Hercules may have promised too much. Megara would be displeased with him if she saw how he did not raise their children. There were wide gaps in his knowledge and experience, and it didn't help when Harmonia matured into womanhood. He had to outsource all feminine advice to Megara's cadre of friends.

Galatea taught her how to dress and arrange her hair, Cassandra how to manage menses, and Medusa shared romance tips, but no one knew how to replace Megara. Hercules could tell his daughter was too polite to express her disappointment to all her helpful aunties. She'd gotten that from him.

It was challenging for him to help Harmonia enjoy her feminine nature when he and the twins outnumbered her three to one. Megara's influence would have been enough to push past that, but he felt as helpless as she was to grant Harmonia what she needed.

The worst was when he watched her fall in love with Charis, the son of Theron and Deianeira. He had nothing against the boy but couldn't help thinking of his treacherous parents whenever he looked at him. Still worse was seeing how heartfelt the connection was between them. It hadn't been long since he had fallen in love. But she was gone, and he may never see her face again.

He smiled as his heart shattered, but that wasn't enough to protect Harmonia from his pain.

She could feel it as if it were her own. When she came to him with that same agony reflected in her eyes, she said, "I'll stop if it's too much."

Hercules was too baffled to speak at first, but he cleared his mind to answer logically. "There's no reason for you to throw your life away because your mother was stolen from us. Others who lose their mothers go on with their lives. It would be best if you did the same. Nothing will wash away the pain of losing your mother, but you should find the happiness available to you."

"But seeing us together hurts you."

"It's always going to hurt me, no matter who else I see in love while Megara is… gone." Hercules folded his arms to control himself, but that was impossible. His shuddering breaths betrayed him. "Moni, there's one thing that holds me back. Charis is a mortal boy. I know you love him, but I've also loved a mortal…"

Harmonia nodded and patted his arm. "I know, and I won't say it doesn't give me grief to think of it. But I'd hate to lose my chance to be with the man I love because I know one day I'll lose him."

"Of course." Hercules forced another smile and rested his hand over Harmonia's. Though his smile remained, he spoke solemnly to communicate the weight of his words. "Promise me that you're sure he's the one for you in that case. You should only devote yourself to him if you don't think you could live without him."

"You're living without my mother," Harmonia pointed out.

That blunt statement landed on Hercules's heart with shattering force. That pain rebounded on his daughter, and he watched her flinch. He had to stay strong for his daughter, but that was the only thing powerful enough to keep him standing. He had to control himself somehow. It had been years now, but the wound was fresh. Harmonia knew that by now.

"You're right…" He rubbed his heart, but that ache may never subside. "But Moni, that's because I'm immortal. I have no idea what would've happened to me if I was mortal when I lost her. I have you and the boys to live for, and that keeps me from throwing myself into the nearest portal to the Underworld to be closer to her. Each of you has part of the woman I love, and she fought so hard for you. I won't abandon you no matter how difficult it is to keep going without her."

"I'll never forget how much of a struggle this is for you," Harmonia promised. "Charis and I can only hope to live up to what you and my mother had. I hope somehow we can bring you joy despite how painful this is for you now."

"I appreciate that." He clutched her hand. "She loved you so much, you know… She would have wanted you with a man who could give you everything. Is he that man?"

"I believe so."

"Make sure he is before you give yourself to him. There's only one first love, and… your mother's was his father, and he left her for Charis's mother. You'll forgive me if I'm anxious about the long-term viability here."

"I'll prove it to you," Harmonia reassured him. "Don't worry. I know every feeling in his heart. It belongs to me."

Hercules's smile was less forced at that time. "Make me one more promise, okay? No details. Ever."

"Done."

Unlike their sister, the twins were disinclined to grow up. They had too much fun running around as young boys, caring for nothing but play. Hercules tried to rein them in at times, but he didn't have the energy to fight them over the innocence he wished he had back.

Nobody who knew them would guess they were only a year younger than their sister. When they appeared at her wedding, they looked like they might have been ten years younger than her. At her wedding feast, the gods appeared to celebrate with Harmonia.

Hercules remained aloof, even from his mother and Rhea, who had promised to help preserve Megara's life. Worst of all, however, was Zeus. A burning hatred had grown in Hercules's heart the moment Megara died. He knew exactly where the blame lay.

Of course, Hades would seize an opportunity for vengeance.

However, one person had always known how urgent it was to immortalize Meg but had never done anything about it. His intransigence had frozen out any hope of rescuing Megara from certain death. He wouldn't look in his father's direction, and his mouth twisted with disgust whenever Zeus got too close.

Even Harmonia looked toward her grandfather with a stony countenance. Her dog at her feet bowed her head and whimpered.

For once, Hercules wished his family was not so tightly associated with Olympus.

If he never saw his father again, at least he could stew in his hatred in peace.

Was this how Hades felt? No, he decided. Hades cared only for himself and some petty belief that he deserved Olympus and the entire cosmos. He'd never love someone as deeply as Megara and Hercules had loved one another. He couldn't even understand it.

"We hope to attend the birth of your children in the near future," Rhea told Harmonia as Hera stood beside her. "As we did for your mother."

Harmonia's incandescent smile faltered. "Grandmothers, I am pleased you would express such a beautiful sentiment. However, the murder of my mother has left me reluctant to bear children of my own. She is not here to guide me through motherhood, and I am loath to enter it without her. Perhaps one day, but not soon."

Beside her, Charis clutched his new wife's hand. He was a wise mortal and didn't open his mouth in front of the gods.

"Murder?" Zeus repeated. "It's common for mortal women to die in childbirth, Harmonia, but you're a goddess. That won't happen to you."

All his willpower vanished in an instant. Hercules rounded on his father. "How dare you?" he roared. "You know that's not what this is about!" The stunned expression that registered on his father's face did not deter him. "If you knew how common it was for mortal women to die in childbirth, then what gave you the right to withhold immortality from my wife?"

"Hercules…" Zeus began, but the traces of condescention in his voice only set Hercules off once again.

"No! You heard me plead for her life! You saw how Hades tried to take my child from me! You knew how much pain I was in, and what did you do about it? You told me it shouldn't bother me!"

"You will have thousands of years to…" Zeus shook his head. "But in the first thousand, expecting you to let go of your grief is unreasonable."

"I'll never let go of her!" Hercules knew the wedding had just become about his rage, but there was no stopping it now.

"We've changed the law now," Zeus said. "With time, we may grant immortality to your daughter's husband–"

"My wife is dead!" Hercules screamed. His aura had turned bright scarlet, and all sheen of gold vanished. "How dare you equivocate? You changed the law only when she was already gone! All my pleading and advocating, and what? Did you let her die to prove a point? Did it stoke your pride to know that the woman I love would never be saved so you could prove your point?"

Rhea and Hera stood by, arms folded, blocking Charis and Harmonia as if to protect the mortal from Zeus.

Alexiares and Aniketos flanked their father.

"I never met my mother," Aniketos said in a low, steely voice that gave away the fact he'd lived beyond the age he appeared to be.

"She gave her life for us," Alexiares added. "She gave up because she had to choose, instead of knowing that our grandfather would step in for our sakes so she didn't have to."

Zeus cringed. He had very few grandchildren, and Hercules knew how his pride must be pricked by the knowledge that these were against him.

He put one of his sons' shoulders. At least in this regard, he could allow them to bolster him. "Father, I dedicated everything in my life to be worthy of you, and you rewarded me by throwing out the woman I loved and treating her as irrelevant, even though it was her who helped me become a true hero while you were vague and unhelpful. She gave me our three children even though it was a tremendous sacrifice to do so. She's given me more than you ever have. I hope when you realize your mistake, you'll hate yourself as much as I hate you right now."

Zeus bowed his head. "I can't make it right. But I can ask that one day we move beyond this. We have eternity. Maybe you'll recognize how I stood by order in the cosmos one day."

"I hope one day you'll recognize how I gave everything up to be with Meg because she was worth more than anything else to me. And how you are personally responsible for the fact I lost her." He lifted his sons into his arms, letting each of them perch on his forearms. "You've given Hades so many chances but never gave my wife one. I'm disgusted with you." He turned away and marched toward the bridal table with his sons in his arms. "Don't speak to me again until you have something useful to say."

Throughout the centuries, every apology rang hollow. No amount of contrition could erase what had happened.

Each mortal who aged and then received immortality from Dionysus or Zeus brought a fresh wave of bitterness to Hercules's heart. He could drown in it.

There was no refuge, even when he sat in his home with his children and tried to educate two rambunctious godlings about what he'd struggled to stuff into his brain back at Prometheus Academy. He'd never been too great of a student and had mostly passed via peer pressure and perfectionism.

His home was marinated in memories of his time with Megara. There wasn't a room or even a wall that didn't have some memory attached to it. Her laughter echoed through his memories. If he dared to leave, he might have. But he couldn't abandon that hope of turning a corner and being met with another glorious memory.

That was all he had left of his Megara.

At first, he tried to shield his children from where his melancholy thoughts ran off, but he was too honest to hide it forever. He would admit in his moments of most profound heartbreak that he was dreaming of their mother, but he could never hear her voice again.

He told them every story he deemed appropriate to share, but it could never make up for the loss of her. She would have told the stories so much better than he could.

Sometimes, he thought he heard her speak when he spoke to himself as if she could hear him. He thought maybe he was losing his mind, but he'd rather lose his mind than maintain his sanity with no remnant of her presence.

Thebes changed its face around them, but Hercules and his sons remained its stalwart defenders. The city never fell, as Hercules maintained it in honor of his wife's memory. His sons likewise served Thebes in her honor, though it was primarily out of gratitude for how she gave her life for them rather than her memory.

He followed the lines of his friends' families and visited them to offer help moreso than he would the average mortal. Still, he remained a reclusive god. As time passed, the weight of his grief was too much for the mightiest among gods or men to bear.

No matter how much time passed, he would dig out Megara's final letter to him from the jar of their keepsakes.

While she had written many letters to him and their children, his favorite one recounted their entire relationship from their first meeting. It was full of witty observations that made him laugh as if he could still hear her voice. Except that he couldn't, and with the passing centuries, he lost some memory of her little features.

He stayed precisely the same, never losing any piece of his nature. But so did she. That faraway memory was petrified just as she was down in the Underworld. Even though her writing had its amusing features, Hercules memorized the heartfelt declarations of how he had changed her life. She wrote that no matter her fate, she'd be damned to a different life now, and she wanted to repay him by letting him move on from her to a new wife. She suggested that he should find a goddess that he could never lose, someone to be part of his family forever.

She'd never understood that he would never move on from her. The centuries stretched on, proving the truth in that conviction with every day. He remained faithful to her memory, even while her memories were thoroughly eradicated. He reminded his children of her, but his sons had never had a chance to know her. The loneliness crushed him, and even his incredible strength could not drag him back.

One night, as he fell into the deepest sleep in three thousand years, he heard a small voice call for him. He didn't recognize it initially, but it had a gravitational pull he couldn't resist. Small children rarely beseeched him for anything, and girls were even less common petitioners. What could she want?

When he followed the voice to its source, he found it echoed from a dream. A small girl with touseled brown curls was at the center of a nightmare arena, with a monstrous snake slowly coiling around her. She covered her eyes, but he immediately realized why she had such power over him without seeing her violet irises.

It wasn't how he'd wanted to see her again, but at least she was alive. He threw himself into the long-abandoned role of rescuing a damsel in distress, the only one who truly mattered.