Hera Teleia's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Hera stood on the highest balcony of the Palace of Zeus and counted the reasons she could not sleep. The boy she had made was on Earth, growing stronger every week. He was the son Zeus did not know he had fathered, and the son fated to pull Zeus down from his throne. Hera had arranged it herself, in a night of anger she now could not take back. She gripped her scepter until the lotus petals caught the torchlight and threw color across her hands. She needed to know what kind of ruler this boy would be before Zeus learned he existed at all. She had tried the usual ways. Her songbirds could not follow him. He walked among mortals in a tower of glass in a city that never darkened, and her small spies were lost among a million lit windows. Reports came back thin. He was clever. He was rich. He was rude to servants. None of it told her what she needed. She could not act on rumor. She could not warn Zeus, or hide the boy, or end him, without proof of who he truly was. Behind her, wings moved. Argus landed on the marble rail, his tail spread, each golden eye on his feathers open and watching. He was the only spy Zeus could not spot from a mile away, because Zeus never looked twice at her peacock. Hera set her palm on his crown. "I need eyes inside his rooms," she said. "Not a feather in a hall. Every choice he makes when he thinks no one is watching." Argus tilted his head. The eyes on his tail blinked in slow order, waiting for her to commit. She pressed the lotus tip of her scepter against his breast. Light bled from the crystal petals into his feathers. One by one, the golden eyes on his tail brightened and held. She was binding her scepter's memory-catching power into him. Whatever he saw, the scepter would keep. "Go to New York," she said. "Find the boy called Conner Alderwyne. Do not be seen. Watch him for a full turn of the moon. Bring me every word." Argus lifted from the rail. His wings threw color across the gilded columns, and then he was gone into the low clouds below Olympus. Hera lowered the scepter. Her hand was steady for the first time in weeks. She had chosen. In a moon's time she would know if Aether was a king worth hiding, or a monster she had to unmake before Zeus ever saw his face. Then a small sound made her turn. A crow sat on the far end of the rail, black against the gold. It carried a green sprig in its beak. Demeter's mark. Hera's steady hand closed on the scepter again. Her friend had sent word, and Demeter only sent word when she already knew something Hera did not.