Zeus watched his son from the throne chamber and could not name what the boy wanted. Below him, Olympia stretched in gold and cloud. Above, the sky held its breath. Aether stood on the marble landing outside the tower doors, drawing thunder down without asking permission. Each strike answered him before it answered Zeus. The other gods had begun to notice. Zeus had overthrown his own father to sit on this throne, and he had not forgotten how that worked. He needed Aether bound to him before the pantheon learned to prefer the son over the king. Zeus descended the marble stairs. His eagle followed, wings crackling, and settled on the rail beside them. Aether did not turn. He flexed his fingers inside his gauntlets and a thin bolt of gold split the air over the columns, then unraveled into nothing. "You could ride with me today," Zeus said. "The chariot is ready. I will show you the routes I keep." "I know the routes." "Then ride for the company." Aether finally looked at him. His face was calm and closed. "You want to give me something. Say what it is." Zeus had prepared three offers on the climb down. He chose the largest. He lifted his palm and a streak of gold lightning gathered above it, humming. "A seat at the council. Permanent. Your own vote. No god will speak over you again." Aether studied the light in his father's hand. He did not reach for it. "That is what you would want," he said. "It is not what I asked for." "Then tell me what you asked for." "I have not asked you for anything." He said it without heat. "That is the point." Zeus closed his fist. The lightning died. He tried again, smaller. "Then a hunt. Just us. Artemis will lend the woods." "I do not hunt with people who are measuring me." The eagle shifted on the rail. Zeus felt his temper move and held it down. He had come to bind the boy and was being read like a scroll. He tried the last offer, the honest one, and hated the taste of it. "Stay in the tower tonight. No council. No gods. Whatever you want to say, I will hear it." Aether was quiet for a long moment. Then he pulled the gauntlets from his hands and set them on the rail between them, careful, deliberate. "Keep them," he said. "Apollo is expecting me." He walked down the white stairs without looking back. Thunder rolled once over the columns, his, not Zeus's, and faded toward the lower halls where the other gods lived. Zeus stood with the empty gauntlets under his hand. His son had refused three offers and named a fourth god in the same breath. The eagle watched him. Zeus watched the stairs. Whatever loyalty he was going to buy, he would not buy it with gifts, and he would not buy it alone.