Chapter 35 #2
Hera’s nostrils flared on a sharp breath. Her hand fell away from her mouth.
More cautious now, Zeus tightened all his lightning tethers, immobilizing Hera and Hephaestus, too. Athena kept her spear up and Artemis her bow. Lava started bubbling from Hephaestus’s fingers and Artemis shot him, pinning his hand to his thigh. He growled.
She stared down the shaft of another arrow. “I can pin the other one, too,” she menaced. Hephaestus’s huge, square jaw bulged. Flexing his lava-cracked fingers, he turned away from her, and she shrugged. “I guess that’s a no.”
Hera yanked violently against her shackles, making a little room for herself. Zeus added more lightning chains, sending their anchors firmly into the rock beneath the square. Staring at him, Hera took a calming breath that was anything but calm. Resentment silently screamed from her, and she quivered with rage.
Zeus pulled her sword from his body and dropped it at his feet. He stood in front of Hera, his power visibly swelling, his aura magic-bright, intense, and his lightning-charged eyes nearly blinding. As quiet returned to the temple square, more heads started poking out of the buildings around them. Several people ventured down the stairs to see what was happening, to see gods , carefully picking their way over cracked marble and fragments of fallen boulders. Immense gratitude and fresh devotion whispered from Atlantians all around, feeding Zeus’s strength and magic.
He grew bigger, taller, as if he couldn’t contain himself in his previous shape anymore. Near him, Artemis and Athena benefited, too, power and majesty radiating from them. Hera seemed to shrink and dull in comparison, as did her allies.
“Your play to rival me in power has failed— miserably, ” Zeus ground out. “And Dionysus is useless,” he added, throwing a hand toward his son on the ground.
“Useless to you !” Hera shot back. “Because you never ask him to help, never ask him to do anything. Why do you think he threw his lot in with me?”
Fury poured from Zeus on a rumble of thunder, and Bellanca’s scalp tingled. It tingled even more when light and heat washed over her from behind along with Apollo’s velvety voice, slightly rasping from fatigue and effort.
“Nice of you not to panic on the bank of the Styx and make my work any harder,” the god of healing murmured to his patient.
She whipped around. “Carver…” He sat up with Apollo’s help, the god’s hand on his back.
Her heart shattered with relief as she leaped to his side. She helped steady him, her hands shaking and emotion erupting from her in a shower of sparks. Twin fang marks still dotted his neck, a battle scar to join a dozen others. She shook even harder as the full impact of Apollo’s words sank in. The marks would last but the venom was gone, and Apollo had ripped Carver from the gates of the Underworld.
Carver smiled faintly. “I’ve been there before.” His voice scratched like a rusty rake on gravel, but he was talking, living . Her heart pounded so fiercely her chest would ache for lifetimes. “I knew what to expect.” His eyes found hers, brightening. “And what I wanted to come back for.”
The sob she’d been holding back burst out. Relief couldn’t be held back any more than grief sometimes, and it swelled so fast it overwhelmed the control she’d maintained the whole time she’d guarded over them. She buried her face in Carver’s neck, squeezing her eyes shut as she breathed in his scent, felt his pulse beat, and reveled in the warmth returning to his skin. Her breath shuddered out, then she inhaled deeply, pushed her tears back down, and looked up.
Apollo squeezed both their shoulders, his beautiful face content but lacking the inner sunlight he’d arrived with. He’d given it to Carver, and she thanked him—aloud, inside, fervently —and her profound gratitude helped healing energy start to shimmer over him again.
Carver thanked him, too, as he gingerly swung his legs to the side and sat on the bloodstained slab of marble. Still unsteady herself, Bellanca pressed in close so that they could lean on each other.
“I’ll never forget this,” she told Apollo, awe and deep appreciation roughening her voice and brightening the god’s aura. “In any lifetime.” She swallowed.
Smiling, Apollo nodded his thanks back to them for the gift of renewed strength. Then he turned and walked toward the other Olympians.
Carver slid off the altar and leaned heavily against it as Bellanca bent down and encouraged their friends out from under the tabletop. She looked each of them over for damage. Apart from the lasting nightmares already living in their eyes, they seemed well enough, and more relief drained a horrible tension from her body. Suddenly lightheaded, she swayed toward Carver. She needed to touch him, kiss him. She tipped her head up, and the moment their lips met, she could breathe again.
Steadiness returned along with a flutter of magic, and her erratic pulse slowly stabilized. “You look dreadful,” she murmured.
“I feel dreadful.”
A sob threatened again. “I’m so glad you’re alive.”
“I’m glad to be here,” he answered hoarsely.
She kissed him again, harder, her lips trembling. “I love you, you idiot. Don’t ever almost die on me again.”
“No promises here.” He chuckled wryly. “But I’ll do my best. Did we win?”
Her gaze flicked to the side. She’d stopped paying attention to the gods the moment Carver woke up. Now, Apollo stood next to his twin sister, and Athena looked as if she had no real love for either of them but wasn’t looking for a fight, either. “Zeus did.” She turned back to Carver. “We sort of did. There’s a lot of cleaning up and rebuilding to do—months’ worth. I think many made it to safety, but there are so many casualties. It’s…not the victory we hoped for.”
“Or that we had before Hera showed up.” Carver leaned against the altar, his arm around her. They both stared at the gods. Olympians stood mere steps away, but they were as distant as ever, wholly caught up in themselves.
“No.” But Carver was alive. She was alive. And Atlantis would recover. Because that was what civilizations did, even if it meant evolving into something different, and because the human spirit was unbreakable, especially when it labored out of love.
Zeus still held everyone captive, his might so plainly unparalleled in this moment that his enemies no longer fought. Olympianomachy—at least on this plane of existence—was over.
“Really, Hermes?” The look on Apollo’s face gave new meaning to scorn. “You had a good thing going, but I guess you always were an opportunist. Too bad you chose wrong.”
“I didn’t see you joining the fight,” Hermes taunted. “Too worried about messing up your perfect hair?”
Apollo dipped frosty eyes over his half brother. “It’s a good thing for you I was otherwise occupied, or you’d have more than just your sandals that wouldn’t heal.”
“Stop.” Zeus slashed his hand with enough force to leave a trace of a thunderbolt in the air. “I have no patience for your squabbling on such a sad day for me.” In the middle of his allies and foes, he looked around, his powerful gaze heavy on each of them. “Two sons betray me. My beautiful island suffers. My wife—a goddess a man or god can only dream of—despises me.”
Hera’s color rose. “Your dreams have led you to too many other beds. Neither of these sons is mine .”
“And yet you took both Hermes and Dionysus from me. And Hephaestus is your Athena. Created by you alone, and your revenge for a daughter that wasn’t yours and didn’t need you.” He looked at the smith god, his mouth a grim line. “Now, you , I understand. I mistreated you.”
“Maimed and abused me,” Hephaestus growled.
Zeus’s jaw tightened under his flowing beard. “You know I have to punish you?” He looked at each of those he’d fought today in turn. “All of you.”
A hard laugh cracked out of Hera. “You think I’m done?” Determination twisting her features, she conjured scores of Olympian vipers in seconds and shot them high into the air. “Let us go or I drop them all over the island. Apollo won’t be fast enough to save even a fraction of Atlantians before they die.”
Shock slammed into Bellanca. A collective gasp surged through the square, and people raced back up temple staircases, panic sharp in the air.
“Sun flare,” Carver choked out, his wide eyes locking on hers.
She gripped his hand and grasped at her magic, yanking up whatever she could find from herself and their connection. A burst of heat reached only the snakes directly above them, and then it was too late. The rest spread out, darkening the sky.
Her stomach dropped with nauseating force. She was still weak, and now so was Carver. Even together, they couldn’t save anyone.
Athena swung her spear on Hera. “Get rid of them,” she demanded.
Hera laughed again, her smug mirth oozing disdain. “It’ll be a cold day in the Underworld before I take orders from you, child.”
“You sure about that?” Artemis nocked an arrow and aimed it at Hera. She drew back her arm.
Dread rushing through her veins where her magic should’ve been, Bellanca watched the standoff in horror. Hera didn’t have anything left to lose, which made her the most frightening thing Bellanca had ever known.
“You shouldn’t have evoked the Underworld, Hera. Because it’ll come for you.” The silky, caverns-deep voice arrived seconds before Hades did. He rose from one of the cracks in the devastated square, and Bellanca’s jaw dropped, her eyes huge. Carver’s gasp echoed hers. Hades walked up to his brother, and they stood shoulder to shoulder, allies to the end. Persephone followed her husband up from beneath the mortal plane, flanked by a gigantic three-headed dog. The shaggy white hound had six bloodred eyes, pointy red back spikes all the way to the tip of its tail, and fangs the size of forearms. Its huge, razor-sharp claws stabbed through marble every time it moved.
“Keres likes snakes even more than Cerberus,” Persephone said smoothly. “I guarantee she kills them all before they kill any Atlantians.”
Hera’s sneer almost hid her alarm. “She’s not that fast. She can’t be.”
The two queens faced off, and there was only one whose magic-drenched eyes held any confidence.
“I didn’t think Hades ever left the Underworld,” Carver whispered.
“He doesn’t .” His presence was exceptional. Incredible. They knew Persephone. Her cool perfection, her fathomless blue eyes, her affection for Cat—and maybe now for Cat’s family. But Hades never joined his wife on the mortal plane. The last War of Gods vanquished the Titans and gave Zeus the lands of the living and the skies, Poseidon the seas, and Hades the Underworld. The last time Hades had left the realm of the dead was…unknown.
Bellanca stared, her pulse racing and her body heating as if magic burned inside her again. The King of the Underworld was so unnervingly handsome, he was frightening to behold. Unlike his brothers, he had no beard and wore his black hair short. His dark eyes smoldered with inner fire, twin furnaces to light and warm a sunless world. Shadows swirled around his head like a living crown. He felt like gravity itself, his pull intense. He was the anchor to endless souls.
Tears burst across her eyes again, sheer awe. She’d never fear death again.
Carver squeezed her hand, his breathing unsteady.
Smirking at Hera, Persephone laid a possessive hand on her new dog’s closest head. “Oh—and she flies.” The Queen of the Underworld pointed up, and the terrifying beast unfurled wings hidden in her long fur and sprang toward the sky. Keres reached the deadly, old-world serpents in the blink of an eye and hunted them down, quickly, mercilessly. Blood and chunks of snake dropped from her jaws. She skewered others with her claws or clubbed them with her spiked tail. Most fell but some trailed like ribbons from her lethal nails as she attacked, eating or shredding anything that moved.
Hera’s fury shrieked from between her clenched teeth. She threw her hands down, and her outburst of power punched into the ground. Snakes dove at her unspoken command, and Keres launched into the chase of her life, catching them so fast she blurred.
“You know that’s even more fun for her,” Persephone said smugly.
Not a single living snake made it to the ground, and Hera watched in disbelief, her anger darkening the air.
Snake carcasses splattered around them, and Bellanca ducked, covering her head. She turned, checking on her friends. They’d huddled under the altar again and had knives out, ready to stab. Then the smacking thud of dropping vipers stopped, and she turned again.
Keres circled down and landed at her mistress’s feet. Persephone reached out, scratching behind an ear. “Look at those bloody chops,” she crooned. “Good girl.”
Bellanca sagged in relief, but Zeus’s thunder-dark aura echoed Hera’s.
He swung on Dionysus. Fury boiled from him, and his lightning eyes bored into his son. Loosening the tether enough to haul Dionysus to his feet, he snarled, “Why?”
Dionysus blanched in fear. “Pan,” he finally ground out. “You gave those humans the power to kill him.” His hate-filled, crimson eyes flicked to them, and Bellanca scowled back at him.
“Ah, revenge for your friend.” Zeus nodded, frowning. “Except Pan should never have been in Atlantis doing what he was doing, and especially not trying to capture or kill humans who were here for me , on my mission, on my island.” He glanced over at them. “And I didn’t do anything other than choose not to stop them from coming together, months ago, in Thalyria.”
“You know there was more to it than that,” Dionysus said, seething. “You had to unlock the bond. Let them understand. And then you even granted him immunity to her magic.”
Zeus’s blinding-white stare returned to his son. “Which has nothing to do with any of this—a token reward they could have lived without. It simply felt right to reward their loyalty to me and my island.”
“Your island?” Dionysus’s brows shot up. “Atlantians worship Poseidon above all others, even though he can’t be bothered to show up.”
“We work together,” Zeus growled, his patience with his son clearly at an end. “Something you can learn about while you help Sisyphus with his boulder for a hundred years.” A god bolt burst in Zeus’s hand and engulfed Dionysus. The other god disappeared in a flash of light and a boom so deafening it rattled Atlantis.
Her ears throbbing with a thick, dull hush and her chest hollowed out, Bellanca leaned into Carver, trembling from the shock of power that just exploded from Zeus. Carver leaned on her just as hard, and they held each other up as Zeus swung on Hermes and sound came pulsing back to her ears.
“I’ll have to grant your wings and passage to and from the Underworld to someone more deserving now. I didn’t see you any more than I saw Hera, and that means I failed you just as much as you failed me.” Zeus stepped forward and gripped his son’s shoulder, his fingers paling from the pressure. “You also lost your son, Pan, which I’m sorry about, even though the blame lies squarely on Pan himself. I think a long human lifetime in Tartarus is what you need to consider your actions. You watched humans being bombarded with stones and did nothing? Let stones fall on you until I come fetch you in a century.”
Terror flashed in Hermes’s eyes. His mouth opened in protest, but a big, bright god bolt swallowed him whole before he could utter a sound. The roaring impact hollowed Bellanca out all over again, and Carver flinched away from the blinding flash.
“Hephaestus.” Sighing, Zeus turned to the son that wasn’t his by birth.
The smith god lifted his chin and stared down his false father. “I’d do it all again for my mother. So do your worst.”
“No, Zeus! Not him!” Hera used all her strength and then somehow found more to haul herself in front of Hephaestus. A sickly pallor dimmed her complexion. Her lips lost all color, and even her eyes dulled to a barely there blue. She panted and shook, visibly diminished. The lightning ropes still bound her, but she’d stretched them to their near-breaking limit out of fear for her son. “It’s my fault. I asked him to serve me, and you know he’d never refuse.”
Bellanca sucked in a breath, Hera’s desperate plea moving her more than she ever could’ve imagined. Maybe because her mother had never offered anything even resembling that for her. Her throat constricted fast as she watched mother and son, hope growing inside her for a future Hera, one day. For this Hera—one who physically shielded Hephaestus and took the blame for him. No one was truly lost if they loved this way.
“Which is why you can stay together,” Zeus answered solemnly. “Consider it my parting gift to you. I punished Hephaestus once unjustly. His debt was paid in advance, it seems. And you, Hera Olympus, who I call wife for the last time, can have a son but not a husband. I grant you your wish to be free of me. I end our marriage.”
“You…” Paling further, Hera stared in shock, going as still and stone-faced as any of the millions of statues of her across the worlds. “You end our marriage?”
Zeus’s brows drew together. “Did you do all this to get my attention? Did you want me to fight for you? For us?”
She stiffened, lifetimes of rage painting a crimson splash across her cheeks again. “Of course not.”
Zeus narrowed his eyes. He didn’t seem to believe her and neither did Bellanca—or not entirely. “Today ends Circe’s imprisonment. She goes to Attica stripped of her powers and to live in a world without magic to tempt her into cruelties and troubles. Aeaea is looking for a new queen. You wanted an island? You shall have one—one that offers no escape to other worlds. And you wanted a throne? Then you shall have one, my love. And you shall have it alone.”
In a bright flash of lightning and a dark rumble of thunder, a granite-faced Zeus exiled Hera and Hephaestus to Circe’s island.