Zeus Thunderheart's Arc

Chapter 6 of 9

Weeks after the bathing pavilion, Zeus stood on the Olympus terrace and looked down at the valley. His son was born and hidden. The blessed branch masked the child's blood. But the grey feather had told Hera enough. Now her peacocks walked the valley roads. Their cries rolled up the slopes at dawn and dusk. Every road to Elena was watched. Zeus could not go down without being seen and followed. The old midwife who carried his messages had gone quiet too. The birds spooked her on the paths. Zeus summoned the messenger. Hermes dropped onto the terrace, winged sandals still beating, staff in one hand. He was young and quick, the fastest of the gods, and he grinned like a boy who had run somewhere fast. "You look like a man watched," Hermes said. "You are. I counted thirty birds on those roads." "Thin them," Zeus said. "Quietly." Hermes flew to the high crags above the valley. There a lean cat waited, tufted ears twitching, thick coat pale against the rock. The mountain hunter knew peacocks well. Hermes led it down to the watched roads and let it loose. By the next dawn, feathers lay scattered in the ditches. The cries thinned. Half the birds fled the low roads for safer ground. A path to Elena opened. Zeus did not celebrate. He knew Hera would count her losses. She did. That evening she stood in the great hall, holding a torn peacock feather, and she was not alone. Hades stood beside her. Zeus's brother, exiled to rule the dead, drained of all color, white hair falling past a black robe. He hated Zeus for the underworld and had waited years for a slip. He watched now with flat black eyes, and the hall felt colder for it. He said nothing. He did not need to. His presence beside Hera was the message. "A wild cat killed my birds," Hera said. "On the same roads. All at once." She turned the feather in her fingers. "That is not nature, husband." "Beasts hunt," Zeus said. "Beasts do not clear a single valley in one night." Hera's voice stayed even. "You want that valley open. So there is something in it." Hades spoke then, soft and dry. "She sees clearly, brother. She always has." Zeus held his ground. He had won the road. His son lay safe, and the midwife could carry word again. But he had won it too cleanly, and Hera was not fooled. "Then look," Zeus said. "You will find nothing but a dead cat's kills." Hera let the feather fall. "I will look with more than birds now." She glanced at Hades. "My husband has given us a place to start." Zeus watched them leave the hall together. The road was open. But he had traded a wall of eyes for a hunt with a direction, and Hades now stood inside it.