Hermes's Arc

Chapter 13 of 13

Hermes had not slept when the second dove arrived. This one carried no scroll, only a sprig of olive tied with gray thread. A summons, quiet and personal. Athena wanted him at her father's golden palace, in a side room, before the bells rang noon. He tucked the sprig into his belt and went. A polite call from her was sharper than a shout from anyone else. She stood by a tall window in a small chamber off the main hall, a set of gold scales balanced on the table beside her. The dishes held folded slips of paper, not weights. "Sit," she said. He stayed standing. She did not repeat herself. "Three nights this week your reply came back faster than a dove can fly from the gates. Once your seal arrived before the question left this room. Explain." Hermes felt the floor tilt under him like a deck. He set his staff across his knees as he finally sat. One careless word and the shortcut, the hollow, the ferryman, the ledger under a number — all of it would slide onto her scales and tip. So he did not lie. He gave her a smaller true thing to hold. "My seal has been stolen," he said. "Hades took it as payment for a debt I could not refuse. He has been sending messages in my name. The fast replies were not mine." Athena did not blink. She lifted one slip from the left dish and laid it on the right. The scale shifted. "That answers the speed," she said. "It does not answer the absences." A pause. "You are protecting something else. I can see the shape of the gap." She did not name it. She let the silence press. He thought of the souls waiting in the hollow, of the gatekeeper's dog, of every mortal whose grandmother now reached the gates in hours instead of days. He held the gap closed. "My route is my own work," he said. "If the council wants it audited, audit the seal, not the road." Athena studied him a long moment. Then she lifted the olive sprig from his belt and laid it on the lighter dish. The scale evened. "I will report the forged seal," she said. "I will not report the rest. Yet. Bring me proof Hades holds your name by the next council, or I bring both halves myself." He walked out into the bright colonnade with his hands steady and his chest tight. He had not been exposed. He had also not been believed. The shortcut was still his, still running, still feeding souls through the gates faster than any god above suspected. But Athena had set a clock on him now, and her scales did not forget. He had bought one more turn of the route. He would have to spend it hunting Hades.