Crown of Olympus (The Hades Trials #1)

1. Nyssa

Nyssa

Fuck.

Zeus was dead.

And he was staring right at me.

I stood at the edge of the River Styx, my well-worn boots mere inches from the glossy black water. Despite the shock of seeing the King of Olympus glide closer with every passing second, I was as still as death — ironically.

The air was thicker here along the riverside. Misty and cold; heavier than anywhere else in the Underworld. It was breezeless and stifling, as if it carried the weight of despair from every soul who’d passed through over the millennia — by boat or beneath its murky depths.

I gave a solemn nod to the Ferryman across the water.

He stood eerily still at the prow of his skiff, shrouded in a ragged cloak of darkness.

His pole barely moved, yet somehow the god steered his cargo-laden boat effortlessly towards where I waited upon the obsidian landing platform on the Isle of Judgement .

The river flowed silently, moving so slowly it perfectly mirrored the stars overhead.

As if they, too, had died and were forever trapped beneath its waters.

The boat drifted nearer. With icy mist dancing around its serpentine figurehead, the vessel carried Zeus’ spectral form closer to his eternal sentence.

In life, the King of Gods had been a beast of a man — eight feet tall, solidly built, with a golden glow surrounding him like a fucking halo.

He was every bit the legend mortal stories made him out to be.

Unfortunately, those stories catapulted his ego into the heavens, convincing him he was infallible and above consequence.

Apparently, he was not .

In death, Zeus looked vastly different. His form bore the wounds of his sudden demise, and a golden stain now marred his once-white linen tunic.

I briefly wondered how the Fates had allowed him to become this flickering, ethereal thing, and which Olympian god had the gall to take out the only ruler Olympus had ever known.

Whoever they were, they hadn’t acted on impulse. They’d actively sought the destabilisation of the upper realm — of all realms. They had found a way to do the impossible. And in doing so, they’d unwittingly served Zeus up on a silver platter to me .

The daughter of Hades — King of the Underworld, and Lord of Death.

If I had been born a different woman, one with a less haunted past, perhaps I would have felt a shred of sorrow at the scene playing out before me. Perhaps I would have looked upon the fallen king and seen a tragedy unfolding.

But I was not that woman. The threads of fate had woven me into something else entirely. Something inherently more dangerous.

Zeus’ ghostly figure flickered, and I realised my eyes were still locked on his. My breath caught at the intensity of his stare. His eyes, pure silver and stubbornly vibrant even in death, had not wandered from mine.

But I would not cower. He did not scare me.

It was he who should be fearful.

My only outward reaction was to roll my shoulders back and raise a single ebony brow, daring him to lash out.

The mighty Zeus had been reduced to nothing more than a shade — a dull, smoky spectre of his soul. The only form left to him in death. The irony was almost enough to crack my cold facade.

My lip twitched, a barely restrained smirk threatening to break free from the mask I carefully tucked it behind. But the laugh building in my throat died precisely the moment I remembered exactly who Zeus was — and all he had taken from me — when he murdered my mother.

On the day of my birth, just a little over thirty years ago, the Queen of the Underworld died.

Persephone, the goddess of spring and rebirth, forfeited her life at the hands of the haughty bastard before me.

She had been the love of my father’s immortal life.

She was the light he and I had so desperately needed to navigate this realm of everlasting darkness, death, and decay.

But Zeus had stolen her from us both.

The Ferryman’s boat finally nudged the platform, and he raised a hand in greeting.

The lone shade disembarked, floating slowly towards his fate — one of the three imposing arches positioned at my back.

I turned my attention to the cloaked Ferryman, a wicked smirk tugging at the corners of my crimson-painted lips — unbidden, but not unwelcome.

“Interesting cargo you’ve got today, Char,” I quipped.

Charon threw back his hood, revealing a surprisingly boyish face and mop of unruly light-blonde hair.

He tilted his head and grinned, a solitary dimple denting his left cheek.

For someone perpetually surrounded by death, Charon was always annoyingly upbeat — my own ray of sunshine in the otherwise eternal darkness of my life.

We were two of the youngest gods in any realm.

Only three had been born in the last century, and we were the only ones raised in the Underworld — ever.

Charon was three when I came along, his mother a dear friend to mine.

As a result, we were inseparable as babes, joined at the hip in mischief, and became family as we matured.

He’d even moved into his own rooms at the palace.

“Not exactly my usual kind of passenger,” he said, glancing at Zeus with amused grey-blue eyes. “But I’ll admit, it does add a certain… flair to an otherwise mundane shift.”

“I’m thoroughly relieved on your behalf that the Fates could make your day a little more entertaining,” I returned dryly.

My head swivelled to the subject of our amusement. I was determined not to let Zeus see the unease unspooling in my gut.

Every god had their purpose, and mine was to judge a soul’s worth. Due to the hierarchy of the Underworld, I only dealt with the most notorious or controversial judgements, leaving all others to the minor gods.

Tonight, I looked upon Zeus and saw his soul in its basest form. I had weighed it, measured it, and found it wanting. I already knew which eternity the fallen king would endure. And I was about to piss off a lot of gods by naming it.

“You are not worthy of any mercy I might offer, Zeus,” I declared, emerald eyes narrowing. “And I neither have the desire to be merciful, nor am I capable of offering it to you anyway.”

His face turned more corporeal, and paler, with what I assumed was a shade’s version of going red with anger.

Spinning on my heel, I turned my back to him — about as close to flipping him off as I would allow, in my position as judge, jury, and soulful executioner. I strode slowly towards the first obsidian archway, knowing that every step was a taunt, and that Zeus was predatorily focused on each one.

I loved this particular gateway. It was, unequivocally, the most beautiful — draped in crawling vines and lilac-coloured wisteria that cascaded down in tiny waterfalls.

My mother now rested beyond this arch, in the Elysian Fields — a paradise reserved for only the most worthy and virtuous of souls. A place of immeasurable beauty and eternal contentment.

And as desperately as I longed to know her, no living creature could pass through the gates. Not even one who could command death itself.

I reached up to pluck a tiny purple flower from its vine and locked eyes with Zeus. With the most symbolic of intentions, I crushed the petals between my fingers, releasing the scent of honey and citrus into the air.

Charon lingered at the edge of the landing platform, having delayed returning to his godly duties. A silent witness to the history I was writing.

Denying Zeus paradise would reshape the foundations of the realms as we knew them. It would sow discord and chaos through the capital city of Aetherion and the consequences would undoubtedly weave down through each of the three realms.

Even knowing that, I was resolute.

Charon’s brows rose high on his forehead, his lips parting at my devious grin. I flashed my teeth in more of a snarl than a smile.

“Not this way for you, King,” I declared.

Zeus’ lips thinned, and his face turned an even sharper shade of white, but he remained silent and still.

Not so easily shaken, then.

“If you thought for even a second that I’d grant you an eternity of peace, you’re more egotistical than I gave you credit for.”

He glared but offered no response.

I prowled to the middle arch, also made from the same smooth, black stone. Every structure in this realm was hewn from obsidian. It thrived in the dark, like all things here.

This gateway bore no wisteria, only bunches of white flowers sprouting upwards from the base of each pillar.

The Asphodel Meadows. A place for souls who were neither evil nor saintly, but some unfortunate combination of both.

A realm of vast grey plains stretching in every direction.

With endless fields of white asphodel flowers.

Where souls were doomed to wander, aimless, for eternity.

I clicked my tongue, fully consumed by the vengeance I now had the unique ability to claim.

Buckle up, Char. Shit is about to go down.

“Not Asphodel either, Majesty,” I said with a smirk.

At this, my friend’s brows flew so far into his golden hairline I wasn’t sure they’d ever find their way back out.

Zeus finally snapped, whether out of anger or fear, there was no telling. His swirling irises sparked like lightning, crackling with the last vestiges of his fading power.

“Wait!” he boomed, arms raised in a plea. “I never meant to kill your mother! Persephone was a tragedy. A horrendous accident.”

He paused as memories trickled in. Ghostly echoes of lightning flared at his fingertips.

“I tried to spare her — would have shown her mercy — had she not refused to let go of you ,” he spat.

I froze, feet rooted to the stone before the arches, a breath trapped in my lungs I couldn’t release. Some small part of me had always suspected, but the concrete knowledge — the admission of his guilt — threatened to unravel my facade.

Persephone had cut short her immortal life to protect the babe she had held for mere hours.

Why?

My hands trembled with grief and fury so profound it cracked the last of my restraint. Darkness spilled from my palms, falling softly to the ground, slithering like inky serpents to Zeus’ feet.

“I was trying to save us all,” he pleaded. “You, child, will be the harbinger of chaos and destruction. Where you go, death will follow. It has been foretold.”

“That statement feels a little redundant,” I hissed, “considering whose blood runs through my veins.” My words dripped with venom, my glare sharp enough to cut.

“Hades knew what would happen should he ever sire children! He never should have let it transpire! You should have been no more than a stain on your mother’s sheets,” he sneered.

Zeus lifted his chin, closed his eyes, and began reciting words so feelingly I knew they were etched into his very soul.

“Beneath the eyes of the sleeping Titan,

Where Selene does not dare tread,

The heir of death shall rise,

And life shall soon be bled.

Kings and kingdoms shall fall,

After the eagle takes its last breath,

Many hands will reach for the crown,

But its bearer must be death.

For a dark and ancient power wakes,

At the breaking of the storm,

Untold chaos in the realms shall reign,

Unless the power of death is borne.”

The words drifted away like smoke on the wind.

Turns out, I didn’t care about the why after all. Only who — and ensuring he suffered for it.

“Tartarus,” I breathed, consequences be damned.

The third and final arch hummed. Charon’s wide eyes reflected the shadows swirling in the gate’s centre as the abyss appeared — endlessly black and filled with a despair so poignant you could smell it.

The air reeked of singed hair and icy breath.

The skin at the back of my neck prickled, and I felt the unmistakable sensation of being watched.

Stalked.

If I squinted into the darkness, it almost looked like a pair of red eyes stared back.

I turned back to Zeus, ready for this sentencing to end.

With a scowl still plastered on my face, I bore witness to his wispy form being pulled into the void.

It happened slowly at first, then all at once.

Gone in the blink of an eye, his face frozen in abstract horror, a lingering bellow of despair echoing off the Styx’s waters.

The moment he vanished, the realm itself seemed to flinch. The ground beneath my feet trembled, as if the earth had gasped. Then, a pulse of cold, violent energy erupted from the heart of the archway, cracking outward like a thunderclap through every blackened structure.

Up, up, up — into the mortal realm and beyond.

I knew, deep in my bones, that even the tip of Mount Olympus would feel the weight of my verdict.

No god would remain blind to the choice I had just made.

I felt it too, the crushing weight of what I had done. But I pushed past the guilt for the sharp, satisfying burn of vengeance. Those damned consequences would come to call before long. But to my surprise, I found I didn’t care.

Let them come.

I straightened, lifted my chin, and inhaled deeply.

Furies take him and spare no mercy for his soul.