Zeus Thunderheart's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

Zeus stood on the terrace at dusk and watched the valley road below. Hera and Hades hunted his son now, not with birds but with purpose. He knew what Hades wanted. If Zeus fell, Olympus fell, and the throne of the dead would trade for the throne of the sky. Hades would give Hera any weapon to make it so. Zeus did not fear what Hera knew. He feared what Hades could tell her that Zeus himself had never confessed. He went down to the olive grove to warn the mother of his child. The chapel sat quiet under the trees. Elena Thornwood met him at the door, her small frame wrapped in a grey shawl, the baby asleep against her chest. Father Elias stood behind her, salt still white on his hands from patching the cracked floor. "They're coming with more than eyes," Zeus said. "My brother helps her now." Elena did not flinch. "Then we move the child tonight," she said. "Say it plain. What can he tell her?" Zeus did not answer. That was the wound. He did not know. He learned it fast. A cold fell over the grove. Hades stepped from between two olive trees, drained of all color, white hair over a black robe, a small crown on his head. Beside him paced a great black hound, three heads low, cracks of fire running through its coat. Its six eyes fixed on the shawl and the child beneath it. The hound had smelled divine blood before. The branch could hide it from Hera. It could not hide it from the dog that guarded the dead. "There it is," Hades said, soft and dry. "A living son. Hera thinks you only strayed, brother. She does not yet know you bred a hero to outlast us both." He smiled without warmth. "That is the secret. She will not forgive a rival to her throne." Zeus understood at last. The weapon was not a woman's name. It was the prophecy itself. Hades would tell Hera the child was made to rule, and her jealousy would do the rest. Zeus did not bargain. He raised the bolt and drove Hades back a step. "Then she hears it from me first," he said. "Not from you." He seized the moment while Hades reeled from the light. "Take him and run," he told Elena. "Elias, the branch. Now." Elena was already gone through the trees, shawl over the child, feet quick and sure. The hound lunged and Zeus's bolt split the ground before it. Hades called the beast back and faded into the dark, his message delivered, his purpose served. Zeus stood alone in the grove. He knew the secret now. Hades would carry it to Olympus by dawn. To keep his son, Zeus would have to face Hera with the truth before his brother could twist it. The hiding was over. The reckoning had begun.