Aether wanted a throne on Olympus, and he was sure he had already earned it. He stood on the marble terrace of his father's palace, the golden gauntlets locked over his forearms. Below him, a storm the size of a city churned at his command. He had built it in twelve minutes to prove a point. The gods watched from the columns behind him. He did not turn to see their faces. He never needed to. Nothing he had ever tried had failed. Sophia leaned against a pillar, still in her travel coat, the owl crest at her throat catching the storm-light. His twin. Smarter than him, she liked to remind everyone, and calmer. She had flown in from London that morning and refused to look impressed. "You're showing off," she said. "Honestly, it's a lot of weather for one afternoon." "It's control," Aether said. "Watch." He raised both gauntlets and squeezed his fists. The storm shrank on command. He grinned. "Name a thing I can't do." "Stop," she said. "That's the one I've never seen." He ignored her. He wanted the gods to see the whole storm collapse into nothing at his word. He spread his fingers wide and pulled all of it inward at once. Cloud, lightning, and wind rushed toward the gauntlets. Then the pull kept going. The power did not stop where he told it. It fed on itself. The gold plates on his hands began to glow white and shake. "Aether." Apollo's voice, low and even. The sun god crossed the terrace toward him, gold hair loose, halo dim under the storm. Apollo had loved him and lost him once, and now watched him with the care of someone braced for a fall. "Let it go. You've reached the edge." "There is no edge," Aether said. But his teeth were clenched. The storm he had summoned now dragged at him from inside the gauntlets, and he could not open his hands. For the first time, his body did not obey his own will. His arms locked. Lightning crawled up to his shoulders. Sophia moved first. She caught his wrists and forced his fingers apart. Apollo pressed both palms to the gauntlets and drew the fire out through his own skin, jaw tight against the burn. The storm broke loose above them and scattered wild across the sky. Rain hit the marble in sheets. The three of them dropped to their knees, tangled together, soaked. Aether stared at the smoking gauntlets on his hands. They had gone cold and dead. He could not feel the sky at all. "There it is," Sophia said quietly. "Your edge." Behind them, the gods said nothing. Their silence was worse than any word. Aether had found the exact place his control broke. Now every god on Olympus knew it too, and so did he.

The dead gauntlets hung on Aether's arms as he climbed the marble steps of the forge. He had not felt the sky in three days. Apollo walked beside him, gold hair loose, saying little. Aether had told everyone the gauntlets simply malfunctioned. He almost believed it himself. But he knew the truth waited inside, and only one god could fix them. Hephaestus met them at the anvil. He was stocky, thick-bearded, and stood on bronze legs he had built for himself. He had forged these gauntlets long ago, on Zeus's order, to cage Aether's power. He took Aether's wrists without asking and turned the metal toward the firelight. "These didn't fail," he said. "They locked. On purpose. To stop something worse." "They're broken," Aether said. "Repair them." Hephaestus set a tool down. "I can repair metal. I can't repair a lie." He tapped the burned plates. "The scorch runs from the inside out. The power didn't overload you. You fed it. You kept pulling after your body said stop." He looked up, calm and plain. "Why?" Aether said nothing. His jaw tightened, the way it had on the terrace. Apollo spoke from behind him, even and quiet. "Tell him. Or you'll do it again, and I won't reach you in time." He held up his palm. A thin scar ran across it, pale against sun-dark skin. He had drawn the lightning through his own body to save Aether. "I've already lost you once. I won't watch you burn for pride." The word landed. Aether stared at the scarred hand. He remembered the gods behind him on the terrace, their silence, their fear. He had wanted them to see nothing he touched could beat him. "I couldn't stop," Aether said finally. His voice cracked. "They were all watching. If I let the storm go wild, they'd see the edge. So I held on past it. I chose the pain over looking weak." He forced the last words out. "My control didn't break. I broke it. On purpose." Hephaestus nodded slowly. "Now I can fix them." He carried the gauntlets to the fire. "The trigger wasn't in the metal. It was in your head. I'll set them to release when you push too far, whether you allow it or not. They'll save you from yourself." He glanced back. "But only because you told the truth." He worked for an hour. When the gauntlets cooled, Aether slid them on. The sky rushed back into his hands, alive again. He felt the difference at once. The power answered, but it no longer felt fully his to spend. A limit sat inside the gold now, one he could not argue with. "They obey me," Aether said. "They obey your limits," Hephaestus said. "Not your pride." Aether flexed his fingers. He had his power back. But now the metal knew his weakness better than he did.