Hermes looked up the ascending obsidian steps to catch the silken hem of Athena's pale dress flutter. Immediately straightening from leaning against the carriage, he continued to watch her be led out by the palace's hostesses— three silver-haired females, one adolescent, one middle aged and the other, advanced in her years but still radiating vigor.
The Moirai. Even Hermes was in standstill to have seen in the flesh the famed trio, for not many had the luck nor odds to lay eyes upon them, being rumored to have lived eternally behind this grim, dark palace at the heart of the Underworld. It was a wonder to have Athena be allowed in with them in the first place. Even the Queen of the Heavens has no absolute dominion in this realm, which already has monarchs of its own, only that but who remains missing.
Hermes heard a few more whispers exchanged between them, and looking at Athena brought him back to low voices behind the walls of a healing chamber earlier this morning. "Let her have this," Asceplius said before the departure, handing to him a flask of soaked water, "Ashwagandha, Indian herb– and lemon balm. Helps soothe the nerves."
"Does she even have to go?" Ares was looking over the window, his back behind them and ever skeptical.
"As she wills, Ares," Asceplius sighed, "Resuming her usual activities prior to… the trauma… could help ease her episodes. Chances of triggering her anxiety are higher with just moving around the same place at every waking moment."
"Shouldn't I be one to accompany her then?"
"By saying 'usual activities', I believe it has been Hermes accompanying her often."
Hermes saw the King pinch his temples with a shake of his head, the air around him reeking with frustration. Asclepius understood, sighing in return, "Give it a chance, Ares. We all know it did not do her any good locked up behind her doors."
Hermes did not know why, but hearing that made his fingers cold. Episodes, Asceplius called it, when the Queen plunges deep into her grief and oft forgets herself; laughing in the morning over crackers and tea, and in the afternoon sprawled over her bed and wide-eyed beneath the paintings of the ceiling, purplish at the rims and unblinking. He took a last glimpse of the flask before pushing it down the small carrier in the horse's saddle.
He only wished to not have to pull it back up.
By now Athena had reached the foot of the stairs and Hermes gently swung the door of the small, open carriage. "What news?" he asked as she stepped in.
Athena only quietly stared before a soft shake of her head, "They could not be located still."
"Oh," Hermes looked away. "Only that they are alive, that we are assured," she shifted in her seat uncomfortably, "Gods, this hide-and-seek. Taxing. Just how can Hades stomach all these? His wife goes missing and still could not raise a finger, much less make an appearance. In any form would do."
They moved past the gate, where silt and stones take over the concrete courtyard but which suits the dimness of this world better.
"Isn't that the point," Hermes mumbled, "To smoke him out."
"And it only makes a worse figure of him," Athena sighed, and though she had wanted to say so much more or rant about the waywardness of things, a new emotion had begun to fill her. It must be the darkness, or the wheel grinding against gravel, but such a small task had suddenly sapped her.
But maybe it was the thought of a god allowing the people to starve just so he could continuously hide from whichever he was too cowardice to face, or that perhaps that element he was hiding from was someone else from distant history, a dear friend, lost to her and to them all.
In the ramble of her thoughts, she caught the frame of a tattered dwelling.
It appeared more of a yurt, a dome draped with rundown goatskin and poorly framed by crooked wood– too bizarre against the scattered palaces for the underworld gods who bide there. But it made sense, Athena knew now, it was no god who was residing within it. A stranger who can come and go as he pleases. A creature of her own making, back in the days where impulse and recklessness took the better of her.
"Hermes," she called, "Stop awhile, will you."
Hermes pulled the reins and followed Athena's gaze. "Oh," he looked at the Queen still fixed at the ghoulish den, "Could someone be there at this time, Athena? He could be anywhere above, in Thebes perhaps."
"He couldn't be," Athena did not reciprocate Hermes' concern, brushing her knees and readying to move out the carriage, "He stays in Thebes for Apollo, who might as well have abandoned us for good. If I were this prophet what good would remaining there do to me too?"
The carriage shook as soon as Athena was on her feet again, the hem of her dress quickly soiled by the ground of ash, and leaving Hermes to his stunned thoughts. He could not tell why, but to hear Athena speak ill of Apollo sent a strong current right down his gut.
Remembering Ares' stern command to not let her wander off in suspicious places, he finally blurted in the attempt to snatch her attention and get her home quicker.
"Um, maybe you'd want to hear from Heph," Hermes sucked his lips in when Athena turned to face him, the curious glimmer in her eyes summoning an anxiety which manifested in his twiddling thumbs, "He… he wished for you to know… the headstone of your, uh, well, headstone er… he says it's done and installed so… I was thinking if you might want to visit it as soon as pos—"
"It won't go anywhere, Hermes. I'll come by when cleared of my tasks."
For a while he had forgotten to blink, his eyes rather widening at the iciness in her voice or the way she was instantly facing her back to him again, scratching out his words without importance.
"Uh, right…" He desperately squeezed his eyes shut, convincing himself that those frigid words came from Athena. The Athena who would have wrenched him from the driver's seat and take the reins herself at a speed faster than imagined. The Athena who would have flown them to the gates by now in the instant she learns her unborn prince had been secured his eternal place.
Hermes could not hold back the sadness in his voice when he called her yet again: "Can I accompany you in, my Queen?"
It was stupid to ask, he knew. The way she didn't respond was enough a scream to let him know what useless question that was. Though already aware she needed no protection there, he only wanted to confirm this was still the sister who cared for only too much.
Athena could only pretend not to sense Hermes recoil behind her. She stopped before the drawn goatskin curtains, already sensing the quaint smells coming from within– an old, old existence, half living and dead.
She snuck her hand between the partition and forced her way in.
Smoke and shadow greeted her. Athena squinted her eyes for a moment before it slowly cleared to the view of a hooded being, his back to her, snuggled before the redness of burning embers. He had not stopped poking the coals even as she slowly made way to him, skirting past low-lying greasy objects that hung from the crisscross of worn-out ropes.
"Ahh," his purr was hoarse, "Who do we have here, why, the Queen herself…"
Athena circled the hearth before sitting across him, on an empty stool which appeared to have been waiting for her all along. Embers shot from the pile of coals to her feet whilst firelight and shadows danced around them.
"I heard you've earned quite a name for yourself," Athena finally remarked, half-smiling, unable to closely gaze upon the face veiled down to that bulbous nose.
He stopped stirring the coals and slowly then raised his head. However grisly was the view that came before her, Athena forced herself to not flinch. This monstrosity is, after all, a work of her making.
Tiresias was a revered hermit, both blessed and cursed with unnatural long life in service to the gods as interpreters of their will. Two hundred years rendered him deformed, with sagging and pockmarked skin to cover feeble yet functional bones, overgrown joints and a spine which arched most grotesquely. Beneath the sackcloths was him alive as he was decomposing, with hair growing thin and white, and himself emitting a miasma of sweet oils, fire and soot.
Athena could not deny feeling remorse overpower her. Yet thinking about how Tiresias brought fame upon himself with the foresight she gifted diminished such feelings of pity. He had a share of enjoyment with the gift; she could tell by the way his eyes bore through her. Those dry and empty white pools holding secrets she may never get her hands on— oh how she loathed them as equally as she needed them this moment.
"Not as admired as yours, oh Queen of Heavens—"
"Spare me the honeyed words, Tiresias, nine generations of your service to my heroes still would not make us friends," Athena cut off bitterly, her back straightening, "And the fact you could not locate Apollo with your.. gift… only makes me wish further I'd done more than blind you."
The smile that stretched across Tiresias' face was gut-curdling, "But you did more than blind me."
Athena rather watched the cinders burn hotter than give away how nauseated she was.
"Frustrating, isn't it?" the seer taunted, "To gift an ability you yourself could not possess, something which could have saved you from certain… misfortunes."
"About time you lend it to me then, don't you think?" Athena leered, "As the giver of your… gift. And without a charge either, of course."
A small laugh escaped Tiresias' throat, so gruff she almost thought he choked.
"Interesting," he pulled his limbs to face her fully, shaking from the feebleness of his bones but which he seemed to have never minded anyway, "For you to seek knowledge from the damned?"
However insulting, Athena could only shrug from her seat to keep the tight, unfeeling smile. Because there was truth to it too. For one who sought wisdom only from gods as herself, making pacts with bedeviled beings was rather outlandish of her.
"Is this how you do it?" she pretended apathy, "With the people? Sit them down, talk rubbish and predict their future based on petty storytellings— ah!"
He snatched her hand, forcing from her a sharp hiss as a ragged blade sliced across the length of her index finger where blood immediately swelled.
"Three questions, only answerable by yes or no," Tiresias commanded. He flipped her palm down and Athena watched wide-eyed at the first few drops that fell into the fire, bright like crimson rubies, sizzling unto the coals as that of a bled sacrificial beast— "you have until the final drop."
His instructions dawned on Athena, and though repulsed by the rough, prickly calluses of his hand to match such perverse practice, she had not the time to express disgust with the way her blood eagerly trilled away her chances. Tiresias was aware of the self-healing capacity of the gods and was using it for sport even at this critical moment. How Athena wanted to lash at that flabby neck.
"Will… will Olympus be saved?"
"No."
The Queen's chest quickly stiffened. This madman had not even a split second to think, fall into seance nor consult any unseen spirit. How crisp was that for an answer. So sure and conceited. How brutal.
A couple of drops more and her mind began to race frantically with innumerable queries, but her tongue was drying quicker than she thought, forcing itself down her throat only to plunge to her belly.
One had suddenly surfaced at a random though, one which had haunted her since—
"Will I still conceive?"
She'd already cursed herself before the question had finished. There she needed to know what to do with an assured destruction and this… this self-serving thought was the one that left her lips.
Tiresias' chuckle was a cold air that brushed the fine hairs of her arm.
"Oh yes you will. Ten times. A hundred. Or a hundred and ten; it would not matter," the seer's mouth stretched in a wide smirk of stained and crooked, loose teeth, making her stomach churn, "But conceiving and birthing are two different things, are they not, oh cursed One?"
The flames seemed to have burned brighter, wilder in its place, or Athena wasn't sure if it were her emotions that spilled fuel in the coals. Small, warm edges of the fire had begun licking her skin where they could not reach before. Yet she could not feel anything despite several more blood dripping from her wound, not with the tears that blurred her vision and souring her expression to both cold and furious—
"Cursed… one…?" went her trembling whisper.
Tiresias' laughter echoed as he clapped and stomped his feet in honest mockery.
"The goddess of wisdom is without a cue? Has the lightning truly dulled her edges, and the thunder, her vigilance? How truly she must have loved her sire, to open her arms blindly in welcome of the rainstorm as it brings about the deluge to her fate…"
"Is this some gibberish about Zeus—"
"There goes your third and last question, little Queen," Tiresias released Athena's hand, a tiny smirk to add some injury but which she refused to yield to. Athena grabbed back his palm and gave a firm shake, however repulsed to the touch— "Which you did not answer with yes or no either, was it?"
She ground her teeth, watching her blood weakly stream down the callous, warty back of his hand. She could already feel her flesh begin to close the wound and so would her chance to ask the one thing that would cause the misfortunes yet to come, should they be true, but what would Tiresias gain from lying? The last drop of her blood squeezed out along with her shaky whisper—
"Will I die?"
Her finger, once throbbing from a single jagged cut, was now as smooth as a newborn's beneath the thinned smudges of cold blood. But all traces of parody faded from Tiresias' expression; there was no more of the mocking guise, the amusement and farce, and all there was, was sadness. He faced the Queen as if the white film in those deep sockets had any blotch of an iris.
"Yes," slowly rasped Tiresias, and Athena swore she'd seen his eyes water even under murky light, "...and only too soon."
The universe itself had shrunk within her mind, gathering each atom of energy into an invisible speck to nest in the core, only to rupture in waves of inexplicable reactions—- wonder, toppled by fear, flared by anger and blanched by delight, only to return to wonder again, and then anguish… over and over like the endless ouroboros.
And before Athena knew it, she had lurched to her feet, the jolt making her swing at chattels that hung from the low ceiling— wood-carved idols, dried leaves, and iron pieces which fell to the ground and smelt like sulfur. She clutched her chest as her lungs had been begging for air, and soon she found herself scrambling towards the exit, hand groping at crevices or swiveling potions from the dusty shelves. She could hear herself wheezing, her body in full palpitations, and as soon as her hand reached the goatskin curtains did Tiresias croak her name—
"Haven't you heeded the words of a serpent?"
She stopped, crumpling the bristly fabric at the behest of her weakening spirit… and the image of a dead Gorgon slithering from her feet. Tiresias' voice continued to echo—
"A King will rise from the Water. The very same body you've oathed to and betrayed… She has gnashed her teeth and cursed you."
"Bet- rayed…? I haven't…" Athena gasped, shutting her eyes as cold grains of sweat streaked past them. Her head begun to pound. She was not even sure she could hear herself anymore— "Haven't betrayed anyone…"
"Did you not?"
Voices swam around her head, warped and twisted tones overlapping each other and making her skin prickle— "...break an oath for another?"
It flashed to her then, a sequence of images of herself from an immemorial time, standing above Styx as if it were concrete. There, her bare feet felt the black viscid water slosh around her soles, but no single drop nor the thinnest spray had touched her. She said the words back then. An oath she did bind her divine spirit unto. It spilled from her lips like prayer, that promise of immaculateness. Carefully, devotedly. While Zeus watched from a sparkling carriage by the riverbank; his proud, austere eyes piercing above that small smile of approval— the same gaze that shocked her with a command to break it to a marriage, barely a century later.
It was duty, she willed herself to bark at the voices, I was sanctioned!
But she did not reach them, it seemed. They continued to drill into her head—
She has gnashed her teeth and cursed you
Unweaved the threads once knitted on your endless slate,
so the morrows could never bear your flesh and blood.
And Athena had never been stormed by such terror before. She found herself mentally screaming, only muted with the dreadful sounds she could not even perceive to be voices anymore. Losing control of her body, she finally allowed the spinning curtains to absorb her into whichever dimension that awaits. Her head wobbled until it slid… down…
down…
"My Queen?"
Athena's weight pushed onto the grip that caught her arm. Despite losing a fraction of his own balance, Hermes was swift to steady Athena to her feet. She mouthed his name in recognition, conceding to the heaviness of her lids before a deep inhale.
"Are you alright?" Hermes searched her face, "Can you move? We- we have to leave…"
Athena nodded and without Hermes' urging, she dragged her legs forward, however small the steps, as Hermes followed while looking back at the shabby den she had come from. She flexed her fingers to get her blood running from the stagnation, recalling the fire, wisps of cinders in the foreground of a hooden, misshapen creature, and three questions she had none the strength to settle with.
And something else. She recalled voices at the back of her head, rendering her vision a lightless tunnel. There was a verse which she had clearly heard the moment they were spat but now she could never recall.
"What happened back there?" Hermes asked in a hushed tone, "Went out awhile, quickly came back to have to pull you out from there but you were already—"
"You went out?" the Queen interrupted, gently pulling away to balance her own mind and body, "Up there?"
Hermes' sigh was enough for Athena to know there was something awry. He pulled out his helm as they reached the carriage, shirking from the worried look in her eyes. He unbuckled the harness from the horses and Athena watched the carriage detach from the beasts.
"We return on horseback," Hermes rounded the horses and began stripping them of accessories befitting Olympian royalty— silken gold-fringed rugs, jeweled saddles and headcollars. "These ornaments could give us away and I tell you, it is not a good time to be recognized," he handed to Athena the reins of her ride, and with it, his helm, "Wear this, and please follow me along the streets. And whatever you see…I highly suggest that you do not retaliate…"
"Retaliate…? Why would I—?" Athena ran out of words in her disbelief.
Hermes nervously looked down at his helm as he juggled it between hands, "It's happening. Again."
A cold, faint wind passed between their silence and Athena took a deep breath before nodding. She pushed the helm gently to his chest while accepting only the bridles.
"Thank you, but that is yours to keep at a time like this. I dare not benefit from another's gear while they risk their head for me," she pats the horse twice before mounting.
Hermes' quiet chuckle was delayed, glancing back once at the Queen before tucking away his helm instead of wearing it back. A speck of gladness and hope sparked within him, that Athena still nursed more humanity within her, however clouded by circumstances.
He mounted his own horse, ignoring the curious look Athena was giving him, whether for not wearing one of his most important possessions, or for the flash of an idiotic smile he displayed, it did not matter.
Half a mile from the lit, awaiting portal, Athena can already hear the havoc wreaking from the mortal realm. She tightened the hold on the reins as the horses tensed. And they were right to feel perturbed.
She closed her eyes to feel an unwelcome power from beyond the gates, something unnatural which could be causing that disarray. But there was none. People. Only people, and lots of them. So where is this oozing sense of anarchy coming from? This bubbling hate, this newfound rebellion? They were getting close to unified screams, to stricken wailing, shattering clay jars and concrete. A civil uproar, much like the foreplay of a war.
Against whom?
They reached the earth's surface and out the portal in time to witness nearly a quarter of the great Parthenon collapse.
Athena felt as if those massive columns were descending down her chest instead. She could not move an inch, even when the thick cloud of dust threatened to engulf her together with people running from the chaos. Only when Hermes rushed before her to shield her from the shooting debris did her consciousness resurface.
Both their horses fell to the ground whickering in panic. Before Hermes could snatch the small carrier bearing Asceplius' steeped tea, they galloped away at the first chance of standing and leaving him cursing under his breath.
In the ramble of his thoughts, Hermes decided for both of them. "Hold on to me," he whispered, "I will have to fly us out of here—"
"No! We are on mortal ground." Athena stopped Hermes from stooping down to carry her, "The gods would quickly sense your burst of power, and the dread behind it. I would not have them burning my people in the process of saving us." Her lips curled lightly at the edge; she tugged at his sleeve, "Come on, Hermes, it's not like we haven't been saving ourselves from something worse." Giants. Cyclops. Humongous winged abominations. The list could go on.
The breath Hermes held went out as a small puff of disbelieving laughter. He shook his head amusedly, until the escalating riot pulled them back to adrenaline. Athena pointed towards an alley left with nothing but the ruins of small merchant stores. Pulling the hoods of their capes over their heads, she and Hermes ran with the speed of an approaching mob holding torches and shouting profanities.
Athena stood by the wall of the alley, making sense of the screams and anger of the mob as she stared at pieces of broken statues, wood-carved, bronze, and marble alike, and her eyes grew. Yes, she remembered this alley, one of the many market satellites of elements of worship. This was once lined with representations of the gods, busts and smaller statues for a homemade worshiping sanctuary, incense, herbs, honeywine, and libation.
"These are—" She looked at Hermes, but his calm gait beneath his own hood already spoke of how he knew it.
Hermes nodded, "Gods, well, us. They've crashed into shops of altar-makers, carvers, ceramists. Pulling down statues. Breaking them. Soon burning them." He squatted to cover from Athena's sight a decimated figurine of herself.
They were drawn to a distant sharp, terrified scream. A few people entered the same alleyway and passed them without looking, their faces desperate to get to safety. Across, the mob had begun storming into homes, kicking the doors down and seizing in without welcome. They go out with a handful of altar implements to scatter on the street while others would proceed to crush and pummel them with clubs and mallets.
Cries of the altar owners resonate with the clangor of demolition, threatening them with the anger of the gods soon to punish the city with this insolence. At worse, resisters were dragged out and beaten for their loyalty to the deities.
Seeing this for a moment made Athena forget her place and their supposed restraint from appearing as themselves. Blood gushed to her head in the attempt to charge at the horde until Hermes held her arm and suddenly the fire in her eyes waned. She watched him place his index finger horizontally between his lips.
Athena moved back to the wall with a sigh, traces of confusion and anger still lingering on her face.
"I know," Hermes returned the sigh, "You have no idea how much I wish Dionysus was with us right now."
The thought had completely shut off Athena's bristling emotion. "No," she lowered her head to hide a smile, "he should be the last one to be with us." How terrifying it would have been to have their little brother witness this first hand.
"But why?" Athena asked, hearing the sounds of wreckling continue, "What have we done to deserve this? What have I done this time?" She shrunk at the thought this was her patron city they were hiding in, not to mention, being utterly useless. Hermes' silence to her question bothered her.
"Hermes?" she peeked beneath his hood, and he began to walk steadily past her without delay. She called him again as she followed, but Hermes kept walking through the dense streets. They blended in with the scattered crowds and disappeared through narrow passages. Athena sensed Hermes was taking her to the back gate, where another group gathered but emitted a different aura. They were closing in on grieving mothers and wailing children.
A familiar stench wafted around them, stronger as they reached the small courtyard clearing and hid behind a column.
This stench. The putrid reeking of burnt flesh which took her memory to the mountains not long ago. This stench which formed the image of a black winged demon and its rows of bloodied sharp teeth. Her breath hitched. She had suddenly clutched her belly even without feeling any twinge of physical pain.
No…
Hermes held her shoulders before she could fall. How inconvenient, she thought. What infliction could this be, that which always weakens her legs as if the ground had suddenly sucked in her feet, and that someone always has to be there to catch her. Athena hated this feeling. It was too unbecoming, too vulnerable, too… mortal.
"Athena…"
Hermes' voice was drowned out by a pulsating hiss in her ears, like a pestle drilling into her temples and making her whole body teeter.
"Hey, hey… breathe, Athena. Breathe."
She wasn't sure who said that, but conformed anyway. It took several shaky breaths before she gathered herself back and felt the cold sweat already dripping down her neck. Allowing Hermes to stretch her arm over his shoulder, she slowly straightened from her tight hold of her stomach.
"Where are we…?" she asked, looking around. Hermes had no words to answer, and instead directed his gaze unto the low platform of the small courtyard.
Athena's mouth hung. This was no more a courtyard. Hermes had taken her to a morgue.
There lay corpses of black— unrecognizable bodies which were torched to the bones and joints dismembered by an unimaginable wave of fire. There was nothing human about them anymore, nothing but tarred sticks still steaming from the leftover heat. A few people stood close by with swollen eyes and the rest of their faces shawled to push away the smell of their family's burnt flesh.
What could have hurt more than their loved one dying was the failure to identify them for a proper burial. For how could they name them, when all they had were soot and skeletons with a certain lack of an arm, a set of ribs, or femur.
"They traveled the hills before daybreak, as far as I've eavesdropped before the riot ensued…"
Athena heard, and try as she could, failed to compel herself to face Hermes back.
"...to offer prayers, a few good rams; brought as many as they could— young and old, able-bodied and sick," he went on, his voice small but almost hurting.
"The hills…?" Athena managed to whisper despite the lump on her throat, "Did they have to? With the temples here…"
"Because we weren't hearing them."
Athena slowly turned to him, appalled and breathless. "But… but there wasn't…" she shook her head in a brewing denial, "There weren't any prayers… we could have heard them… I could have heard them."
When she paused with a widening shock in those pale eyes, Hermes immediately knew what had gotten into her mind. Asceplius had warned of the deep-seated guilt that would oft swing by the Queen's emotional rides.
Quickly he held her shoulders, "No, Athena. Don't—"
"Oh my… oh no," she gasped, remembering how drowned she'd been into her sorrows that the world had ceased existing in her grief. She was spiraling quickly into hyperventilation,"This is my fault, Hermes… I was lost; I'd been so lost— could I not have heard them—?"
"Athena!" Hermes desperately cupped her face, jaws tight and eyes desperate, "Will you stop feeling responsible for all our failures!? That is in no way true! This is not your fault but someone out there wants you to think exactly the way you are thinking now and you are only ever giving them the pleasure of proving them right!"
Athena clung to his wrists and it struck him how this was the closest he had ever been around her. He passed a look down her lips, brief and unintentional, around the tender frame of her face, the grayness of her fearful eyes— the riveting purity in them which stirred an impurity in his thoughts.
And he might have just understood, at that very moment, how a certain Roman could not help himself from overstepping a certain boundary even when death was the exchange. Olympus had been so used to her autonomy all these millenia, the strength she steadfastly displayed, the walls Zeus built around her. And it was a foreigner ignorant to such walls who had instantly seen how breathtaking her true, humane self was.
Feeling a dangerous shudder creep beneath him, Hermes immediately released her in the guise of attention drawn back to the bodies.
Athena leaned against the pillar that concealed them.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled a few seconds later, misunderstanding Hermes' sudden flare of temper as a result of her frailty. His face expressed full self-reproach but willed himself to rather keep such misunderstanding lest his own emotions strip him off the rails. Which quite commonly happened in the heydays.
They watched two men lay another body: a small skull and stunted bones. A child. Athena's heart sank, but before it reached the bottom, Hermes' words forced from her a certain blaze she'd felt back towards the drakon when Eirene breathed her last.
"I…" Hermes swallowed, "I stopped counting the bodies when it was already over a dozen—"
"You're right."
The interruption made him look back at her. Athena had stopped watching the morbid display, her countenance hardening, "We leave now, Hermes. And as soon as we land home, your first task is to send summons for the council to meet at the soonest possible time. Come. I know a way to the woods, we can open a portal there towards home."
She suppressed flushing at the last memory she had with the said path.
Hermes stalled, taking a last long view of the charred piling bodies before following her. "This meeting you say," he finally caught up as she entered an alley, "on what, if I'd be asked?"
"My patron city starving faster than the others; my people being turned against us with a certain power hindering their prayers… could be a message directly being sent to me," she narrowed her eyes, fixed on the way and suddenly oblivious to the earlier deaths, "And I ought to answer. I will find that black demon… and rip its head off with my own hands."
Enyalius shifted with unease as the courtyard bustled with the Queen's arrival from the netherworld. Though disliking the idea of facing her at this moment, duty dictated otherwise. The breeze which met him was a tad bit colder, but only he among a half dozen subordinates felt the need to tighten his collar, along with adjusting the leather patch across half his face. He only needed to escort her back to the Queenschamber, across the nearly done repairs and a reconstructed fountain…
From where he stood at the top of the stairs to the palace's foyer, Enyalius instantly scored how Athena and Hermes arrived on foot when earlier reports said they left with a carriage. The Queen's dress tousled, their capes nursing several scratches and tears. It was enough to pique his concern.
"You can go now, Hermes. I'll see to myself from here."
Hermes halted from reaching the first step, gazing high up at Enyalius who was already bearing the often insufferable inquisitiveness in a single eye. He nodded and turned from her but no sooner did he quickly call back—
"Athena."
Immediately regretting, Hermes rolled his tongue across his mouth as Athena was already waiting for him to resume.
"Uh, about… what I said, earlier," he sighed, scratching his head and refusing to meet her eyes, "It… um, it wasn't supposed to sound that way. I panicked. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"What are you talking about…?" the gentle curve on Athena's lips was comforting, "It was exactly what I needed to pull myself together… again after… a long time."
"Yeah? Beginner's luck then, I guess," his laugh was reserved, "I just— don't want you to change, is all. I mean all of us, we're with you, with the way you are— er, have been. You don't have to hold it all together, Athena. Thought you should know that."
The Queen pressed her lips together. Though silence was her only answer, it was nevertheless filled with a warm, thankful impression. This sent a crest of shyness which quickly overturned Hermes. Finding himself in this kind of conversation was a ludicrous idea; Dionysus would laugh his ass out for a century.
"So, your meeting," he cleared his throat, "consider it done. But first—!" A few giggling nymphs passed and he scripted himself to follow their direction, waving Athena goodbye and whistling with a facade of the lecher he was better known as.
Athena waved her hand back and proceeded towards the steps, hearing in the background the said nymphs squealing with the new company.
Up ahead, the General was beholding her with perplexity. Who didn't, though? She'd been surveyed with the same kind of gaze from everyone, her husband most of all. There was part of her which deemed it sickening, but for someone whose fate was at the mercy of a curse, she must learn to be thankful.
"My Queen," Enyalius offered a tight smile which was odd at best. He was never the smiler even in the most jubilant times, even under the influence of wine nor the entertainment of jesters. "Your garments," he asked as they neared, "May I know which caused such damages?"
Athena scanned herself, only then noticing the dirt and shreds. "A mutiny in Athens, but—! I am unharmed, Enyalius, don't," she pressed on him at once seeing his expression darken, "we've managed our way out, Hermes and I. There is, however, a more crucial matter—"
"Hermes had not sought for aid, why?"
"You would not have heard it, Enyalius," Athena shook her head, "Someone is hindering prayers to reach us, turning people against us. The fact that this news of insurgency has not yet reached you yet proves it. And the drakon…" She saw the spark of revolt in the way he straightened, "is back. I've asked Hermes to organize a session for us. Make plans for its capture and eventual execution."
Enyalius stepped back to make space for his bow, "As you wish, my Queen. You have my word; I am yours to command for the operation."
"Thank you," Athena nodded. And before she could ever think of asking from Enyalius a thing he dreaded to answer, he quickly offered to start ushering her into the palace, making sure to be a few yards ahead of her while the rest of the sentry tailed behind.
The Queen was silent throughout the walk, with only the tapping of their steps echoing across halls and cobblestones, all to Enyalius' comfort. When the gates of her quarters loomed only was he able to exhale fully. He stood before the arc of the entryway, looking absurd against the vibrant fuschia of the overgrown bougainvillea blossoms, and turned to her with nothing but the resolution to flee.
"Your wards are waiting for you, and Asceplius shall visit shortly," the General offered and began treading his way back, counting the seconds before he nears her one last time and finally part. "I shall go to Athens for further inspection, if you'd let me."
The Queen quietly gave him permission. Enyalius went his way but as he passed by Athena, her hand was suddenly enclosed in his arm. He felt as if it clamped around his heart instead.
"My Queen?" Enyalius was careful to hide the fluster in his voice; how he wished at that moment both his eyes were patched to avoid giving away the volatile manner he stared or the way it traveled down her belly. Don't ask. Enyalius swallowed. Please don't.
"Have we any word from Rome yet?" she muttered, "A note or scribble, anything that says Mars has perhaps arrived home?"
Enyalius nearly melted from relief but kept a brooding facade. He shook his head and gave a reassuring look, "I'll ask Hermes to draft another inquiry."
"And I, for Nike," Athena sighed as she let go of the General, "Been over a week since he left without notice. He must have gone home, hasn't he?"
"I'm quite sure of it," Enyalius bowed, secretly begging to be released, "If— if you'd excuse me then…"
Athena's nod felt like a blast of fresh air, that kind of freedom which could have made him dance tiptoed into the hallways—
"Enyalius?"
The Queen must have seen his throat bob soon as he turned back; his skin began to sting beneath his leathers.
"Hephaestus said—" Athena withheld from meeting Enyalius' gaze, "the headstone has been installed."
"Uh, yes," he cleared a hollowing throat, "The fountain, a cherub studded in amethyst. I– I think it would be best to see it by sunset, when it reflects the balmy rays."
Athena smiled, albeit sadly, "I don't think I have much life left in me to keep delaying." Catching her own words, she quickly looked at him already neck-deep in curiosity.
"Pardon…?"
"Oh, you know," the Queen briefly chuckled, "We have a council to gather and plans to craft, I– don't— think there is much time left. So if you could please tell me where my husband is so we could go together…"
Enyalius flexed his gloved fingers, "Let me… call him for you."
"Are you alright? You suddenly seem pale…"
Fuck. The General's mouth shut as quick as it opened, finally giving into defeat.
"Enyalius?" Athena slowly leaned in, "Where is Ares…?
His hands curled into fists recalling the King's quiet instruction barely hours from before— Unless she asks, do not speak a word. Does his godly task have to include being the bearer of difficult news for her?
"He…" air would lodge above his windpipe at every word. Damn it. "The King is with Eilithya as we speak."
It was Athena's turn to be drained of color. It was in this rarest time she had received the General's most gentle expression, even for a war god.
"Eilithya?"
Enyalius nodded, watching in detest the rims of Athena's eyes glimmer, "Aphrodite is in labor, my Queen."
A/N: Le sighhh! Finally! You have no idea how relieved I am to finally update after what feels like a lifetime! How is everyone? :) Gods I so enjoy interacting with you in the comments. Even if I can't reply to each, know that I've noted how often you make appearances there. Thank you so much for continuously supporting me. I don't care if you're overfed with the thank yous already! xD I will never stop giving gratitude for every effort of visiting this now and then.
Welcome to Part III! I've done the outline of chapters so far and boy is it ever getting more difficult to write. I'm bawling my eyes out but of course I'm out to face it! Here's a bit of Apollo too :) I miss him as much as you do.
I've recently succeeded in defending my dissertation proposal! And it's of course thank you again for being patient as I decided to take a break from the fanfic writing prior to the test. I do not know how often I can update, but until now I still promise to always be back. See you in the reviews!
