Chapter Five
Hermes
Hecate is an incredibly difficult goddess to locate when she doesn’t wish to be found. Ever since she left me standing outside Hades’ palace, delivering Persephone back to Demeter while I delivered a suddenly hollow victory to my father.
I had all the access in the universe now to both Gaia and the Underworld, but she evaded me at every turn.
She wouldn’t come near Olympus—understandable given how Zeus had used her—if she was spending time with Persephone, it was not any time I went to visit.
Demeter hailed me as a hero for the bargain I’d struck, and it left me with a gnawing guilt. I avoided her as much as I could.
Even with the ghosts, and escorting the dead to the Underworld, I simply could not find her.
She had a way with them, the ghosts. They’re fond of her in a way I can’t duplicate, and they have her loyalty, even if by reputation.
When I asked after her, I was met with harsh denial.
They barely listened to me enough to go down to the Underworld at my urging, even if it was best for them.
Until I find Hecate and gain her forgiveness, I can count on them for information.
And I need to find her. Every day without her is like breathing in knives. The look of betrayal on her face lingers behind my closed eyes every time I try to sleep. Her curt dismissal rings in my ears.
It doesn’t even make sense. I know it. Our time together had been short, and I’d done little more than talk to her, hold her briefly.
And yet my arms ache from the loss of her warmth.
I am a being of sensation, of intense emotion. It doesn’t need to be reasonable. I desire her, and nothing else will do.
So I do the only reasonable, desperate thing and ask my family.
This is a mistake for several reasons, as I soon learn.
Apollo, my first choice given his affinity for the sun and its ability to see all, laughs in my face.
“Why would you want to find one goddess when there are dozens of others to choose from?” He asks as he plucks the strings of the lyre I made him, tuning it. I want to break it over his head.
The sun is already dipping low over the horizon, stretching orange and gold rays int eh Olympus garden we I found my brother.
It’s a sign of time wasted while I worked up the resolve to ask for help at all.
Apollo only proves my theory. I should have kept looking on my own.
From one edge of the Greek World to the other.
“Can you find her?”
He shrugs, fixing me with a golden stare that sees far too much. “If she comes to Gaia, it is not during the day, little brother. You should take my advice and forget her. Women, goddesses, they’re all fickle.”
I let out a snort. His problems with goddess and mortal woman alike are already notorious. “Just because they all run from you doesn’t mean she’ll run from me.”
He arches an eyebrow. “Hasn’t she already?”
I don’t answer him. He doesn’t need to be right today, and he gave me more information than I’d hoped.
So then I seek out his twin.
Artemis is also difficult to find, but she is a known quantity.
I seek out the dark forests, the deep dark places that only shine in the light of the full moon.
There I find the huntress surrounded by her hunting dogs.
Unlike Apollo, I try to approach her with care.
She’s a forbidding goddess, her long dark hair in a severe braid, wearing a man’s knee length chiton and hunting leathers.
She’s ripped mortal men apart for so much as spying on her nudity, and while I’m not nearly so fragile, I take great care to make sure she is aware of my approach.
Her dogs yip at my appearance, but she doesn’t raise her head from her perch on a boulder. Her silver bow is strapped to her back, and she sits, polishing a knife.
“What do you need, little brother?” She asks when I reach the edge of her circle of hounds. They come over to me, sniffing around my ankles and bumping my hands with their heads until I scratch them behind the ears.
“To find Hecate.” I’d thought of many different approaches to this conversation, but Artemis hates obfuscation, and conversations lasting more than two minutes.
Her blade draws across the whetstone in a long, grinding hiss. “No.”
“No?” Somehow, I hadn’t thought she would say not. I should have. “Why not?”
Slowly, she raises her head, her silver eyes reflecting the moonlight. “Why would I aid you in finding a virgin goddess who doesn’t wish to be found?”
“I’m not looking to harm her,” I snap, bristling at the implication. Nothing about Hecate’s behavior in her time with me made it appear as though she loathed my touch. If she had hesitated, been uncomfortable, I would have backed away. “I’m not like that.”
“You’re all like that,” Artemis says, dark and dismissive. “If you weren’t, you’d respect her wishes and leave her alone.”
“It’s not that simple.” My hands clench into fists, and the hounds growl as they sense my mood. I ignore them. “It’s a misunderstanding between us. I need to apologize.”
She huffs and shakes her head. “When she wants your forgiveness, she will find you. Be content with it.”
Before I can protest, she hops from the rock, the knife now sheathed at her belt. She disappears into the forest without another word, her hounds trotting along behind her.
Neither the sun nor the moon will help me. My own siblings. The bonds of family are weaker than I thought.
I tip my head back. The moon beams down at me, a bright, silver orb high in the sky. It hasn’t quite reached its zenith yet, and as it inches its way upward a though occurs to me.
Artemis is not the only goddess of the moon. And if my family won’t help me, perhaps Hecate’s will thwart her. Pettiness is often a finer motivator than loyalty.
With that dreadful, but buoying though, I kick off the ground, my winged sandals carrying me up into the sky.
Sure enough, I find Selene in the Aether, riding side saddle across the sky, dragging the moon with her in all its majesty.
I hover beside her, matching her pace. She gazes over at me, bright and gleaming as her charge.
“Why are you here, son of Zeus?” she asks, just as direct though far less abrupt than Artemis had been.
“I need your help, Selene. I seek Hecate.”
“Ah,” she leans back, patting her horse’s neck and stilling her ride. The heavens, still, hanging around us in a bright blanket of stars peeking through the aether, hung there by my father. Chronos himself seems to hold his breath.
“Please,” I add. Such pleas would have been unanswered by my siblings, but for Selene I let my desperation show. “I need to see her.”
“And your need is this urgent to seek me in the very skies?” she asks, canting her head to the side, white hair spilling over her shoulders.
“It is,” I insist. “I cannot… I cannot be until I speak to her. You’re my last hope.” I would kneel, but that’s an action for Hecate alone.
And I suspect it would be awkward up here.
Selene sighs. “That one. She is always seeking trouble. She cannot help herself. Her nature is in service to others.” She shakes her head, as though Hecate’s generous spirit is a flaw rather than the finest virtue. “Will you protect her, son of Zeus? Care for her?”
“I will. I already do.” The words come easily, and as soon as they escape my lips, I know them to be true. I do care for this goddess Deeply, and I would do anything to protect her.
Selene nods, and then she looks past me, scanning the earth below, her lips pursing. After a moment, she points. “She is there,” she says, pointing to a lake near the edge of Thessaly. “If you hurry, you will be able to catch up to her.”
The wings of my sandals flutter, shooting me several feet higher until I get them back under control. “Thank you. Truly.” I bow to her, barely able to contain myself.
I found her. I finally found her.
Selene waves me off, and I don’t wait, diving back down to Gaia.
I fly over the sea, passing the many islands dotting the Aegean until I pass over the long finger that marks the peninsula of Magnesia.
There, nestled in the mountains is the lake of Boebeis.
It’s clear blue waters shimmer and dance under Selene’s light as I skim along the shore, trying to find what the goddess had seen.
For a heart-stopping few minutes, I spy nothing. No sign of another person, immortal or otherwise. Has she already left? Am I too late?
But then, in a curve in the lake against the mountains, a figure rises from the waters.
She walks between the reeds to the rock and loamy shore.
Her long dark hair falls in a wet curtain over her equally soaked chiton, the fabric clinging to every inch of her skin, dipping into the small of her back, hugging the swath of her hips, dripping down over her toes.
I hover over the waters, my heart beating somewhere outside of me, held in delicate hands.
“Hecate.” My voice is a hoarse rasp, quiet, too quiet. For a moment, I think she doesn’t hear me. But slowly, she turns around, her grey eyes wide and luminous before they narrow at the sight of me.
It’s the welcome I expected, but I can’t help but drag my gaze over the perfect view of her in profile, the peak of her breast, the planes and valleys of her belly, her hips.
She’s perfection wrapped in shadow and moonlight.
I’d follow her to the ends of Gaia and beyond, just to be able to see her like this.
“Hermes.” She flushes, a pink glow spilling across her cheeks as she turns away from me once more. She climbs higher up the shore, where she’s left a satchel I missed earlier.
I hurry to catch up, landing messily on the rocks and stumbling after her. “Wait!”
“I don’t want to see you. I thought I made that clear,” she tells me, drawing a blanket from her satchel and wrapping it around her shoulders to obscure her from view.
“I need to see you. I need to—”
“To what? Apologize? Explain? Neither are necessary.” Her fingers wrap tightly around the edges of the blanket as she holds it to her like a shield.
I’ve had weeks, months to prepare what to say to her, but it all falls away in a babble now that the time has arrived. “It was never—” I swallow. “I was doing my father’s bidding. I had no idea you would be the one to come.”
“No,” Hecate sniffs, turning her head away from me, “you and your father were simply content to use goddesses in your plans. Your father sold Persephone, and then sent you to try and get her back all to gain a foothold in the Underworld. We were all merely pawns in your games. Tokens to trade and use as currency.”
I fall silent, the arguments on my tongue dying. She’s right. Of course she is. Perhaps it hadn’t been my intent, but I’d benefitted. I’d let Zeus steer me, believed it was in my best interests.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she goes in wake of my silence. “We aren’t anything to each other. I do not expect to matter to you.” Her voice roughens, the words slowly, and I glance up to spot tears sparkling at the corner of her eyes.
The pit in my stomach lowers. I’ve done this. This queen among goddesses, powerful and proud, and I’ve put pain in her voice. Tears in her eyes.
There isn’t a pit deep enough in Tartarus for this.
I sink to my knees, uncaring for the sand and stone digging into my skin. “I owe you everything. So much more than I could possibly give, and less than you deserve.”
Though I’ve no right to touch her, I reach for her anyway, taking her hands and squeezing them. The blanket falls in a heap around her feet, baring her to my view once more, but I keep my eyes on her face, pleading. “Please, look at me.”
Her hands grip mine, but she shakes her head. “I should have told him no. I know that now.”
“Do you? Or do you simply regret not getting what you want?”
“I do know. My father’s requests come with strings, with layers of intention I don’t see.” He’d been so pleased with me, and we’d spoken at length about all the things I could do for him in the Underworld.
Then he’d been furious when I’d said no. My responsibilities are sacred. I’ll serve them as I see fit. Messenger, guide. Mischief for my own sake. Perhaps, if Hecate will let me. Hers too.
“I’m a young god.” I press on. “I don’t have your experience. It… I have made mistakes, but none of them were meant to hurt you. Or anyone else.”
I squeeze her hands once more, and she draws in a shuddering breath. “All you Olympians do is use others. I will not be some instrument in your games,” she says, drawing herself up, her power surrounding her like cloak.
“I will never use you,” I vow. “Never mistreat you.”
Her hand pulls free from mine, taking my chin. She tilts my head, and I move like her puppet, her pet. As though I could be anything else for her. “If you let me, I will worship you as you deserve.”