Hera stands at the window of her chamber, looking out over the slopes of Olympia. She holds a golden ledger in one hand, its pages never quite full no matter how many times she fills them. The marriage vow she upholds is not hope — it is will, a foundation she refuses to let crumble. A cuckoo bird crashes through the window. Glass scatters across the marble floor. The bird tumbles forward, wings bent, one eye dimmed and clouded. But the other eye — the other eye burns with light the color of dawn. Hera crouches beside it. The eye projects images into the air: a secret marriage ceremony, vows spoken in shadows, Zeus's hand clasping another's. The coldness comes first, spreading through her chest like frost. She lifts the bird carefully and carries it to the golden fountain that stands in the center of her chamber. Water flows over three tiers, and small songbirds perch along the rim, watching. She sets the cuckoo in the shallow basin. It drinks, then stills. Hera reaches down and touches the glowing eye. It comes free in her palm, warm and pulsing with captured memory. Evidence. Proof that cannot be denied or explained away. She opens her ledger and writes the date, the location, the names. Then she presses the eye into the page. The paper accepts it, the light sinking into gold leaf until the image is preserved forever. Hera closes the book and looks at the fountain. The songbirds tilt their heads, listening. She speaks to them for the first time, her voice steady and cold. "Find others like this one. Bring me what they see." The birds lift from the fountain and scatter through the broken window. The network has begun.

The songbirds return in waves over the next three days. Some carry nothing. Others arrive with eyes that glow and pulse with captured memory. Hera collects each one, pressing them into her ledger until the pages shimmer with evidence. On the fourth morning, a crow lands on the golden bird bath outside her chamber. The bath stands wide enough to hold a hundred birds at once, its tiers decorated with peacock designs. The crow is alone. It carries a single feather in its beak — iridescent blue and green, the eye of a peacock feather. The bird drops it at the water's edge and flies away without drinking. Hera lifts the feather. Something is wrong. The eye at its center isn't decorative. It glows faintly, like the others, but darker. Colder. She takes it inside and holds it over the ledger. The vision projects into the air. Apollo stands in a stone room with Hermes and Athena. They speak in low voices, glancing at the door. Hermes says Zeus cannot know about the testimony. Athena nods. Apollo says if Hera brings this before the council, they will bury it. One way or another. The image fades. Hera stares at the feather. This is not just evidence of Zeus's betrayal. This is proof that his closest allies will kill to protect him. She walks to the outer courtyard where great bronze doors stand against the wall — doors that once sealed the old dungeons beneath Olympia. The peacock carved into the lock gleams in the morning light. Hera presses the feather into a hollow in the door's frame and seals it with wax. The evidence is too dangerous to keep in the ledger. But she will not destroy it. She will hold it, and when the time comes, she will use it. The coldness in her chest spreads, but her hand is steady. The network has given her more than she asked for. Now she must decide what to do with it.