his
eyes is dark and bruised. He looks like a strong wind could
blow him over. “Nothing, everything, I don’t know. I’m
working on it. Why are you here?”
“I don’t suppose you know how to build a house?”
he asks, though he doesn’t expect much. It seems he’s not
the only one having trouble claiming authority over his
domain.
His brother laughs, eyes crinkling at the corners.
“You’ve come to the wrong sibling, little brother.”
Oh. That’s true. “Do you think she’ll help me?”
“Yes,” Hades answers, lips still twitching. “Now
leave me to my anarchy, I have more than enough trouble
to deal with without you causing more.”
That’s fair enough.
Poseidon heads to Olympus next, careful to peer
around corners to avoid Zeus and Hera. Their marble
palace is already constructed, and he tamps down on his
bitterness that they rule unchallenged. In the center of the
throne room, next to a roaring fire, sits Hestia.
“Sister,” he greets, tentative. “I need help building
a home.”
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Poseidon & Caeneus
She looks from her fire to him, and when she

smiles he feels all the tension drain from his shoulders. “Of
course, little brother. If it is help you require, then it is help
you shall have.”
Hestia tears apart the shack with a flick of her
hands as soon as they arrive and says, “I’ll ask Demeter for
some better wood,” and is gone and back in the blink of
an eye. They build it by hand after that, and Hestia’s soft
voice guides him whenever he hesitates or stumbles. They
are gods, so it doesn’t take too long, and when they finish
they have a small, beautiful house right on the edge of
beach, one with a large bed and lots of light, one with a fire
pit in the center that has Hestia’s name inscribed in the
bottom so that she can look over this home that she helped
build.
“Thank you,” Poseidon says, the sun beginning to
set.
Hestia winks at him, “Anytime, little brother,” and
is gone in the next moment.
He hopes Caeneus likes it. Unfortunately, he won’t
be able to stick around to find out.
He has a queen to challenge.
He finds her again, in her palace of polished rock

at the bottom of the sea.
“There’ll be no helpful sailor to save you this
time,” she says, head tilted to the side. Already the water is
colder around him, the current stronger.
He swallows. “I am Poseidon. I am to be the god
of the sea.”
She looks him over, unimpressed. “Why do you
want it so badly? There is nothing about you that is of the
sea.”
“I am a god,” he answers blankly, and doesn’t say
that it was this or the underworld, and that wasn’t a mess
he was willing to take on.
She snorts, a flicker of amusement appearing in her
emotionless gaze. “You are too soft, and too kind, to ever
73
be a master of the sea.” He opens his mouth, but she raises

her hand, and he closes it. She takes slow, deliberate steps
toward him, and he swallows and doesn’t look away. “I will
make you a bargain, Poseidon, god of nothing.”
“I’m listening,” he answers, and tries not flinch
when she places a cold hand against his chest.
“I am Amphitrite,” she says, “sister of Gaia, and I
have lived long before your conception, just as I will live
long after your death.” Poseidon pales, and oh, he had no
idea the class of being he was dealing with here. This is
very, very bad. “If you wish to rule the sea, then you must
rule me.”
He swallows, “Lady, I – a thousand apologies, I did
not know–”
“Silence.” His mouth clicks shut. “I was born as I
am, and I will die that way. But – I need not live this way.”
He doesn’t understand, and she must see that, because she
touches her own chest and says, “I have a heart as cold and
dark as the oceans I bore. I will give it to you, and I and
the sea will be yours to command. But I require your heart
in return, so that I may know kindness and softness.”
He doesn’t know what to say. Hearts aren’t things
to be given away lightly. But he must become lord of the
sea.
“Take time, if you must,” she says, that same cold
amusement in her eyes. “I am as immovable as the ocean,
and I will be here when you make up your mind.”
He’s propelled up and onto the shore, far more
gently this time around.
“POSEIDON!” He’s barely turned when a body
slams into him and lips press against his. Caeneus pins his
wrists to the sand and kisses him, long and slow and more
than distracting enough to make him forgot about the offer
from the personification of the sea itself. “You built me a
house,” he murmurs, “You built me a house.”
“Do you like it?” he asks, dazed.
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Poseidon & Caeneus
Caeneus grins above him, wicked and beautiful,

and rolls his hips into Poseidon’s. “Come with me, and I’ll
show you how much I like it.”
Poseidon means to go back to the sea, to

Amphitrite, but every day Caeneus kisses him good
morning. He does learn of the sea, though. He goes out
with Caeneus each day, and learns it motions and its
temper, the taste and smell of it. Learns how to understand
it, and learns how completely and totally uncaring it is, how
the coldness of its depth is the totality of it.
The sea is not kind. It has no sympathy, no love,
no capacity for such small things as forgiveness or mercy.
He means to return to her, but it becomes harder
and harder every day.
Days turn to weeks turn to months. He and
Caeneus grow closer, and closer, and Poseidon has no idea
how he’s supposed to turn his heart over to Amphitrite
when it’s now held by a mortal with amber eyes who leaves
mouth shaped bruises all along Poseidon’s collar bones.
“Poseidon,” Caeneus says, quiet in the oppressive
stillness of the night, head on Poseidon’s chest and curled
into his side. The moon is large and high, and pools silver
on their bedroom floor. “You’re a god, right?”
“I am,” Poseidon says, amused. Caeneus knows
what he is, but this is the first time he’s mentioned it.
Caeneus pushes himself up so he can look down at
him, and Poseidon reaches up to cup his face. He leans
into it, covering Poseidon’s hand with his own. “Could you
make me into a man?”
“You are a man,” he says automatically.
He rolls his eyes and pulls himself up so he can
swing his leg over Poseidon, straddling his hips. “You
know what I mean.”
Poseidon shifts enough that both their breaths
hitch, and he says, low, “No. I’m sorry. I’m not – I have
no domain, and my powers are limited.” He could maybe
75
do it, but transformation is not among his natural talents,

and Caeneus is too precious to risk unless he is certain.
Caeneus disappointed, but smiles through it, and
leans down to kiss him. “It’s all right.”
It’s not. If Poseidon were the god of the sea in
more than name, if he had taken Amphitrite’s offer, he
would be able to transform his lover like he desires.
He’s a god, brother of Zeus, and he can’t give
Caeneus the one thing he’s ever asked of him. What good
is he, what good is any of his power, if he can’t make the
people he loves happy?
He’s flips Caeneus over and kisses his neck so his
lover won’t see the self-hatred that’s plain on his face.
Poseidon sneaks away in the middle of the night,

pressing a soft kiss to his sleeping lover’s slack mouth, and
enters the ocean.
“You’ve decided, then?” she asks, head tilted to the
side. She never looks at him straight on.
“I will not be a loyal husband,” he declares, back
straight. “I love Caeneus.”
She laughs, and for the first time he’s not afraid of
her. “Do with your mortals what you wish. It’s no concern
of mine.”
“Okay,” he says, and steels himself. “Okay. I
accept your offer Amphitrite, sister of Gaia.”
She holds out her hand, nails more like claws, and
tears open her own chest without flinching. Her blood is
slick and dark as it pours from her, swirling in the water
around them. She pulls a dark, round thing from her chest
and holds it out to him.
“I,” he looks down, and he doesn’t – he’s not sure
if he can do what she’s done, and he would feel foolish
asking for a knife. She steps forward and places her hand
with its claws against his sternum, slippery and warm with
blood, and cuts open his chest for him.
It’s excruciating, and his knees buckle against the
pain of it. Amphitrite holds him up, and waits.
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Poseidon & Caeneus
She can’t do this part. It has to be him. He reaches

inside and pulls out his heart, beating and warm. He
clumsily places it behind her ribcage. It’s startlingly,
violently red against the dark green color of the rest of her
insides. She does the same, slipping her own black heart
into his chest.
Their skin heals over instantly. Amphitrite’s mouth
drops open, and her cheeks flush pink. She smiles, small
and soft, and for the first time she looks – happy.
Her heart in his chest is as cold as ice, and its chill
suffuses his body, edging out to fill him entirely.
He can feel the ocean now, all of it spread across
the globe, the tides and the creatures that reside in it, its
plants and animals and nymphs. “It’s so much,” he says,
and is surprised at the sound of his own voice, at its
curtness.
“You feel only part of it,” she says, stepping
forward, “It is a force too powerful for a god to control. I
am a force to powerful for a god to control. However, you
hold my heart. As I will now obey you, so will the sea.”
“You could overpower me,” he says clinically,
knows the power she wields by what he can’t feel rather
than what he can.
She presses a hand to his sternum, and they both
startle. She’s warm now. She wasn’t warm before. Or
perhaps he has simply grown colder. “I could,” she says,
“but I will not.”
He has no reason to trust her, but he’s painfully
aware that he doesn’t have a choice in the matter. “I’m
going to Caeneus,” he says, and a sense of unease grows
within him. Even the shape of his lover’s name in his
mouth doesn’t feel the same anymore.
“Do as you wish, husband.” She turns from him,
going deeper into her – their – palace.
This time, he uses his own powers of the sea to
push him to the surface.
It’s not as satisfying as he thought it’d be.
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78
Orpheus & Eurydice and Ares & Hades
Part X:
Orpheus & Eurydice
and Ares & Hades
The first time he hears of Orpheus is when Ares

comes to him in spring, when his wife his gone. Ares only
comes to him when his wife is gone.
“Apollo has a son,” he says, dark eyes darting
around like there’s something chasing him. There is always
something chasing the god of war, and many of them now
reside in Hades’s realm. No matter how many times Hades
has reassured Ares that he’s safe here, he doesn’t believe
him.
“Apollo has many sons,” he returns, dry. He
reaches out and places two fingers under Ares’s chin, sees
the bone paleness of his skin against the rich red-copper
of the younger god’s, and swallows. “You look tired.”
Crescent purple bruises are carved deep beneath his eyes.
Ares doesn’t shrug off his touch, but neither does
he lean into it. “I,” he finally meets his gaze, and Hades
smiles, warm. Ares’s lips twitch up like he wants to return
it, but can’t. “I haven’t been sleeping. There’s a war in the
East, and they’ve been invoking me for weeks. I think I
need to go there.”
He knows. There’s been hundreds of new people
in his realm every day. Thanatos and Charon haven’t slept
in weeks. Neither has he, for that matter.
“What will you disguise yourself as this time?” he
murmurs, “Another general?”
That was the wrong thing to say. Ares’s eyes go
impossibly distant, and his skin gains a sickly grey hue. His
hands aren’t shaking, so Hades has no reason to take them
in his own. He can’t decide if he’s disappointed by that or
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not. “No. I – no. Just a foot soldier. Less guilt that way.
Less – less. Just, less, that way.”
Less nightmares, less fear, less blood on his hands.
Less of the constant, inescapable battle-fury that keeps him
alive, but also keeps him from sleep, even on his best days.
When Zeus declared his son the god of war, this probably
wasn’t what he had in mind.
Hades hopes it isn’t, at least.
“Be careful,” he says, and Ares flinches.
He grabs Hades’s wrist before he leaves though,
and squeezes it so tightly that it would snap if Hades was a
mortal man.
There’s that, at least.
Persephone wears not the vibrant red that marks

her as queen of the underworld, but the soft green that
names her the daughter of spring. She sits on a smooth
rock in the middle of the sea, her curly dark red hair
brushing her bare shoulders. It’s the last day of summer.
She goes home tomorrow.
Demeter does not strain to keep her daughter at
her side anymore. Now she’s merely content to keep her
away from Hades.
“Were you waiting long?” a voice like lapping
waves asks in her ear, and in the next breath Amphitrite is
sitting at her back. She presses a kiss to her shoulder, and
her long green hair tumbles down Persephone’s front and
blends into her dress.
She tilts her head, allowing Amphitrite to trail salty
kisses up her neck. “No. Have trouble sneaking away from
your husband?”
She snorts. “I do not sneak.”
“You said you had news from my husband,”
Persephone reminds, not allowing herself to become
distracted. Not yet.
“About, not from,” she uses a single claw to cut
through the back of Persephone’s dress. It falls down to
her hips. “They’ve been waging war for months. A bloody
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horrible thing. The rumor is that Ares was in Hades’s

realm. People are saying that Ares sends the dead to your
husband as tribute.”
People are idiots. Besides, she likes Ares. She does
not mind that he visits her husband; she only wishes he
would visit her as well. “Is that all?”
Amphitrite shrugs then bites at Persephone’s ear.
“Won’t you come to the sea with me? My palace has many
places more comfortable than this rock.”
She leans back, pulling Amphitrite down with her,
and does not answer.
She is not Poseidon. She does not forget that
Amphitrite possesses, but is not to be possessed, and she
dares not follow the personification of the sea itself into
her domain.
Amphitrite loves her. She may not give her back.
Persephone is not Helen either. She will not be the
cause of any wars.
Thanatos, the boy who Hades still calls Icarus, sits

with his head in his hands. Hades reaches out and absently
runs a hand up and down his spine, thinks not for the first
time that he must have been a sight to see with his golden
wings for that glorious moment before he fell.
“Persephone should be crossing the shore soon. Why
don’t you go and wait for her?”
“I know what you’re doing,” he says, voice
muffled, “Styx can bring her. Or she can walk herself, since
there’s not a thing in this realm foolish enough to attack
her.”
Hades leans down and kisses the top of his spine,
“She likes it when you’re there to help her off the boat.
Please?”
Icarus turns and glares at him. Hades kisses him
below his left eye, lets his lips linger on the delicate skin
there. “You’re cheating,” Icarus accuses, a blush high on
his cheeks, “this is cheating.”
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“Stop working for a couple hours and go get my

wife,” he commands softly, “The armies of traumatized
dead will still be here when you return.”
Icarus listens – finally – and slips away to the river.
Hades looks back over the map. The problem with
the dead is they never go anywhere, so his realm only gets
bigger. At this rate, he’s going to need get Hecate so the
two of them can raise another city.
There’s a push in the air, and he startles. No one
enters his realm without permission, but he recognizes the
outline of the person trying to push through, and allows it.
Ares tumbles from the air, and into his arms. He’s covered
in blood – his long black hair soaked through with it.
“Not yours, I assume?” he asks, gripping Ares’s
forearms. He’s strung so tightly he’s nearly vibrating.
“I wish it was mine,” he says, somewhere between
a scream and a sob. Hades wishes this was the first time
Ares had come to him like this.
Ares locks his wrists around Hades’s neck and
pulls him down, knocking them both to the floor in his
exuberance. His mouth connects to Hades’s, slick and
tasting like sulpher and metal. “I have to go back soon,”
he gasps, dragging his lips along the edge of Hades’s jaw,
“they’re invoking my name. Distract me until then.”
He still has hours until Persephone will return
home, and besides she would not deny him this. “Okay,”
he whispers, and when he rolls them over they’re no longer
in his office, but his bed. Ares keens and strains his body
up towards Hades, and he grabs the young god’s wrists and
pins him to the bed. “Do not worry,” he says, and Ares’s
whole body glistens red with blood that isn’t his own. “I’ve
got you.”
Ares relaxes, just the smallest amount, under his
hands.
He’ll take what he can get.
She can tell Ares was there before she even steps
foot in her palace, and when she enters her bedroom she’s
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unsurprised to find her husband naked on their bed and

covered in blood.
“How is he?” she asks, and he startles, having been
so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed her.
“Persephone,” he greets, his whole face going soft
as he pushes himself up. He holds out a hand to her, and
she doesn’t hesitate to drop her cloak and crawl over the
bed to him. She hikes up her dress and straddles him, arms
crisscrossing behind his neck. She kisses him slow, licks
over the places where Ares had bitten his lips. “I’ve missed
you.”
She rolls her hips downward, and is gratified by the
way his hands flex on her thighs, “As I have missed you,
husband.”
She kisses mortal blood off his skin, and tries not
to worry too much about the man who left it there.
He’s survived every war since his birth, and he’ll
survive this one too.
Aphrodite enters his realm, her hair piled atop her

head and held together with copper pins fashioned in the
shape of delicate flowers. “Apollo has a son,” she says,
biting at her bottom lip.
He and Persephone share a glance before he says,
“Apollo has many sons.” He feels as if he’s had this
conversation before.
She quirks her lips in a half smile, “This one is
different. He plays the lyre, he plays it better than his father
even. He plays it so well that – that there are rumors that
he can sooth any beast to sleep. And,” she adds, even
quieter, “that Ares himself is soothed by his playing.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Persephone asks
coldly. Hades places his hand on top of hers. They like
Aphrodite, after all.
“Because I know Ares cares for Hades,” her eyes
flicker over to him, “and I believe Hades cares for him as
well. I – I could not accept his proposal. My love was not
the peace he thought it would be. But I wish him well.”
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“We can neither kidnap nor kill a son of Apollo,”

Persephone says. Hades feels compelled to add that they
shouldn’t want to either, but he can already tell this is a
situation which is quickly going to spiral out of his control,
if it hasn’t already.
Aphrodite raises a hand to tuck her hair behind her
ear, then lowers it when she realizes her hair is already up.
“He loves a mortal girl, Eurydice. If she were to die, he
would be beside himself in grief. Enough to take his own
life, even.”
“Really,” Persephone says flatly.
Aphrodite continues, “Then he would be a subject
of your realm. You could compel him to help Ares, could
you not?”
“I have subjects, not slaves,” he says, “I couldn’t
make him do anything.”
Persephone puts her hand on his arm, eyes bright.
“I have a better idea.”
Aphrodite’s plan had merit, but this is better.

Smarter. It gives Apollo less reason to be upset at them
later, since his son comes to them now on his
recommendation. Although he’s far too attached to all his
limbs to dare cross her regardless.
Orpheus is bargaining with her husband now, and
she’s given Hades strict instructions, that Orpheus must
agree to play in their courtyard for eternity if he fails. He
won’t cross her either, even if he wants to, even if he’s not
totally comfortable with this plan.
She knew when she married him that he was too
soft hearted for his own good. It’s half the reason she
married him in the first place.
For now, she circles the girl that the half-god had
been so willing to risk everything for. She’s attractive
enough, but plain. She has no particular talents, nor is she
overtly clever. “What makes you so special?” Persephone
asks when she sees nothing but an average young woman.
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Eurydice smiles then, and she’s much prettier that

way. “He loves me,” she answers, cheeks flushing. She
hesitates, but asks, “Will you really let him take him me
back?”
“As long as he listens, as long as he leaves the
underworld without looking back at you, you are free to
follow him and return to the world of the living,” she
answers, but knows that will never come to pass.
Orpheus loves this girl too much to risk leaving
without her, and his doubts will overcome his hope. He
will look back, and become trapped here forever.
The window of one of the spare rooms is open,

and the most beautiful playing comes through. Hades sits
at the edge of the bed, and reaches to run the back of his
finger across Ares’s cheek.
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The war still rages. A war always rages. Yet Ares

sleeps, the bruises under his eyes becoming lighter by the
day.
He turns toward Hades, straining even in sleep for
his touch. Hades hesitates, but his realm is stable enough
for now. He slips beneath the covers, and Ares curls into
his side, tangling their legs together and pillowing his head
on Hades’s chest. He can feel Ares’s damp exhales on his
sternum.
There will always be another war, and Ares cannot
stay. But for now he sleeps peacefully in Hades’s arms, and
that will have to be enough.
Persephone sits in her garden in the courtyard,

listening to the same beautiful song.
“This one is my favorite,” Eurydice says, seated
beside her and beaming.
She glances over to Orpheus, who grins wide as he
performs a love song for his beloved wife. Behind him,
tucked in the corner of their courtyard, is the cottage where
Eurydice and Orpheus live.
“Mine too,” she says.
Hades is too soft hearted for his own good. She’d
known that when she married him.
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The Minotaur
Part XI:
The Minotaur
There are times when Hermes’s role as the

messenger god weighs on him. Declaration of war have left
his lips, the words he’s carried have ended whole countries
and damned villages to a slow painful death. The secrets
he carries tear at him, the horrors he’s had to face only so
he could later tell of them, the warnings he repeats that are
ignored, and all he’s witnessed is for nothing, since it all
happens over and over again in front of him.
There are times the news he brings eats at his soul
like necrosis – the death of Kore, Poseidon destroying
another seaside village, every whisper of Pandora,
informing Ares of yet another war.
This –
– isn’t one of those times.
Aphrodite’s lovely face is slack with surprise. At

her side stands Hephaestus, who he rubs his chin and says,
“That seems physically improbable.”
“How did she manage to not die?” Aphrodite
demands, then says, “Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t want to
know.”
Hermes grins, and doesn’t bother to hide the
complete delight he’s taking in this, “But my lady, it is my
sacred duty to tell you these things. When Queen Pasiphae
ensnared Daedalus’s help to be mounted by the bull–”
She gives him a cross look and is gone in a
powerful gust of wind. He has to grab onto the volcano
wall to keep from falling over.
“That wasn’t very nice,” Hephaestus says, off
hand. It’s clear he’s still thinking of the mechanics of a
human-bull hybrid.
87
“I’ve been accused of being many things,” Hermes

says cheerfully, “nice is not among them.”
Artemis lounges in her tent with one of her

huntress’s face between her thighs, inexperienced but
eager, and she so does love taking on new women.
“Sister!” Apollo shouts, appearing at her side and
glaring down at her. “Have you lost your mind?”
Her huntress startles and freezes, unsure whether
to leave or continue. Artemis rolls her hips up, and the girl
ignores the appearance of the sun god and continues with
her task.
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The Minotaur
“Not that I know of,” she says, tilting her head up

so she can look at her brother without altering her
position, “Why do you ask?”
“Poseidon cursed a mortal queen to fall in love
with a bull, and she gave birth to a bull headed monster
today.” He crosses his arms and glares.
She swallows the laugh that bubbles up, but she
must not be entirely successful because he starts tapping
his foot. “Well, isn’t that interesting. I’m not sure what it
has to do with me.”
“Sister dear, Artemis, patron goddess of
childbirth,” he says with syrup thick sweetness, “why on
earth did you bless that child? There’s no way it could have
been born without your help. It had to have been you.”
Her huntress pauses again, and Artemis will answer
her questions later. She squeezes her thighs about her ears,
and the girl resumes. “Oh come on, don’t give me that
look. This is hysterical. People are going to be talking about
this for years.”
He considers that for a long moment, then
uncrosses his arms. “Okay, you have a point.”
“I know. Now if you don’t mind, I’m a little busy,”
she gestures to the huntress between her legs.
Apollo snorts, “Get a few more girls in here, and
maybe I’ll consider that busy.”
He slips away, but Artemis’s eyes narrow. That
sounds like a challenge.
The girl replaces her mouth with a hand and asks,
“Should I gather the other huntresses, lady goddess?”
“I like you,” Artemis says, and the girl laughs,
cheeks flushed and lips shiny.
Hermes appears in the middle of the garden of

Hades’s palace, and blinks twice.
The queen of the underworld is half naked and on
top of Amphitrite, and several things fall in place at once.
“Is this why you don’t get upset with Hades for his affair
with Hecate?”
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“There is no affair with Hecate, you’re just an

indiscriminate gossip,” Persephone retorts. “And if they
were having an affair, I wouldn’t have a problem with it,
and it wouldn’t have anything to do with Amphitrite.”
“Oh,” he says. He feels rather derailed from his
original point. “I came here to–”
“If this is about the minotaur, we already heard
about it,” she says, “You can go now.”
They’ve already heard about it! “From who?” This is
the best news he’s told in centuries, and this person is
ruining it for him.
“Aphrodite,” Amphitrite says. “She’s cross with
you.”
Oh, this is war.
Ares feels a shiver go down his spine and looks

across the battlefield. People are dying around him, but
people are always dying around him. He doesn’t see
anything particularly horrendous, so he doesn’t know who
could have invoked him so powerfully that he felt it even
when surrounded by war.
A young woman who had shared the last piece of
sweet bread with him last night gets a spear shoved straight
through her chest, and Ares decides he has more important
things to worry about.
Athena is halfway through a tapestry that is to hang

in Hestia’s rooms when Aphrodite appears next to her and
says cheerfully, “Guess what Poseidon did?”
Normally Athena would fling anyone who dare to
disturb her to the depths of Tartarus, but she’s always
willing to talk of Poseidon’s misdeeds. “I’m listening.”
Hermes appears on her other side, glaring. “You
trollop.”
“He made a queen fall in love with a bull, and she
just had the kid. It has the head of a bull.” Her sister’s smile
is positively vicious.
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The Minotaur
“I’ll make you suffer,” Hermes hisses, and slips

away. Aphrodite follows, the sounds of her laughter
echoing in the room.
Athena blinks, looking back to her loom, but is
unable to concentrate.
Even she hadn’t seen that one coming.
Hera doesn’t get involved, she does not have

opinions, as a rule if it doesn’t concern her then it doesn’t
concern her.
She waits for her husband to leave, and tries not to
worry about his mutterings about bulls, the queen-mother
Europa, and how Pasiphae had the right idea of it. She
steps into the throne room, and the celestial fire burns
cheerful and bright in the center of it.
She sits beside the fire and Hestia appears at her
side. “You’ve heard then?”
“Hermes told me,” she rubs at her temples.
“Aphrodite got to me first,” Hestia says, and the
goddess of the hearth seems entirely too cheerful, “I can
say, of all the misdeeds Poseidon has wrought, this one is
certainly … unique.”
She slumps and buries her face in her hands, “This
whole family is mad, and we’re doomed to only become
worse.”
Hestia laughs and puts an arm around her
shoulders, “Come now, I think Hades is quite reasonable.”
Hera shifts only so that she can glare, “Hades
chose to rule the dead and married Kore. He’s the maddest
of us all.”
Hestia can’t refute that, so she starts finger
combing Hera’s long, curly hair. Hera slumps back into her
hands, and Hestia’s smile is soft as they sit there in silence,
the only noise that of the crackling fire.
When Hephaestus returns to the volcano, it’s to his

wife sitting in his throne with her arms crossed. “What did
you do?” she asks.
91
“I just gave him a little suggestion, is all,” he says,

and scoops Aphrodite into his arms so that he may reclaim
his throne. She snuggles into his side, and if she’s trying to
convince him that she’s mad at him, she’s doing a terrible
job of it. “Daedalus has always been a very devout
follower; he deserves a few good ideas.”
“He’s had enough ideas,” she says, because
without his help the queen wouldn’t have found a way to
consummate her love of the bull. “I don’t think he needs
anymore.”
“Maybe,” Hephaestus murmurs, dragging his nose
up her temple, “but imagine this – a labyrinth, bigger than
any other, than this whole volcano.”
“That’s nice, dear,” Aphrodite says, and then
proves to be distracting enough that Hephaestus puts his
ideas aside.
At least for a little while.
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Amphitrite & Caeneus
Part XII:
Caeneus has only ever had two loves in his life.

First is the sea. He’s loved her his whole life, heard
her siren song from the time he had long curly hair and still
tolerated being put in dresses and called a girl. He loves the
sea like his parents go to temple, in an unmovable and
inexplicable way that he no longer questions.
Second is Poseidon. Foolish, but so achingly kind.
He’s a man who professes his wish to master the sea
without ever really understanding it, and Caeneus smiles
and kisses the stress lines from his brow, but does not
worry.
The sea has never loved him back, and it never will.
She is power and coldness and loss, and her beauty is in
her tragedy. Poseidon is warmth and thoughtfulness and
strong hands on his hips. He is nothing like the sea, and he
will never rule it.
Caeneus knows this, and he’s relieved by it.
Poseidon loves him back. Poseidon is not the sea.
Then he wakes up to his lover’s lips on his neck,
cold enough that flinches away from the sensation, and for
a terrifying moment he doesn’t recognize the person
touching him as the man he loves.
“I can do it now,” Poseidon whispers as cool
fingers splay against his waist. “I can make you the man
you want to be.”
Caeneus wants the body that men usually have,
wants people to stop looking at him and seeing a woman.
But if Poseidon had asked, he would have told him –
Caeneus would choose his lover over a new body, would
rather live as he does now than have Poseidon harm
himself for his benefit.
93
But he did not ask, so Caeneus closes his eyes and

accepts the gift his lover is so eager to give him.
Amphitrite has never had a heart before.

She was the sea, and what she desired, she took.
Men, women – she wanted, and she had, and then she
moved on.
But the heart in her chest is softer, warmer. It turns
her pearl hued skin pink and makes her swim to the surface
to watch the sun set, makes something like empathy stir
inside her when before all she had was selfishness.
The heart in her chest is in love, and she thought it
was something she could control, something she could
stop. It’s not. One day, it will be. She will master this heart
in her chest, but not yet. She spends hours following
Caeneus as he sails her seas, guiding fish into his net and
feeling her borrowed heart beat that much faster whenever
he pears into the ocean and she catches sight of his
gorgeous amber eyes.
She says to Poseidon, “You spend too much time
on the shore for a god of the sea.”
He glances at her, and his eyes are green just like
hers, are cold and uncaring just like hers used to be. She
wonders what her eyes look like now. “Caeneus is on the
shore.”
“Bring him here if you’re so concerned with your
mortal,” she says, focusing on weaving shells into her hair
and giving the impression that she couldn’t care less what
he does with his mortal plaything. “The palace is big
enough.”
He stops and turns to her, eyebrows raised. “You
do not mind me bringing him here?”
“Do with your mortal as you wish,” she repeats,
and stamps down on the trembling joy in her chest. “It’s
no concern of mine.”
Caeneus doesn’t know how to love a god of the

sea. He knew how to love Poseidon – take him onto the
94
water to watch the sunrise, feed him warm, sweet drinks,

and let him curl around him at night and listen to his stories
of his siblings, of impossible gods who do impossible
things.
But now he sits in a palace under water, with his
own room and the freedom to see the other side of the
ocean he loves so dearly. There are no sunrises here, no
cocoa to barter for, and Poseidon doesn’t tell him any
more stories.
Poseidon still loves him. He kisses him and holds
his hips when they sleep together. He keeps him by his side
while he crosses the sea and gains more and more control
over this domain that he now commands. He tells himself
that Poseidon loves him when he itches to return to the
surface and the home Poseidon build for him, to return to
the life he built for himself. Poseidon loves him, so he’ll
stay.
He didn’t want to be a consort of the king of sea.
He just wanted to be Caeneus, a man who loved a man and
was loved in return, a man who loved the sea even though
it would never love him back.
The sea will never love him back. He’s known that
since he was a child, so the real question is – how much of
the Poseidon he knew is left, and how much of him has
been lost to the depths of the ocean?
There’s a hurricane that requires her husband’s

attention, and even he is not so foolish as to bring his lover
to a place as dangerous as that. Which means it’s the
perfect time for her to run into him in the interior gardens,
as he stares up through the iridescent seaweed to the rays
of sunlight that just manage to penetrate the water. “Do
you miss it?” she asks him, and he startles, swinging around
to face her and stumbling away.
“My lady!” he says, and falls to his knees before
her, bowing his head. It’s what she expects of all mortals,
but not from him, never from him. The heart in her chest
95
loves him, and if it’s not her heart, well – the rest of her
doesn’t know the difference. “A thousand apologies.”
“You are welcome here,” she says, and smiles.
She’s never smiled quite like this before, she’s never felt
quite like this before, fond and fluttery and so painfully
eager that it would be embarrassing if she ever dared
articulate it. It’s a wonder Poseidon managed to get
anything done at all if this is what he had in his chest.
He looks up, hesitant, and she holds out her hand.
He takes it. She pulls him to his feet and pulls him closer
until they’re nearly touching and he’s forced to look up into
her eyes or be stuck staring at her chin. He’s warmer than
her, she can feel the heat pouring off of him, and she wants
him to hold her in his arms so she can languish against him
like she would a sun-warmed rock.
Before she had a heart, she took who and what she
wanted, when she wanted it.
Now she has a heart, and she takes his hands in
both of hers and says, “Would you like to visit the surface?
I can take you, and bring you back before my husband
returns.”
He’s hesitant because he’s afraid of her. Caeneus
will never love her, because although she holds the heart
he loves she is not the person the heart belongs to. Not
that he knows any of that, not that anyone will ever know
the details of her and Poseidon’s arrangement. But she
doesn’t want Caeneus to be afraid of her. She wants him
to smile at her like she is a sunrise. “Yes, please,” he
decides.
She stands and watches as he walks through his
home, as he touches the hearth and looks longingly at the
bed, as he stands in the small cottage that he clearly prefers
over her palace, over all the riches and adoration that
comes with being the consort to the sea.
Caeneus is a simple man, whose heart loves with a
simple love.
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He is a man whose heart loves someone who now

has no heart, and Amphitrite can’t bring herself to tell him.
She’s the one who took it away, and she won’t give it back.
She likes having a heart, and one day she will need
to return it, but not now, not yet, not for a long time.
Caeneus lies beside Poseidon, curled up so his head

rests on the god’s outflung arm and he can watch his chest
rise and fall as he sleeps. There are bruises on Caeneus’s
hips and down his chest, bite marks on his shoulder and
up his neck. It’s not the first time his lover has been rough
with him, and he doesn’t mind, likes that Poseidon doesn’t
touch him like he’s afraid he’ll shatter, likes that whenever
he’s rough he’s careful enough with his strength not to ever
cross the line from bruising to breaking.
It’s different than it used to be. It’s been different
for a long time, ever since Poseidon somehow convinced
the Lady to hand over her title as monarch, to share her
power with him for no reason that Caeneus can see. It’s
not love between them, because the sea does not love. But
she got something out of it, something valuable enough to
bargain away part of her power, and as soon as she did the
man Caeneus loves ceased to exist.
He slides out of bed and angrily rubs at his eyes.
He can’t do this anymore, can’t sleep and live with this man
who has his lover’s face and memories and nothing else.
He knows this palace well, and everyone else
knowns him too. The servants don’t question him, only
offer shallow bows before hurrying on their way. He’s a
fisherman who lives on the outskirts of society. He’s not
any sort of person that people were meant to bow to. He
stands in front of an ornate set of carved doors, the
beautiful shimmering inside of a muscle shell of impossible
size. Two guards stand at each door, but neither move to
stop him as he pushes it open and slips inside.
“Lady?” he whispers. Large, bioluminescent
carvings flare to life all across the room, bathing them in
soft golden-green light. Amphitrite pulls herself out of bed,
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green hair loose around her and the rest of her on display,
pale and flawless, as perfect an example of a beautiful
woman as Caeneus has ever seen, and he averts his gaze.
“Lady!”
“So modest,” she teases, and when he glances over
she’s in a simple white robe and pulling her hair up behind
her. She looks vulnerable like this, almost like his mother
did when she would rouse him and his father from sleep
in the darkness of early morning so they could catch the
fish while they were still sleeping. “What’s going on
Caeneus? I thought my husband had exclusive rights to
your nights,” she winks, and he forces a smile.
He walks over to her, takes her hands in his
because he knows she likes how warm he runs compared
to her, and her smile slips off her face. “Please,” he
whispers, “Poseidon is different than he once was, and I
want to know why. Please.”
She shouldn’t tell him, but the heart in her chest

loves him, and she loves him too, thinks she would even
without Poseidon’s heart influencing her.
So she tells him, and when he starts crying she
brushes away his tears and he doesn’t stop her. “He’ll never
love you like he once did,” she tells him, “It’s not that he
doesn’t want to, it’s that he can’t.”
“The sea doesn’t love you back,” he says, because
he knows, because he’s a skilled sailor, because he’s one of
the people who has worshipped her his whole life without
ever expecting anything back, because that’s what an ocean
gives back – nothing at all. “Can – can I give you my
heart?”
She stares. “Excuse me?”
“Let me give you my heart,” he pleads, “so that I
may hold Poseidon’s in my chest. You can have mine, I
know I’m only a mortal–”
“You’re all mortal to me,” she says, because a
hundred years, a thousand, ten thousand, what does it
matter – she and Gaia were around long before gods and
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humans, and they’ll be around long after them. “If I give

you Poseidon’s heart, you will become a god.”
He pales and flinches away from her. He’s not in
this for power, this was never about power to him. It was
always about love. “Lady, I’m not trying to – I don’t want
that.”
“If you become a god,” she continues, because she
loves him, and that means she wants him to be happy even
at her own expense, “you will be alive when the time comes
for me to reclaim my title of monarch. One day I will take
back my heart from Poseidon, will reclaim the cold, black
thing in his chest as my own, and when I do he will no
longer be master of the sea. When I do, you can give him
back his heart, and he will love you as he loved you before,
as he will always love you.”
Caeneus has a hand over his chest, so much hope
shining in his eyes that it’s almost painful to look at.
“Please, Lady. Please. I love him, let me carry his heart, let
me have him back once you are done. I will wait.”
“It will be a long time,” she answers honestly,
“Empires will rise and fall before I’m willing to give this
up, before Poseidon will be willing to give up his power
over the sea.”
“I will wait,” Caeneus repeats, “I love him. If you
have my heart, maybe you will grow to love him too. If you
have my heart, you will protect him, you will keep him
safe.”
Amphitrite loves Caeneus, and Caeneus loves
Poseidon, and Poseidon is incapable of loving anyone at
all. “Very well,” she whispers, because a heart is a heart,
and just like Poseidon she’s unable to deny Caeneus
anything.
She breaks open her chest and takes out the warm,
beating heart of Poseidon. She slits open Caeneus’s chest
for him, and holds him upright while struggles to take out
his heart and clumsily place in into her chest. She heals
over instantly, and nestles Poseidon’s heart in Caeneus’s
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ribcage. He too heals over, and his eyes flash with power
as the heart settles inside of him.
Caeneus becomes so much more than a mortal
man in that moment.
This heart doesn’t feel too different. She still loves

Caeneus because she’s capable of loving and he is worthy
of it. “Go,” she says, “Say your goodbyes, and leave. If you
stay, he’ll just continue hurting you, and in a few thousand
years he’ll hate himself for it. Leave now, and spare both
of you that pain.”
100
He leans forward and cups her face in his hands,

kissing her on each cheek. “Thank you,” he breathes, and
then he’s gone.
Caeneus can feel the power of a god flowing into

him, but he doesn’t care about that. The only reason he’s
glad to be a god is so he’ll live long enough to get Poseidon
back, to get the Poseidon who loves him back.
He goes back to where Poseidon is sleeping, and
takes a long, careful look. It will be a long time before he
sees this man again. He kisses him on the lips, softly and
carefully, the way Poseidon first kissed him when he
thought he was sleeping all those years ago.
Then he leaves, stepping outside the palace and
using his newly gained powers to bring himself to the
shore.
Poseidon is furious, but Amphitrite won’t budge,

says only that Caeneus left. He throws a temper tantrum
and half the palace is lost in the aftermath, but she does
not care.
She doesn’t tell him that she no longer carries his
heart. It doesn’t matter. Caeneus’s heart beats in her chest,
and she sits on her throne amongst the rubble and does
nothing more than sigh at the way he threatens to tear the
world apart looking for his lover. It will pass. The depth
and coldness of the sea is unable to sustain such fits of wild
passion.
Decades pass. Rumors reach them of a sea god,
one who is known for rescuing sailors and fisherman from
storms, one who they say used to be a mortal fisherman
himself.
They call him Glaucus, and say that he swallowed
a magical herb to become a god.
She smiles when she hears these rumors.
Thankfully, Poseidon has long given up trying to get her
to explain herself. The rumors are only half right, but she
likes listening to them anyway.
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It comforts her to hear that Caeneus is well.
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The Gods are Dead
Part XIII:
The Gods Are Dead
Time passes. The world changes. Temples fall.

People now speak their names as if they are fairytales.
The gods are dead.
Apollo’s chariot lies broken and forgotten in the

ruins of a city no one knows the name of anymore. He
watches the sun crawl across the sky all on its own, without
him to push it forward.
“Do you miss it?” Artemis asks him, appearing by
his side. They stand at the top of a sparkling glass building,
almost the same as ever. She walks among the mortals
more than he does, she always has, and she’s dressed like
one of them. Tight clothes and half her head shaved,
sparkling gems curling up the delicate shell of her ear. She
looks like one of the teenagers that fill his concert
stadiums.
He thinks of the way his chariot threatened to
escape his grasp every morning, the oppressive heat of the
sun beating down on him, the burns. The undercurrent of
fear that one day he would lose his grip on the reins and
plunge the world into darkness.
Apollo leans his head on his sister’s shoulder. The
sun rises slower without him, but it rises just the same.
“No. Not really.”
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Hephaestus’s workshop has evolved with the times

– from a volcano base to a modern lab, but always a
workshop bursting with creation. The cyclopes are still his
best assistants.
Aphrodite steps over discarded parts and expertly
walks around frantic cyclopes carrying bubbling
concoctions. Her dark hair is swept up in a bun. She wears
chunky glasses and a blood red pantsuit that almost hides
the fact she’s the most beautiful woman to walk the earth.
“I have a client, try not to blow up the house. Again.”
“Yes, dear,” he says, but doesn’t looks away from
his soldering. She hadn’t expected him to. His prosthetics
are off and on the floor beside him, and he’s seated on a
too-tall chair to compensate for the loss of height.
She reaches out and carefully touches the corner of
his eye. Crow’s feet have started to work their way onto his
face. They’re getting old. “It’s the couple that’s fighting
because he wants kids, and she doesn’t want to carry any
kids, but doesn’t want to say that. It would probably be
easier if I just told them to adopt and threw them out the
window.”
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The Gods are Dead
“Yes, dear,” he repeats, sparks flying. A few land

on her, but she doesn’t burn. Of course.
She pushes her hand through his hair and resists
the urge to pull him from his work and abandon her own
so they can make out on his worktable. “I love you.”
Aphrodite turns to leave, but Hephaestus grabs her
wrist and pulls her back. He holds up a single copper lily,
the edges of the petals still glowing with heat it had taken
to shape them. Carefully, he slides the stem into her hair
so it sits at the base of her bun. He grazes her bottom lip
with his thumb as he pulls his hand back. “Yes, dear.”
Demeter rages.
She makes imprudent deals to control an earth that
no longer falls under her domain, and she enacts her
revenge against the mortals in whatever way she can. They
have forgotten her, forgotten the earth, and in their
ignorance they seek to destroy it.
She shakes the bedrock and splits it open, but still
they do not learn, and as the temperature of the earth rises
so does her temper.
The sea is not hers to command, her power is of
earth and of earth alone, and even now she gave more than
could afford to lose in order to keep her grasp on it. But
these mortals do not learn.
Demeter goes to the sea and makes an inadvisable
bargain. She goes to the crumbling remains of Olympus
and makes an even worse one.
Typhoons and hurricanes whip across the land. If
they seek to destroy her, she will simply destroy them first.
Hera sits on a pure white couch in an elegant

mansion, smiling for the journalist seated across from her.
“What do you think is the most influential decision
you ever made?” he asks. “If you could pinpoint the
success of your business to one moment, what would it
be?”
105
She tilts her head as the light of the camera flashes.

“Why, divorcing my husband, of course.”
“Would that be your advice to young women
hoping to be as successful as you?” he asks, “To not get
married?”
Hera thinks of thousands of years by Zeus’s side,
and how little it got her. She thinks of Hestia’s men, and
Artemis’s women, of Hephaestus’s love for Aphrodite, of
the way Hades softened the sharpest of Persephone’s
edges.
She says, “Do not get married to someone who
makes you less than you are. If you are not a better person
for being together than apart, then do not be together. It’s
as simple as that.”
Simple, but not easy.
Leaving Zeus was the hardest thing she’s ever
done.
Persephone isn’t forced to spend half the year on

the mortal earth anymore. She goes when she pleases,
which isn’t often.
Sometimes she’ll sit by Artemis’s side while she
brings a new life into the world and hold the warm, wriggly
child first. She visits hospitals and makes the flowers
bloom out of season, and spends long hours sitting under
the sun and feeling it’s warmth touch her face.
Hades left his realm rarely before, and even more
rarely now. More people are being born than ever, meaning
more people are dying than ever. Their realm is massive,
comprising of all the dead of several millennia. Hades and
Hecate spend their days as always – desperately trying to
expand the realm so that they don’t all have to live on top
of each other.
“Have you heard?” she asks one day, leaning across
his desk so he can’t work on the latest plans for yet another
level of their realm. “The gods are dead.”
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The Gods are Dead
He gives up on attempting to tug the blueprints out

from underneath her. “Are they? That’s odd. None of
them are here.”
Persephone doesn’t bother to hide her smile. They
haven’t figured it out yet. Maybe they never will. But when
death comes for them, as death does for all, it will be to
Hades and Persephone’s door they are brought. Hades
himself will usher Gaia and Amphitrite into the
underworld, when the time comes.
That time is not today.
“Darling, I really do need to work on this,” he says,
ineffectually tugging on the map again.
She pushes him back into his chair, climbing on
top of him and pressing their foreheads together. “No, you
don’t.”
“No, I don’t,” he agrees, and obligingly moves his
head so Persephone can nibble at his neck. He manages a
whole thirty seconds before going, “I mean, I really do,
Hecate said if I didn’t have a plan by the time she leaves
for the mortal realm tomorrow, I’ll either have to wait until
she gets back or do it by myself, and I’d really prefer to do
neither–”
Persephone kisses him to shut him up, twisting and
pushing them through the realm so they land on their bed.
“I’ll help you finish it later. Focus on me now.”
Hades doesn’t answer, but he does flip them so
he’s above her and then reaches below her skirt, so she’ll
take that as an agreement.
Hestia sits around a bonfire, watching a group of

teenagers get drunk and dance around the flames. They’ll
never be younger than they are right now, never feel as
much love for each other as they do right now.
She is beside an old man who warms his hands
from the fire crackling in an abandoned trash can.
She lies on a bed while a girl lights two dozen
candles around it as a surprise for when her lover gets
home.
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She watches a young man make dinner for his

boyfriend for the first time, watches him burn the chicken
on both sides. They eat it together anyway.
She sits on the kitchen counter when a sister takes
out a pie from the oven, made special for her little
brother’s birthday.
She is there when a father turns the thermostat up
high in the freezing dawn of morning so it will be warm by
the time his wife and children wake up.
Most people don’t have hearths anymore. But
there is warmth, and love, and for Hestia that is enough.
As their names fade from existence, as his name is

called less and less on the battlefields of mortal men, the
more Ares sleeps.
He falls asleep in too tall trees and on park
benches. He sleeps in seedy motel rooms and naps in every
one of Athena’s libraries. He sleeps curled up in a chair in
Aphrodite’s office, and on the floors of a lot of veteran
resource centers. As fast as he can tell, that’s the most they
help any veteran.
Still, his favorite place to sleep is the underworld.
He goes knocking on Orpheus’s door, who is
always willing to play for him. “Hades is here,” Eurydice
says, “Would you like to me to go get him?”
He shakes his head, “Persephone is home. I
wouldn’t want to intrude.”
Eurydice and Orpheus share the same look of faint
disapproval, but neither of the say anything, for which he
is grateful.
He lies in the soft grass of the garden Persephone
made, and lets Orpheus’s playing lull him to sleep.
Later, he wakes up to strong arms picking him up
and holding him against a familiar chest. He doesn’t even
have to open his eyes to know who’s carrying him. “I can
go,” he yawns, his actions at odds with his words as he
pulls himself even closer the warmth coming off the king
of the underworld.
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The Gods are Dead
“No,” Hades says. “Stay.”

Ares lets out a content sigh as Hades presses his
lips to his forehead. He’s not great about touch, about
people laying their hands on him and getting in his space.
But Hades has always felt safe, felt like home.
He stays.
The gods are dead.

Long live the gods.
109
110
Hera and Hephaestus
Part XIV:
Hera and Hephaestus
Hera, the young goddess of marriage and family, is

only unfaithful to her husband once.
She seduces Zeus first, right as the war ends and

they’re all pain and ash and thrumming with the excitement
of victory. She smiles just so and touches his bloody chest,
her hand pale against the dark copper of his skin, and when
he looks at her his eyes spark with the lightning he so easily
commands. She is named his wife that very night, her body
littered with bruises from his rough, eager hands, and she
tells herself the bile at the back of her throat tastes like
victory.
She is queen of the gods. This is what she wants.
They’ve all claimed their domains and gone their
separate ways, Demeter to the earth, Hades to the
underworld, and Hestia to Olympus where they plan to
build their palace. But Poseidon still lingers. “Don’t you
have an ocean to conquer?” she asks.
He looks at her, then behind her to where Zeus is
busy sketching plans for Olympus. “You don’t have to do
this,” he says softly, “you – you can come with me if you
want. Or I’m sure Hades would take you.”
Hera has no time for Poseidon and his soft heart.
“I will only belong to the best,” she says, tossing her head
so her crown of curls falls over her shoulder. “You should
go. You have work to do.”
“There are more important things than power,” he
says, shifting from foot to foot.
“No,” she says, “there aren’t.”
111
Hera would not mind Zeus’s women so much if

they were not constantly giving him children, something
she has been unable to do.
She is an obedient wife. She does not turn her
powers against him, and she’s tolerant of his mortals at
first, but the longer she is empty of child, the less patience
she has. How can she be the goddess of family without one
of her own?
Her spite gets in her way, and she hurls every kind
of obstacle and curse she can at the women her husband
lay with. At first he is angry with her, and bruises litter her
throat and wrists. Then, as her wrath and powers grow, he
is afraid of her. He watches her warily, sneaking to the
mortal realm when before he wouldn’t even try to hide it.
He submits when she pins him to the bed and rides him
hard, desperate for a child of his, desperate to fulfill the
perfect image of wife and mother she’s built for herself.
No matter her magic, no matter how many times
they sleep together, Hera does not get with child.
She goes to Hestia, and her sister presses a hand to
her stomach, purses her lips and asks, “Must it be his
child?”
Hera stares. She’s the goddess of marriage and
family. She is not capable of infidelity. “I – I can’t.”
“Just once,” Hestia says, “the problem is not with
you, nor with him, clearly. Only the combination of you
both. Lie with any other man, and you will have your
child.”
So Hera, just once, puts on a disguise and goes to
the mortal realm. She finds a man with skin darker than
Zeus’s, a rich warm brown that matches his soft eyes. She
sleeps with him, and it hurts. He is kind and patient and
kisses the edge of her jaw, her shoulders, her navel. But to
be unfaithful grates against her very nature as a goddess,
and every moment is agony. He finishes, his mouth
whispering kind things against her own, and she leaves as
soon as she can.
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Hera and Hephaestus
It works. She becomes round with child, and is

happier than she’s been in a long time. She does not mind
Zeus’s mortals, and he even becomes kinder while the
baby grows inside her. His hands are softer, and he spends
less time away from Olympus.
The baby is born, and Zeus is furious.
The child is too dark to be his, and he tears it from
Hera’s hands while she lies exhausted from the birth. “Why
do you care?” she cries, struggling to sit upright. “You have
dozens of children. What does it matter if I have one?”
He holds the baby in one hand and grabs her jaw
with the other, pulling her to her knees. “You are my wife,”
he hisses, “the goddess of marriage and family. You will
have my child, or no child at all.”
He throws the baby from Mount Olympus. Hera
screams, pushing herself away from him and attempting to
jump after her baby. Zeus catches her around the waist,
and with a crackle of power and roar of rage, he sends a
lightning bolt after the baby.
The child may have survived the fall, but not the
lightning.
“NO!” Hera screeches, clawing at his arm as she
struggles to escape his grasp. Normally she’s not this
helpless against him, but delivering her baby has left her
weaker than she’s ever been before.
He presses the flat of his hand against her swollen
womb, adding pressure until she cries out in pain and tries
to squirm away from him. “My child,” he repeats, voice
low and terrible, “or no child at all.”
He lets her go, and she collapses, her hand grasping
over the edge of Olympus. But the blood between her
thighs is still wet, and she can’t find the energy to stand.
She wonders if she’ll have to crawl down the mountain to
retrieve her baby’s corpse.
“Sister!” Soft hands grab her shoulders and gently
roll her onto her back. Hestia’s face fills her vision, and
Hera has never seen the older goddess of hearth and fire
look so cold. “I’ll kill him,” she says, hands hovering over
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Hera like she’s not sure where to begin. “I’m so sorry. I

didn’t think this would happen, I didn’t think he would –
I didn’t think.”
Hera curls on her side until she can place her head
in her sister’s lap. She’s not sobbing anymore, she’s never
been one to fall into hysterics, but she can’t stop crying, a
steady stream of tears dripping silently down her face.
Hestia runs trembling hands through her hair. “Don’t,”
Hera whispers, “I did this, this is my fault. I – I should
have known better.”
Hestia’s hand cups her face, leaning over so she
can look her in the eye. “This is not your fault.”
Her sister stands and picks her up in her arms.
Hera tries to tell her to put her down, that Zeus will be
angry if she leaves, that she did this to herself. But she falls
unconscious before she can get any of it out.
Hera awakens someplace soft and warm. She

opens her eyes, and she’s inside Hades’s palace. Her
confusion lasts only until her memories come rushing
back, and she bites her lip until it bleeds to stop herself
from crying out.
“Hestia brought you here. She’s returned to
Olympus to cover for you both. Do not worry – Zeus
doesn’t know where you are.” She turns her head, and sees
the goddess of magic at her side. Hecate smiles, “I have
mended you, do not worry. All is well.”
All is not well. That statement is so far from true,
and her instant urge is to crush Hecate to dust for the
audacity. Before she can make up her mind one way or the
other, there’s a soft knock on the door. It opens to reveal
her elder brother. “I have something that belongs to you,”
he says, and Hera focuses on the bundle in the crook of
his elbow.
Her baby’s corpse. She’s relieved someone thought
to get it. Her heart feels like lead, and all the control she’d
had over her emotions disappears. She hopes they’ll leave
her alone to hold the body of her child and weep.
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Hera and Hephaestus
Hades gingerly sits on the edge of the bed, and

Hecate rises to help Hera prop herself up so she’s at least
sitting. “He’s a strong little thing,” Hades says, and Hera
doesn’t understand.
Then a warm, wriggling baby is placed in her arms.
He’s got great big eyes and his mouth splits into a toothless
grin when he sees her. “He’s alive,” she says numbly.
“Not without sacrifice,” Hecate murmurs. She
reaches over to undo the blanket he’s swaddled in.
Her son has no legs below his knees.
“Zeus’s lightning bolt didn’t kill him, but we
cannot return what was lost,” Hades says, pained. “When
he’s older, maybe we can do something, give him
something in place of legs. But for now, there’s nothing I
can do.”
The king of the underworld is the most powerful
god after her husband. Hera knows that, even if Zeus
doesn’t. If Hades can’t do anything about her son’s legs,
then no one can. But he’s alive, Zeus didn’t manage to kill
him, and Hera finds herself so grateful that she’s holding a
smiling, living child that she can’t be anything but relieved.
Her son is alive, and happy. He doesn’t need legs.
“I can’t bring him back to Olympus.” She looks up
at them, “Can you find someone to raise him? Someone
you trust?”
She doesn’t trust anyone, so it can’t be her
choosing.
“You’re going back to him?” Hecate demands,
“Hestia said – but I thought for sure – you don’t have to!
Don’t go back to him!”
“I must,” she holds her son to her chest, and he
reaches out with chubby hands to tug at her hair. “I am the
goddess of marriage, and he is my husband.”
Hecate stares, aghast. “Don’t – don’t, Hera. Please.
Stay here. Hades will protect you.”
She looks up at her brother, and he raises an
eyebrow. He would protect her, he would put himself in
between her and Zeus’s wrath if she asked him to. But she
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won’t, and she thinks he knows it. She says, “I am Hera of

the Heights, of Argos, of the Mound. I am the cow eyed,
white armed goddess of marriage and of family. I am Hera,
queen of the gods.” She looks down at her son, and her
heart clenches, because for now a title that cannot be
afforded to her is that of mother. “I will not abandon my
domain, nor my husband. I will return to Mount
Olympus.”
“But you don’t love him,” Hecate says helplessly.
Hera stares, baffled that anyone could think her
marriage has anything to do with love. “Of course not. But
this isn’t about love. It’s about power.”
The goddess of magic swallows, then says, “I will
raise him.”
Even Hades is surprised by that. “Hecate?”
“I will raise him,” she repeats, “He will stay with
me, safe in the underworld where Zeus cannot find him,
until he’s old enough and strong enough to protect
himself.”
“Thank you,” Hera says, and lowers her head
enough to kiss the top of her son’s head. “Tell him that
I’m the one that threw him from Olympus.” When she
looks up, Hades is resigned while Hecate looks on in
horror. “Tell him, tell everyone. I gave birth to a hideous
son, and I threw him from Olympus. His legs were crushed
in the fall. I did this. Zeus tried to stop me, but could not.”
“Why?” Hecate asks.
Hera smiles down at her son, her heart full with a
helpless sort of love. “So that when he ventures from the
safety of the underworld, Zeus will have no reason to hurt
him. So that when he comes to Olympus, Zeus will be
unable to hurt him without explaining that he was the one
that tried to kill him in the first place.” She runs the back
of her finger down his cheek, and he grabs it, his little fist
holding onto her. “Blame me, and he will be safe.”
Hecate looks like she wants to argue. Hades puts a
hand on her shoulder and asks Hera, “What’s his name?”
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Hera and Hephaestus
Her son smiles, and tugs at her hand, the

beginnings of a giggle gurgling in his throat.
“His name is Hephaestus.”
When she returns, she no longer has any patience

for Zeus’s mortals. When before she had only
inconvenienced them, now she’s not playing any games.
Those that do not die end up wishing they had, and she’s
especially vindictive to any mortal carrying her husband’s
child.
She sits on her throne, waiting, a smirk curled
around the corner of her lips.
Zeus barges in and charges toward her. He’s so
angry smoke is rising off his skin. “You,” he hisses, “this
is your doing.”
“Whatever do you mean?” she asks, unflinching
when he slams his hands on either side of her head,
crushing the back of her throne with the force of it.
“She and the children are dead,” he snarls, “my
children are dead! I know this is your doing, it reeks of your
handiwork.”
Hera slides forward to the edge of her throne, their
faces nearly touching, and spreads her legs. He flexes his
hands, because even at his most furious, he still wants her.
She is his wife and his queen. She banishes her clothing so
she’s out on display for him, hair piled high and jewelry
glinting around her neck. “What are you going to do about
it?”
He kisses her hard enough to bruise, and Hera
crosses her legs around his back, urging him closer. “Why
are you doing this?” he hisses, mouthing at her neck,
because he hates her even as he loves her, hates her
because he loves her, and loves her because he hates her.
She waits until he’s inside her to lick the shell of
his ear and whisper, “My child, or no child at all, husband.”
When he breaks her skin with his teeth, she only
laughs. They do this to each other. Maybe they are meant
to be together.
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Poseidon & Glaucus
Part XV:
Poseidon & Glaucus
They’ve all abandoned their duties. The world has

changed, and they’re not needed like they were needed
before.
All but the three of them, the most powerful of
gods.
Zeus stubbornly remains on the abandoned Mount
Olympus. Even Hera has left him, shaking herself free of
her shackles and her crown all at once.
Hades continues as he always has. It’s possible he
wouldn’t have noticed anything had changed if it weren’t
for Persephone’s new freedom. She now spends all
months of the year with her husband.
Then there is him.
Poseidon sits on his throne at the bottom of the
sea, restless in a way he can’t remember ever feeling before.
Amphitrite sighs from her place beside him, then stands to
face him. “Perhaps it is time.”
“What are you talking about?” he snaps, although
he knows the answer.
She smiles at him, soft and exasperated and even a
little fond after all these years. “You knew it wasn’t forever.
We both did.”
He presses a hand to his chest, and – he is of the
sea, and he is not supposed to be feel fear. But he does. “I
do not remember the man I was before I was King of the
Sea. If – if I return to that person, I do not know what I
will be, who I will be.”
Amphitrite holds out her hands. Feeling like a
child, Poseidon takes them. “I know exactly who you will
be, and what you will do. It’s time, Poseidon.”
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He’s never loved her, couldn’t love her. But she’s

been his constant companion for almost his entire life, and
he cares for her, as much as he is capable of caring for
anyone. “What will happen to you?”
“That is none of you concern,” she says, “but I will
be what I’ve always been – the sea.”
She uses a single claw to open her chest, the inside
of her a dark green except for a pulsating red heart. He
sighs and breaks off a piece of his throne to do the same
to his own chest. It’s not like he’ll need it after this.
He takes out the cold, dark lump from inside of
him and places it safely below her ribcage. Her skin heals
over and pales. The warmth of her eyes snuffs out. She
slips the beating heart below his sternum, and his skin heals
over just as quickly as hers had.
Poseidon didn’t know how cold he had been until
he could feel warmth again, like a bonfire in his chest
unfurling to fill him, warming the bottoms of his feet and
tips of his fingers. The tidal wave of grief and love and
happiness and sorrow nearly threatens to barrel him over,
all the emotion he’d only felt echoes of now overwhelming
him.
But even with all of that, he instantly knows
something is wrong.
“This isn’t my heart,” he says, and it functions like
his heart, these are his emotions and feelings, but – it’s not
his heart, it’s not the heart he traded away to Amphitrite
for power so long ago.
“No,” she agrees, “it’s not.”
She almost looks like she’s smiling.
He means to question her, to demand answers in
spite of personally knowing how worthless it is to ask
anything of the sea. But before he gets the chance, he’s
being pushed away and onto the shore, and he knows
better than to try and go back and attempt to get answers
she doesn’t feel like giving. He doesn’t think she’d kill him,
but he’s not interested in finding out.
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Poseidon & Glaucus
He looks out at the impossibly tall structures

before him, the glass city sprawling at the end of the beach
when before there had only been a – been a – a cottage.
“Caeneus,” he breathes, and is gone in the next
moment.
He knows the entrances to the underworld well,

even as the world moves and changes, they never have. It
takes him no time at all to be standing by the River Styx
with Charon in front of him. “You are not dead,” the
boatman says reproachfully.
“No,” he says, “Summon Hades, I must speak to
him. There’s someone in there who – someone I –
someone,” he finishes, and it’s been thousands and
thousands of years since he last has Caeneus in his arms,
but it doesn’t matter. The heart in his chest is a heart that
is capable of love, and he loves Caeneus just as he did as a
fledgling god with dominion over nothing.
Charon has no face that he can see, but he still gets
the impression he’s being laughed at. “The underworld
contains many someones.”
“Call Hades,” he says, low and dangerous, and the
waters of the Styx churn angrily at his temper. He may no
longer be the king of the sea, but he is still a god of it, and
a powerful one at that. Charon takes a step away from him,
no longer laughing, but also not moving to help him.
There’s a shift in the air, and a young woman
stands before them. Her skin is as dark at the water of the
river, and her eyes are the grey of its foam. “Who dares
disturb my river?” the goddess Styx demands. He meets
her gaze, and her mouth drops open. “Poseidon? What are
you doing here?”
“That is not Poseidon,” Charon says, “He doesn’t
feel like a king.”
He wants to slap himself for forgetting. Charon is
blind.
Styx raises an eyebrow, “Looks like he finally got
with the times. The king of the ocean is no more.” She
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circles him like a predator circles prey. “There’s something

different about you.”
“Lady Styx,” he grits out. “Please. Summon my
brother, I must speak with him. I’m looking for someone.”
She shakes her head, “I can’t. He and Hecate are
expanding the realm today. They can’t be disturbed.”
He doesn’t care about his brother’s obsession with
home improvement, but he doesn’t say that. “Persephone
then.”
“The Lady is currently among the mortals,”
Charon says.
He clenches his hands into fists. He knows it’s
been thousands of years, and a little more time won’t make
much of a difference. But he’s already lost so much time.
He doesn’t want to lose any more.
Styx sighs as if she finds him troublesome.
“Thanatos,” she calls out conversationally, “I need you.”
There’s another shift in the air, and a familiar figure
appears in front of him. “What do you need?” The death
god has ink on his hands and smudged across his forehead.
“I’m busy.”
“Icarus,” he says. It’s hard to regret the actions he
took with Amphitrite’s heart in his chest. He wanted, and
so he took. Such is the nature of the sea. However, there
were many things he did then that he wouldn’t have done
if he’d had his heart. Those years with Icarus are among
them.
He never said no, never pushed him away or lashed
out. But if Poseidon had had his heart, he would have
known that it wasn’t what the young man wanted.
Icarus’s mouth drops open, but he shuts it again.
“Poseidon,” he greets carefully. “Can we help you with
something?”
“I’m looking for a mortal. His name is Caeneus,
my magic should be clinging to him. He died – a long time
ago, I’m assuming. I don’t know exactly when.”
Icarus’s eyes go distant as he reviews a mental list
of the dead. He blinks, then slowly shakes his head. “There
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Poseidon & Glaucus
are many by the name of Caeneus in our realm, but none

that are god-touched.”
He says, “That’s impossible. I transformed him
myself. The magic would have clung to him, even in
death.”
“Yes,” Icarus agrees. “But he is not among our
realm, which means he’s not among the dead. This
Caeneus of yours is still alive.”
“That’s impossible,” he repeats, but fainter this
time. He presses a hand to his sternum, where a heart beats
that isn’t his own.
Styx laughs and drapes herself over Charon, who
tolerates it. “Poseidon, nothing is impossible.”
He goes to Aphrodite next. She’s dressed as a

mortal, wearing glasses she doesn’t need and a dress too
short for current mortal fashions. She’s curled up on a
chair reading, and she slowly lowers her book to look at
him. “So the rumors are true,” she says finally. There’s
something like sympathy on her face. “They all said you
were different once you became the god of the sea. None
ever knew the reason was that you’d lost your heart.”
“Traded it, actually,” he says, “and we didn’t want
you to know. That’s not why I’m here.”
She raises an eyebrow, “Oh?”
“I need your help.” He taps his chest, “This heart
isn’t mine either. I need your help to find the man it
belongs to.”
She closes her book and puts it aside, eyes sparking
with interest. “Very well, Uncle. I will do my best.”
Aphrodite finds him. They arrive at a small house

jutting out the side of a cliff, the sea wide and churning
below. A man stands at the edge, subtly manipulating the
waves with the push-pull motions of his hands. “I didn’t
know you knew Glaucus,” she says. “What are you doing
with his heart?”
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Glaucus. A minor sea god who looked after lost

fisherman. “His name is Caeneus,” he says, already walking
away from her.
“Good luck,” she calls out before returning to her
home and her book.
He walks over slowly, not sure what he’s expecting.
Anger, certainly. Perhaps a fight. Maybe if he lets Caeneus
beat him up, he’ll be more willing to listen to him. “Hey,”
he says, when he’s only a few feet away, bracing himself
for – something.
Caeneus stills, turning to face him. His eyes widen,
and he takes a hesitant step closer. “Poseidon. Is it – is –
do you have,” he pauses and reaches out to press a hand
against Poseidon’s chest. “What’s in here?”
“Your heart,” he croaks, and places his trembling
hand on top of Caeneus’s sternum. “Just as my heart is
here.”
“You can have it back,” he says, taking another
step closer, and the sun reflects off of Caeneus’s eyes so
they shine gold. “I was only keeping it safe for you.”
He reaches for his chest, but Poseidon grabs his
hand. “Don’t. Without my heart, you’ll die.”
Caeneus smiles, “That’s all right. I’ve been waiting
for you to come back for it, and now you’re here.” His
smile dims, “Will you kiss me first? Is that all right?”
Poseidon pulls him closer and presses their
foreheads together. Caeneus’s arms wrap around his waist,
and something inside him settles. “I will not,” he whispers,
and Caeneus tenses. “You must keep my heart, because it
belongs to you. It always has.” He shifts to kiss his cheek,
and he can smell the salt from Caeneus’s tears that are
threatening to spill. “I shouldn’t have traded it to
Amphitrite. It wasn’t mine to give away.”
“Then you must keep mine,” he says, and he’s
shaking, “because it has belonged to you for just as long.”
Poseidon kisses him then. Caeneus melts against
him, and the first true sunburst of happiness blossoms in
his chest.
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Poseidon & Glaucus
This is the beginning of the rest of their lives.
125
126
Hera and Ares
Part XVI:
Hera and Ares
Zeus’s mistress Io remains in her form of a cow,

guarded by Hera’s servant Argus, and Hera is content.
She will remain in that form until her death. Hera
hopes that lying with her husband was worth the sacrifice.
Zeus won’t speak to her, unwilling to admit the
cow is actually his lover and ensure her death, and equally
unwilling to stand against his wife to try and rescue her.
Hera has him just where she wants him, and it can’t last, it
never does, but she intends to enjoy it while she can.
Then Artemis comes to her, golden and fierce. She
never flinches away from her queen, staring her in the face
as if she is nothing more than another one of her
huntresses. If Hera did not hate her for being her
husband’s daughter, she thinks she might actually like the
girl. “Io has a destiny,” she says, “you must let her go.”
“I don’t care for her destiny,” Hera says idly,
“especially when that destiny involves getting with my
husband’s child.”
“She is to give birth to a new line of kings,”
Artemis hisses, “to be the wife of a death god, to be mother
goddess of a whole new people. She is not meant for us.
You must let her go.”
“I am Hera,” she says, “I am Queen. I must do
nothing.”
Artemis growls, hand twitching for her bow, but
Hera only raises an eyebrow. Let the girl try. There are few
that can stand against her, and the huntress is not among
them. Artemis lets out a slow breath and says, “Do it, my
queen, and I will grant you what you most desire.”
“Some peace and quiet?” Hera asks.
127
“A child,” she answers. “Let Io go, let her fulfill

her destiny as a goddess of the Black Land of the Nile. If
you do that, I, the patron goddess of childbirth, will
personally use every ounce of power I possess to ensure
you conceive and deliver a child of Zeus.”
Hera’s eyes narrow. “Neither my power nor his has
ever been able to achieve this. What makes you think you
are any different?”
“We all have our domains,” she says, “just as you
cannot command the sea, just as your husband has no
power over the art of weaving, so can I ensure a healthy
child when you cannot.”
She taps her fingers against her throne. They call
her a mother goddess, though she’s raised no children.
Hephaestus may be her precious son, but he doesn’t know
that it was not her that threw him from Olympus. Very few
people know that. And she didn’t raise him regardless, that
honor belongs to Hecate.
A child, of her and Zeus. A child she can raise.
“I accept,” she announces. “You may take her, and
Zeus may fulfill her destiny.” She leans forward, brings the
oppressive weight of her power to the fore and lowers the
pressure of the air until Artemis is shivering. “Know this,
Patron Goddess of Childbirth. If Io births a son of Zeus
before I do, I will travel to the Black Land of the Nile and
slay her and her children with my own two hands. Not
even Hades will be able to put her back together.”
“Yes, my queen,” Artemis says, unable to keep her
teeth from chattering.
Hera is true to her word. She allows Hermes to

think he’s tricked Argus and to steal Io away. She pretends
to be outraged at the audacity, at the pure white cow
traveling to the sands of the Nile.
Artemis is true to her word. Hera lies with Zeus,
like she has so many times before, and a child grows inside
of her. She stands before her husband and brings his hand
to the swell of her stomach, “This is your child.”
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Hera and Ares
Something almost like happiness steals across his

face. She forgets, sometimes, that they hate each other only
as much as they love each other. After so much time
together, many would think it would be one or the other.
They simply opted for both.
Artemis is there during the birth, her easy
confidence more comforting then Hera will ever admit.
Delivering Hephaestus had been easy compared to this.
She screams and cries and Hestia’s hands on her shoulders
are all that keeps her from collapsing and begging someone
to just cut the child from her. She doesn’t think she can die
in childbirth, not with Artemis between her legs. She
wishes she’d thought to ask before this began.
But she does not die. Her son is born, just as
healthy and beautiful as Hephaestus was. “Well done,”
Artemis says softly, placing the squirming child into her
arms.
Zeus touches her hair and kisses his son’s
forehead. “We shall call him Ares.”
“Very well,” she agrees, so tired her eyes struggle
to stay open.
She hands her son to Hestia, and finally allows
sleep to take her.
Ares grows into the spitting image of his father.

Same copper-red skin, same silky black hair. Her husband
keeps it short, but her son lets his grow long. The minutes
Hera spends every morning brushing his hair are among
her favorite.
He has an eager smile and a soft heart. Hera
doesn’t know where he got it, since it’s certainly not from
her or Zeus. Demeter tolerates his bumbling after her,
though any time Kore attempts to meet her cousin,
Demeter’s temper frays. Poseidon allows Ares to explore
the depths of the sea with a minor sea god acting as his
guide. Apollo plays the lyre for him, and Artemis teaches
him to hunt. Zeus’s lightning doesn’t burn his son, and
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when storms rage he takes Ares to the top of Olympus and

teaches him to throw lightning bolts.
Hera selfishly does not allow Ares to go to the
underworld. She knows he would be safe there, that Hades
would protect him as he protected Hephaestus, but that’s
precisely why she won’t allow it. They got to raise one of
her sons already. It pains her to share Ares with them now.
He is happy, and kind, kinder than anyone would
expect a child of her womb to be.
“He must choose a domain,” Zeus rumbles,
watching Ares shoot arrows with perfect accuracy.
“He is a child still,” Hera says, “let him remain so
for a little longer.”
“If he does not choose a domain,” Zeus warns,
“one will choose him. We are gods. We must be gods of
something.”
Her gaze flickers over to him, and he scoots an
inch away from her. “He is a child, and for now a child he
will remain. We are not Demeter. We shall not thrust the
responsibility and power of a deity onto a child who is not
prepared for it.”
Zeus disapproves, but says nothing more.
Her son will be the god of something patient,
something soft. The god of lost children, of heartbroken
suitors, of forgiveness. Something where his gentle heart
will aid him instead of hurt him.
She traded her happiness for power. She doesn’t
regret it. But Ares doesn’t need to do the same – she’s the
most powerful goddess that still walks the earth. He’s her
son, and he’ll want for nothing she can provide.
Ares is almost fully grown, long hair reaching his

hips even braided, and the strength of his limbs is such that
he can keep up with Artemis on her most vigorous of
hunts, that he can throw his father’s lightning bolts halfway
across the world.
He’s been to every place, and met every god of the
earth, sea, and sky.
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Hera and Ares
Except for one.

It’s not hard to find the volcano. He’s strong
enough and old enough to take care of himself, and his
mother does not worry when he says he’s going to the
earth. But he did not tell her where, precisely, on the earth
he was going.
He has strong legs. It’s easy for him to climb to
the top of the volcano. He’s almost made it there when
something grabs his shoulders, stilling his movements. He
turns, and stares into a single large eye. “What are you
doing?” the cyclops growls.
“I’m looking for Hephaestus,” he says, “He’s my
brother.”
“My master has many brothers,” the cyclops says.
Ares shakes his head. He is not the product of his
father’s fling with a sprite or mortal. “I am Ares, son of
Zeus and Hera. Just as Hephaestus is. I came here to meet
my brother.” The cyclops hesitates. He asks, “What’s your
name?”
“Brontes,” he answers, surprised.
“Brontes,” he smiles, “I just want to meet him. I’ve
never met him before. I won’t linger.”
There’s a moment where Brontes looks conflicted,
and Ares tries to look as unassuming as possible. “Fine,”
he huffs, “but don’t get angry at me if he dips you in lava.”
“That would be fun,” he says brightly. Lightning
doesn’t burn him. So far the only thing hot enough to
cause him pain is Hestia’s fire. He probably could go
swimming in lava.
Brontes looks at him as if he’s slightly unhinged.
He just keeps smiling.
There are more cyclopes underneath, and bright

glittering machines that Ares can’t even begin to wrap his
mind around. “Who are you?” someone demands, and a
hand grabs his wrist and yanks him away from the boiling
vat of lava that he’d been peering into.
131
He looks up at a man taller and broader than he is.

He has skin almost as dark as the obsidian of his volcano,
but lighter eyes. They are the color of dark amber, of
molasses. “We have the same eyes,” he says happily.
Hephaestus releases him instantly. “You shouldn’t
be here.”
“Why not?” he asks, “The mortals talk of you. No
one else will. But you’re my brother, right?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he repeats, “Does Zeus
know where you are?”
He shrugs, taking a step closer. His brother takes a
step back. He wonders if he’ll have to treat Hephaestus like
a spooked horse. “Father doesn’t keep track of where I am.
Mom know I’m on earth.” Hephaestus flinches, small
enough that he almost doesn’t notice. “We have her eyes,
you know.”
He can’t stop starring at Hephaestus’s skin. They
do not work like mortals – Demeter, Hestia, Zeus, and
Hera are all different shades despite coming from the same
parents. But – Ares looks so much like his father. Kore
looks like Demeter. Yet Hephaestus looks nothing like
their father. He can see their mother in him, in the eyes
and shape of his jaw, even in how angry he is right now. He
looks like Hera does when she’s about to lose her temper,
lips pressed into a thin line and the careful stillness of his
shoulders.
“I wasn’t trying to make you angry,” he says
plaintively, “I only wanted to say hello.”
Unlike their mother, Hephaestus lets out a deep
breath and seemingly all of his anger along with it. “I’ve
been avoiding you.”
“Why? You don’t even know me.”
Hephaestus kicks him lightly in the shin, the pretty
gold and copper of his metal legs catching his eye. “You
have legs, and I do not. Hera did not throw you from
Mount Olympus as she threw me.”
Ares looks hard at his brother’s face. The stories
say his mother threw her son away for being ugly, but he
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Hera and Ares
seems just as handsome as any other god Ares has seen.

His features are strong and chiseled, and he supposes that
could have looked unattractive on a baby, but –
– his mother loves him. Hera loves him with a
ferocity only matched by her temper, she loves him at his
most mischievous and irritable, loves him when a stray
thunderbolt sets Demeter’s hair on end, loves him when
even Artemis and Apollo have grown tired of his antics,
loves him when Athena can tolerate no more of his
questions. He is her son, and so her love comes without
conditions.
He doesn’t think Hera would have loved his
brother any less just because of how he looked. He also
knows that if he tries to say that, it’s likely Hephaestus will
push him into a lava pit.
“Well, that’s not my fault,” he says. “If you don’t
want us to be brothers, can’t we at least be friends?”
Hephaestus’s face softens. He looks like their
mother then too. He crosses his arms, “You can’t tell your
parents.”
Our parents, he thinks but doesn’t say. “Obviously.
Where did you get so many cyclopes?”
The last remnants of his brother’s stern façade
shatters as he throws back his head and laughs.
Ares is very near maturity, more adult than child,

and his father constantly pressures him to choose a
domain. He usually quiets with one sharp glance from his
wife, but the fact remains that it is time for Ares to take his
place among the gods of the pantheon, to have temples in
his name and worshipers like a proper deity.
He doesn’t really want any of that. He wants to
continue hunting with Artemis, learning with Athena,
building with Hephaestus.
His brother lets him help out in his workshop
sometimes, if he’s very careful and does exactly as he’s told.
Otherwise he sits on a table, legs swinging. He watches his
brother work and tells him about what he does in the time
133
in-between visits. He talks about their mother enough that

Hephaestus doesn’t flinch at her every mention, which
Ares can only consider an improvement. Sometimes
Brontes will stand beside him and they’ll eat sweet buns
together.
Unfortunately, all things, good and bad, must
come to an end.
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Hera and Ares
There are two giants, Otus and Ephialtes, who

grow tired of hearing of the golden boy of Olympus, who
grow jealous of his kindness and his beauty.
These two giants sneak onto Mount Olympus in
the middle of the night, sneak into Ares’s room, and
kidnap him. They’re not stupid enough to attempt to kill
him. Instead, they stuff him into an urn, and seal him
inside. Ares rages and fights, uses every trick he can think
of to break out of his prison, but none of them work.
Stuck at the bottom of the urn and seething, he
can’t help but think that if he’d listened to his father and
chosen a dominion, he might be strong enough to free
himself. But he didn’t, so he can’t, and instead he waits.
And waits.
And waits.
Days turn to weeks turn to months. He knows
they’re looking for him. He knows his mother will tear
apart the whole universe attempting to find him, if nothing
else. But – what if they can’t? What if he’s stuck in this urn
for the rest of eternity?
In his darkest moments, his sorrow turns to rage.
He is a god, son of Hera and Zeus, how dare they do this
to him?
Then, one day, the urn opens.
Hermes peers down into it, then his face splits into
a grin. “We’ve been looking for you!” He reaches down
and hauls Ares out, and for a moment all he can do is blink
at the glaring sun. Then his vision clears, and he sees
they’re in the midst of a battle. The giants are fighting
against the gods, against his parents, against the twins,
against his brother. It’s bloody carnage, but – he can’t help
but feel touched that all these people came looking for
him. “Almost everyone offered to help find you,” Hermes
says, “but Hera didn’t want to draw too much attention to
ourselves trying to sneak into their territory.”
Hermes has barely finished speaking when a giant
barrels into his mother with a sickening snap. Her shoulder
slopes at a grotesque angle, but it hardly slows her down.
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“I have to help,” he says, a desperate urgency filling

him. They came to help him, and now they’re getting hurt.
That’s never something he’d wanted.
“Ares, wait!” Hermes calls out as he goes hurtling
towards the battle. He doesn’t wait. Fighting on the ground
can only do so much good, they’re strong but they’re
outnumbered one hundred to one. He darts to Artemis,
twisting around the bodies she’s throwing over her
shoulder. “I need your bow!”
“Ares!” she says joyously, then, “What?”
“Trust me,” he says, “give me your bow.” A giant
comes running towards them. Artemis flips him over her
shoulder while continuing to stare at him in confusion.
He’d be impressed if he wasn’t so worried. “Artemis,
please!”
She hands over her bow. She moves to give him
her quiver of arrows as well, but he’s already moving away
from her. Next it’s to his father, who’s hurtling lightning
bolts towards the swarm of giants crowding him. They’re
deadly, but only so effective at close-range. He grabs a
sizzling lightning bolt right from Zeus’s hand, the only
being who can do that and survive, and keeps running.
“Get clear!” he calls out over his shoulder. “Everyone
move!”
He runs up past Hermes, needing to get to high
ground for this to work. “Get everyone off the battlefield,”
he says. “Now.”
Hermes pulls a face, but by the time he makes it to
the top of the mountain, the gods have shaken off most of
the giants and are far enough away that he doesn’t have to
worry. He can do this. He’s Ares, the son of Hera and
Zeus. He’s been trained in archery by the great huntress
herself. He breaths in, and strings his father’s lightning bolt
like an arrow. He pulls it back, breaths out, and lets the
lightning bolt fly.
It lands in the middle of the battlefield full of
confused giants. With a great clap of thunder and a burst
of light, they’re all gone.
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Hera and Ares
All that remains of the traitorous giants is a crater.

The gods are approaching him, his mother at a
limping gait that makes his chest ache. Zeus gets to him
first, grin stretched wide as he grabs his shoulders. “My
boy! That was magnificent!”
“Thanks,” he says. The smell of charred flesh is in
the air, and it makes his stomach roll.
They kidnapped him. They stuffed him in an urn
for over a year. They hurt his mom.
That doesn’t mean he enjoyed it. He never wants
to do anything like that ever again.
“This was destiny,” his father says enthusiastically,
and Ares has no idea what he’s talking about. “This is what
you’re meant to do, son.”
He stares. He hopes it’s not.
The other gods are still at the bottom of the
mountain. Artemis and Apollo each have one of his
mother’s arms slung over their shoulders and are helping
her up the mountain. Hermes and Hephaestus aren’t far
behind.
He’s never seen his father look so proud of him.
There’s a lead pit in his stomach he that can’t explain.
“In honor of my son’s great feat,” Zeus booms, his
voice carrying across air, speaking with the voice of the
king of the gods so his words become law, so they spread
to every corner of the world, “I declare him Ares, God of
War.”
Ares can’t breathe.
This isn’t what he’d wanted.
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Ares, God of War
Part XVII:
Ares, God of War
Ares, the God of War, has a throne on Olympus,

has followers and temples and tributes.
Ares, the God of War, has the screams of the dead
and damned echoing around in his skull. He has not had a
moment’s peace since his father declared his dominion
over battle.
He tries to ignore them. He can’t stay on Olympus

anymore, where his father’s proud gaze follows him and
he can’t help but flinch from it. At first he hides in his
mother’s rooms, curling up on her lap and crying like he
hasn’t since he was very small. “I can hear them,” he says,
tears dripping down his nose and onto her dress, “I can
hear them calling for me.”
She combs her fingers through his hair and drops
soft kisses onto his forehead. “I’ll kill him. How dare he
do this to you – how dare he.”
“You will do no such thing,” he says, and turns so
he’s looking up at her. He presses his hand to her cheek,
and she leans into his touch. Her eyes are alight with fury
and grief, and it soothes him just to see them. Her eyes are
his eyes, her eyes are his brother’s eyes. “You are the
goddess of marriage. To kill your husband would be to kill
yourself. Would you make me an orphan, Mother?”
There is a war raging within him now, soldiers and
generals and widows crying out for him, but for now all
he’s worried about is preventing a war within his home.
Nothing would tear apart the pantheon so firmly
as to pit Hera against Zeus.
She doesn’t say anything, but her grasp on his hand
becomes almost painful, so he’ll take that as agreement.
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He can only stay away for so long. He must go to

whoever invokes him most strongly, to who builds him the
biggest altars, to who provides the largest sacrifice. He is
not a god who is lucky enough to be able to watch his
domain from afar, to simply provide blessings and
guidance. The screaming inside him quiets only when he
joins them on the battlefield. Only when he is in the thick
of it with a sword in his hand is it quiet enough for him to
think.
Only when his battle fury turns the tides of a war
is he, even just briefly, free from the crushing weight of his
followers and his domain.
He does not get to choose which side to support.
Whoever worships him more, whatever side invokes his
name the strongest, is the one who gets his aid.
He shows up sobbing at his mother’s door, his
whole body vibrating in pain because the soldiers shout his
name in a glorious chorus, and he should be with them
now, but instead he’s here. Hera grabs his upper arms to
keep him upright, eyes wide and concerned.
“I don’t want them to win,” he confesses, the
words making his lips burn. “The soldiers are simply
soldiers, but the generals and lords and kings seek glory for
money, for profit, for nothing but selfishness. Their
enemies only want to live.”
“I will take care of it,” she swears to him, and he
has no idea how she expects to do that. Yet he trusts she’ll
find a way, because she always does. He comes to his
mother, asking her to help him, and she always has. “Now
go, before you are hurt even more.”
He goes.
Hera has no influence on the battlefield.

But it is not solely the battlefield where tributes are
made.
She is the goddess of marriage and family.
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Ares, God of War
She goes to wives and husbands, to sons and

daughters, to sisters and brothers. She whispers in their
ears, speaks of devotion and fealty, makes them all wail for
their missing family members, all of them caught up in a
war none of them wanted.
Hera brings their grief and desperation to the fore,
until they’re nearly mad with their need to have their family
brought home.
They build a temple to Ares, sacrifice gold and
food and anything of value they can spare. They cry prayers
over hearth fires, and burn messages to the god of war,
begging him to bring their families home.
The tides change. He’s midway through the battle

when the he feels the shift, when he realizes his mother
somehow did as she promised and he no longer has to fight
for these people, that now he can fight against them.
He doesn’t want to fight at all. But if he must, then
at least he can fight for those he believes in.
Ares doesn’t allow himself to fall into bitterness or
anger at his father often. But he wishes, not for the first
time, that Zeus had named him the god of justice, of peace,
of fairness, of loyalty. That Zeus had named him the god
of something he believed in, something he could believe in
fighting for.
All war does is kill good men and women, all it
does is breed resentment and anger in the victors and
losers both.
Although. Ares is of the opinion that wars never
have any true victors. Just people that lose less than the
people they’re fighting.
There is a lull. No one is invoking him powerfully

enough that he can’t ignore their cries.
He goes to Haephestus’s volcano and slides into a
magma pool, the burning heat of the lava the perfect
temperature to work out the knots of stress in his back and
thighs.
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“It’s unnerving to see you in there,” his brother

says, and Ares opens his eyes to see Hephaestus looking
down at him, concern plain on his face. “You look tired.”
Permanent purple bruises have formed under his
eyes. He can’t remember the last time he saw himself
without them. Everything hurts, it always hurts, even when
there is peace there are people who covet war and call out
to him, and it tears at him whenever he leaves a tribute
unanswered. He’s exhausted and rode hard, stretched so
thin that he’s terrified he’ll snap at any moment.
He looks at Hephaestus and admits to him
something he hasn’t told anyone, something he’s too afraid
to say to his mother just in case she decides to smite Zeus
for it, consequences be damned. “I think that these wars
might be killing me.”
His brother’s face goes tight, but he doesn’t say
anything. That’s all right. Ares hadn’t expected him to.
There’s nothing to say.
He wonders if their screams will still find him in
death.
“I need a favor,” Hephaestus says the next time

Athena comes to visit, wringing his hands, anxious in a way
he usually doesn’t let anyone see.
Athena tilts her head to the side. “I’m listening.”
Ares is resting, the moon high as he lays back in

the middle of the battle camp. He tries to quiet the cries in
his head enough to catch even an hour of sleep.
“War is not just about fighting, about blood and
battle.”
His eyes pop open and he looks over to see Athena
sitting by his side. He pushes himself up cautiously.
“Sorry?”
“You should pay more attention to the generals,”
she says. “War isn’t won with blood. It’s won with strategy.
With planning, with tactics.”
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Ares, God of War
“I don’t know much about all that,” he admits.

“It’s enough of a struggle just to keep up with the soldiers.”
Her face softens, “I know. That’s why I’m here.
No one expects to win wars alone, Ares.”
This is how Athena, goddess of knowledge and
weaving, becomes a goddess of war. She is a master of
strategy, of planning campaigns, of ensuring that a victory
on the battlefield remains a victory at home.
Some of his tributes go to her. Some people pray
to Athena now instead of him.
He still hears the screaming. He still doesn’t sleep.
But it relieves just enough pressure that it feels like
he can breathe again without an unbearable weight pushing
down on him.
Ares and Athena are not the only names that get
invoked on the battlefield.
Hades’s name has constantly been on their lips.
They damn their enemies to a torturous afterlife, to thrice
the pain and suffering they receive on the battlefield.
He tries to ignore it. It is not his domain. But the
more he hears, the more it stabs at his conscience. Most of
these people are soldiers. Cursing generals is well enough,
but most soldiers didn’t choose to be here. He didn’t
choose to be here.
Ares has never been to the underworld. It’s the one
place his mother never let him venture.
He knows that the smart thing to do would be to
go to his brother and ask him to speak to Hecate, the
woman who raised him. Or even Hades himself. He
doesn’t know how well Hephaestus knows the gods of the
underworld. For all that he grew up there, he doesn’t speak
of it often.
But if Hades’s wrath is to fall on anyone, Ares
would rather it be him.
It’s easy enough to follow the souls of recently
departed soldiers to the River Styx. Charon presses a hand
143
to his shoulder and asks, “What business do you have here,

God of War?”
“I knew a child who was called Kore,” he answers,
and he doesn’t expect this to work, but hopes it will. “I
wish to speak to a woman who calls herself Persephone.”
He can’t see Charon’s face, but the air around him
turns thoughtful. “It is summer. The Lady is with her
mother.”
Oh.
He’d forgotten about that.
“Then I request an audience with her husband,” he
says, and he clasps his hands behind his back so that
Charon can’t see them shaking. He can’t turn into a mess
here. People are screaming in his mind, but he can’t let it
get to him, not here, not if he wants anyone to take him
seriously, not if he wants to help his fellow soldiers instead
of hurting them.
“You are not dead, and so I cannot ferry you across
the Styx,” Charon says, almost apologetically. “But – hold
on.” He turns to the river, “Goddess Styx, could you come
here?”
A little girl with skin even darker than
Hephaestus’s and eyes and hair a soft grey appears in front
of them. “Yes?”
Charon points to him. “He wishes to speak to our
lord.”
Styx turns her grey eyes on him, and he can’t help
but feel unnerved. She circles him, looking him up and
down, seemingly looking into him. “Very well,” she says at
last. She moves her arms together, then apart. Two sides
of the river flow in opposite directions so that a dry
walking path is revealed in the riverbed. “Move quickly.
The longer I maintain a break in my river, the longer things
besides you may be able to sneak across.”
“Thank you.” He gives her a shallow bow, and
then goes sprinting across the riverbed. It takes him longer
than it should – the river is not overly wide, and it should
be quick, but it seems like he runs nearly an hour to reach
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Ares, God of War
the other side. He heaves himself onto shore, panting. As

soon as he’s across, the river comes crashing together once
more, flowing back into the proper direction.
He makes it to Hades’s palace, but once again it

takes longer than it seems it should. It takes too long, he’s
been away from the battlefield too long, and it shows. He
tries to pull himself together, he’s come too far to fall apart
now, but it seems a wasted effort. The screams of people
crying his name is so loud he can’t hear anything else, and
it paralyzes him. He can’t move, he can’t feel, his muscles
are tense enough to snap because he needs to answer them,
but he can’t. There’s no easy way out of the underworld, so
he’s just stuck here –
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Suddenly, it all cuts off to a dull roar. He gasps as

he comes back to himself, squeezing his eyes shut to keep
from crying, and failing. Hands cup his face, and calloused
thumbs wipe the tears from his cheeks. “You must be
Ares,” a soft voice says, “Charon said you were coming.
Are you all right?”
He forces his eyes open, and Hades, King of the
Dead, swims into focus. “How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” His eyebrows dip together, “What
are you doing here?”
He grabs Hades’s hands and pulls them from his
face, but leaves their fingers tangled together. Luckily,
Hades doesn’t pull away. Ares doesn’t know what would
happen if he did. “I – I know that they invoke you to
punish their enemies, on the battlefield. They dedicate
some of the pyres to you and ask you to burn their enemies
for eternity in the afterlife.”
“I hear them,” Hades says, “I know what they say.”
“Try not to,” he begs, and he can hear the
screaming still, he’s shaking and can’t stop. He wanted to
appear strong while asking the god of the dead for a favor,
but he’s barely able to keep standing. “I know they ask of
it, I know they erect tributes, and that we must all answer
the call of our names, but they’re not evil. They – some of
them are, I mean, but don’t – try not to – please,” he ends
on, because it’s just not fair that soldiers must continue
fighting after their death. Most of them hadn’t even wanted
to fight while they were alive.
Hades still looks confused, and Ares will beg if he
has to, he knows it’s hard to go against what worshipers
demand, but this is important. He’s about to try again
when Hades says, “I am the god of the dead and lord of
the underworld. Ares, I hear their cries but I am not bound
by them. I rule the dead. The dead do not rule me.”
Ares stares. He’s never heard of something like
that before. He answers the call of war because he must,
and his mother is bound by the chains of her marriage
because she is the goddess of family. Demeter’s power is
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Ares, God of War
from the earth and of the earth, and when it suffers she
suffers, even Poseidon is not immune to the sea’s
temperament. Their powers are all double edged, half
blessing and half curse.
“Oh,” he settles on finally. “Kore – I mean,
Persephone?” They tell tales of the punishments she
inflicts on those that have upset her. He knew her as a
child, and he’s less surprised than most by what she has
become.
“My wife does what pleases her, and nothing else,”
Hades answers. Ares doesn’t understand. She is the Queen
of Life and Death. How can that not pull at her, how does
it not twist her into a shape she doesn’t recognize?
“Okay,” he says, and he has to leave, but at least he
no longer has to worry so much after fallen soldiers. “I
apologize for the intrusion. I should go.”
Hades slides his hands up his arms, and settles
them on his shoulders. Ares becomes distracted enough by
those hands on him that for a moment it’s almost quiet in
his own head. “If you like. You may stay if you want. It
seems as if you could use some rest.”
He drops his head forward onto Hades’s shoulder.
He likes the solidity of him, the undercurrent of strength
and power he gives off. He’s never met the man before,
this is entirely inappropriate, but when Hades’s hands
settle on his hips he wants nothing more than to curl up in
his arms and ignore the war for a little while longer.
Hades feels like peace. He’d forgotten what that
felt like. “I can’t stay.”
The god of the dead presses a kiss to the edge of
his jaw, and ignites something in Ares that has been absent
since he was declared the god of war. He wonders what
Hades would do if he kissed him properly. He wonders
what Hades would do if he pulled off his blood and war
stained clothes, if Hades would touch his too-hot skin.
“Then I request that you return,” Hades says.
He shouldn’t. The time he manages to not be on a
battlefield should be spent with his mother, or Hephaestus.
147
He shifts enough to press their foreheads together, looks

into Hades’s dark eyes, and says, “I will.”
Ares returns to the midst of war feeling lighter than
he has in a long time.
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Eros & Psyche
Part XVIII:
Eros & Psyche
Aphrodite can’t get comfortable during her

pregnancy. She’s always too hot, constantly sweating
whether she’s in the in the oppressive heat at the bottom
of the volcano, or in the icy air at the top of it. It makes no
difference. No matter where she goes or what she does,
she can’t find any relief. Hephaestus hovers over her,
wringing his hands and leaning his head against her
stomach. Her distended skin is too warm to the touch, and
both of them can’t help but worry about their child that
grows inside of her.
They beg help from Artemis, who has no help to
give them. “The child is healthy,” she tells them, mystified.
“The mother is healthy, though pained. I can do nothing
for you because there is nothing to be done.”
Time passes. The child is born. They call him Eros.
He burns.
He warms in Artemis’s hands as she cleans him

while Aphrodite eagerly waits to be handed her son.
Artemis cries out and has to put him down, blisters
appearing on her hands. Aphrodite moves to pick him up,
and she can stand his heat for longer, but after a few
minutes he leaves a welt of burnt flesh against her chest.
Hephaestus tries next, and manages to hold his son for a
whole quarter of an hour before his skin is eaten away.
Artemis can do nothing. She insists there’s nothing
wrong with him, it’s just how he is. Hephaestus crafts
gloves of flexible metal so they can care for him – the
babe’s fire only reacts to the warmth of another person.
Clothes and objects remain unburned. They go to Hermes,
to Apollo, to Hestia, and none can help them. Hestia tries
149
to hold the child. She is the keeper of celestial fire, which

burns hotter than anything, yet she too comes away
burned. “The celestial fire is of me, and so it cannot harm
me,” she tells them regretfully, “Eros is not, and so he
can.”
No one can help them.
Eros cries, constantly unhappy because he longs to
be held and rocked, longs for the warmth of his parents.
But they can only give him snatches of affection, stolen
moments before he burns them and they must retreat
behind cool metal.
Aphrodite is desperate. She sneaks away to Mount
Olympus, goes against her husband’s wishes and visits
Hera. She’s crying as she speaks, and Hera watches her
with cool, impassive eyes. “There is nothing wrong with
your son,” she says. “He is as he was made to be. If you
cannot provide the care he needs, find someone who can.”
Aphrodite stares, betrayed. Hera has been kind to
her in the past, was the one who helped her choose her
husband when all of Olympus sought her hand. Aphrodite
is a daughter of Zeus, but not of another woman, and so
Hera hadn’t hated her.
Hera loses some of her sternness. “I have given
you the answer you need, if not the one you wanted.
Return to your child and husband.”
She goes.
She tells Hephaestus where she went, and instead
of angry, he becomes contemplative.
Ares is blood soaked and exhausted when his

brother appears beside him in the middle of a battlefield.
“Hephaestus,” he greets, startled, “Is something wrong?”
“I need your help,” says the man who had never
once asked him for anything, “I know it hurts to leave,
but–”
“There will always be another war,” says the god
of such things. “What do you need?”
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Eros & Psyche
Ares can wield the lightning bolts of Zeus and he

takes bathes in lava to soothe the ache of his muscles. He
is not bothered by heat or flame because it passes through
him, he manages to do these things because he absorbs
their heat instead of being harmed by it.
He’s in his brother’s bed, holding his nephew. Eros
makes happy babbling sounds from where he’s splaying
out against his chest, skin against skin. “Cute kid,” he
yawns. Hephaestus is on one side of him, and Aphrodite
the other.
Ares leeches most of the heat from Eros, so he’s
cool enough to touch, so his parents can pat his back and
kiss his forehead. “Thank you,” Hephaestus says, finally
able to touch his son without consequence.
“Anytime,” Ares says, eyes sliding shut.
With his brother’s family curled around him, Ares
finds enough calm to sleep.
When Eros is older, he learns to control it. He

always runs hot, but by the time he’s gotten big enough
that the cyclopes are constantly chasing after him in fear of
him getting into something he shouldn’t, he’s learned to
control his temperature to the point he doesn’t burn
anyone any more.
Or at least, he doesn’t burn gods anymore. No
matter how hard he tries, he still runs too hot for any
mortal to touch unharmed.
Before that, Ares spends every moment away from
the battlefield with Eros that he can. He’s not always able
to sleep, but he lies down with Eros on top him, and with
Aphrodite and Hephaestus on either side.
Rumors run rampant, like they always do. People
say Eros is the product of a union between Ares and
Aphrodite, they say that Aphrodite has been cheating on
her husband since the moment they married.
“I’m sorry,” Ares says, face pinched.
151
Hephaestus smiles, and Ares relaxes. “You are only

doing what I’ve asked of you. There’s nothing to apologize
for.”
Ares can’t help but feel guilty anyway.
Eros grows, from a toddler to a man. He burns, a

wide laughing mouth and eyes like the sun. When he’s
declared the god of passion, no one is surprised.
He has the best features of both his parents, and is
devastatingly beautiful, with a face that Helen herself
would weep over. He is the son of the goddess of love and
the god of craftsmanship, and passion is necessary for
both.
Passion is in many things. There is passion in love,
and he goads many a shy couple into a desperate embrace.
There is passion in war, and when the battlefield grows
stilted and tired, he joins his favorite uncle there and brings
their energy to the fore. There is passion in academia, and
Eros encourages many scholars who spend long nights
seeking answers they may never find. There is passion in
art, and he blesses uninspired artists to create their heart’s
desire.
Passion is a quickening heartbeat, a want that must
be sated, a determination to follow through. It is burning
until you are nothing more than ash simply because the fire
is too beautiful to put out.
Eros is a favorite among the gods, because so
much of what he does benefits them. He quickens the
pulse of a people, and they use that energy to do great
deeds in the gods’ names.
He is beautiful and powerful and loved. He wants
for nothing.
Then his mother sends him to help a village girl
who has been praying to her for years.
Eros sees Psyche, and instantly knows the weight
of love in his chest.
Psyche is beautiful.
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Eros & Psyche
She knows this, it is the one thing about herself

that she knows without a doubt. All her life, people have
told her this. When she was a babbling baby, and a little
girl, and now as a fully grown woman, it’s what people say
to her.
Men come to her seeking her hand, crossing
borders and monsters to end up at her door. “I have no
dowry,” she tells them, “I cannot cook, I am a poor
seamstress, I have never cleaned a home.”
“I do not care,” they all tell her, with their greedy
eyes and their greedy hands, “You are beautiful.”
Her mother and aunts shooed her from the kitchen
as a child, saying the steam would ruin her pretty hair,
wouldn’t let her sew because the needles would harden her
soft hands, didn’t want her to spend hours cleaning
because the she was too lovely to mar with common dirt.
Other children wouldn’t play with her, including
her sisters, and soon she ran from all her tutors whose
gazes made her shoulders itch. The first time someone lays
tribute at her feet, like she is some sort of goddess and not
a simple village girl, she runs away and locks herself in her
room.
The tributes and prayers don’t stop, and she hates
them. She only wants to be like everyone else, wants to
read and cook and have friends. Every night she bundles
up the gifts and tributes people give her, and sneaks away
to the temple of Aphrodite. She lays these things where
they belong, with the goddess of beauty and love. “Please,”
she begs, every night, “please make it all stop, revered
goddess. I can’t live this way.”
She does this for years, but her prayers are never
answered. She sinks lower and lower, feeling confined to
her home like a prisoner. She can’t leave without flowers
being thrown at her feet or someone remarking on her
figure and face. Her sisters will not speak to her, and her
parents will not listen to her. She eats less and spends
weeks languishing in bed, growing weaker and more tired
by the day.
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After turning away yet another suitor, and being

turned away yet again when she tries to help her mother in
the kitchen, she goes far out of the village, where no one
will find her, where no one will be able to remark on the
beauty of her corpse.
She walks to the edge of a cliff, and takes a deep
breath. “Lady Aphrodite,” she whispers, “let me be ugly in
my next life.”
She jumps.
Eros sees her falling, and bids Zephyr to save her.

She is caught gently by the wind. However, she’s so weak
and malnourished that the shock of not falling to her death
causes her to pass into unconsciousness. He wishes he
could have saved her himself, that he could take her in his
arms and cradler her close to his chest.
But he burns.
If he touched her, he would harm her, so he will
not.
“Take her to my home,” he says, conflicted,
because he has no interest in growing into either Zeus or
Poseidon. But he cannot touch her, so it’s not the same.
“I’ll be along shortly.”
Zephyr carries her away, far into the distance.
This is not what his mother intended when she
sent him here, but he can’t leave Psyche among the
mortals. If she tried to kill herself once, she’ll do it again,
and then where will he be?
Eros feels heavy with love, and he does not know
this girl, he does not know how this is possible unless it
has been arranged by the Fates. Psyche is a beautiful girl,
but he is a god. He is the son of the goddess of beauty, and
every other goddess he knows is comparable in the grace
of their form and face. Beautiful mortals do not tempt him.
He has other things to attend to, so he puts aside
the problem of Psyche so he can go convince a young
noble lady to kiss the baker’s daughter.
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Eros & Psyche
Psyche wakes up, which she wasn’t expecting.

What’s more, she’s not in pain. She’s being carefully
deposited on soft grass by a being she can’t see. “Where
am I?” she cries. She doesn’t think this is the afterlife. She’s
on top of a towering mountain, and a large, gorgeous home
with marble columns sits on the edge of its peak.
There is an edge to this mountain. She can still
jump. She takes one hesitant step closer, then a strong gust
of wind pushes her back and something like a voice says,
This is the home of a god. Do not desecrate this place with your blood.
“Okay,” she says, a mixture of relief and fear
clogging her throat, “Can I – can I go inside? It’s cold out
here.”
The wind pushes her towards the home, so she
takes that as permission.
It’s all marble and gold and fur, perfectly decorated
and with many rooms and interesting things. But Psyche
finds the bedroom, and in between the long journey
outside of her village and the adrenaline of being caught by
the wind and brought here, she’s exhausted. She climbs
onto the soft bed without thinking, and is asleep the
moment her head touches the pillow.
The moon is high in the sky by the time Eros

returns home. He steps inside, and doesn’t light any of the
torches out of fear of startling the girl. He finds her in his
own bedroom, and only has a moment to stare at her
silhouette against his white blankets before she’s stirring,
pushing herself up looking around the room. Her eyes
aren’t as good as his, so she can’t even see the outlines of
objects. To her, it is complete darkness. “Who’s there?”
she demands, voice scratchy from sleep, “What do you
want?”
“I am a friend,” he says, not saying his name. He
knows the impression mortals have of him, and the last
thing she needs to hear is that he’s the god of passion while
she lies helpless before him in his bed. “The wind brought
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you here because you threw yourself from the cliff face.
Why would you do that?”
She sits up and pulls her knees to her chest. “I
don’t want to talk to about it.”
He sighs, but doesn’t push. “I’m not here to make
you do anything you don’t want to do.”
“What are you here to do?” she asks, “Why am I
here?”
She sounds sad, and scared, and he wishes he could
touch her. He wishes he could take her hands and kiss her
forehead, but he can’t, not without hurting her. “I think it
would be best if you stayed with me, for a while. Until you
no longer find cliffs so tempting. I have a beautiful home,
and am often gone while attending to my duties, so feel
free to make full use of it.”
“What do you get out of it?” she wonders,
something almost like suspicion leaking into her voice.
He smiles, wry, and knows she cannot see it. “I
suppose I could use a housekeeper.”
He meant it as a joke, but she perks up. “A
housekeeper? Really?”
“If you like,” he says, although there are nature
sprites who tend to his home for him if necessary. “I
apologize, we’ve been speaking in the dark this whole time.
I’ll light the lanterns.”
He moves to do so, a flicker of flame already
appearing on his fingertips when she screams, “NO!
DON’T!”
Eros freezes. “Psyche?”
“You can’t look at me,” she says desperately,
“Please. Not – not ever. If you saw me, you wouldn’t be
so nice to me. I – I want you to be nice to me. Don’t light
the lanterns.”
“Never?” he asks, and he’s already seen her from
afar, he knows what she looks like. But it sounds as if she’s
seconds away from crying, and it seems like it would only
be a cruelty to tell her this now.
“Never,” she says, “please. Please.”
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Eros & Psyche
Staying away from home during the day is a small

thing, what with his parent’s volcano always open to him,
and he can see well enough in the darkness that he’s not in
any danger of tripping over his own feet. “Very well,
Psyche. If that’s what you want. We will only meet in
darkness, and I shall never see your face.”
Psyche takes his offhand comment about

housekeeping seriously. She’s never cleaned before, but
she’s seen it done, it’s simple if not easy. The first time her
hands blister and crack she can’t stop smiling for the rest
of the day. She spends her days cleaning, and at first that
takes up all her time.
She’s unpracticed, and slow, and she falls into the
same bed she laid claim to her very first night, utterly
exhausted. It leaves her no time to dwell on the life she left
behind, or the hollow ache below her breastbone.
It’s hard work, and it leaves her ravenous. Before,
she ate almost nothing and slept most of the day away. She
doesn’t do that here, can’t, has more of an appetite than
she’s had since she was a child. Nymphs bring food to the
home, fruits and vegetables, bread and cheese and meat.
At first she makes only simple meals, but as the
cleaning takes less and less time, she finds herself trying
more things. Cooking is harder to get the hang of than
cleaning.
Her friend comes to her at night, slipping into her
room. She always knows when he’s there, even if she’s
deep in sleep, and will wake up to speak to him. Psyche
never leaves the bed, and he never comes from across the
room. She sits up and listens to his voice, of the people he
saw and things he did. She tells him the same, even though
at first she thinks he does not care. But he does, because
he asks her questions and compliments her on polishing
the floors until they shine. One night after a particularly
bad failure at cooking, the first thing he does is ask, “Did
you try and burn down my kitchen, Psyche?”
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He’s laughing, so she throws a pillow at him, and

is satisfied by the dull thud of it hitting true and his laughter
growing louder. “If I had tried I would have succeeded, and
you would have come home to a pile of ash.”
“Then I’m pleased by your restraint,” he says, and
she scowls at him even though he can’t see it. “What was
that horrible smell supposed to be?”
“Lamb,” she says, sighing. “I don’t think I’m a very
good cook.”
“Perhaps not. Why don’t you try doing something
else? What else do you enjoy?” he asks.
She sits cross legged on the bed and frowns. “I
don’t know,” she says finally, “I’m a poor artist and a worse
singer. I have no eye for needlework. I like knowing things,
but I’m not a fan of learning. I – I like cleaning. I like using
my hands.”
“Focus on what you like. Try to do some things
with your hands. The garden could use some looking
after,” he suggests.
“I do have to eat,” she points out, “I might as well
learn to cook.”
He snorts. “Spare both yourself and my kitchen.
Don’t worry about that. Worry about the mint that’s taking
over the rose bushes.”
She doesn’t know what he means until she gets up
the next morning and finds a day’s worth of food waiting
for her, already made and much tastier than anything she’s
managed to make so far. Next to it is a book on gardening.
This, she has a knack for. It is a god’s garden, so it
has always been beautiful, but under her hands it becomes
even more so, flourishing and vibrant under her attentions.
She plants flowers that bloom and glow at night, so that
her friend may walk through the garden and be greeted by
something that doesn’t slumber.
Her hands are calloused and hard, and dirt gets
stuck under fingernails. Her hair is a sweaty mess and
breaking at the ends, and her skin is tanned in patches, her
arms and the back of her neck darker than her stomach
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Eros & Psyche
and thighs. Freckles pop up in unexpected places, on her

wrists and shoulders, a single one slightly off center of her
sternum.
She has never felt more beautiful.
Psyche is stronger now, food and hard work
having thickened her waist and brightened her eyes. She
does not fall asleep exhausted each night, but instead sits
up waiting for her friend to visit her, eagerly listening to
his adventures of the day and telling him of all the things
she did, of the new plants she’s trying to grow and how the
shrubbery is stubbornly growing in uneven heights.
“My hands are all rough,” she tells him one night,
like it’s a secret.
He doesn’t understand. “Have you tried rubbing
olive oil in them?”
She laughs, and gets to her feet, confident she
knows the room well enough that she won’t stumble or fall
while walking towards his voice. “No, it’s a good thing, it’s
never happened before. See?”
She reaches out and he shouts, “No! Don’t touch
me–”
It’s too late, her hand has already blindly grabbed
onto his arm. She lets go. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know–”
“We have to get you to Hermes, before the burns
get too bad,” he says urgently.
Now she’s the one who doesn’t understand. “What
burns?”
He quiets. “You’re not hurt?”
She flexes her hand, mystified. “No. Should I be?”
“I – everyone else always was,” he says.
“I’m not everyone else,” she says confidently, and
takes another step closer. She grabs onto his arm again,
fumbling until she can hold his hand in hers. He flinches,
but doesn’t pull away from her. “See? I’m fine.”
Carefully, and oh so slowly, he curls an arm around
her waist and pulls her forward until she’s flush against his
chest and full lips press against her forehead. “I’m – I’m
glad.”
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He’s not just talking about her not being burned.

She feels such a surge of affection for him in this moment,
and she realizes something while being held in his arms.
She loves him, this man she’s never seen and doesn’t truly
know. He’s kind and funny and has given her back a life
she hadn’t known she’d lost. He’s never touched or
coveted her, and even now as she rests in his arms there’s
nothing lecherous or uncomfortable about his touch.
That might change, if he saw her. If he knew how
she looked, he might forget about the rest of her, and to
lose his affection and regard now would kill her as surely
as that fall from the cliff would have.
But he does not need to see her to touch her.
She shifts enough so that he raises his head, and
gathers her courage. She presses their lips together, lightly
at first, then less lightly when he returns it. “Come to bed,”
she says, when they part, dizzy with emotions she’s never
had before.
“Are you sure?” he asks, voice rough.
She’s never been more sure of anything in her life.
“Yes.”
That’s her life now, her days are spent cleaning and
gardening, and her nights are spent with her friend, her
now lover. He’s never told her his name, and she doesn’t
want to ask. He doesn’t see her and she doesn’t know his
name. It seems better that way, more fair. She falls asleep
in his arms every night, and he’s gone by the time she
wakes, gone before the first ray of sunlight creeps through
the window.
He loves her. It’s obvious, so incredibly obvious
that she’s ashamed she didn’t notice before. He let her
sleep in his bed even before they were sleeping together,
gave over his home to her and requested nothing in return,
listens to her and laughs with her. He loves her, and she
loves him, and it’s time she trusted him.
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Eros & Psyche
She’s wide awake when he comes to her, greeting

her with a kiss. He notices her stiffness and pulls back. “Is
something wrong?”
“I think it’s time you saw my face.” She’s shaking,
and she can’t stop it. She loves him and is terrified his love
for her will change when he sees her.
She sits up in bed, and he kneels in front of her on
the floor, holding her hands in his. “Psyche, you don’t have
to if you don’t want to. It’s okay.”
She shakes her head, “No. I love you, and – and
we should be together in the light of day, our love is too
big to fit in this room anymore.”
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He kisses her wrist and says, “Whatever you like.”

How will she live without this love? Hopefully, she
won’t have to find out. She reaches for a lantern and sets
it in her lap, lighting it with careful fingers. A soft glow fills
the room, and she squeezes her eyes shut, waiting.
A finger touches a spot on her sternum, then her
shoulders, her neck, her cheeks, then the tip of her nose.
“You have freckles,” he says, “I like them.”
She opens her eyes. Her lover is smiling at her, and
he’s gorgeous, every bit as pretty as she is with dark eyes
and even darker skin. Most importantly, he’s looking at her
like she’s a person, with love and affection. Not with
something blank and othering like so many people have
looked at her before, not like she’s an object or an art piece.
The tidal wave of relief is so great that she’s weak
with it. She realizes her mistake a second later when the
lantern slips out of her slack hands, spilling hot oil.
Her lover reacts faster than any mortal man could,
pushing her out of the way and catching the lantern at an
awkward angle, so most of the burning oil spills down his
arms and chest. “No!” Psyche shouts.
He looks down at his blistering skin with
fascination. “That’s never happened before.” He winces,
and clenches his hands as the burns spread along his body,
as his skin cracks and bleeds.
“Lie down!” Psyche cries, grabbing the sheets and
trying to mop up the oil, trying to stop it from spreading.
“What were you thinking? You should have let it fall on
me!”
It’s burning more than hot oil should, and she’s
sobbing as she tries to stop it. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he
says, voice slurring as his eyes slide shut. “I would never
let anything hurt you.”
“No!” She grabs his shoulders and shakes him,
“Wake up! You have to wake up!”
He doesn’t respond. Psyche thinks back, frantic, to
when he thought he had burned her when they first
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touched, to the person he said they needed. “HERMES!”

she screams, “HERMES! A GOD NEEDS YOU!”
There’s a flash of light, and the messenger god of
healing is in front of them. “Eros,” he says, dropping down
beside him and not looking at Psyche at all. “What
happened to you?”
He touches his chest, and then they’re both gone.
Psyche is left alone and crying next to an oil soaked
sheet.
Hermes takes Eros to his parents, both of whom

drop everything to come to his side. “What happened?”
Hephaestus demands.
Hermes concentrates on containing the burns
before they can spread any further. He can worry about
healing them after. “He dropped oil on himself.”
“He’s a god,” Aphrodite snaps, “no oil can harm
him. Even if it could, it wouldn’t be able to do this.”
Hermes shoots them both a grin, “It seems like
your boy’s fallen in love. Only true love could cool him
enough to burn him, only true love could hurt him like
this.”
It’s at that moment that Eros gasps awake. He
reaches out, and Aphrodite takes his hand. “Mom,” he
says, eye wide, “please, go to my house, there’s a girl there.
Help her.”
“Did she do this to you?” she asks dangerously.
“It was an accident. I pushed her out of the way, I
didn’t know I would burn,” he moans in pain, then grits
his teeth against it. “Mom, please. Please go to her.”
She turns to Hermes, who’s busy mixing a salve.
He doesn’t look up at her as he says, “Your son will be
fine. I’ll take care of the burns.”
Hephaestus meets her gaze and gives a sharp nod.
“Go, I’ll stay with him.”
Aphrodite doesn’t want to leave him, but gives in
and does as her son asks of her.
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She shows up just in time to stop the mortal girl

from hurling herself from the cliffside. “What do you think
you’re doing?” Aphrodite snaps, and takes a moment to
register that she’s the village girl she sent Eros to help so
long ago. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind.
Her red eyes and tear soaked face do more to sooth
Aphrodite’s temper than any excuses she could have given.
“He’s dead,” she sobs, “I love him, and he’s gone, and
there’s no reason for me to live any longer. Please, let me
die.”
Aphrodite sees the glow of love on her, and knows
the girl’s affection for her son is true. “He is not dead.”
She hesitates, then adds, “Yet.”
True love has started wars and left all involved
nothing but dust and regret. Her son deserves more than
that. A love must not only be true – it must be pure.
“If you wish for him to live, you must help me,”
she says.
Psyche prostrates herself before her, “Anything!
I’ll do anything!”
Aphrodite moves them to a warehouse full of
mixed grains. “You must sort these before dawn. Barley is
necessary for a poultice that will heal my son. Hurry.”
Psyche looks at all of the piles and despairs. But

her lover needs her. Eros needs her.
She gets to work.
The night is halfway gone, and she’s not even a
tenth of the way complete. There’s no hope, her lover will
die, and there’s nothing she can do to stop it. She gives in,
and is sobbing in the middle of the warehouse when she
feels a tickling sensation on her hand. She looks down to
see a small ant. “Why are you crying?” the ant asks.
“I need to sort all these grains, and I cannot do it,”
she says, sniffling. “My lover needs the barely to heal.”
The ant considers this. “I will help you,” it declares,
“and in return you must allow me to take all the beans from
this store.”
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Eros & Psyche
“They are not mine to give,” Psyche says

regretfully, “so I cannot accept your help.”
“Then your lover will die,” the ant says callously,
and leaves.
She looks at the unsorted pile of grains and
hardens. Not if she can help it.
Psyche shoves up her sleeves and gets back to
work.
Aphrodite shows up at dawn, and Psyche is still

working. She’s gotten through three quarters of the grains,
and Aphrodite is impressed. She did not think the girl
would manage to get through even half. She clearly hasn’t
slept, and even now doesn’t pause in her work. “Lady,” she
says, “I’m not done yet.”
“That is enough,” Aphrodite says, looking at the
sizable pile of barley. She puts a glass bottle in front of
Psyche. “To stave of death while we make the poultice, we
need water from the River Styx. There is a spout on top of
my son’s mountain. You must collect this water and return
it to me.”
Psyche’s shoulder’s slump, but she doesn’t hesitate
to she take the glass bottle. “I will do it.”
Psyche calls for the wind, begging it to take her to

the top of the mountain. If the lady wishes, it says. She’s lifted
into the air and brought there. She’s freezing. It’s hard to
breath in the cold air. Dragons sit on either side of the
spout, snapping their jaws at her. “Please!” she calls out, “I
need the water of the River Styx! I act in the name of
Aphrodite.”
They hiss and spit fire at her, and she clings to the
mountainside, trying to avoid their flames. “We are not
commanded by the Lady Aphrodite,” a child’s voice says,
and Psyche looks up to see a girl with black skin and grey
hair looking down at her from the back of one of the
dragons.
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“Please,” Psyche says, “Lady Styx, grant me some

of your river. Eros need it to live.”
Styx frowns, and says, “This is not a water which
brings life.”
“Please,” she repeats, “I swear no harm will be
done in your name, I swear my intentions are honest.”
The child goddess sighs and says, “Come and get
it then. If my dragons’ flames pass through you, then you
speak the truth, and may have some of my river. If you lie,
then I shall see you again in the underworld.”
Psyche nods and walks forward, not breaking eye
contact with the child goddess. The dragons screech and
flames roars towards her and then – they go through her.
She reaches the top of the mountain safely and holds out
the glass bottle.
Styx laughs and fills it for her. “Happy travels,” she
says, right before pushing her off the mountain. Zephyr
catches her halfway down, but it takes several seconds for
Psyche to stop screaming.
Zephyr deposits her back on the ground, and
Aphrodite appears before her. Psyche hands over the
bottle.
Aphrodite undoes it and pours the water out. The
grass dies wherever it falls. “It’s too late,” she says, and
Psyche’s heart is in her throat. “The only thing left to do is
to go to Persephone and beg a spark of life from her.” She
slashes her hand down, and an opening into the
underworld appears. “Persephone will not grant any
request of mine. You must go.”
She’s barely finished speaking when Psyche throws
herself through the portal.
Aphrodite stares at the place where the girl stood,

stunned. Hermes appears beside her. “Your son is well and
only sleeps,” he says, “Isn’t this a bit unnecessary?”
“My son has a heart that will never stray. She must
prove herself worthy of it,” Aphrodite answers.
Hermes stares, “You will petition Zeus for her?”
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Eros & Psyche
“If she proves herself worthy,” she says, then looks

at the place where she poured out the incalculably
dangerous water of the River Styx. “She’s doing quite well,
so far.”
Psyche stumbles as she goes through the portal and

falls on her knees. This ends up being rather lucky, as it’s
taken her to the throne room of the palace of the
underworld. Not only is Persephone there, but so is Hades,
and a god she thinks might be Thanatos. Both Persephone
and Thanatos throw Hades narrow eyed looks, which he
ignores. “Miss Psyche,” he says, “we’ve been expecting
you.”
“Have we,” Persephone says dryly.
Psyche shuffles forward until she’s kneeling in
front of Persephone and presses her forehead to the cool
obsidian floor. “Lady Goddess,” she says, “I beg a spark
of life from you.”
Persephone rises from her throne, and circles her
with slow measured steps, her face blank and cold. “I’ve
seen your garden,” she says finally. “You have quite a talent
with plants.”
“Thank you, Lady,” she says.
Persephone crouches and grabs her chin to get a
good look at her. “Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing,” she
murmurs. “I will give you a spark of life. In return, you
must give me your beauty.”
“Take it,” Psyche begs, elated the price is so small,
“I don’t want it, I’ve never wanted it. All I want is Eros.”
Persephone’s coldness melts away, and the
goddess of life and death shakes her head, a small smile
curled around the corner of her lips. “He chose well.”
Psyche doesn’t understand. There’s another rip in
the air, and her lover steps through. He looks healthy, alive
and well. “Eros!” she cries, forgetting her place and
standing in the presence of the king and queen of the dead.
Before she can kneel once more, Eros runs to her and
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picks her up in his arms, raising her into the air and
spinning her.
“I was so worried about you,” he says, kissing her,
then wiping her tears away.
“I thought you were dying!” she says, running her
hands over his chest and shoulders, and nearly falling in
relief when the skin there is whole and unburned.
He winces and kisses her once more, “My mother
– I asked her to help you, not test you. I’m sorry.”
“You should be grateful,” Hades says, and they
both turn to face him. “Psyche has proven herself, and
Aphrodite intends to contest Zeus so that she may stay by
your side for eternity.” He smiles, “If Aphrodite is
unsuccessful, come to me. I will do what I can.”
They both bow to him, and then are gone in the
next moment.
Aphrodite goes to Hephaestus, “You are his son,

Zeus would want the request to come from you.”
“You are his daughter,” he shoots back, even as he
paces.
She sighs, “I was born of his blood and sea foam.
It is not the same, and you know it.”
Hephaestus gives a begrudging nod. Neither of
them are favorites among Olympus, so he goes to
someone who is.
Ares looks at him consideringly. “You should ask
Mom yourself. Father will do as she says.”
“Hera hates me,” Hephaestus snaps. “She will
reject my son’s request if I’m the one to present it.”
Ares grabs the back of his brother’s neck, pulling
them together until their foreheads touch. Some tension
gradually bleeds out of Hephaestus. “Try, for me,” Ares
says. “If she denies you, I will ask her, and she will not deny
me.”
Hephaestus goes to Mount Olympus while Zeus is
gone and kneels before Hera. He looks up, and can’t help
but think that Ares is right – they have her eyes. Eros has
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Eros & Psyche
her eyes too. “My son has fallen in love with a mortal girl
whom he wishes to marry. I petition you to allow her to
become immortal.”
He’s braced for anything, shoulders hunched. Her
laughter, her scorn, for her to throw him from Mount
Olympus like she did when he was freshly born. “Would
this make you happy?” she asks.
He blinks, mouth open. Is this some other cruel
trick, to force him to admit it’s something he wants only
so she can take greater pleasure in denying him? “Yes,” he
says, because it’s true. It will make Eros happy, and when
his son is happy, he is happy.
“Very well,” Hera says coolly. “We will have the
wedding on Mount Olympus, and once they exchange
vows, she will become like us.”
He stares, frozen in shock. He didn’t expect it to
be that easy. He’s never heard of anyone besides Ares
requesting something from Hera and just getting it.
“Was there anything else?” she asks.
Hephaestus shakes his head, “No, my queen.
Thank you.”
He’s gone before she has a chance to respond,
before she has a chance to change her mind.
Eros and Psyche’s marriage is the event of the

century. Gods great and small show up for it, even Hades
is convinced to leave his realm to attend.
They pledge their lives to each other, and Hera
officiates as the goddess of marriage. Once they swear their
loyalty to one another, she takes a small square of ambrosia
and hand feeds it to Psyche. She swallows it in two bites,
and when she’s finished she glows with her new status as
an immortal.
Eros grabs Psyche and dips her.
When they kiss, the gods’ cheering is loud enough
that it causes thunder storms all across the earth.
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170
Hera Leaves Olympus
Part XIX:
Hera Leaves Olympus
Olympus has fallen.

It’s marble columns lay cracked and broken. The
sun doesn’t pass over it anymore. Hestia’s fire pit has been
empty and cold for decades, with nothing left on the
mountain to fuel it.
Olympus has fallen, yet Hera and Zeus sit on it still.
Ares has tried talking to his mother. He long ago

gave up any hope of trying to save his father, but Hera isn’t
touched by the same madness that compels Zeus. All that
keeps her there are her oaths of marriage and loyalty, all
that chains her to the crumbling remains of what they once
were is her marriage to Zeus, who will only be convinced
to leave Olympus on a funeral pyre.
Ares begs. He cries. He does anything and
everything he can to convince his mother to leave, but she
only touches his face with cold hands and presses her
cracked lips to his cheek. She won’t leave her husband.
She won’t be moved by him. So he has to find
someone she will be moved by.
He’s down in the underworld, where he spends so
much of his time now. Persephone is often there as well,
but she only smiles at him, is never angered by his presence
in her realm or her husband’s bed.
(“You worry too much,” Icarus tells him, early on
when they are both young and fumbling and in love with
the same man. “She is not a jealous woman. Hades loves
us all – he simply loved her first.”)
But it is neither Hades nor Persephone who he
seeks today. He goes to the edge of the underworld, ever
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expanding and changing, because it is where she most likes

to be. “Hecate!” he calls out, “I request an audience.”
There’s a shiver in the air, and the goddess of
magic stands before him. He doesn’t know what to think
of her, the woman who’s so close to his lover and who
raised his brother. He’s never been able to find a title that
fit her quite right.
“Ares,” she greets, “to what do I owe the
pleasure?”
“Staying by Zeus’s side is killing my mother,” he
says. “I’ve tried to get her to leave, but she won’t listen to
me.”
Her lips quirk up at the corners. “Listening has
never been her strength. What do you expect me to do
about it? I’ve tried to get her to leave Zeus before. I failed
before, and I will fail again.”
“I know. I don’t want you to talk to Hera. I want
you to talk to Hephaestus,” he says
Hecate’s eyebrows rise. He’s managed to surprise
her. “If he won’t listen to you, why would he listen to me?”
“I haven’t tried asking him,” he says. “He doesn’t
believe anything I say of our mother. He’ll believe you.”
“And what makes you think I have anything
positive to say of her? She’s a petty snake – she’s lied and
manipulated and outright killed to get what she has.”
“Yes,” Ares says. “And what does she have?”
Hecate smiles at him.
Hephaestus is startled to discover Hecate in his

kitchen. She rarely leaves the underworld. “Aunt,” he says.
It’s what he’s called her his whole life. She’s always refused
the title of mother. “Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” she says, and he snaps to attention. “Hera
rots away on Olympus for loyalty to a man who has never
showed her the same devotion.”
“How is that my problem?” he snaps, stung.
Hecate has never talked about Hera with him before. He
can’t think of why she would do so now.
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Hera Leaves Olympus
She grabs one of the apples from his fruit bowl and
bites into it, looking at him thoughtfully as she chews. He
crosses his arms and glares. She swallows. “Have you really
not figured it out yet? I raised you to be smarter than this.”
“Speak plainly.” It’s something he said often in his
adolescence. Styx used to just try and drown Hecate when
she became cryptic.
“Hera is your mother. She bore you and her blood
runs strong in your veins.” He’s about to snap at her again
when she says, “But you are not a son of Zeus’s blood, and
he has never been able to forgive you for being a child of
his wife, but not of him.”
His legs are mostly metal, but he still loses feeling
in them and has to grab for the edge of the counter.
“What?”
Hecate’s eyes go distant. “She was so desperate for
a child when she had you. So young, all things considered.”
He sits down across from her, “Tell me
everything.”
Hephaestus is reeling even as he climbs the

crumbling, ashy remains of the once great Mount
Olympus.
Hera has always seemed unbreakable to him. As
cold and perfect as marble, a mother in name only who
tossed him to his death when he was only a few minutes
old.
It was all a lie.
She went against her very nature as a goddess to
conceive him, something she’s never done before or since.
She carried him and bore him alone, and fought against
Zeus to save him when blood was still slick between her
thighs.
She gave him over to Hecate to protect him. He
grew up in the underworld not because he was something
forgotten and useless, but because he was cherished. He
was raised in the underworld to keep him safe, not to keep
him away.
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She gave him his name, gave him his life, and has
loved him silently all these years.
He could have grown up on Olympus, could have
grown up with her. She would have cared for him as
fiercely as she cared for Ares. He could have grown up
with Ares, could have known his brother when he was
small and straining towards freedom, wouldn’t have met
him for the first time as a brash adolescent sneaking into
his volcano.
If it weren’t for Zeus throwing him from this very
mountain when he was only a few minutes old, he could
have grown up with a real family.
He loves Hecate. He loves Hades. Styx was his best
friend growing up.
But it’s not the same. And it’s not fair.
Hera is beautiful, even as she’s dying.

Her hair is piled on top of her head in intricate
curls, and her dress is silk. But she’s so thin it looks as if
even sitting on her throne tires her. She’s too pale, her skin
bruised, and her eyes sunken.
Zeus lays slumbering in his throne beside her. He
swings from mania to exhaustion with nothing in between.
“Hephaestus,” she says. Even as the rest of her
body deteriorates her eyes are as bright and sharp as ever.
“What do you want?”
He falls to his knees in front of her, and her eyes
widen. “Staying here and clinging to a power that doesn’t
belong to us anymore is killing you. It’s time to leave.”
“I am the goddess of marriage and family. As long
as my husband remains here, so shall I,” she informs him,
head tilted arrogantly so she can stare down at him.
“We aren’t the gods of anything anymore,” he says,
“not really.”
She looks away from him and her lips twitch like
she’s not trying not to smile. “No, I suppose not. But I am
still a wife, and with my husband I will stay.”
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Hera Leaves Olympus
“The goddess of marriage and family,” he repeats,

“What of Ares? Of Hebe?”
“Hades looks after Ares. Hebe is fully grown, and
has been for many centuries.” Something he can’t explain
passes over her face. “Someday, all children must say
goodbye to their mother for the last time. None of us are
exempt from that, not even gods.”
He places his hands on her lap, palms up. She
blinks, looking rapidly between them and his face.
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He can’t remember if he’s ever touched her before.

“Hera of the Heights, of Argos, of the Mound. Hera the
cow eyed, white armed goddess of marriage and of family.
Hera, queen of the gods.” He flexes his hands, and she
slowly places her cold ones in his. “Mom. You once saved
me from death by Zeus’s hands. Now, let me do the same
for you.”
She becomes impossibly paler and tries to yank her
hands away, but he doesn’t let her. “What are you – I don’t
know what you’re talking about. Let go of me!”
“Hecate told me. She told me everything.” He
kisses her knuckles. “Leave this mountain. Leave Zeus.
Come with me.”
She looks to her slumbering husband, a mere
shadow of the man he used to me. “I love him.”
“You hate him too,” he says. “Denounce your
status as a goddess and come with me. Mom, please.”
“It was always such a thin line between the two
with us, between love and hate,” she says, still looking at
Zeus. “He’s mine. I chose him, and I made him choose
me. I did this to the both of us. I should stay.”
Hephaestus presses her hand to his cheek, and her
gaze finally skitters back to him. “I’m yours too. Ares is
yours. Hebe is yours. Don’t die for your husband. Live for
your children.”
“You’ve never cared about me before,” she says.
“You shouldn’t bother. Just because I didn’t throw you
down this mountain doesn’t mean I’ve ever been a mother
to you.”
“Maybe this is our chance then,” he says, “maybe
this is our last chance to be something more than strangers.
Come with me, and be something other than Zeus’s bride
and queen.”
She’s too sickly to walk. Hephaestus carries her

down what remains of Mount Olympus in his arms. When
they’re halfway down the skies open and lightning crashes
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Hera Leaves Olympus
down around them. The claps of thunder aren’t loud

enough to drown out Zeus’s anguished screams.
Hera hides her face in her son’s shoulder and
weeps.
Hephaestus’s metal legs don’t hesitate or miss a
step the whole way down the mountain.
Olympus has fallen.

Only Zeus remains.
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178
The Daughters of Apollo
Part XX:
Apollo has many sons.

He only ever has nine daughters.
He has his first when he’s young, too young to

know better.
Daphne is beautiful and coy, and leads him on a
merry chase. He catches her, and finally silences her
laughing mouth with his own. They sleep together, and she
leaves bite marks up his neck.
Her father, the river god Peneus, finds out about
them. Apollo had not known it was secret. Peneus is a
hard, selfish god, and he slits Daphne’s throat for her
impurity. Better a dead daughter then one who does not
listen.
Apollo finds out too late. He arrives to Daphne
dead on the side of her father’s riverbank, stomach swollen
in a way Apollo doesn’t remember it being the last time he
saw her, which was – which was – it couldn’t have been
that long, surely?
He cuts open her stomach, throat too tight to call
for his sister’s help, heart too tight to bear anyone else
looking at Daphne’s slack, bloody face.
The child is still warm.
The child is still alive.
He cannot bring himself to bury Daphne, to
sentence her to an afterlife beneath the earth. Instead, he
transforms her into a large laurel tree, so her beauty will
remain eternal. He presses a hand against her trunk and
says, “My hair will have you, my lyre will have you, my
quiver will have you.” Apollo looks down at the baby, too
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small, tucked into the crook of his arm. “Our daughter will
have you.”
He calls her Calliope. Their daughter weaves laurel
leaves into her hair every day of her life.
When he is older, but not wiser, he gets drunk on

the top of Olympus. It is not the first time, nor the last,
but this time it is different.
This time Hestia, goddess of the hearth, of
warmth, of family, places her delicate hand around the
back of his neck and leads him to her rooms.
Months later, he lands his chariot, the sun finally
set. His arms are shaking, and his legs are covered in burns
when the sun grew tired and tried to consume him, but
could not. Hestia stands before him, something held in her
arms. “What’s wrong?” he asks roughly, throat dry and the
skin of his lips cracking. Hestia rarely leaves Olympus.
“I am no mother,” she tells him, and he doesn’t
understand until she places a warm, squirming bundle in
his arms. He holds it to his chest automatically. “Her name
is Terpsichore.”
She leaves before he has the chance to question
her. He looks down, and the baby has his golden eyes and
her dark hair. “Hello, little one.”
Calliope is fully grown now. Apollo leaves
Terpsichore in her care, and promises to come when
called.
“Yes, Father,” Calliope says, rolling her eyes as her
little sister grabs fistfuls of her curly hair. There’s an ink
smudge across her face, and her home is bursting with
books. He should really talk to Athena about letting
Calliope use one of her libraries.
He kisses both their foreheads before leaving.
Apollo falls in love with a Spartan prince, graceful

and strong and with a wide, pretty mouth. He falls in love
with a mind that can match him, with a smile that leaves
him breathless. Hyacinth captures his affections and
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attentions utterly, and for a few short years Apollo is

enchanted, for a few short years Apollo feels a love deep
in his chest that is only surpassed by the love he has for his
sister.
Then Hyacinth is killed.
He shows up at his daughters’ door, and Calliope
and Terpsichore take one look at him and usher him inside.
He can’t bring himself to speak, but he’s covered in blood
that isn’t his own, is pale and shaken and mourning.
They clean him and care for him and settle him
into bed, although he cannot bring himself to sleep.
Less than a week later, a mortal woman comes
looking for him. Her eyes are red, but she stands tall and
her lips are pressed into a straight line. A toddler who
shares her dark coloring clutches her skirt. “I am the
Princess of Sparta, and wife of Hyacinth.”
Apollo hadn’t known Hyacinth had a wife. He
hadn’t asked. Surely he would have noticed – but then
again, perhaps not. Love makes people stupid. “I am sorry
for your loss.”
“As I am sorry for yours,” she says in return, which
surprises him. “Sparta must have a prince. I am to be
remarried.” She brings the little girl forward, and she can’t
be more than a couple years old. “This is Urania, the child
of myself and my husband. I have been ordered to kill her.”
Apollo flinches. He knows such things are done,
but – she is Hyacinth’s daughter. “I will take her.”
She smiles. “I thought you might.” She kisses the
girl on both cheeks, hands her to Apollo, then leaves as
quickly as she’d came.
Urania watches them with big liquid eyes that she
got from her mother. He stays with his daughters for a year
after that, playing with Urania and watching Terpsichore
dance and listening to Calliope’s beautiful poetry. Urania
loves the stars. She stares up at them each night, and
Apollo patiently explains the name of each one.
When she is fully grown, he begs a piece of
ambrosia off Hera to feed it to her.
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Urania is his daughter as surely as if his blood ran

through her veins. He cannot bear to watch her age and
die.
Marpessa chooses Ida over him, but it is too late.

She already swells with his child, and he could use that to
keep her. He could force her to stay at his side, she loves
him, she said so, it would not be such a cruel thing.
But she is not wrong in her assessment. Apollo is
immortal, and will not grow old with her, will not change
with her, will not die with her. Ida will.
There’s fear on her face, and he thinks she deserves
it, for proclaiming to love him and choosing another. But
he is not interested in keeping her captive for a lifetime.
“Have the child, and give it to me,” he commands,
“and I will leave you to your life.”
Ida is furious in his jealousy that Marpessa will bear
a child for Apollo before she bears a child for him, so there
is that comfort, at least.
Artemis delivers the child to ensure it goes
smoothly. She’s beaming as she holds her niece. “What will
you call her?”
“You choose,” he says, running the back of his
finger over the babe’s soft cheek.
His sister considers the squalling child for a long
moment before she says, “I think you should name her
Thalia.”
“Thalia it is,” he says.
She’s mischievous, and reminds him of himself on
his worst days. She grows, and pulls pranks on nymphs and
deities. Her older sisters are constantly straining to keep
her out of worse trouble.
He gets a frantic message from Calliope that Thalia
has gone missing, and he eventually finds her at the edge
of a scorched battlefield, the soldiers long gone but the
bodies and stench remaining. He’s furious at her for going
to a place so dangerous, but when he marches up to her,
he sees something that he hadn’t expected.
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She’s hallway through a story about pranking a

wood nymph that he knows is at least half lies and a quarter
exaggeration. Curled up on the ground, clutching his
stomach as he laughs so hard he can’t breathe, is Ares.
Apollo hasn’t seen the tormented god of war this
carefree since he was a child.
Thalia finally notices him, and cuts herself off,
paling. “Oh, uh. Hi.”
Ares is downright giggling. “Hello Thalia,” Apollo
crosses his arms and glares, “You shouldn’t go wandering
away from your sisters.” She winces and nods, ducking her
head to look up at him through her eyelashes, doing her
best to look contrite and innocent.
It might have worked, if Apollo hadn’t taught her
that look himself.
He sits down on the ground next to Ares, who
doesn’t acknowledge his presence beyond shifting enough
to use Apollo’s thigh as his pillow. “Well,” Apollo says,
“keep going.”
Thalia lights up and launches back into the story.
When she finishes, she continues into another which is
mostly true and somehow even more ridiculous.
Because he’s an idiot with a death wish, Apollo ends

up spending a month with Hecate in the underworld. He
stumbles out one night when she falls asleep, because he
feels if he doesn’t leave now there’s a possibility that he
never will.
One of the most horrifying moments of his life is
looking for the way out, and finding Hades instead. The
god of death looks at him, walking around naked in his
realm, then to the direction he came from, and says, “That
was you? Are you crazy?”
“It … it was a good time,” he says faintly.
“Obviously.” Hades shakes his head and slices his
hand down in the air in front of them, creating a doorway
for Apollo out of his realm.
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Apollo gives him a clumsy salute and steps

through.
Roughly a year later, he’s playing his lyre when a
little girl with black skin and grey hair and eyes appears in
front of him. It’s terrifying enough that he accidentally
snaps one of his strings.
“Lady Styx,” he says, voice higher pitched than
normal. “Is there something I can help you with?”
The child snorts and reaches her hands into
absolutely nothing and pulls out a baby. She holds it out to
him. “Hecate says this is your problem now.”
Improbably, the babe already has a mouth full of
too-sharp teeth. Her eyes shift between every color, unable
to decide, and there is something a little too knowing about
her face for one so young. Artemis says he too was born
knowing too much.
A child of Apollo and Hecate can only be a
mistake, something that will never fit quite well among
others of her own kind.
He sighs and take the baby. “Very well.”
“I like the name Clio,” the child goddess says
before leaving him.
Thalia tells him it’s too small and to give it back.
Urania is fascinated, and takes over most of the child’s
care, which is likely for the best since Calliope is neck deep
into a new epic, and would be cross if she needed to pull
her attention from it to rear a child.
As Clio ages, she stays just as unsettling and
strange. Hephaestus shows up around the time she starts
breaking into Athena’s libraries, even though stunts like
that get people worse than killed. “I don’t know why she
gave her to me,” Apollo says as they watch the teenager
devour a stolen tome on the history of the Persian Empire.
“Hecate raised you, I don’t understand why she didn’t
want to raise her actual child.”
“You’re a better parent than she is,” Hephaestus
says thoughtfully. Apollo gives him an unimpressed look.
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“I’m serious. Your girls are turning out to be quite lovely

– all of them.”
“Of course they are,” he says, nose in the air, but
grins when Hephaestus elbows him in the side.
By the time she’s an adult, Clio is easily one of the
most accomplished scholars to ever exist. She and Athena
regularly get into academic debates that last weeks, and
scare off anyone from daring to come closer.
She stays strange, and too smart, and Apollo loves
her utterly.
Apollo is lying on the beach when a large wave

overtakes him and drags him into the sea. He struggles for
the surface, but can’t seem to shake the waves, and is
dragged to the sea floor. He’s a god, so he won’t suffocate,
but he’s terrified when the water pulls him down to
Poseidon’s palace and deposits him in front of the sea
king’s wife. “Apollo,” she says, “I can see what your
daughters will become.”
He has no idea what she’s talking about. “Excuse
me?”
Amphitrite grabs his jaw and pulls him closer. He
doesn’t dare resist. She looks into his eyes, then smirks.
“The god of prophecy doesn’t know that which he has
wrought. How … ironic.”
“Is it?” he wonders. He really hopes she doesn’t
kill him.
“Quite,” she smirks, and with a flick of her wrist
she’s naked before him. “I wish for one of your daughters
to be mine as well. Lay with me.”
“Uh,” he says eloquently, because Amphitrite has
never given her husband any children, he hadn’t even
known she could. If he sleeps with her, Poseidon might kill
him, regardless of how many people the god of the sea
sleeps with that aren’t his wife. But if he refuses her, she
might kill him, and it’s not like having sex with Amphitrite
is any sort of hardship. She’s as gorgeous as she is
terrifying. “Okay.”
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He’s deposited back on the shore the next day,

feeling oddly used.
If Poseidon has any opinions on Apollo knocking
up his wife, he doesn’t voice them.
Amphitrite doesn’t foist the baby upon him as
soon as she’s born. Instead years pass, and one day a dark
skinned, amber eyed sea god shows up at his door. There’s
a teenager at his side, who has Apollo’s coloring and
Amphitrite’s bone structure, and hair that shimmers
golden-green in sunlight. “Glaucus,” Apollo greets warily,
“and who might this be?”
“I call her Erato,” Glaucus says, “I’ve raised her
since birth. It’s time for her to join her sisters.”
Erato is not as terrifying as her mother. Instead,
there’s a sweetness about her that she must have gotten
from Glaucus. She’s shy at first, and spends many days
looking out into the sea. But his daughters are persistent,
and soon she’s laughing and joining them. There’s
something dreamy about her, and she loves love, writes
romantic ballads and beautiful poems, so much so that
Aphrodite commends her talent.
Erato is also the most like him in the area of her
love life, meaning she leaves behind a constant trail of
heartbroken men and women.
Calliope complains about the constant wailing
around their home, and Clio proves she has some of her
mother’s talent with magic when she casts an unplotable
spell around their home so former lovers stop following
Erato to their door. Of course, she forgets to tell both
Apollo and her sisters about this, and it’s very confusing
for everyone until Clio remembers to tell them where the
house is.
His daughters’ home is a place of constant music,
poetry, and literature. He thinks he’s starting to suspect
what Amphitrite was talking about.
Not all hunts are easy things.
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Apollo feels the moment his sister is wounded, the

arrow through her abdomen as painful for him as it is for
her. He’s in his chariot, and he can’t leave it, if he leaves
his chariot unattended the sun will consume it, and then
consume the earth. “Calliope!” he snaps, and his eldest
daughter appears by his side.
“Father?” she asks, huddling into him and away
from the sun. “What’s going on?”
“Artemis is hurt, I have to help,” he says urgently,
and places the reins in her hands. “You can do this.”
She pales, but steps forward, keeping a white
knuckled grip on the chariot. “Go.”
He kisses her forehead, and goes to his sister. Her
huntresses have set up an honor guard around her,
defending and dying as cruel faced giants draws closer.
“ARES!” he screams, and he doesn’t know what they’re
fighting for, what this war is about, but it doesn’t matter.
“WE NEED YOU!”
The god of war appears, and he’s clearly come
from some other battle, covered in mud and other worse
things. He throws himself into the fight without pause, but
it’s not until they gain more aid that the tides turn in their
favor.
He first sees Erato on the field, water swirling
around her as she slices through them all, the power of her
mother making her golden eyes glow. Clio is at her back,
the glittering magic Hecate passed on to her filling her
hands.
Thalia has long curved knives flying from her
fingers, and all who face her don’t figure out they’re dead
until she’s already left them behind. Urania is letting loose
arrows against the giants and though she’s not his by
blood, not a goddess by birth, none would know it
watching each of her arrows hit true and take down
another enemy.
Terpsichore uses her honed abilities of dance
differently here on the battlefield, twirling and ducking
around enemies with her sword flashing as it slices through
187
all who go against her. Celestial fire licks up the sword, and
the daughter of Hestia and Apollo is laughing as she dances
through the battlefield.
He wants to yell at them, to tell them to get off the
battlefield, to get to safety. But it is thanks to them that the
fight is being won, so he says nothing.
Ares looks around, grimaces, and catches Apollo’s
eye before he disappears from the battle. They must be
invoking his name. Apollo is only grateful he managed to
stay as long as he did.
The giants are all dead by the time Apollo manages
to make it to his sister’s side. She’s pale and covered in
blood, her huntresses seated around her and trying to stop
the bleeding. “What were you thinking?” Apollo demands,
grabbing her hand and pushing her hair from her forehead.
Terpsichore comes forward and lays her burning sword
against the wound, sealing and cauterizing it at once. Both
Apollo and Artemis scream
“They – took – a – child,” she pants, leaning in for
his touch, for his comfort, and he has never been able to
deny her anything. He pulls her up, biting back a scream at
the pain that rips through them both, and props her up
against his chest. “A – nymph’s child. Zeus’s child. They
killed – it’s mother. That – that sort of injustice will – will
not be – tolerated.” She lays her head back against his
shoulder, tears leaking from the corner of her eyes, and
Apollo almost wishes the battle were not over, because he
wants to murder something.
“I’ll get it,” Erato says, and a moment later she
returns with a toddler in her arms. She has the copper-red
skin of Zeus, and pale blonde hair. “What do we do now?
Zeus does not care for his children.”
“I think it’s time you became a big sister,” Thalia
says, and Erato looks stricken. “Right, Father?”
He looks to his sister, who nods. “I can think of
no better place for her. She cannot stay with me – a
hunting party is not place for children.”
“Very well,” he sighs. “Does she have a name?”
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The girl attempts to hide behind Erato’s hair, then

says, “I am Euterpe.”
“Welcome, Euterpe,” he says.
It’s then that the sun finally sets, and Calliope
stumbles into existence next to them. She’s covered in
deep, bleeding burns, but it’s not as bad he feared it would
be. She’s certainly faired better at her first time driving the
chariot than he had. “What’s happening? Is everything all
right?”
“We have a new sister,” Thalia says brightly, even
as Clio rushes forward to tend to Calliope’s burns.
Euterpe, thankfully, seems to inherit none of
Zeus’s madness. She has a singing voice like a clear bell,
and soon surpasses even Calliope’s talent with the lyre.
He knows, technically, that Euterpe is his half-
sister. But it takes him no time at all to regard her as his
daughter, to love her with same simple ferocity as he loves
her sisters.
For a while, all is well, is quiet. His daughters are

all fully grown, accomplished and beautiful.
Then Demeter corners him when he’s walking
through a quiet city and pins him against an alley wall. “If
Amphitrite thinks she can one up me over this,” the
goddess hisses, “she’s sorely mistaken.”
At least this time he knows what’s going on when
Demeter starts pulling off her dress. “You can’t raise the
child,” he says. He’s not adverse to laying with Demeter,
although at this rate it looks like there will be less laying
and more standing against a rough alley wall. But Demeter
only knows how to love in a way that crushes all it touches.
He won’t let her do that to his child.
“Fine,” she snaps, “Now get moving.”
He’s vaguely terrified the whole time, and it mostly
reminds him of his month with Hecate. He’s left alone and
naked in the alleyway an hour later.
Nine months later, an infant is delivered to his
door by a nervous wood nymph. His daughter still has the
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squashed appearance of a freshly born baby. “She didn’t

waste any time,” he comments, settling her in his arms.
“Does she have a name?”
“Polyhymnia, my lord,” the wood nymph says,
then bows before fleeing.
He brings her to the home where all his daughters
live.
She grows, and she’s the spitting image of
Demeter, of Persephone back when she answered to the
name Kore. Her voice is lower than Euterpe’s, but just as
pretty, and when they sing together it’s the most beautiful
sound he’s ever heard. She’s quiet, and thoughtful, her big
brown eyes watching all around her with a measured stare.
Polyhymnia asks after her mother, something none
of the others had done, and Apollo doesn’t know what to
say. The truth is too callous, but he can’t bear to lie to her.
Instead, he begs an audience with Persephone, and says,
“Your sister asks after the mother you share. I don’t know
what to tell her.”
Persephone has no advice to offer, but she starts
spending some of her time outside of the underworld with
Polyhymnia. It is enough, and her questions stop, and
Apollo tries not to feel guilty that he never really answered
them.
Cassandra is unlike any woman he’s ever met,

unlike any person he’s ever met, and the flames of love and
passion burn inside him in a way they haven’t since his
Hyacinth died.
She’s bull headed and irritating, and whenever he
tries to complain about it Artemis rolls her eyes and his
daughters laugh at him. He supposes he’s not doing a very
good job at hiding that he’s in love with her. Not even
from her, because at one point she crossly asks if he’s ever
planning to do anything with her, or if she should accept
the offer from the butcher’s son.
They don’t leave her house for five days.
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She is curious, hungry for knowledge, hungrier for

it than she is of him. She wants to know impossible things,
wants to be an impossible thing, and so Apollo laughs and
says, “I will make you a bargain. I will give you the gift of
prophecy, if you will grant me the gift of your hand.”
He’s never taken a bride before. He hasn’t wanted
to.
Cassandra is screaming and laughing, and she
throws her arms around his neck and kisses him until she’s
breathless. He takes it as a yes.
That’s when everything goes horribly, incredibly
wrong.
It’s too much, all the horror she sees is too much,
and Apollo tries to tell her to focus on the good, to see the
happiness of the future. But she can’t, gets too caught up
in too many wars, and she wastes away in front of his eyes,
even as her stomach swells.
He tries to take back the gift, tries to save her, but
he can’t. It cannot be ungiven, and his headstrong,
vivacious lover fades before his eyes. He only manages to
alter it, to change it so no one believes the horrible things
she cries in order to prevent the horror people feel when
she looks at them and screams the way that they’ll die.
Artemis helps deliver their child, but halfway
through her face goes pinched and worried, and Apollo
knows that Cassandra won’t make it.
“I’m sorry,” he weeps, kissing her gaunt face,
feeling the sharpness of her cheekbones under his lips,
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t
want this to happen.”
She looks at him with glassy eyes, barely reacts
when Artemis places their child on her chest. There’s a
growing pool of blood under her, but she can’t be saved.
She will die, here, now.
Apollo wonders if she saw this coming.
She blinks, and meets his gaze with a sharpness and
awareness she hasn’t had for a long time. “She is your last
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daughter,” Cassandra says, “Melpomene is the last

daughter you will have.”
He kisses her, his last chance to do so.
She’s dead before his lips leaves hers.
Apollo tries to flee, to run from the claws tearing
apart his heart, but Artemis doesn’t let him. She yanks him
back and pushes Melpomene into his arms. “You can’t
leave,” she says harshly, “She needs you. Your daughter
needs you. You’re not allowed to run.”
He crumples, leaning his head onto his sister’s
shoulder as he sobs, and her calloused hand grasps the
back of his neck. Melpomene is stuck between them, soft
and warm and alive.
Time passes.
Melpomene is Thalia’s other half, her best friend,
and they do everything together. Her dark hair is a mass of
unruly curls just like her mother, her laughter is just like
her mother’s.
She, like her sisters, is his pride and his joy.
Apollo has nine daughters

Calliope, who reigns over written epics.
Terpsichore, who reigns over dance.
Urania, who reigns over astronomy.
Thalia, who reigns over comedy.
Clio, who reigns over history.
Erato, who reigns over love poetry.
Euterpe, who reigns over song.
Polyhymnia, who reigns over hymns.
Melpomene, who reigns over tragedy.
They are known as the Muses.
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Hephaestus and Styx
Part XXI:
Hephaestus and Styx
Styx does not have a home in the underworld, not

really. She has a room in Hades’s palace, of course, and a
nook in Hecate’s house. Charon has a cottage by her river,
a humble thing for a being of such great power, and she’s
shoved her way onto his narrow bed and curled into the
warmth of his chest more than once. She darts through the
horrors of Tartarus, and plays in the Elysium Fields.
All of the underworld is open to her, and she’s
lived here the entirety of her existence. But she’s yet to find
a piece of it that feels as if it belongs to her, that doesn’t feel
borrowed.
Hecate brings home a baby with no legs beneath

the knee and wide, curious eyes.
Styx adores him instantly.
Hecate is a busy woman – her duties in the
underworld keep her constantly moving, and she spends
much of her time shrouded in her secrets. She is the
goddess of magic, and there are things that only she can
do, things that other people can’t even know about. She is
not a person with much time to spare, and babies take a lot
of time.
Hades watches Hephaestus often, directing the
traffic of souls and overseeing construction with the child
held to his chest. Charon fashions a sling, and the baby
sleeps against his back while he ferries souls across her
river.
Day and weeks and years pass. The baby is not like
her.
The baby grows.
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Hephaestus is a child, and he lives in a dangerous

place. His aunt raises him, and she is a busy woman who
does important things, and it seems to him like nothing in
their home is safe to touch, that it is all cursed or corrosive
or even, at times, sentient.
The palace is not much better. Hades always
welcomes him, has a warm smile for him, but is too busy
to linger. He walks on wobbly legs of glass that Aunt
Hecate fashioned for him, and they allow him to walk, but
they pain him too. He cannot run or jump, he cannot
explore the edges of the underworld like he so desperately
wants to because his legs are delicate, clumsy things. They
are glass, and they shatter too easily.
“Don’t be sad,” a voice says in his ear, and he’s
grinning before he even turns around. Lady Styx is there,
smiling at him. She looks to be his age, although she is
much older, and she has black skin and grey hair and eyes.
Her skin is the color of her river’s water, and her hair and
eyes the color of the foam when it rushes too fast. For as
long as he can remember, she has always had kindness to
spare.
“I’m not sad,” he says stubbornly. “Aren’t you
busy?” She is a goddess, one as powerful and important as
his aunt or Hades. He wants to grow up to be just like her.
She shrugs, “My river knows what to do. Do you
want to go on an adventure?”
“Yes,” he says instantly. The only time he’s allowed
to explore is when Styx is with him. If his glass legs break,
she can carry him, and if anything tries to attack or hurt
them, she can stop it.
She grabs his hand, smiling. It’s cold. She’s always
cold, the same icy temperature as her river. “There are
volcanos in Tartarus. Have I taken you there before?”
He shakes his head, and in the next instant they’re
gone.
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Hephaestus and Styx
Styx and Hephaestus manage to get in all manner

of trouble, including, but not limited to: accidentally giving
Cerberus two extra heads, devising and implementing a
manner of torture for one of the souls that is so brilliant
Hades can’t even get mad at them for it, and figuring out
it is possible to surf on Styx’s rough waters with glass legs,
but only if you’re very, very stupid and have the goddess
in question by your side and laughing so hard she forgets
that her primary job here is to prevent you from dying.
When he’d found them, Hades had given them the
worst admonishment he knew how to give: a disappointed
frown. Hecate had laughed and told them to be careful of
his legs.
Hephaestus’s childhood had its bright spots.
Almost all of those bright spots included Styx.
Hephaestus looks older than her now, a young

man when she is, as always, a child. He’s gotten quieter as
he’s aged, his dark eyes permanently thoughtful.
“You shouldn’t come here without me,” she
scolds, sitting down beside him. He doesn’t respond,
swinging his hammer down on glowing metal with a boom
loud enough that the volcano shakes with it. “You know
Hecate doesn’t like you going into Tartarus alone.”
“You were busy,” he says, not accusatory, just a
statement of fact. “Here, cool this for me.”
She sighs, but cool water rushes from her hands
and onto the superheated metal. It hisses and steams, and
when the air clears Hephaestus holds it up and appears to
be satisfied. “Must it be in a volcano? We can make you a
forge in safer part of the underworld.”
“Volcanos are useful,” he says, the same answer he
always gives her. “I have more of these to do if you want
to stick around.”
Helping him build whatever he’s currently working
on is pretty boring. But he’s her friend, and it must be
important if he’s risking his life by going into Tartarus on
his glass legs to do it. “Sure,” she sighs, slumping down to
195
sit crosslegged next to him. He pats her on the head, which

she’s all prepared to be insulted by - she’s a kid, but she’s
not a kid – when she sees his lips curled up around the
corners of his mouth. He’s making fun of her on purpose,
which is still annoying, but is less hurtful than him treating
her like a kid just because now he looks older.
The first set of legs that Hephaestus makes for

himself are made of iron. They’re not as pretty as he’d like
them to be, but that’s all right. He can run in these legs,
jump in them, fight in them. He is no longer a being made
of glass, no longer someone who can be easily broken.
Styx is the first person he shows them to. He leaps
and somersaults in them, something he could never do
before. She’s delighted at first, smiling and clapping, but by
the time he finishes, arms out-thrown and beaming, she’s
wilted. She sits hunched and tries to keep her smile in
place, but it’s trembling.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, kneeling in front of her.
“I thought you would be happy for me.”
“I am!” she hiccups, and now she’s crying, big fat
tears that he wants to wipe away but can’t. She cries the
water of her river. If he touches them, he’ll burn. “I am
happy!”
He risks it, tugging the end of his sleeve down to
quickly wipe her left cheek, then ripping it and throwing
the cloth away as it burns. “You don’t look happy.”
“You’re going to leave,” she says, and he goes cold.
“You have legs, and now you’re going to leave, and I’m
not. I am the Goddess of the River Styx, I must stay with
my river. But you’re going to leave.”
His heart breaks seeing Styx cry. He loves Hecate,
loves Charon, loves Hades. But if there is one person in
this realm he can truly call family, it is her. They share no
blood, but she’s the only sister he’s ever known. “I’ll visit!
You can visit me too. I wasn’t born here, Styx. Hecate isn’t
my mother. I was born on Olympus, and I can’t hide in the
underworld from Hera forever. I don’t want to, either.”
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Hephaestus and Styx
“I know!” she says, her breath coming in stuttering

gasps as she tries and fails to stop crying. “You’re so smart,
and all the things you make are amazing. You need to go
out there, so other gods can see you, so that people can see
you. I just – I’m going to miss you.”
He’s a god – a little river water won’t kill him. He
pulls Styx into his arms, ignoring the pain in his shoulder
as her tears burn through his skin. She resists for a
moment, then goes limp, throwing her arms around his
neck. He says, “I’m going to miss you too.”
Hephaestus does not want to cause an uproar. He’s

had fantasies of storming Mount Olympus, of confronting
Hera, of doing any number of foolish things. But he is not
a foolish man.
Hecate has picked out a volcano for him already,
one she says that fits all his requirements and is not in the
domain of any other god, even the lesser ones. He will go
slow. He will build, and improve the lives of the mortals.
Temples will be erected in his honor, tributes placed at his
feet, his name on all their lips. He’ll build his power the
hard way, until they can ignore him no longer, until Hera
and Zeus have no choice but to offer him a place at their
table on Olympus.
But not yet.
For now, he builds something else, something even
more important.
“Can I open my eyes yet?” Styx asks, pouting.

Hephaestus’s hands are on her shoulders, pushing
her forward. “No.”
She scowls. She can tell they’re by her river, in a
bend where no one travels through, but that’s it. Her
knowledge of the geography of the underworld is always
in relation to her river. “What about now?”
“Yes,” he says.
She wasn’t expecting it, so it takes her a moment
to blink her eyes open. “Did you make this?”
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“Hecate helped,” he admits, “I wasn’t sure what to

do for things like curtains and windchimes. Do you like
it?”
It’s a house. A small one, not much bigger than
Charon’s. It’s made of obsidian, but not several pieces put
together. It looks like the whole things was carved out of
one massive piece of obsidian. The walls are black and
smooth and shining. There’s a large, round bed in the
center that’s a pale blue, the chairs in a deep purple, and
her curtains are a soft yellow. The house is black, but
Hephaestus has filled it with color, given her a rainbow
tucked in every space. Copper pots hang in the kitchen,
and there are signs of his forging everywhere – in the
cabinets, the door knobs in the shape of flowers, and a
windchime hanging in her open window, even though
there is no wind here.
“Do you like it?” he repeats. “I know you tend to
just – end up wherever, but I thought you should have a
place that was just yours. If you want something different,
I can change it–”
“No.” She swallows and touches her wall, the silver
designs that he must have inlaid himself. “It – it’s perfect.”
Quieter then, “You gave me a home.”
No place in the whole of the underworld has ever
felt like it belonged to her. This one does. It doesn’t feel
borrowed.
Hephaestus ruffles her hair, “It seems only fair,
since you did the same for me. This realm wouldn’t have
been my home without you.”
They’re smiling at each other, and the tension she’d
been carrying ever since she realized Hephaestus would be
leaving drains out of her.
He’s older now, almost an adult, and he’s leaving
the underworld. But he’s not leaving her.
“You’re my best friend,” she tells him, in case he’s
forgotten.
“Good,” he says, “because you’re my best friend
too.”
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She is Persephone
Part XXII:
She is Persephone
The first time Kore throws herself into the River

Styx, she is reckless and stubborn and feels like she has so
little left to lose, only an overbearing mother she yearns to
escape.
The first time Kore throws herself into the River
Styx, she fights and swims and survives. She is picked up
on the shore and carried to safety in Hades’s arms.
The second time Kore throws herself into the
River Styx, she is reckless and stubborn and feels like she
has everything to lose. She lets the water take her, and she
drowns.
The second time Kore throws herself into the
River Styx, it kills her.
Kore wakes up after falling unconscious while

being carried by the King of the Underworld. Her skin is
fully healed, no longer blistered and burning. She’s naked
under the soft blankets, but she was naked when she dove
into the river, so she’s not too worried about it.
“I didn’t know you were a goddess,” someone says,
and she turns her head to see a little girl sitting at her
bedside with black skin and grey eyes and hair. She’s
glaring at her, “I wouldn’t have tried to kill you if I’d
known. You shouldn’t touch my water – it’s not good for
you. It will kill you. It does not care what you are.”
“They tell tales of the person who did survive it, so
long ago,” Kore says, pushing herself up so the blanket
falls to her waist.
The young Lady Styx huffs and gets to her feet,
pushing open the long wardrobe on the other side of the
room. “Those tales are wrong. What my river takes, it
199
keeps.” Kore raises an eyebrow. Styx doesn’t explain

further, only places a dark blue gown on the bed. “Hecate
put some of her old things in here for you. She’s taller and
thinner than you are. But you are a goddess. You can make
it work.”
“I can,” Kore agrees, amused. She pushes herself
out of bed, and her hair falls into her face.
Her hair has been a dark brown her whole life.
She strides over to the wardrobe and pulls it open,
starring at herself in the mirror.
Her hair has turned a pure, snowy white. The hair
on her head of course, but the rest of it too. Her eyebrows,
the light hair on her arms and legs, going down her navel,
the hair between her legs – all of it white.
“You’re lucky nothing worse happened,” Styx
scolds. “My river usually does much worse than this.”
Kore touches one of her new, pale eyebrows.
“That is an excellent point, Lady Styx.”
With some clever magic, Kore pulls on the now
perfectly fitting gown. Hecate doesn’t tend to bother with
them, only dresses up if there’s some sort of celebration
that requires her attendance – something that hasn’t
happened in a long time, ever since she irritated Zeus and
Poseidon to the point that they called for her head on a
spike. The gown is old, even by their standards, but it’s
beautifully crafted. Stars plucked from the heavens are
sewn into the bodice, and waves from the seven seas curl
around the long skirt. “This is very valuable,” she says, “Is
Hecate sure she would like me to have it?”
Styx shrugs. “She said it was a young woman’s
dress, and however she may look, she’s not a young
woman any more. It’s my favorite dress of hers – I was
quite cross that she gave it to you, but I did almost kill you.
So I suppose that’s fair enough.”
“Ah,” Kore says, not quite sure how to respond to
that. “I see.”
Styx grins and grabs her hand. The child goddess’s
skin is freezing to the touch, but Kore doesn’t flinch back
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She is Persephone
out of fear of offending her. “Come with me. Hades wants

to see you.”
The girl leads her through the twisting hallways to
a polished wooden door. It’s not the throne room, where
Kore thought that the girl would take her. She’s seen the
grand inner chambers of Poseidon and Zeus’s homes
before, of the lesser gods even, and Kore braces herself for
something just as grandiose and intimidating.
Styx opens the door and pushes her inside before
vanishing.
Kore blinks and looks around.
The room is smaller than she expected. It’s lined
with shelves packed with scrolls, and mounted on the
opposite wall is large map that’s constantly shifting and
changing, and it take her almost a full minute of looking at
it to realize it’s a map of the underworld.
“You’re looking better.”
Kore’s eyes snap down, and it’s only then that she
notices the figure of Hades, King of the Underworld,
hunched over his desk. His hair is pulled in messy low
ponytail, and there are dark bags under his eyes. He’s in a
simple black chiffon, one no more presumptuous than any
mortal noble would wear. He’s the most unassuming,
unremarkable thing in already unassuming, unremarkable
room.
Suddenly, she feels over-dressed.
“Thank you,” she says, not knowing what else to
say. She feels – awkward, almost, in front of him, which
isn’t something she’s ever felt with anyone. She wants to
climb into his lap and rest her head against his shoulder.
She wants to force him into some proper clothes for a king.
She wants to put him to bed and make him sleep until he
loses those bruises under his eyes.
She’s never wanted to do any of those things for
anyone before. She doesn’t even know him.
Although – she knows he came for her. That he
found an intruder into his realm and picked her up and
soothed her, carried her to safety and washed her of the
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corrosive water of the Styx. He placed her in the safety of

his palace and did not touch her as so many other men
would have touched her.
So perhaps she does know him. At least a little.
He rests his chin on his hand while he looks at her.
“Hermes came with a message from your mother,
demanding your return.” She doesn’t even have the time
to panic before he continues, “I denied her. I said that if
she wishes to speak to me in person, then she is welcome
to step into my realm herself.”
“She won’t do that,” Kore says, “She fears your
realm. She fears how her power means nothing in your
domain.”
Kore has never known her mother to fear anything
– except the land of the dead. She’d grown up thinking
Hades must be a hulking, formidable figure to pull fear
from her mother’s breast, but that’s clearly not the case.
He smiles, and it’s the first hint of sharpness she’s
seen from him. “I know. There will be consequences, of
course. But those are my concern. You are a guest of my
realm, Goddess of Spring. Walk where you please, and do
as you please. No one will stop you.”
He’s already looking back down at his papers,
eyebrows drawing together as he scratches out a series of
numbers and rewrites them. It’s a clear dismissal, but Kore
can’t bring herself to move.
She’s never met this man before. Yet he stands
against her mother, yet he welcomes her to his realm, yet
he permits her unrestricted access to his home, yet he
grants her every freedom he’s able.
“Thank you,” she says again. He gives an absent
nod, already reaching for another scroll.
She leaves as quietly as she came.
Hades in unsurprised when the first wave of deaths

occur. Charon is run ragged in his efforts to ferry the souls
across the river. It’s made all the harder because Styx keeps
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She is Persephone
her river churning at a fast pace to dissuade any of the

impatient souls from attempting to swim across.
“This is only the beginning,” he warns them. Styx
pulls on Charon’s robe, and the ferryman lifts her and
settles her onto his hip even though his arms are shaking
from navigating the boat across her river. “Demeter’s
wrath is far reaching.”
“Is the girl worth all this trouble?” Charon
grumbles.
Hades smiles and tugs on the hood of the man’s
robe. “You were.”
Styx yawns and snuggles into Charon’s side. “I like
her. We’ll keep up, don’t worry.”
Hades can’t help but worry. Styx and Charon are
young yet, and he hates to do this to them. He won’t go
and confront Demeter, however – that’s not his battle to
fight. For now, the best thing he can do for Kore is
weather the storm of her mother’s anger.
The best thing he can do for Kore is give her time.
So that’s exactly what he’ll do.
He goes to Hecate after, a map clenched in his fist.
As soon as she sees him, she asks, “Time to expand?”
“It will be,” he says grimly. “It’s better if we can
get ahead of it.”
Hecate doesn’t disagree. They spend the next three
days planning, and a week hence they’ll pull the edges of
his realm wider. If they do it right, it will almost double the
size of the underworld. If they do it wrong – well, it’s best
that they don’t.
He returns to the castle exhausted. He wants to go
straight to bed, but he should review the lists of the dead
so that they can all be sent to the right places, to the areas
of his realm that will fit them best. If he leaves them in the
waiting area too long, not only will they get restless, but it
will fill up, especially with the volume they’re going
through. A full waiting area tends to end in disaster, restless
souls causing problems even when they don’t mean to.
203
He walks through his palace, souls and other

beings inclining their heads as he passes. He’s already
resigned himself to falling asleep in his office when he
pushes open the door and sees a head of white curls bent
over his desk. “Lady Kore,” he says, surprised. He’d given
her access to all parts of his realm. He still hadn’t expected
to find her in his office. “Is something wrong?”
She’s got ink smudges on her cheek and her dark
purple dress is wrinkled. “I’m nearly finished,” she says,
eyes unfocused. “You’ll want to check it over, of course.
But I’m a quick study. I’m quite certain I’ve gotten it right.”
Hades doesn’t understand. He walks over to her,
and spread across his desk are the names of the newly dead,
and Kore has written a number next to each name. The
numbers are the same that flash across the map hung on
the wall – each one corresponding to a sector of his realm.
There are scrolls and scrolls of names that are the product
of Demeter’s temper tantrum, ones that had built up while
Hades had worked with Hecate to ensure that there was
enough room for everyone.
All but the one currently spread out on his desk is
complete.
“You must have been working on this for days,”
he says blankly. “You didn’t need to do that.”
She smiles at him. She has such a pretty smile.
“You didn’t need to let me stay, or shield me from my
mother.”
“That’s not the same thing,” he says. He had
decided he was going to help her. That didn’t mean she
needed to help him in return.
Kore reaches up, her fingertips lightly dragging
against the delicate skin beneath his eyes. “You’re
exhausted. Go to sleep. I’ll finish this up.”
“You don’t need to,” he says again, and he can’t
stop looking at her. He doesn’t know why.
She tucks his hair behind his ear and says, “I want
to. Get some sleep.”
204
She is Persephone
On the walk back to his rooms, all he can think of

is Kore’s fingertips on his skin.
The weeks drag into months, and the death toll

grows ever higher. Throughout it all, Kore is there.
She’s at the river’s edge to help unload the new
souls from Charon’s boat. She’s there when Styx falls into
an exhausted sleep, letting the girl rest with her head
pillowed on Kore’s lap. She’s there, every day, by Hades’s
side, effortlessly shouldering half the work to keep his
realm running smoothly.
“You know,” Hecate says, sitting across from Kore
as she pours over the map of the realm and the population
counts of different areas, “this is the most successful
seduction attempt of Hades I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m not seducing him, I’m helping,” she says
absently, then look up at her, “Wait, is he seduced?
Because I could be. If he’s interested.”
Kore hadn’t known she could want someone
before Hades. The thought of touching Hermes or Apollo
curdles her stomach, but Hades – that excites her. She’s
never felt this way before. But she didn’t think Hades felt
the same. He doesn’t touch her, doesn’t look at her. They
spend almost every minute of every day together, and not
once has he sent her a covetous glance.
Then again, if he were the type of man to covet
her, she wouldn’t love him.
Because she does love him. She’s known that since
the beginning.
Hecate laughs and taps her on the nose. “My dear,
he’s walking on clouds, even as your very presence
threatens to plunge this realm into ruin. I would consider
him quite thoroughly seduced.”
“Does he love me?” she asks, and she sounds
young, and it is a childish question. But it’s important. If
Hades loves her, she has a plan. It’s a plan that’s been
lurking in the back of her mind since that very first day,
since Styx let something slip that Kore is sure she didn’t
205
mean to. But she won’t do it if Hades doesn’t love her. She
won’t repay his kindness with betrayal if he won’t forgive
her for it.
Hecate is silent for a long time. She sounds
surprised when she says, “You know, Kore, I think he
does.”
Hades loves her.
She loves him.
There is a marriage in her future, if she does this
right. But it will be no gilded cage – she’s tired of looking
to other people to save her, looking to Apollo, to Hermes,
to Hades.
She’s going to save herself.
Kore hasn’t used her powers here, unsure of how

spring would conflict with death.
She does it now, in the middle of the night, when
Hades slumbers.
There’s no life in the earth surrounding the palace,
but it does not worry her. She is the daughter of Demeter,
she is the Goddess of Spring. Life from death is what she
does best.
She takes off her shoes and digs her feet into the
ground, closes her eyes, and uses every ounce of her power
to turn this barren land into – something else.
The trees are first, great towering things that fill the
edges of the courtyard. Then grass, then flowers in every
color she can imagine, all in full bloom. Shrubs and rose
bushes, delicate ivy crawling up the sides of Hades’s palace.
She covers it all in fauna, in life. Then she falls to her knees,
pushes her hands into the earth, and makes something
new.
It’s small, but it’s there. She rejects all that her
mother has made, and, for the first time, makes something
completely on her own. It’s barely a tree, barely as tall as
she is. It blooms red, and as she forces it to age the
blossoms grow into heavy, round fruits of the same violent
206
She is Persephone
shade. It is only a single tree, in the middle of the courtyard.

She hopes it will be enough.
“Lady Styx,” she says, “I need you.”
The child goddess appears before her, rubbing at
her eyes. Her yawn cuts off midway through as she gapes
at the lush garden that now exists where before there was
only barren earth. “Did you do this?” she asks, looking
down at the kneeling goddess.
Kore holds out her dirt covered hands. They’re
trembling. She’s parched and dizzy with the effort it took
to make a garden in a place where living things aren’t
meant to thrive, to exist at all. Styx takes them in her own
cool hands. “Do you trust me, Lady Styx?”
The child goddess nods.
“Good,” Kore sighs, nearly drooping in relief. “I
need you to do me a favor. I’m going to jump in your
river.”
“You can’t!” Styx says immediately, grey eyes wide.
“You’re too weak! It will kill you!”
Kore smiles.
“Yes. It will.”
Hades is pulled from bed and thrown against the

stone wall with such force that, if he were not a god, he
would be dizzy from it. He blinks up at Hermes towering
over him. Charon shimmers into existence behind the
messenger god, scythe raised to behead him. “Don’t,”
Hades says.
“You dare tell me what to do after what you’ve
done?” Hermes hisses.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” he says, and points.
Hermes turns. Charon still has the scythe raised.
“Why didn’t you stop her? What is the point of you if you
simply let her die?” Hermes reaches out a hand – Hades
doesn’t know what Hermes is planning to do, and he’s not
interested in finding out.
He’s up in an instant, grabbing Hermes’s wrist
before he can touch Charon and holding it just tight
207
enough that his bones creak in protest. “None of that

now,” he says mildly. “What’s all the fuss about?”
“You need to come to the river,” Charon says.
“The rest of the twelve gods are there. They are angry.”
“Demeter as well?” he asks. He’s surprised. He
didn’t think anything could entice Demeter to face him
once more.
Hermes tries to pull his arm back, but Hades
doesn’t let him. Charon is still standing within hitting
distance. “Of course she’s here! Her daughter is dead!”
He stares. “What are you talking about? Kore is
fine. She’s here.”
“My lord,” Charon says quietly, and this is
impossible, even if Kore had died she would simply end
up here, there is no true death unless he wills it.
Unless –
“STYX!” he roars.
She doesn’t come. For the first time, Styx does not
come when he calls.
“Come with me,” Charon begs, “Please, my lord.
Come with me.”
Hades goes. They go through the courtyard, and
he’s so astounded by the changes that his legs forget to
move at the sight of it all. There’s a garden in the land of
the dead. Flowers bloom. Tree branches hang low with
heavy fruit. But he’s drawn to something else – there’s a
small tree right in the center that almost looks as if it’s
glowing. He reaches out and touches one of the round red
fruits that he’s never seen before, and as soon as his fingers
press against the firm skin it drops into his hand.
Charon tugs at his arm, desperate, “Please, my
lord, we don’t have time.”
He nods, absently tucking the fruit in a pocket of
his robe, and following Charon to the edge of the river.
Hermes, as the messenger god, is the only one able
to enter his realm without permission. Across the grey and
angrily churning river stand all the others – Apollo,
Artemis, Hestia, Athena, Hera, Poseidon, Hephaestus,
208
She is Persephone
Aphrodite, then at the end stand Zeus and Demeter.

Hermes stands next to Apollo, arms crossed.
“What have you done?” Demeter spits, and Hades
is sure that Zeus’s hand on her arm is all that prevents the
goddess from attempting to leap across the river and tear
his head from his neck. “What did you do to her?”
“Hades,” Hestia says quietly, “she – we all felt it.
How did she die?”
Demeter howls and leaps at Hestia. Poseidon
stands between them and holds her back, an utterly bored
look on his face. “Brother, an explanation, if you please.
Some of us have our own realms to attend to.”
“Lady Styx,” he says, forcing a calmness he doesn’t
feel into his voice. “Please come here.”
There’s a moment when nothing happens, and if
she makes him track her down within his own realm, he
will be cross with her. But then she appears in front of him,
shoulders hunched nearly to her ears, and her grey eyes
wet. “I only did as she asked! Don’t be mad at me!” She
hiccups and says, quieter, “Please don’t be mad at me.”
All at once, the entirety of the fury that had been
building in Hades’s chest leaves him. The sorrow is just as
strong, but no matter what, getting angry at Styx will solve
nothing. He reaches out to touch her shoulders. She
flinches away from him, and he pauses. “Lady Styx,” he
says softly, “I would never hurt you. You know that, don’t
you?”
She nods, a quick, sharp motion. He slowly holds
out his hands, waiting, and doesn’t bother to hide his relief
when she places her cold, trembling hands in his.
“Did Kore jump in your river?”
Styx nods.
It’s what Hades expected, but he has to close his
eyes against the tidal wave of grief that threatens to
overwhelm him. The River Styx is the barrier between life
and death, and as such it is neither. Those who die in the
river do not go to the underworld. They are simply
209
unmade, their bodies dissolved and their souls broken into

a thousand lost pieces. “Why?”
“She said it was the only way,” Styx looks anxiously
into the depths of her river, “She’s running out of time. I
told her she didn’t have a lot of time, that she had to do it
quickly, that I would not be able to help her.”
Hades doesn’t understand.
“What is she talking about?” Apollo demands.
Hephaestus rubs his wrists, “Styx, are you saying –
that’s impossible, she wouldn’t have enough time – she
wouldn’t even be able to think to do it.”
Just then, cutting across the air: “I hadn’t expected
an audience quite this large.”
Everyone turns toward the voice.
It’s Kore.
Her eyes are now as white as her hair, and she’s
almost transparent. Across her body are tiny cracks of
pulsating grey – places where she’s used the clay of the
river to push her soul back together again. “You did it!”
Styx cries, running to the edge of the river.
“Thanks to you,” she smiles, “Your river tore me
apart, as it must, but you did a very good job of making
sure enough of me stayed together so that I could find all
my own pieces.”
“What are you playing at?” Demeter snaps, eyes
wild. “Get out of that river this instant!”
“She can’t,” Hades says, heart clenching in his
chest. “She isn’t alive. Not really. She is simply of the river
– if she leaves it, she will be of nothing.”
Is a cursed river spirit the only escape she could
see? It is a clever one. Demeter won’t dare touch her, can’t
touch her, for all that bound Kore to her mother died
along with her, but – but it is not a life.
She walks across the surface of the river until she’s
almost close enough for Demeter to touch. “I am Kore no
longer,” she says, face impassive. “I am of your body no
longer, my power is not from you any longer. I am not
something you can control any longer.”
210
She is Persephone
“No,” Demeter snarls, “Now you are dead. Is it

worth it?”
The woman who used to be Kore smiles. “Yes.”
She turns and walks back across the river, to Hades. She
holds out her hands. “Did you bring it?”
“Bring what?” he asks, mystified.
Styx pushes into his side and digs into his pocket.
He lets her, and she pulls out the strange red fruit he’d
taken from the equally strange tree. “Here!” She tears it in
half. In the fruit are bright seeds the color and shine of
blood.
She meets his eyes, and her smile softens. “Sorry
about this. You’re going to have to learn to share.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks. He hasn’t
felt this hopelessly confused in several millennia.
The woman who used to be Kore takes one of the
fruit halves from Styx. “I am the Goddess of Spring. Life
from death is all I know.”
She bites into the fruit, and the juice drips down
her chin. Her eyes are the first to change, no longer a
terrifying white but a warm brown. Her skin darkens and
color bleeds into her hair again, her curls turning the same
bright red as the fruit. The grey clay dries and flecks off her
skin, leaving it whole and unblemished.
She steps from the river onto the shore. She does
not crumble. She does not dissolve into dust.
She tosses her hair over her shoulder, and with a
twist of her wrist a red gown covers her body. She lifts her
skirt and stamps her foot into the ground, laughing. Trees
sprout up around them. Flowers bloom along water’s edge.
There is nothing that happens in this realm without
his permission. But he couldn’t stop this if he tried.
“I am Persephone,” she declares, eyes bright. “I am
Queen of the Underworld.”
Her power is now tied up within his realm, the
roots of the trees she grew are far reaching. She’s twisted
the rules of her power and his, and stolen part of his realm
out from under him, found every loophole and escaped her
211
mother’s grasp by becoming something she could never

touch or understand, by becoming something that was
already a part of her all along.
If he hadn’t fallen in love with her already, he

would now.
“Might you need a king?” he murmurs, stepping
closer. The other gods are yelling from across the river, but
he can’t bring himself to care. “Ruler of the underworld is
such a heavy burden to bear alone.”
212
She is Persephone
She grins, all teeth, and when he gets close enough

she reaches a hand around the back of his neck and pulls
him down until she can cover his mouth with her mouth.
His arm curls around her waist, and she lets him
support her weight as he continues kissing her, as she
continues kissing him, as they begin the rest of their lives
as King and Queen of the Underworld.
Half of the gods across the river are laughing, and
the other half are furious, but Hades and Persephone are
unconcerned.
They’re gods. There’s no need for them to stop
and breathe – they can continue standing on the river’s
edge and kissing until everyone gets bored and leaves.
No matter how long it takes.
Hades thinks this is a most excellent beginning.
Later, she agrees to spend half the year with her

mother to cool her temper. But her grin doesn’t leave – it
is her choice, it is a decision she makes that neither her
mother nor Hades can go against.
She is Persephone, daughter of Demeter, Queen of
the Underworld, wife of Hades, Goddess of Spring.
She is Persephone.
All the choices she makes are her own.
213
END OF VOLUME I
Shana spends her days at an office job to
pay the bills and spends most of her free
time doing what she loves – writing. She
should probably spend more of it sleeping.
Shana took several writing courses during
her college career and routinely ignored
the advice of her professors.
Gods and Monsters is her first venture into

physical print. Shana lives in a crumbling
but charming apartment in Los Angeles with
her two overgrown cats.

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Gods and Monsters

Interior art by Vanesa Borisova

Text © 2018 Shana Storyteller. All rights reserved.

A story needs an audience, and I’m so

However, if you would like to read these stories in the

Details and aspects of the original Greek myths are not

Part I: Icarus …………………………………………. 1

Part II: Arachne ……………………………………… 7

Part III: Pandora and Hermes ………………………. 17

Part IV: Artemis the Virgin …………………………. 29

Part V: Hestia and Prometheus ……………………... 37

Part VI: They Call Her Kore …………………...…… 45

Part VII: Athena and Medusa …………………..…… 51

Part VIII: Hades, an Interlude ……………….……… 63

Part IX: Poseidon & Caeneus ……………………….. 69

Part X: Orpheus & Eurydice and Ares & Hades …..… 79

Part XI: The Minotaur ………………………………. 87

Part XII: Amphitrite and Caeneus ………….……….. 93

Part XIII: The Gods are Dead ………………...…… 103

Part XIV: Hera and Hephaestus …………………… 111

Part XV: Poseidon & Glaucus ………………...…… 119

Part XVI: Hera and Ares ………………………...… 127

Part XVIII: Eros and Psyche ………………………. 149

Part XIX: Hera Leaves Olympus …………………... 171

Part XX: The Daughters of Apollo ………………… 179

Part XXI: Hephaestus and Styx ……………………. 193

Part XXII: She is Persephone ……………………… 199

1. Part IX - Poseidon & Caeneus

Apollo was very pretty. He kissed Icarus’s skin and

Icarus flies too high, leaving his father behind. He

He is tired. Poseidon is very demanding, and every

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. No

He wakes up. Again.

The snow begins to melt in the mortal world

Icarus doesn’t dare look up when Hades says, “My

He follows Hades around every day. As he

“You know,” Hades says one day while they’re

Death god. “Why?” he demands. He’s not afraid of

Icarus is there to help Persephone off the ferry.

Two hundred years later, in the midst of summer,

“Your tapestries are so fine,” the merchant says in

“I do,” she says coolly, “and in this matter, it is

Gods are not so hard to find, if you know where

“It’s a volcano,” the baker repeats, looking down

The muscles of her legs and arms shake, and her

“There’s some sweet bread in my pack, baked this

They tell tales of Hephaestus’s ugliness.

He raises an eyebrow and doesn’t reach for the

“I know,” she says. “You are friendly with Hades,

The contest goes as expected. Athena’s tapestry is

She is a bug. Even if she can make it back to

She doesn’t believe in defeat, in loss.

It takes seven years for her to complete it. She

moments, and Arachne climbs onto her web and waits.

Arachne weaves a dress for Hades’s wife as a thank

Arachne pauses at her loom. She has lived in this

Pandora is made from earth, shaped by the hands

after all. “I can’t stop it, can I? Whatever they’re planning

She hides from everyone, lives in a cave at the edge